One of the challenges of trying to teach and write about finance is figuring out the right balance between factual/rational information and psychological/irrational awareness. We can all “know” the right ten things to do with our money, or we can all learn five  correct financial math techniques as much as the next person – but [&hellip

Peace and Plenty – Finding Your Path to Financial Serenity by Sarah Ban Breathnach is the worst personal finance book I’ve ever read. I have written several personal-finance book reviews in the past year and have found quite a bit positive to say about most of the books, especially emphasizing their usefulness for a particular [&hellip

My father once said to me “One of the interesting things about getting older is realizing that the clichés, prejudices, and popular wisdoms that we rejected as young, educated, independent thinkers turn out, in the end, to be true.” I love this idea, in part, for its double-contrarianism. The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin [&hellip

When I was a ‘debt buyer,’ acquaintances would occasionally ask ‘Oh, could you buy my debt?’ (and I would think, “uh, that’s not how it works.”) That question told me two things: 1. Most people do not know that all banks and most investors are ‘debt buyers’ one way or another. 2. Most people don’t [&hellip

Why is money today more valuable than money in the future? In this lecture to students at Trinity University (in San Antonio, TX) I review four reasons why in any real-world scenarios I can think of, a reasonable person would give me less than $100 today in order to receive $100 from me one year [&hellip