Ideas on Personal Finance
What Will Jobs Look Like in the AI Era? As I was thinking about this question – somewhere between scrolling headlines and wondering if ChatGPT would someday be my boss – I realized the best way to understand the future might be to look at the present. What kinds of jobs today give a glimpse … Read more
Let’s talk about the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) for a minute. Passed on July 4, 2025, it’s the latest sweeping legislation aimed at reshaping America. While some folks are busy arguing whether it’s too big or not big enough, others are missing the real story hidden in plain sight. One feature quietly tucked into the … Read more
A few months ago, CNBC and financial headlines were flooded with predictions of America’s decline. Sound familiar? Financial commentators were loudly declaring – Sell America! Now? Silence. Markets are rising again. Unemployment is low. AI is booming. The American consumer continues to spend like it’s Black Friday. And those same experts? Quiet. Or worse–suddenly optimistic, … Read more
Everyone wants a piece of the AI action right now. It’s the new gold rush, and your group chat probably has at least one person claiming they’re “heavy into Nvidia” like they’re mining silicon in their garage. The AI hype is real. Companies are racing to bolt it onto everything – cars, customer service, your … Read more
Everyone thinks they can do it: Buy low; sell high. Retire early. Go on CNBC and talk about it. But April 2025 has been a masterclass in why that almost never happens in real life – unless you have a crystal ball! Let’s look at a couple of examples. April 9: A 90-Day Pause and … Read more
We’ve seen this movie before. And like most sequels, it’s louder, flashier, and still misses the point. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s promised to change everything. Groceries, news, relationships – even dog food – suddenly had a .com slapped on it like gold stars on a kindergarten report card. Investors threw money at … Read more
Regular readers of this blog have seen a few bear markets with me. However, there is nothing regular about this bear market. The speed at which markets have fallen has been unnerving. Most banks are now forecasting a recession. Even if a recession is somehow avoided, there is definitely a slowdown in the economy ahead. … Read more
What a difference a month makes! This time last month, the US stock market was hitting all time highs. Now the market is in a correction (down more than 10%). I try to avoid talking about politics—this is a personal finance blog, after all! However, there are times when politics has such a big impact … Read more
In theory, investing is pretty straightforward – Buy Low, Sell High! Buy things when they are down. Sell things when they go up. In practice, investing is pretty difficult. Let’s take the first part of the equation – buying low. When stocks go down, we should buy them, right? But when stocks fall 10% there … Read more
A couple of years ago, the stock market crashed, and everyone was freaking out. The S&P 500 index fell from a high of around 4,800 to a low of about 3,500 in 2022—a 27% drop. Many stocks fell even more—Amazon’s stock dropped by half, and Meta (Facebook) was down 65%. Back then, I wrote a … Read more