While the cat’s away the banks will play…that’s how I feel right now. I’m having a great time in Europe getting ready to move to Asia but I keep getting notifications of stuff happening back home with my financial accounts. The latest thing was this gem below that my 5.05% CDs are being called. Oh…
Category: Money Management
Gold Collar Trade – How I Am Making Risk Free Money!
Back in April 2024 I wrote a post entitled, “The Gold Bugs, Like Cicadas, Are Out of Hibernation” and the tone of the article was skepticism of where the price of gold was going. In that post I wrote that I have some physical gold and I also own a few gold mining ETFs. I…
September Tax Free Cash: $767.42 & Fear
September and March are my favorite months because those are the months most of my municipal bonds pay me tax free interest. For the month of September, I racked in $623.84 in tax free income. I also have a leveraged municipal bond ETF that paid me $81.56 tax free interest and a non-leveraged one that…
Apple TV+ Streaming 30 Percent Inflation
As part of rationalizing all my streaming services, I canceled Apple TV+ a while back and seeing the announcement today that Apple is jacking up rates 30% from $9.99/month to $12.99/month I am glad I did. I actually canceled most of the streaming services but ironically, I ended up getting some of them back as…
Update On Municipal Bond Portfolio: $60K
Last year I had accumulated $30k in municipal bonds in my taxable brokerage account as part of my tax strategy to earn tax free income and I’m happy to report that now a little over a year later I have $60k in munis earning a blended return of 5 percent. This is the tax free…
Inflation At Costco
I went on a recent trip to Costco and was floored by the cost of stuff. I spent $215 on 13 items and these were normal every day items not electronics or jewelry. I had an inflation category on my old blog where I would periodically track the cost of a cart of groceries but…
Insurance Inflation Is Insane!
I got an email notice from my insurance company that they will now start charging a $5 fee for using credit card to pay my insurance premiums which I do because the whole thing is automated and I don’t want to write checks or pay bills online. They even charge $5 for using a debit…
Got My Severance Payment
I got my severance package payment today. It actually came a bit faster than I was expecting but I’m not going to complain. It came at the perfect time, I’m getting ready to head out for the summer on holiday. This reminds me that I may not be posting frequently given I will be visiting…
My Genius Tax Plan Has Snared Me
Do you remember the old Wild E Coyote vs Road Runner cartoons? The series of cartoons featured a coyote intent on capturing the road runner with endlessly elaborate traps, tricks and tactics and sadly, he was never successful, the road runner always got the best of the coyote. I feel like that coyote. A few…
Restaurant Inflation Insane
As a kid in middle school, I remember my dad taking me to a diner downtown before dropping me off at school. It was a diner where everyone seemed to know him. A breakfast plate of food that included eggs, bacon, and biscuits was $1.99. My dad would go there for breakfast often but the…