The Permanent Portfolio style lazy portfolios continue to do well. Listed below is a table of YTD results for 25 portfolios or funds that I am tracking. The contents of each portfolio are listed in an earlier post. The Paul Boyer Permanent Portfolio continues...

I just went through the most stressful and time consuming rental turnover I have had since I began renting out Rental #1 5 years ago. Rental markets as with real estate are very localized, but I figured I would share some observations from trying...

This is an ongoing monthly update on how our equity investments are performing. Please see this background on the investment tool I developed and how I am using it to track our performance against a benchmark to measure our progress or lack...

Groupon is offering a movie ticket ( up to $12 off) via Fandango for $4 . Limit 1 per person but each person in your party could buy the Groupon. Offer to purchase Groupon expires 8/30 and must redeem on Fandango by 2/28/2011. My wife and...

We closed last week on the refinancing of our primary mortgage . We ended up getting a 30yr fixed mortgage @ 4.375% for $256,000 through Everbank. We decided to maximize what we borrowed at this low rate and will use the additional ~$20k...

While in the middle of our refinance, I received a letter from Wells Fargo (who currently owns our primary mortgage) giving me an opportunity to refinance with them through a simplified process that would cost us nothing to reduce our interest...

I was surprised to learn that our house appraised for $18k higher than we purchased it for in Dec 2008 and our refinance lender will let us borrow an additional $20,000 over our current mortgage balance. I thought lending practices were getting...

I have seen lots of tips on when it makes sense to refinance your mortgage, but I disagree with some. Here is my rule of thumb on whether it makes sense to refinance - the key for me is an apples to apples comparison: 1) Establish the loan...

I have started posting our monthly cash flow analysis given how tight things are these days with our downshifting to a single income and starting a family. I believe we need to continue to pay closer attention to our cash flow while we get through...

I started watching rates closely in July when one of my co-workers started alerted me that he was refinancing. Our mortgage on our house ( House #4 in our net worth reports - our primary residence) was initiated when we bought the house in...