TessMore Finance Blog

I am 53 years old. Never in my life have I allowed myself to buy a car I truly love…until now. This is the story of how I allowed myself to make a huge purchase just for the joy of it. And it wasn't even a purchase I'd intended to make. Let me explain. During the peak of the pandemic (early July 2020), I paid $35,990 for a used 2019 Mini Countryman SE All4. The Countryman — which I call a “Maxi Cooper” — isn't a bad car, but I regretted buying it almost immediately. I'd intended to replace my 2004 Mini Cooper with a newer version of the same model, but allowed myself to be talked into a compact SUV. For two years, I drove the Maxi Cooper and tolerated it. It wasn't a bad car by any means, but it was a bad car for me . I'm not an SUV guy. I'm a small-car guy. Last month, I took the Maxi Cooper for an oil change. While I was waiting, the dealer offered to buy it back from me. I wasn't expecting that. As you probably know, the used-car market in the U.

There are two traditional ways to build credit. You can open a credit card and pay your balance in full each month. A second option is to get a loan for a significant purchase and make the minimum monthly payment until you pay it off. However, neither of these options build credit without debt . So if you don’t feel like buying something you don’t need right now, a credit builder loan lets you receive your loan proceeds back at the end of the repayment term. The best credit builder loans are similar to a traditional bank loan with a fixed monthly payment and term length. Each payment reports to the major credit bureaus to potentially increase your credit score. Here is a closer look at how credit builder loans work and if they can help improve your credit history. Table of Contents What Are Credit Builder Loans? Who Should Use Credit Builder Loans? Best Credit Builder Loans Cleo Self Kikoff CreditStrong Digital Federal Credit Union MoneyLion Fig Loans Metro Credit

I've changed the way I shop over the past few years. And although the shift has been subtle, I've found that I'm much happier with the things I buy. In the past, my approach to shopping was simple. If I wanted a new thneed , I would go to a store (or, with the advent of the internet, a website) and choose from the available thneeds. I'd look at the store's selection (or the website's selection) and pick the one best suited for me. If the thneed I wanted was particularly expensive or important, I might expand my search to multiple stores or multiple websites. But usually, I stuck with the first store I visited. The key point here is that I allowed the places I shopped to impose limits on the thneeds available to me. I think of this approach as “store-centered shopping”. Whatever the store has in stock defines my universe of options. Now that I'm older, I've flipped the script. Instead of allowing the marketplace to define which thneeds are available

I recently attended a local estate planning seminar geared for and marketed to older adults. I decided to go “undercover” to see if there was any evidence of manipulative sales practices masquerading as “financial education.” Sadly, I found some. Specifically, a presenter who was not an attorney and had no recognized financial planning designations whatsoever pitching the legal services of a colleague who was not in attendance. The original program publicity contained neither the name of the sponsoring company nor the presenter’s name or credentials. Barbservations I counted at least 50 times the presenter used the phrase “I’m not an attorney but…” and at least 30 pitches for revocable living trusts as suitable for everyone without considering the specifics of their financial situation. The presenter also threw out many legal terms (e.g., A/B trust) without explaining them, disparaged the probate process repeatedly, and occasionally presented dated information (e.g., incorrect gif

A few years ago, I was walking through a soccer field behind our local library when I saw a glint in the grass. 2017 Quarter (left) vs. 1957 Quarter (right) I walked over and was surprised to see a quarter sitting there. Score! But wait, there’s more – the quarter looked “off.” It looked a little grayer and duller than a regular quarter. It turns out that I’d found a 1957 silver quarter. Quarters minted between 1932 and 1964 are 90% silver. They’re worth more than a typical quarter because of all that precious metal . Even scuffed up with no unique characteristics, it’s worth more than five bucks (it varies based on the price of silver). A fun little find! It’s not uncommon to find silver quarters since the US Mint produced them for over thirty years – but some other coins are floating out there that are worth even more. Table of Contents The Morgan Silver Dollar 1955 Doubled Die Penny 1982 No Mint Mark Roosevelt Dime 1997 Double-Ear Lincoln Penny 2008-W Silver Eagl

It's always fun to unearth some esoteric piece of personal-finance history. I know there are only a few nerds out there who care (hello, Grant Sabatier !), but those of us who care really care. Two years ago, I published an article exploring the history of financial independence in which I noted that the earliest reference I can find to the notion of financial independence comes from an 1872 book called Money and How to Make It by H. L. Reade. And it wasn't until the 1950s that the concept of early retirement (at least in the sense we mean it today) gained traction. But despite my research, I still have questions, such as: What's the source of the modern FIRE movement? Who Coined the Term FIRE? Recently at The Retire Early Home Page — a site so old that it existed (and still exists) at the dawn of the web — John P. Greaney answered the question: Who coined the term FIRE? If you've never visited The Retire Early Home Page , you should. I'm certain that it&

If you’re like me, you have a lot of competing priorities for your time. There’s only so much time in the day and if you aren’t careful, it’s easy to spend too much time on things that seem urgent and important but are neither. This is especially problematic when it comes to your money because there are a lot of things that demand your attention, and often your guilt, but they usually don’t move the needle. Today, I’m going to share a framework for thinking about the tasks you have and how you should be prioritizing and handle them. Table of Contents Urgent and Important Matrix 1. Not Important, Not Urgent Tasks “Fixing” Your Morning Coffee / Avocado Toast Checking Your Stock Portfolio 2. Not Important, Urgent Tasks Updating Your Monthly Net Worth Paying Credit Card Bills 3. Important, Not Urgent Tasks Rebalancing Your Asset Allocation Improving Yourself 4. Important, Urgent Tasks Dealing with a financial emergency Saving for retirement Urgent and Impo