A few weeks ago, I walked into Chase Bank in Florida and asked to withdraw cash from my checking account in the form of Australian dollars for an upcoming trip. The branch manager smiled and quoted me a currency exchange rate that was seven percent…
For the most part, I consider myself to be sort of a minimalist. Aside from being notoriously frugal, I also don’t feel like I need a ton of stuff to be happy. But with that said, I’m cool with a little extravagance when it’s free.…
I have an addiction to Starbucks cold brew iced coffee. If you’re not familiar with cold brew, it’s prepared through a slow extraction process that’s kept cool or room temperature from start to finish — the coffee never gets heated up. This results in a…
It’s time to let you in on a secret: All of my blog posts have been written on a laptop that’s over a decade old. Amazingly, this computer still runs as well as — if not better than — the day I first bought it.…
It’s that time of year — you know, the beautiful, magical, spendy holiday season. When you’re trying to save money or pay down debt, holiday gift-giving can really throw a wrench in your plans. You want to give meaningful gifts that show you care about…
When looking for the cheapest place to book a hotel room, the commonsense approach is just to compare prices on different sites. Go to Expedia, Trivago, Kayak, Priceline, etc., and pick whichever one has the best deal. If you try this obvious strategy, you’ll run…
I recently saw a pretty sneaky TV commercial for an insurance product that I’d never heard of before. It’s called "return of premium life insurance." It’s a form of term life insurance, and here’s how it works: You pay a monthly premium for a fixed…
We kinda hate tracking our spending. I know it’s a sin among personal finance bloggers, but on the 8-year path to accumulating our savings, we never tracked our expenses much at all. Once we learned that money can buy freedom rather than material things, our…
My bicycle is one of the best investments I’ve ever made. It’s allowed me to breathe more fresh air and experience more sunshine while I explore my own backyard. It’s made my heart stronger, kept me from gaining weight, and given me a weekend activity…
Expense tracking, budget making, checkbook balancing, bill paying, stock trading — all of this stuff requires an endless input of time and brain power. That’s why, for the last eight years or so, Lauren and I haven’t done any of those things. Being good with…
Transportation might not be your number one expense, but if you’re a typical middle-class American, it’s probably the single biggest thing you could change to become way richer, way faster. Saving money on even bigger expenses like housing can pay off too, but shifting your…
Whether you're at home or on the road, the best way to save money on food is to cook it yourself. But when you're traveling, you're not always going to have a kitchen in your hotel room or want to bust out a propane camp…
Recurring costs eat away at your wealth stealthily, in bite-sized chunks that you don’t always notice. A cable and streaming TV bill of $100 a month could add up to around $130,000 across 25 years if it were invested in the stock market instead. “Cutting…
When we set out on a 7-month trip to visit every National Park in the United States, we knew there was only one way to make it affordable: avoiding hotel costs by sleeping in a camper. After considering all the options, we decided to convert…
Let’s be real — spending money on parking always feels bad. I mean, you’re basically just paying for your car to exist. When we go to the airport, we usually just have a friend (or an Uber) drop us off at the front gate and…
On the way to financial independence, reducing your expenses is the most powerful thing you can do. Whether you rent or own, housing is probably one of your largest bills. While it's fun to claim small victories like eking out a 44% discount at Taco…
Everybody knows where to go online for low prices and fast shipping on almost everything imaginable — its domain name starts with an “A”. While Amazon is ubiquitous for online shopping, there are a handful of items I’d never dream of buying anywhere else but…
Whether we’re trying something new on the road or enjoying a neighborhood coffee shop, we’re constantly bombarded with opportunities to sign up for rewards, loyalty programs, and bonus points. There are so many that most people just ignore them and default to an immediate “NO”…
