Get Rich Slowly

In the past, I've shared the story of the worst job I ever had. In a lot of ways, it felt like I was part of a pyramid scheme or multi-level marketing operation. I've been approached to participate in similar operations since then: once by my veterinarian (?!?) and once by a stranger in a book store. Sometimes you cannot tell a scam is a scam until you see it up close, and then the...

H.B. sent me a note this afternoon to tell me that Get Rich Slowly seems to be broken: I know you wrote a couple of days ago that there were some issues with the program you used to run the site and I just wanted to alert you to what I've been experiencing the past two days. Each time I go to getrichslowly.org/blog, the only thing that shows is the most recent entry you've posted, instead of the...

When our friends Mike and Rhonda moved into their new house a couple years ago, their yard was just like every other in the neighborhood: green grass. Chances are, that's what the yards are like in your neighborhood, too. But over the past two years, Mike and Rhonda have transformed their lot into something different. They've created what might be described as a suburban farm. Mike ripped out all...

As I continue to achieve my short-term goals, my attention is turning increasingly to long-range plans. What is it I want to do with my life? I've always toyed with the idea of early retirement, and lately I've been reading more about the subject. Three books that have helped me so far are: Timothy Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek, which explores the notion of "mini-retirements". (I recently...

Personal finance is filled with tough decisions. Prepay the mortgage or invest the money? Pay down high interest debt first or use a debt snowball to tackle the small balances? Roth IRA or traditional IRA? Sara wrote recently with another dilemma I think many of us have faced: is it better to pay down debt or to begin investing for the future? I'm 28. I work at a job with no...

On Saturday, The New York Times published a brilliant chart illustrating the spending of the average American: "Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories," the paper writes, "like gasoline, bananas, dresses and garbage collection." These numbers form the Consumer Price Index, one common measure of inflation. And this graphic makes that information...

Some of you will wake tomorrow to find the same post at GRS you saw briefly on Tuesday morning (the bike metaphor). You'll be confused. "Is this a re-run?" you'll wonder. It's not. It's a technical glitch, for which I apologize. This site runs on WordPress, a popular blogging platform. There are many good things about WordPress, but the software was recently upgraded, and frankly WordPress 2.5...