Prize Linked Savings (you may also see them called ‘Save to Win’ games) are an interesting take on savings accounts, where every deposit is ‘kept’ unlike in normal lotteries, but some proportion of interest is assigned to a lucky winner through a lottery. In that way, prize linked savings games hit our psychological love of […]
Pay Down Debt or Invest the Cash?
A common financial topic begging for answers is whether to pay down debt or invest. Over much of the internet, it is encouraged to pay down your high interest debt before investing in a Roth IRA or putting money into a 401(k) above the employer match. The difficulty has always been in defining what, exactly, […]
First Month Living Without a Car
Recently, I moved to San Francisco and as part of the move I decided to sell my vehicle and live car-less. I felt (and feel) that I could get most of my transportation around the city done with bicycle or public transportation. So long as I can get to/from work and to/from a grocery store, […]
Payday Lending and its Economics
Today, let’s talk a bit about the economics of payday lending. We’re going to cover, at a macro level: Where they make their money How they structure their terms Their strategy to deal with regulation How did payday lenders originally avoid regulation? Traditionally, the payday lending industry (estimated ~$50 BB+ size when we went to […]
Financial Goals for 2015
Early last year, I prepared goals for 2014. In September, in a shift of plans I decided to abandon my goal of paying off all my consumer debt and instead focused exclusively on maxing out my 401k. To review my goals for 2014: Pay off consumer debt of $35,741.09 I was able to pay this […]
I Quit My Day Job – If You’re Going to San Francisco (Part 2 of 3)
I haven’t yet decided if I should wear flowers in my hair. Over the past three and a half year, I have lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. I have mixed feelings about leaving and mixed feelings about the area in general and am excited to see what a new area has to offer. […]
My Retirement Asset Allocation
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I decided to play around with Morning Star’s X-Ray tool. The tool takes your entire portfolio and analyzes the asset allocation by geography, by risk level, by asset class as well as by type (growth vs. value, etc.). Here is what my current asset allocation across my portfolio is (asset type): […]
I Quit My Day Job – Drinking from a Fire Hydrant (Part 1 of 3)
“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” – Mitchell Kapor This post is going to be the first part of a three-parter about a fresh change for one-third of the writers at Don’t Quit Your Day Job…. Since my colleague PK and I founded this website back in […]
September 2014 Goal Assessment
At the end of last year, I stated that I wanted to pay down ~$34,000 in consumer debt (outside of my mortgage). I am writing today to report on both a level of success and a switch in strategy. How am I faring? In short: decently. I am not currently on track to hit my […]
FICO is a Corporation
Much has been written about the recent change in the FICO scoring system from both mainstream media and personal finance blogosphere. Using my compelling inside information and incredible subject matter expertise, I can insist that it will not make much of a difference. What? Huh? First, a little background. Fair Isaac (FICO) is a publicly […]