Plain-language writing on the foundations of personal finance: budgeting, credit, debt, emergency funds, and the everyday math of running a household.
The rule was a useful first draft when Elizabeth Warren wrote it down in 2005. Two recessions, one pandemic, and a 41% rent increase later, the percentages quietly stopped working. Here is what I keep on a sticky note above my desk instead.
I have looked at my own credit report at least twenty times. I have looked at other people's, with permission, about as many. Here is the small list of things actually worth fixing, and the longer list of things people waste a Saturday worrying about.
The classic advice — keep three to six months of expenses in cash — was written for a labor market that no longer exists. I ran the actual numbers on how long it takes to find a new job in my industry. The answer surprised me.
The textbook answer is to compare interest rates. The textbook answer is also incomplete. Here is the seven-column spreadsheet I ran for my own student loans, and what it told me to do.
Car insurance is not a surprise. Christmas is not a surprise. The annual Amazon Prime charge is, somehow, always a surprise. Sinking funds are the small trick that solves this entire category of problem.
A 4% APY sounds like meaningful money. After inflation, federal tax, and the small print most marketing pages skip, it is also exactly that — but smaller than you think. Here is the math on a $20,000 balance over a year.
Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm. They look free. The good ones, sometimes, technically are. The reason I do not use any of them is more boring than the standard 'they trap you in debt' argument — and harder to argue against.
I do not write much about my own financial mistakes, but this one I have come back to often enough that the rebuild is more useful to share than the original failure. The short version: it is mostly time, mostly utilization, and almost never the things people focus on.
For eight months I paid $98 a year for a budgeting app with a great interface and a clever onboarding. Then I went back to a Google Sheet I built in an afternoon. The reasons are smaller than 'it saved me money' — but also weirder.