We’re kicking off a kitchen makeover on Monday – the first real update we’ve done to our house in years. We’ve been here 16 years now, and while it’s been a great home for our family, the style has definitely slipped into that “a bit dated” category. What looked sharp and timeless in the mid-2000s now feels dark and heavy compared to what buyers (and … Continue reading Kitchen Makeover Project
Everyone hates the idea that Congresspeople are using their positions to gain secret information to make investments. Political insider trading has been made illegal several times (usually after a damning CBS 60 Minutes broadcast), but later Congresses have either changed the laws or eliminated the penalties. You may have heard that some plucky entrepreneurs have decided to create ETFs that attempt to mirror the Congresspeople’s … Continue reading Insider Investment
Northwestern Mutual does a nice annual study on the ‘state of retirement’ in the USA. It’s a pretty exhaustive analysis that looks at all aspects of life and our involvement and satisfaction with each dimension. Link: Northwestern Mutual 2025 ‘Planning & Progress’ Study I was surprised by a few of the numbers from this year’s study and thought I’d share them. First, Americans are pretty … Continue reading Retirement Confidence
Have you heard about the “U” shaped happiness curve? It’s the output of psychology research across ages. It suggests that people are happiest when they are younger, lose some of that happiness in middle-age, and then get it back as they get older. Here’s a plot of the curve, with the colors representing 7 different studies of happiness by age. There has been a lot … Continue reading Happiness “U”-Curve
About once a year, some dusty old post from this site will “pop” and go viral. My post on private label grocery products from May of 2017 is the latest. Link: National vs Store Brands For some reason, it’s the top read post of 2025, after sitting mostly ignored for the last 8 years. After its 2017 debut (with a few hundred views), it fell … Continue reading Store Brands Revisited
These two bags of groceries (plus a couple gallons of skim milk) were a whopping $107 at Target today. I’m old enough to remember when our grocery bags averaged $15 each. That rule of thumb was from 35 years ago (in 1990) when we first got married and watched every $ closely. Related: Cut Those Prices In Half! I know prices have been rising, but … Continue reading Sticker Shock
Audiobooks are apparently having a big surge in popularity. Ten years ago, only 15% of Americans had listened to an audiobook, but now it’s over 50%. Revenue for audiobooks has exploded over +300% over the same period, driven by new streaming options. I’m a bit late to the trend. I’ve written before about my (mostly failed) strategies to overcome my ADHD and read more books … Continue reading Dropping Into Audiobooks
July is the month of the Summer movie blockbuster and we’re off to our third movie premiere weekend in the last month. I went to the F1 Movie in June on opening weekend, saw Superman two weeks ago, and are now going to the Fantastic Four. Still, like most Americans, we are no where near the number of movie theater visits we were making before … Continue reading Movie Theaters Return?
We’ve been trying to sell our rental townhouse for the last 3+ months with no avail. The housing market, which is now being called “the worst in decades” – has dropped precipitously under the weight of high prices, high interest rates, and low wage growth. In the last 3+ months, we’ve dropped our price three times, re-carpeted, and re-painted the unit – but nothing seemed … Continue reading Free At Last …
I continue to be a bit obsessed with learning about air conditioning, since our central air unit went out in our vacation place in Florida last week. We’re back home in Minnesota now, and have had a few hot days here, too. Our air conditioning is happily chugging along, set at about 72° – day and night. I know people who keep it much warmer … Continue reading Air Conditioning & Energy Costs
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