By Steve Dinnen Housing has gotten more expensive, by a lot. In just the past four years, calculations by Bankrate.com show that it takes 39.9% more money to afford a median priced home in Iowa. As of January, you’d need an annual salary of $65,314 to afford that home, compared to just $46,678 four years earlier. Bankrate pegged the median sale price of an Iowa home at $223,500. That’s relatively good news, since its review of all 50 states showed that an Iowa home is cheaper than nearly any other place in the nation. All neighboring states post higher sale prices than Iowa, and all require ..read more

Fashion designer Miller McCoy returns to Iowa this weekend. (Photo: themillermccoy.com) By Hailey Evans Los Angeles-based fashion designer Miller McCoy will return to Des Moines this weekend to participate in the 2024 Bubble Ball, the annual ChildServe fundraiser set for April 20 at the Iowa Events Center. The designer plans to show off a new garment (pictured) inspired by the 2001 movie “Spy Kids,” and he’s eager to support both his hometown and a charity that’s close to his heart. As a child, McCoy spent some time at Blank Children’s Hospital, in treatment for chronic pain. “I’ve been in th ..read more

Angkor Wat in Cambodia Writer: Lily Allen-Dueñas Have you ever read a book and wished you could travel to the setting? Better yet, how about traveling with the author as your guide?  This past February, dsm magazine teamed up with John Shors Travel to take a group of 15 people — mostly Iowans — through the pages of John Shors’ novel “Temple of a Thousand Faces” on a trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore with Shors himself as the guide. From the bustling markets of Bangkok to the awe-inspiring temples of Angkor Wat to the enchanting gardens in Singapore, the tour was meticulously curate ..read more

Bitcoin and other cybercurrencies are now available as exchange-traded funds. (Photo: Getty Images) By Steve Dinnen Cybercurrencies like Bitcoin got a huge boost in January when the Securities and Exchange Commission cleared it for trading as exchange-traded funds. Since then, billions of dollars have poured into this investment vehicle, growing ETF giants like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which has already amassed $27 billion. But is it a good idea? Are investors wise, or wary, to put dollars into cybercurrencies that have shown themselves to be massively volatile and even prone to fraud ..read more

By Steve Dinnen Despite their current financial challenges, a lot of millennials do have some financial lifelines. They’re called mom, dad, grandma and grandpa. Between now and 2044, the Silent Generation (born 1925-1945) and baby boomers (1946-1964) are expected to pass along significant wealth, a staggering $90 trillion, to their millennial offspring. This will make millennials (1981-1986) the richest generation in history, according to the periodic “The Wealth Report” from global property consultant Knight Frank. Ultimately, this shift in wealth is a result of inheritance from prior generat ..read more

(Getty Images) By Steve Dinnen Over the past couple of years, nearly everyone has felt the squeeze of inflation in one way or another. But millennials have felt a stronger squeeze than other generations, according to recent research. For starters, millennials, now in the their mid-20s to mid-40s, have felt the pinch of rising costs for child care. The Economic Policy Institute notes that Iowa parents annually spend an average of $10,378 on child care for each child. (In the 1960s, my stay-at-home mother paid exactly nothing). Many millennials are also still paying back college loans, a decade ..read more

Love blossomed like the white roses that adorned the altar during the wedding of Abbie Berryhill and Angelo Coniglio. They held their nuptials June 10 on the sprawling grounds of the Prelude in New Virginia. “Our favorite part of our wedding was the outdoor cigar bar and lawn games, and the Champagne tower. Our main focus was for everyone to have fun and to dance the night away,” Abbie said. “But if you ask our guests, I think they’d say the best part was our own written vows, because the whole crowd was in happy tears.” Photographer: 5 Point Visuals, Kyle Strarcevich To submit your wedding ph ..read more

Model Taylor Rogers is wearing an OAS La Place shirt ($120) and Shwood Eyewear Kinsrow sunglasses ($199), both from Fontenelle Supply Co., and signature Italian flannel wide-leg pants ($160) from Banana Republic. Special thanks to Ben Mars for the 1972 MGB roadster and Johnny Gomez for the location. Writer: Hailey Allen Photographer: Joelle Blanchard Special thanks to: Mayim Yael and Scott Obstarczyk Now that spring is here to melt your frigid heart, it’s time to bust out of hibernation and break a few rules. Hit the road. Set out on a rugged adventure. Get outta Dodge, already, and don’t look ..read more

By Steve Dinnen Are you a victim of recency bias? Or perhaps an instigator? You can be either or both. It happens to the best of us — in life, in sports, in school, in work and in the investing world. Recency bias is the tendency to overemphasize the importance of recent experiences or the latest information we possess when estimating future events. Recency bias often misleads us to believe that recent events can give us an indication of how the future will unfold. Here’s an example from Schwab: In 2021, real estate was one of the best performing sectors in the S&P 500 Index, d ..read more

By Steve Dinnen Now that interest rates have perked up, it might be time to reconsider the 60-40 split on stocks versus bonds. Bonds, you may recall, have hovered near zero for seemingly forever. That made it pretty tough to justify following the advice for prudent investors to allocate 60% of their money to equities and 40% to bonds. Sticking with bonds pretty much assigned you to a zero-sum game. But then interest rates rose, along with inflation. Today, AAA-rated corporate bonds are yielding as much as 4.95%. BBB ratings are 5.74%. Barron’s even floated the notion of getting into junk bon ..read more