Tag: Money

  • Negative Cash

    Negative Cash

    Up until about a year ago I was against debt. Most debt I had encountered was opportunities to buy things one couldn’t afford, which didn’t appeal to me, or situations I couldn’t make use of, like borrowing to finance business activities that would return a profit. Recently, though, interest rates have dropped so low that…

  • Variance and Investing

    Variance and Investing

    One of the best things to come from my career as a professional gambler is a deep unconscious understanding of risk, odds, EV, and variance. The downside to this is that I see people make fundamental errors all the time, especially in investing, and it really bothers me. Usually I notice these errors not because…

  • You Have More Options When You’re Weird

    You Have More Options When You’re Weird

    In many ways my life is very weird. Sometimes when I’m about to make a statement like that I try to think of a relatable example of how I’m not weird in some way, but it’s hard to come up with one. I wear clothes like everyone else… except I only have one set. I…

  • How I Make Purchasing Decisions

    How I Make Purchasing Decisions

    Despite being a pretty severe minimalist for a long time, I think I’m now known a lot for what I buy. I worry about this a little bit sometimes, because I don’t think being a great consumer is very meaningful. On the other hand, buying the right things is a good substitution for buying a…

  • How to Invest in Friendships

    How to Invest in Friendships

    In just about any way I can think of, I have an amazing life. But of all of the aspects of my life that bring me happiness, the most important one is the relationships I have with my friends and family. This is probably true for almost everyone, but it’s odd to me how most…

  • Your Annual Reminder to Move to Vegas

    Your Annual Reminder to Move to Vegas

    I used to say that Vegas was the best place in the US to live (with a few caveats), as long as you didn’t have to be here the whole year and could travel. And then 2020 came, I couldn’t travel, and I was stuck here for the entire year. To my surprise, I love…

  • Going Green for Fun and Profit

    Going Green for Fun and Profit

    When we moved from an apartment to a house recently, I saw it as an opportunity to explore energy efficiency. I knew that switching to more efficient alternatives usually doesn’t pay off for a period of time, so I figured we should start immediately and reap the benefits for as long as possible. I was…

  • Reflecting on Fifteen Years of Blogging (Plus a Survey)

    Reflecting on Fifteen Years of Blogging (Plus a Survey)

    I always mean to be clever and commemorate years of blogging on roughly the anniversary of me beginning blogging, but I never remember when it is, and then every year think, “Okay, Ill do it next year instead”. But fifteen years is a long time, so rather than wait a year I’ll just be a…

  • Why I Didn’t Buy a Tesla

    Why I Didn’t Buy a Tesla

    My Bentley was delivered back to me recently. It came in a tow truck and the trim was removed from the dash and piled up in the trunk along with half of the trim of some random Mercedes. Half of the windows were stuck down and the dashboard lights looked like a disco when I…

  • Ingenuity vs Money

    Ingenuity vs Money

    My very first “business” was buying and selling used Palm Pilots and Apple Newtons. I would negotiate back and forth over the smallest increments of money, both on the buying and selling side. When I first started, my inventory was one Apple Newton, so it was important that I get the best price possible. After…