When To Invest

I love the scene from Meet The Parents where Ben Stiller is chatting with Owen Wilson, the rich ex-fiance of his girlfriend.  “How’s your portfolio right now?” Wilson asks.  “Oh… I’d say strong… to… quite strong…”  Our culture has put your investment portfolio center stage as the single most important wealth building asset.  But how [...]

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Balance Sheets Explained

Calculating your net worth is a great metric to measure your personal finances over time. It can give you a quick overview of everything you own and everything you owe on one simple sheet. These sheets are called Balance Sheets and they can be as detailed or vague as the preparer wishes. It’s important to know exactly what you’re looking at when preparing or reading a balance sheet because their simplicity can be deceiving.

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Wealth, the Key Ingredient

I was talking to a friend of mine recently about a contractor he’s working with. Although the guy is the best in the business and producing results, he can’t help but feel like he’s becoming more and more dependent on his (expensive) work. Weeks of this produced feelings of resentment towards the project as a whole. “I may not like it, but it seems like you’ve got to set yourself up like this (contractor) if you want to make some serious money. I’m at his mercy paying through the nose to keep this going,” he finally lamented. Where do we get this idea that you’ve got to cheat and steal (so to speak) to make money? How is it that society sells us on this sentiment?

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Big Screens and Benjamins; How the Rich Live

If I told you I was a millionaire how would you picture me? I mean a multi-millionaire. A decamillionaire even. You’d probably envision me writing this post from a fancy office in my 6,000 square foot home with CNBC on in the background. You might speculate about my typical work day as a risk taking [...]

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