I love everything about banks but I realize I might hold a minority view on that one. Maybe you don’t like banks as much as I do. If so, this one’s for you. Today is about seller-financing, which is a way to cut out banks from a traditional bank function. Seller-financing happens when: Traditional banks […]

I started thinking about the War on Cash recently over a giant plate full of butter, syrup, and pancakes. You see, I spent part of my summer vacation in Gatlinburg, TN, which some think of as the jumping-off point to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but I prefer to think of as the Pancake House […]

Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on the website Make Change as an advice column “It’s Complicated,” which is in the spirit of my occasional “Ask an Ex-Banker” posts. If you have personal finance questions for “It’s Complicated” or “Ask an Ex-Banker,” send me a note!    Dear Its Complicated: I’m a single fulltime freelancer […]

Let’s say you read my earlier post on angel investing and decided – despite my helpful warnings – that you would still like to pursue angel investing in your area. You don’t listen, do you? Well anyway, your next step as a smart money person would involve collecting data about angel investing to, you know, educate yourself […]

I always enjoy a good debate like “Is X worth it, financially?” When X = College the debate seems particularly fraught. A friend sent me a link to a blogger Erik Rood who makes a nice case for why investing in college does not pay as well as we might think, compared to competing financial […]