RFG is the place to find practical, real world information on personal finance, real estate, investing, stock options and more.
How much does it cost to remodel a small kitchen? My ~150 sq. ft. kitchen cost around $20-$25k. A very small kitchen could be done for around $10k… and larger or fancier kitchens can cost $100k+.
HELOCs and refinancing aren't the only options for accessing the equity in a home. This week, I take a close look at a third option.
Just this week, Dropbox joined the relatively short list of billion dollar "unicorn" startups that are going public. Only 26 venture backed companies of any size went public last year, and there are more than 100 US companies valued at $1b or more still sitting on the sidelines waiting to IPO. The ultimate question for the people who work at those companies is: should I exercise my stock options, and if so, when?
Private mortgage insurance (PMI) is one of the biggest ripoffs in real estate. Many people that have it don’t need it, and could remove it. Use this calculator to see if you qualify.
We may not know when the next recession will come, but one thing's for certain: it's easier to plan for it BEFORE it begins, when times are still good. Here's my plan.
Congrats! You are entering the insane world of being a landlord. The only rub? How much to charge. It's a very important question, and one that is a little more complicated to answer than it may seem at first.
A couple weeks ago I told the story of my own stock option sale, and the lessons I learned from it. This week I wanted to dive into the plan I laid out at the very end of the post, the "25%" plan, and go into some more detail.
I've been learning a lot about my own financial "standpoint" as I've been writing over the past couple months, and it's been an interesting process. One of the things that I have been thinking about over and over is the amount of money that I'm saving in comparison to my total earnings. How much is enough for me to retire in my early 50's?
The best part about personal financial is that everyone has a personal take on it. As I've been writing over the past three months, I've also been reading a considerable amount of material from other personal finance blogs. One of the things that's interested me the most is the #FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement. Since this is my personal, personal finance blog, I'll come right out and say that I'm not #FIRE-ing. Here's why:
A couple years ago I developed my own investment guidelines and principles with the eventual goal of building my own portfolio.
The hardest part about being an owner in anything is knowing when -or if- you don't want to be an owner anymore. For anyone who has ISO or RSU stock options, you know what I'm talking about. If you sell your stock and it skyrockets afterwards, you locked in a lower price (and massive FOMO). If you DON'T sell, and it tanks afterwards, you are stuck with a bunch of nearly worthless stock.
How much do I need to retire? I made this easy calculator to find out.
Portfolio Visualizer is a comprehensive suite of investment analysis tools that you used to have to pay thousands of dollars for, but thanks to the interwebs, is now free. Here’s what you can do with it.
I've had a couple of questions swirling around my mind recently, and for whatever reason they all had to do Unicorns (startups value at $1b or more).
As I've been writing about buying and remodeling condos, I think it's about time that I go over how much it costs to do condo renovations on a budget. It'll be pretty much impossible to know whether you can turn a profit on a condo remodel if you can't ballpark how it costs to remodel your condo.
Go work for a startup! If you work in technology, chances are you've heard this advice, or you've thought about it on your own, or you're already working for a startup. In any case, I've noticed that there are tons of questions on Quora and Reddit and various other sites with people wondering how to find the "right" startup to join, which usually seems to actually mean "how do I choose a company that's going to make me rich." That's a little narrow-minded maybe, but it's reasonable to wonder how to find a company worth joining.
It's much cheaper (and easier) to buy and fix up a $300k condo than a $600k house. Having just purchased a condo and renovated it, I can confirm that the numbers pan out, but it's easy to pick the wrong plac and end up losing money. No one wants to buy a $300k condo, put $50k into it and end up with a condo worth $325k. Luckily, the right place can be fairly easy to find if you follow these guidelines.
One of the biggest challenges people face when evaluating job offers that include Incentive Stock Options is understanding how to value their ISO grant. In order to do that, you have to know how many shares you have, how many shares there are total, and a rough estimate for how much the shares are worth now. Let’s take a look at why, before we delve into how to find those numbers.
ISOs (incentive stock options) vest over time, giving you the ability to purchase shares at a discounted rate and participate in the (potential) rise of your employers stock. If used properly, they are also tax advantaged.
