Inside the Index

If you write about personal finance long enough, you find yourself walking some well-worn ground. After a while, it seems we all take a crack at the same tired problems that so many other writers have over the years.

We've all written about paying off consumer debt. And who hasn't had a hot take on a way to be just a little more frugal?

So with my apologies, today I'm writing about a subject that you've all heard about too much these days: genocide, and why it's not good.

Budget Porn: September 2017

They say that you never bury the lede, so here it is: September destroyed our budget.

We spent way above our long term monthly average, most of our spending was completely discretionary, and this month threw off our future financial independence projections pretty significantly.

We might have screwed up.

Let's dig into the details to see how.

A Visit to Copenhagen

Happy Monday, friends. We are going to try something that hasn't been accomplished on this blog in years: writing weekly. And to keep the streak going, today we're going to tell you about our trip to Copenhagen.

We went, as we tend to do, with our good couple friends who have similarly leaned into travel rewards, thanks to Brad at Richmond Savers. We ended up doing a stopover (a long, multi-day layover) in Copenhagen, that allowed us to also visit Berlin, come back, and then continue on the same ticket on our way to Stockholm. Basically, on our (nearly) free ticket to Stockholm, we took a extra week in between to visit another couple cities.

Median Income, Middle Class

The Census Bureau came out with a new report last week, which gives me a chance to write about my favorite topics: the middle class, and middle class income.

It's such a charged term: middle class. Everyone has an idea of what it means, even if we don't agree on a single definition. But a median household is a decent place to start, as no matter what your definition of "middle class", I bet the median household fits within it.

So let's take a look at what that median household earns.

The Triumphant Return of Budget Porn!

After a multi-year hiatus, we are bringing back the blog's most popular running series: budget porn.

I took down all the porn after I was interviewed for an article by a reporter, and then, that night, quickly freaked out about our anonymity being blown. I emailed the reporter and pleaded with her to please kill the article, which was a jerk move on my part as she'd already started working on it.

She was nice enough to acquiesce, but the interview brought our feelings about what we wanted to keep private into focus.

Three Years Out: Are We on Track for FI?

Two weeks ago, I turned thirty seven. It's a weird feeling, getting old. I don't feel old. I feel like the same person, minus a little softness around the tummy and a hairline that isn't quite where I left it.

And yet here I am, older, supposedly an adult; not some kid trapped in a man's life, still playing kickball and board games and drinking too many beers on a school night.

As each year comes, we hit another milestone on our path to financial independence. We've only got three mile markers left before the big four-o. Will we make it?

Let's see what the Mad Fientist's laboratory says.

Iceland's Ring Road in a Kuku

On our recent trip to Northern Europe, we were able to use hotel points for all the countries except for one: Iceland. A friend had suggested that we try driving around the ring road in a van, and we immediately fell in love with the idea.

We always stay in hotels or AirBNBs. Why not a van for a change?

We started reaching out to rental companies to see if we could score a deal in exchange for writing a review. (Full disclosure: we received a discount on the rental, and some free items for the van, like sleeping bags, pillows, and a GPS.)

Kuku Campers was the first to write back, and they had the added bonus of being a funky, cool company, to boot. See that picture to the above? That's our van. Adventure Time!

Taxes, Behavior, and Regressive Incentives

As the latest attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act have recently failed, it seems that Congress is moving on to the next item on their agenda: tax reform. I guess that's why I keep stumbling on articles suggesting drastic changes to the tax code: like eliminating the mortgage interest deduction.

My main beef is not with any specific deduction in our tax code. (Though the mortgage interest deduction is curious, to say the least.)

Rather, I think our system of deductions runs counter to the goals of our progressive income tax system itself. Looking at most of the incentives, the more you earn, and the more tax you pay, the more you benefit from the programs.

Selling a Rental We've Never Seen

We're finally back from our trip to northern Europe: three and a half weeks of travel hacked goodness spent with our good friends from Phoenix. We'll have some posts and plenty of pictures to share from the trip in the coming weeks.

But we first wanted to tell you about the sale of one of our rentals, that we managed to accomplish mostly via email and digital signatures, from a smartphone.

Let's start at the beginning. How did we come to even own this house?