When you think of your most valuable assets, how much thought goes into your time? For many of us – myself included – there is an automatic quality to time, an assumption that the rhythms of our life will, going forward, look and feel much the way they have. September contributes to this. We live close to a college campus, and while …
New Words for Familiar Feelings: Definitions for Life, Work & Money
We’ve been sending you our new Life with Money column for several weeks now. Although I (Nick) have written a few of the market updates, this is my first time contributing a more personal essay. Some of what we’ve written has touched on religious and spiritual traditions and their approach to money. While I don’t have any organized religious practice, a …
What a Difference a Day Makes! (Or Does It?)
We were planning to write this commentary on Monday, September 12th. If we had, the story might have mentioned the past four days of positive results for the markets, with the S&P 500 index rising more than 5%. This “mini-recovery” came right after a significant decline that interrupted an earlier potential recovery from late June through mid-August. But we didn’t …
Mozzarella … with a Pinch of Inflation: Gender Roles & Inflation Expectations
“Fewer fruits and vegetables, more carbs and cheese.” That was the recommendation our pediatrician gave us a few weeks ago for our one-year-old daughter. It was enviable. Sign me up for that diet. The next day I dutifully added “block of fresh mozzarella” to our grocery list. When my husband returned from the grocery store, he dropped the heavy cheese …
Stress and Investing Amid Volatility
Buried near the end of the August 29 Bloomberg Businessweek story, “Hope You Enjoyed the Summer Rally,” was a remarkable piece of data. “The American Association of Individual Investors’ latest survey showed that bears [PPA note: those pessimistic about market prospects] went from outnumbering bulls [those optimistic about market prospects] by 41 percentage points in June to less than 4 percentage …
Financial Advice from the Buddha
Twenty-five hundred years ago, a middle-aged man – a husband and father – walks miles across the Indian countryside to pay a visit to a teacher with an extraordinary reputation for insight. Then as now, the Indian landscape was dotted with gurus and spiritual teachers. But there’s something special about this teacher – his humility, his wisdom – that makes …
Inventing the Kwan: The Search for Meaning in the World of Money
Word association: When I say, “Rod Tidwell,” you say… Game show host? Nope. Congressman somewhere? Incorrect. Cuba Gooding Jr.’s breakout role in “Jerry Maguire”? Bingo. Well done. Now, knowing what you do, when I say Rod Tidwell, you probably say… SHOW ME THE MONEY! There in his modest kitchen, dancing, jacking his body, holding that now-antique cordless phone, giving his agent …
Real Estate as Part of Your Portfolio
We’ve written extensively over the last few months about inflation, interest rates, and how recent changes have impacted the stock and bond markets. This month we take up the effects of inflation and interest rate increases on real estate, which, along with an investment portfolio, is one of the largest assets many of us own. First, a little background: We …
On the Trip of a Lifetime, How to Budget and How to Splurge
Working remotely the past several years, our Park Piedmont team has stayed close in a number of ways – chief among them, team huddles over Zoom. The huddles are our virtual water cooler: a space to convene, connect, and catch up. As you’d expect, when any of us has a big plan on the horizon – say, a family move or …
The Unwritten Rules of Money
Not long ago, on our neighborhood’s email list serve, a family having their kitchen gutted and remodeled posed a question. “Is it appropriate (expected/customary),” they asked, “to give the workers, not the contractor, a cash gratuity?” Around the same time, a friend was recounting a recent family road trip in Montana. The parents and their high school age kids had …