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RIP XRAYVSN: Blogoversary & Exit Stage Left

      It is hard to believe that 4 years and 3 days ago I made the decision to have my website go live on my 47th birthday. I was completely naive about the world of blogging and had no clue what would spring from that fateful decision. This past Saturday (April 23) I celebrated my 51st birthday as well as the 4 year anniversary of my blog. Sadly there will not be a 5th year blogoversary as I…

The Things I Have Done Right In My Life (My Financial Blessings)

            When I first started this blog, on my 47th birthday (April 23, 2018) I was overly ambitious and let two posts go live: “A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step” This first post was my introduction to the world that I entered the blogosphere and described how difficult it was for me to break inertia and get out of my comfort zone. “I Have Pretty Much Made Every…

Grand Rounds: Financial Epiphany

                Welcome to this session of grand rounds, a collection of posts I have discovered in the blogosphere and have found of interest and hope you do too. This offering of Grand Rounds looks at articles from around the web that deal with changing your attitude about money.     We all work very hard for our money. Money is therefore just a representation of our time. So why do we…

The Seven Heavenly Financial Virtues

          Previously I have written about the 7 Cardinal Sins and how they applied to the world of finance: Index Of The Seven Deadly Sins Links: Luxuria/Luxury Gula/Gluttony Avarita/Greed Acedia/Sloth Ira/Wrath Invidia/Envy Superbia/Pride   Although the 7 Cardinal Sins take the spotlight, the 7 Heavenly Virtues are just as important, especially in finance. I thought it would only be fitting…

The Wheels Of Finance: How The Automobile & Finance Intersect

      America has had a long love affair with the automobile. The automobile has been elevated to more than just a means of transportation. Individuals may be driven to purchase a particular vehicle for the implied status that comes along with it. We have all heard of stories of people who are going through a mid-life crisis and end up purchasing  sports vehicles in hopes of clinging on to the…

Grand Rounds: Advantage, Tax

            Welcome to this session of grand rounds, a collection of posts I have discovered in the blogosphere and have found of interest and hope you do too. This offering of Grand Rounds looks at articles from around the web that deal with retirement/tax-advantaged accounts.     One of my favorite tax-advantaged accounts is the Health Savings Account (HSA). Used correctly the HSA acts like…

Lacking Grit: The Downside Of When Things Come Too Easy

            In the 80s I grew up watching a TV show called Silver Spoons, where Ricky Shroeder played a character named Ricky Stratton. The basic premise of the show is that a young boy is reunited with his incredibly wealthy father who lives in a mansion and happens to own a toy  business. Pretty much anything Ricky wanted Ricky got. There were lavish toys at his disposal including a ride on…

Why I Hate FIAT!: Financial Independence Also Threatened?

        First off apologies to those Italian car aficionados that may have gotten offended by the title. I have nothing against the Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino that has had the FIAT moniker since 1899. No, my ire is directed to the relatively new upstart that goes by the same FIAT name and is the current monetary system utilized worldwide by essentially every country. The day the…

Grand Rounds: Till Money Do Us Part

                Welcome to this session of grand rounds, a collection of posts I have discovered in the blogosphere and have found of interest and hope you do too. This offering of Grand Rounds looks at articles from around the web that deal with marriage and money.     Getting married is the biggest commitment you can make to another individual. You can truly have a fairy tale ending if you…

A Regret Of Mine: When Someday Never Comes

          I spent a lot of my formative years in Louisiana, where I developed great friendships that have lasted decades. I grew very close with one particular friend who happened to live across the street and a few houses down. His family, particularly his mother, welcomed me with open arms and treated me as a second son. She was an incredibly kind person as well as an amazing cook (she was…

Case Example: Behavioral Finance Biases In Stock Picking

    Before I immersed myself in the FIRE/financial online community (as late as 2011), I had absolutely no clue how to invest. The only real investing experience I had was in a ROTH IRA I started in my residency. It was through that process that I had my first interaction with a financial planner whom I later found out was less than ideal as he had promptly placed me in a front load, high…

                Welcome to this session of grand rounds, a collection of posts I have discovered in the blogosphere and have found of interest and hope you do too. This offering of Grand Rounds looks at articles from around the web that deal with issues of money and emotions/behavior.     It is hard to open up the purse strings when you have been scrimping and saving to achieve FIRE for so…

Loosening The Purse Strings: When Spending Money Is Encouraged.

              In the personal finance blogosphere, saving money and being frugal is highly encouraged. After years of following this advice there comes a point when you actually reach your goal. A strange phenomenon occurs when you reach your financial goal line. Because saving money and living frugally has become so ingrained into your psyche, it almost becomes a mental obstacle that you must…

The Greatest Bank Ever (With Unheard Of Interest Rates!)

    I don’t want to brag but my daughter is one smart cookie. You see, although her dad is smart enough to use savings rate arbitrage to take advantage of online savings rates versus rates found at brick and mortar places, my daughter took it to another level. Her bank of choice is super convenient and, on top of that, its interest rates blow everything else out of the water. I am speaking of…

Grand Rounds: What’s An Investor To Do?

                Welcome to this session of grand rounds, a collection of posts I have discovered in the blogosphere and have found of interest and hope you do too. This offering of Grand Rounds looks at articles from around the web that deal with issues investors encounter.     Anyone who has been investing for more than a few years have made some mistakes that they wish they could take…

The Weight of Personal Finance: How Exercise and FIRE Are Similar And How They Differ

          It seems that there are a set of common principles in the universe that can apply to various aspects of our lives. Core philosophies that work in one discipline are often in play in other disciplines, so what works with one often works for the other. There is a strong correlation between the world of personal finance and the world of personal fitness, for example. I thought it would be…

Tiptoe Through The Tulips

    The tulip. The perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophyte from the genus tulipa. A beautiful spring-blooming flower that brightens any landscape it is a part of. In case you thought you went to the wrong website and accidentally stumbled upon a horticulture blog rather than the financial blog you have been accustomed to (or a more likely scenario, think Xrayvsn has completely lost his mind),…