It just hit me the other day: my 10 year high school reunion is this year. Woah! So I'm officially not a kid anymore. I have some gray hairs, I can't workout for more than 30 minutes without feeling like I'm gonna die, and it's been a decade since I was in high school. When I think back to 10 years ago I was a starry eyed kid. I knew I was going to go to school, get a great job and be a millionaire. And I was going to do it all before my 30th birthday. I wanted to succeed. I needed to succeed. Heck I was offended my class didn't vote me most likely to succeed. Now the reunion is he

If you are sitting there right now thinking, "I wish I had a job" or even "I wish I had a job that pays $75,000+ a year" then listen up. What if I told you that a corporate recruiter from a $10 billion dollar publicly traded company contacted me about a job simply because I had expressed interest in learning a particular skill? Check out this email: Last year I was looking for a promotion at work and I wanted to get into the mobile development space because I knew it was booming. Unfortunately I didn't have any experience there. I joined Meetup groups in my area to try to learn more abou

Yesterday was the first day of Lent, which means it was the first day of mine and Tag's Lenten sacrifice. There are about a billion things I could do to make myself a better person, but Tag is almost perfect so it was hard to find something we could do together. However, after a little discussion we decided that we wouldn't eat out for the next 40 days. Stop Eating Out to Save Money One of the best reasons to stop eating out is simply because it will save money. I have no idea exactly how much money you can save by saving money, but I do know it's pretty substantial. A meal at a fast food

We are just over a week into 2013 and tomorrow might be your first paycheck of the new year. If you didn't get a raise then it might be smaller than you are used to because taxes have gone up. That's what happens when you live in a country that believes the government should continue to grow and it should be funded through income taxes, inflation, and debt. But if you did get a raise for 2013, your paycheck might be a little bigger in 2013 than it was in 2012. Or maybe you didn't get a raise but you did get a nice Christmas or New Year's bonus. For anyone that earned a bonus or a rais

Last week I wrote about how I took a loan from my 401k to help me pay for my 20% down payment on a house. Some people thought it was a great idea. I even got an email from a good friend telling me that the information was incredibly useful for him and he thanked me profusely. Other readers thought my 401k loan was such a terrible idea that they have decided to stop following my blog. Who knew taking a low interest loan from yourself was so controversial? My 401k is Retirement Play Money I understand why some people were offended by me taking a loan from my 401k. For many people, the

Based on the title of this post alone I guarantee there will be some hardcore zero debt personal finance fanatics who think I'm the dumbest person on the planet, but I'm here to take a radical position: paying interest isn't always so bad. Does paying interest suck? Absolutely. But sometimes you need to borrow and the only way to do it is to pay a little bit of interest. Let me explain. I'm Paying Interest for Cash Flow I'm closing on my house in less than a month and I need to pay for my 20% down payment plus any other closing costs. That's going to cost me tens of thousands of dollar

Now that I am hopefully getting into the world of home ownership, I'm starting to look for all the ways that owning a home can save me money. There are some big expenses that come along with home ownership (like repairs and renovations) but hopefully I can offset those expenses with some of these money saving techniques. Save Money on Taxes Politically I'm not a fan of social engineering via tax loopholes, but as a responsible financial adult I'm going to do whatever I can to reduce my tax burden. Owning a home is one of the best ways to do that. Laws may change, but as of today any inte

I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to talk about the next huge step in my life. A few weeks ago I got engaged, and a day later my fiancee and I got a call from our realtor saying that the offer we put in on a house was accepted. There are so many things that can go wrong in the process of buying a house that I didn't even think it would be worth writing about until I had cleared a few hurdles. As of Monday 10/22, I have cleared enough hurdles where it seems fairly likely that the deal will go through. For those that have never bought a house or haven't bought one in a long time, he

My girlfriend Tag and I have been watching a lot of HGTV and get really excited about the idea of owning a house. Watching people do renovations and get their dream homes is lots of fun and there are times I'm certain I want a house. But then I think about how much it really costs to own a house and it scares the bejeezes out of me. Here are 3 reasons why buying a home is more expensive than you might think. It Costs 6% to Sell Your House With a Realtor It's easy to believe that you're going to get 100% of the value of your home when you decide you want to sell it. In reality, most hom

Congratulations! You just got a new job. Or better yet, a promotion! (I did) But it's a bad economy and if your department needs to save some money then firing the new guy can sometimes be an easy solution. You have to show your new boss that you are a vital piece of his organization and that if he needs to cut some costs, your job isn't going to be the first place he looks. Here are a few ways to make yourself valuable in the first 90 days of your new job. Fix a Problem Every job has its frustrations. It can be a mundane status report, a frustrating new software, a printer that is