The Astute Angle
A fresh and simplified perspective on personal finance topics
Three Myths of Bonds
The two most important reasons to own high quality bonds in a portfolio are to provide diversification and to provide capital preservation. A catchy opening line, if there ever was one. Several big finance words [...]
Make Informed Vehicle Purchase Decisions
In 1996, Thomas Stanley and William Danko co-wrote The Millionaire Next Door – an examination of millionaires in America and the common qualities that continuously appear among this demographic. They spent nearly 20 years interviewing [...]
3 Suggestions for Purchasing 2019 Private Health Insurance
An estimated 20 million Americans do not have access to Medicare, Medicaid, or employer provided insurance and will be left to purchase their own health insurance in 2019. If you’re among that 20 million, the [...]
Control the Controllables
Paul Azinger is described by many as the best Ryder Cup captain ever. In 2008, he led what was arguably the least accomplished, least experienced, and least talented team of American golfers in the history [...]
The Perils of Using a Tax Deferred IRA or 401k Account for Real Estate Investing
The financial services industry has invented and promoted many ways to rip off people. Fake bank accounts, excessive and unauthorized account churning, non-traded REITs, cross-selling high fee products, pump and dump stock schemes, egregious variable [...]
What working parents can learn from the backpacking community
It is a late-April morning and you are standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, ready to hike down to the Inner Canyon. The temperature is a few degrees below freezing and an uncomfortably [...]
Outcomes and Probabilities
German, Brazilian, English, Argentine, and Spanish football fans, take heart. Football (or in American vernacular - soccer) is quantifiably the least predictable major sport. In no other sport is luck such a critical determinant of [...]
The Astute Angle Turns 100
On October 1, 2013, the United States government officially ran out of money and was forced to shutdown all non-essential operations as the result of a budget impasse. For the next 16 days, national parks [...]