February. The ancient Romans called it Februarius and it marked the start of spring for their empire two thousand years ago. Back then of course, Februarius didn’t occur at the same position of the earth’s axis as it does now. The ancient Romans used Februarius as the time to...

Recently I’ve started purchasing individual stocks again after taking a few years off. And in addition to that, I’ve started to invest in small cap index fund shares. Now that I’m buying individual stocks again, I’ve been asking myself why I stopped picking stocks in the first place. A...

I’ve found myself in a new role at work this year. I translate blueprints into construction schedules. A lot of staring into computer monitors. Actually, I’m only staring into computer monitors. Blueprints these days aren’t what you might envision. They aren’t the lovely, unwieldy paper drawings that I can...

My kids have this bad habit of complaining about being bored or calling something they don’t like boring. My girls probably overuse the word a bit, but it emphasizes their dislike for idle time. They are so used to having things at their fingertips, that any wait time instantly...

In January we didn’t have a mortgage to worry about and we took a spur of the moment trip to the Sierra Nevada for a weekend getaway for the MLK holiday weekend. While I usually dislike spur of the moment money spending, this trip to the snow was exactly...

The other day I was going over my expenses and admiring my low transportation costs. How have I have gotten so lucky that my transportation costs are only 8% of my household monthly expense? That’s pretty good considering how much it costs to commute out here in the Bay...

December finances…we ended up spending more than we have in quite a while last month. It’s always annoying to see our expenses fly through the roof after doing well for a period, but this is life, I tell myself. I’d like to think our budget-busting was for good reason....

My money consists mostly of tiny black illuminated numbers on a computer screen and a plastic card I wave around in exchange for goods. Sometimes I’ll get a letter in the mail and my money numbers will be printed on an official piece of paper, but these balance numbers...

It’s been a long time since I can remember a year where I’ve experienced so much while doing so little. I always thought an abundance of choices in life was what gave us the most room to grow and define ourselves. Yet, this year, this 2020, it’s the lack...

I wake up twice every morning. The first time I wake up is at 4 am. This is the time I like to wake up. My alarm is set to this time. If I can will myself out of bed at 4 am, I’ll have time to meditate and...