Awhile back I picked up a fax machine, and I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. To be completely honest, I don’t send personal faxes all that often, and I almost never need to receive one. But when I do need to send a fax, there’s nothing better than dropping the form(s) to be faxed […]
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 44% of American internet users (53 million people) now bank online. That’s one-quarter of all American adults! This represents an increase of 47% since 2002 and, of all online activities tracked by the Pew, online banking has grown the fastest. In terms of age structure, 60% […]
I ran across an interesting site called the Political Compass the other day. The motivation for this site is the realization that there is more to personal beliefs than the left/right axis. Rather, they argue that we need to look at things in two dimensions – economic and social. They underscore their view by arguing […]
Leading up to tax time there was a lot of media attention on the possibility that eBay profits may be taxable. To be completely honest, I’m not sure what the uproar is all about. After all, the IRS has always been very clear about the fact that all income, regardless of the source, must be […]
For some reason, it took me awhile to figure this out, but… While I was preparing our taxes this year I decided that we need to change the way that we’re saving for retirement. Since my employer provides a dollar-for-dollar match on retirement contributions up to 5% of my salary to our tax-deductible 403(b) plan, […]
Not long ago my seven year old son made an incredibly astute observation about the current state of the US economy. He was reading the label on some sort of a package when he said “Daddy, this thing was made in China.” He went on to say that “They must make really good stuff in […]
As a parent, I’ve recently been thinking of all the responsible things that I should be doing to ensure the well being of my family in the (hopefully) unlikely event that I drop dead. Worse yet, perhaps my wife and I will both drop dead, leaving our young kids behind. I’m not overly concerned about […]
Welcome to fivecentnickel.com, a new weblog about personal finance written from the perspective of a thirty-something family man. If you’re curious where the name comes from, it was taken from the following quote from the Depression-era journalist Franklin P. Adams: “There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost […]