Thursday Rant #2 – Office Lotto Pools

Gen Y Finance Guy Rants, The JOB 34 Comments

Let me first get my confession in before I get too deep into this rant. Yes, I admit that I have played the lottery once in my life when I turned 18 and was old enough to buy a lottery ticket. My purchase even included some scratchers. But in my defense, this is sort of a rite of passage. Doesn’t everyone go out on their 18th birthday to buy cigarettes, porn, and some lotto tickets??? OK, so maybe buying porn is a bit old school. Let’s be honest no one pays for porn anymore when they can get it online for free. Needless to say, I didn’t win millions the one and only time I played the lotto. Now onto …

My Love/Hate Relationship with Tax Season

Gen Y Finance Guy Taxes 20 Comments

I remember a time when I rushed to get my taxes done and submitted so that I could get my refund. Oh, how time, education, and increased earnings has changed that. Can you relate? First of all, I no longer overpay on my taxes. I accomplish this by managing my withholding’s on my W-2 income (use the W-4 form to change these). I see absolutely no reason why the government should get to hold my money, interest free. And if the shoe was on the other foot, the IRS would charge me interest and penalties at the first chance they got. Plus, I am a Finance Guy and the concept of opportunity cost is ingrained and rooted so deeply, I can’t help myself. I …

How I Blew $290 on Valentine’s Day With My Wife

Gen Y Finance Guy Smart Spending 28 Comments

First let me start by saying that my wife and I probably had one of the best Valentine’s Days we have ever had. I would even  say that it is up there with the time I created our own drive in movie, which is still my most memorable Valentine’s Day. It is so easy to get caught up in the consumerism of Valentine’s Day, which leads you to believe that it’s all about the “stuff” you give and the money you spend going out to some fancy restaurant. Over the past 10 Valentine’s Days that my wife and I have celebrated together, I have been guilty of falling into this trap myself. We have done the $300 dinners and the expensive gifts (usually …

Murder Your Mortgage in 7 Years Q&A

Gen Y Finance Guy Mortgage Snowball 30 Comments

Last month I published a post that detailed my strategy to pay down a 30 year mortgage that I only recently obtained last year. I will be the first to admit that it goes against the conventional wisdom and there have been two questions that have popped up consistently that I thought I would take some time to answer: Question 1: Why do you advocate paying down your mortgage and thus losing out on the tax savings from interest paid? This is a great question to very controversial advice depending on who you talk to. If you would have asked me a few years ago I would had said this was absolutely a mistake. But my thinking has changed over the years. There …

Example of Buying Into Weakness – Investment Rule #1

Gen Y Finance Guy Financial Markets, Investing, Options 22 Comments

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.” -Jake, “Adventure Time” A few days ago I wrote a post laying the foundation for my 10 rules for investing. In rule #1 we discussed what it means to buy into weakness. After some good dialogue with you guys in the comments of that post, it dawned on me to include a real example of what it actually looks like to buy into weakness. It was a comment by Mr. Maroon that helped spark the idea when she said: Enter Mrs. Maroon When we first started aggressively trying to save money for investments and actively watching our balances, we agreed that the very best approach was to …

Buy Into Weakness – Investment Rule #1

Gen Y Finance Guy Financial Markets, Investing, New Rules, Options, Words To Live By 24 Comments

Over the course of the coming weeks and months I will be laying out the investment rules that I live and die by. These are rules that I have developed over the last ten years as both a retail and professional investor and trader: Rule # 1: Buy into weakness. Rule #2: Sell into strength. Rule #3: Reduce cost basis. Rule #4: Keep investments small. Rule #5: Keep 80% of total invested capital in ETF’s and up to 20% in individual names. Rule #6: Choose duration over direction. Rule #7: Manage your winners. Rule #8: Manage risk at order entry. Rule #9: Increase your # of occurrences. Rule #10: Make investments with a probability of profit > than 50%. (Note: …

Thursday Rant #1: The Office Time Keeper

Gen Y Finance Guy Rants, The JOB 24 Comments

Leaving the work force and going out on my own is an eventual goal. However, I don’t plan on doing that anytime soon as there are other goals on my list that actually involve staying in the work force (at least for a while or until something better comes along). Because of this, I have to put up with some of the annoyances that go on in a traditional day JOB. First let me point out that I am a salaried professional. In my mind this means that as long as I get my job done in a timely fashion, that it should not matter the hours I hold, or the location I choose to work. However, I work for a …