Archive for December 2019
Net Worth Update: 2019 Year-End Review
I remember writing last year’s net worth recap and being disappointed that I didn’t reach my goal after the stock market tanked during the last three months of 2018. What a difference a year makes! My investments were up 20+ percent this year. We also reached all of our 2019 financial goals, including maxing out…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Benchmarking Your Returns Edition
How well did your investments perform in 2019? Investment performance is critical to achieving your retirement goals, yet it’s one of the most misunderstood concepts in personal finance. Why? Because we need to put our performance into proper context. In other words, we need to compare our returns to an appropriate benchmark. Investment managers are…
Read MoreHow To Make Saving A Priority
Do you want to save more money next year? Most people do. But how do you save more when there’s nothing left over at the end of the month? Try turning the problem on its head. Instead of trying to save what you don’t spend, treat saving like an expense you can’t avoid. That means…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: 2 Million Pageviews Edition
I don’t write much about the business of blogging but I’m constantly amazed by the growing community of readers who stop by here for their weekly dose of personal finance info. It has been a record year for viewership here on Boomer & Echo with an incredible 2 million + pageviews so far in 2019. …
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Bill Negotiation Day Edition
I’ve long advocated for people to take a bill negotiation day – a day off work once a year to call their bank, telecom provider, and other other service providers and negotiate their monthly bills. These companies are not known for voluntarily offering loyalty discounts. Banks add new service charges and increase monthly account fees…
Read More2010-2019: The Decade In Review
With the ’10s quickly coming to an end, it’s a good time to reflect on the past decade and list our accomplishments. Looking back, this was an incredible decade of growth and happiness for me and my family. We are so grateful for what we’ve been able to achieve. 2010 was a big year for…
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Misguided Sh!t Advisors Say Edition
I love sending readers and clients on a mission to test their financial advisor. I get them to ask about lower cost portfolio options such as index mutual funds or ETFs. The responses are typically hilarious – so much that I wrote an entire post on the sh!t my advisor says. A reader I’ll call…
Read MoreKicking Debt Down The Road
Canadians started piling on the debt after the financial crisis in 2008. Back then our household debt-to-income ratio was sitting around 150 percent ($1.50 owed for every dollar of disposable income). Today that number hovers around 177 percent. We are kicking debt down the road, instead of kicking it to the curb. It can be…
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