Level: Can A Budgeting App Change The Way We Bank?
“Level is dedicated to rewriting the financial rulebook to create a secure future for the next generation.” That’s budgeting app Level Money’s stated mission, which can be found on their website’s “About Us” page. But even as lofty as that...
The Keys to Effective Budgeting: Autonomy and Automation
Most people avoid budgeting because they consider it an exercise in repressive tedium. But it doesn’t have to be. By applying the science of motivation, economic evidence and the art of creativity, the apparent boredom of budgeting and saving can...
‘The One-Page Financial Plan’ — Simple, But Not Simplistic
Simple is hot, even fashionable. But in many cases, it’s for all the wrong reasons. Simple is easier to pitch, explain and sell, and therefore also easier to receive, understand and buy. But when simple devolves into simplistic, becoming a...
3 Ways To Write Your Own Story, Like Baseball’s Daniel Norris
Yesterday, a bearded 21-year-old surfer who lives in a 1978 VW bus, and on a self-imposed annual allowance of $10,000, mowed down my beloved Orioles with a 96-mile-per-hour fastball. Blue Jays pitcher Daniel Norris isn’t striving to make a statement...
The Disciplined Investor’s Worst Enemy: Tracking Error
Last year was a tough one for disciplined investors. Disciplined investors know that diversification is a key element of successful portfolio management. But investors who stayed the course and remained diversified were punished for it in 2014, at least in...
The Guide To Happy Giving
Giving Tuesday might officially be behind us, but let’s face it—we’re just getting started. The giving season is underway, with the holidays and year-end bearing down on us. So how can we transform one of the more stressful, and sometimes...
Business Travelers – Skip In-Flight Wi-Fi To Increase Productivity And Save Money
I travel a decent amount. I don’t mind flying, but I’ve always struggled with the loss of productivity. Hours waiting at the airport. Even more hours in flight. But with the advent of in-flight Wi-Fi, I thought my productivity problems...
A 4-Step Process To Integrating Money And Life
Once you’ve abandoned the pursuit of balancing money and life in favor of integrating the two, the question still remains: Now what? How the heck do I better integrate money and life? Like most personal finance dilemmas, the answer is...
Don’t Balance Money and Life, Integrate Them
We got the subtitle of my last book wrong. It reads, “Balancing Money and Life.” And while the book is still substantively solid and its aging content remains mostly relevant, the subtitle, I now believe, is a misnomer. It may...
The Real Danger In Overstating Returns (Like PIMCO)
As if PIMCO needed any more bad press, The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether the bond giant “artificially boosted the returns of a popular fund aimed at small investors.” While...
