For years, virtual mailboxes were designed for expats who needed a U.S. based address to make their lives easier. With the rise of digital nomads, people who can work anywhere and choose to live outside of the U.S., virtual mailboxes have become the perfect tool to help them get domestic mail. ipostal1 is a digital mailbox service that caters to individuals and businesses. They provide a physical street address, which is more flexible than a P.O. Box, while protecting your privacy. ipostal1 has over 3,000 U.S. and international locations for mail forwarding, acquiring a virtual business addres ..read more

With interest rates at the highest they’ve been in over twenty years, we’re now seeing a lot of fintech companies offering banking services that look to increase yield by investing in Treasury bills. Evergreen Money is the latest company to do this. They’re offering a high-yield checking account that puts your money into U.S. Treasury bills and then pulls them out when you access your money, such as when you swipe your debit card. The yield is currently 5.35% APY but subject to change since they are being swept into T-bills. ? Tip of the hat to Jonathan at My Money Blog for being the first (I ..read more

Knowing how to organize your bill payments ensures that your money goes where it needs to go and at the right time. In fact, having a bill payment process in place is an important part of budgeting. But setting up the right bill payment system is easier said than done. To help, we’ve compiled a list of bill payment tips and some apps that can make the process easier. Table of Contents 1. Use the Right Budget for You 2. Create a Master List of Your Bills 3. Use a Bill Organizing Station 4. Use Autopay When It’s Right For You 5. Schedule Recurring Bills Wisely 6. Use the Cash Envelope System 7 ..read more

When I was thirty, before we had kids, we adopted an 8 or 9 year old beagle named Tobey. There was a local shelter hosting an event outside of a Petco and we wanted to rescue a dog, so we went. Tobey was a stinky old beagle who immediately leaned up against my shins and we were hooked. He'd join our family about a month later. This photo was when we adopted him in 2009 As an older but not yet elderly dog, Tobey was a great companion with enough energy to be fun but not so much to be overwhelming for a first-time dog owner. My wife grew up with terriers but I never had a pet, so caring for one ..read more

For decades, if you wanted to get a good credit score, you had to demonstrate your ability to use credit. To do that, you had to borrow money. Borrow money, pay it off regularly, and wait. But while frequently using revolving credit products can help you build credit, you also risk overspending and being unable to pay off your monthly balance in full. Thankfully, several apps are challenging the traditional credit-building process. It's now possible to build credit by paying bills that don’t report directly to the major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) by using some of these ..read more

Reader Mike sent me an intriguing certificate of deposit offer from Navy Federal Credit Union – their Limited-Time Offer: 18-Month EasyStart Share Certificate. It's a no-penalty add-on CD with an 18-month term, coupling two features I've never seen together (yet). I have no relationship with Navy Federal Credit Union, so I can't speak to the experience of using their CDs, but Mike did and said that he previously had an add-on CD that worked well: But, I have one from a similar offer they made last year.  It was a 15-month add-on CD (not a no penalty CD), APY was 5.0% and I have made a sm ..read more

Employee stock purchase plans, or ESPPs, are an employee benefit some employers offer. Though not as popular as health insurance and 401(k) plans, they can be a valuable source of additional income to supplement your regular earnings. Here are eight things to know about your ESPP if your employer offers one. Table of Contents 1. What Is an ESPP? 2. How Does an ESPP Work? 3. Discounts and Lookback Periods Important Tax Implications on ESPP Contributions 4. What Is the ESPP Maximum Contribution? 5. ESPPs Come in Qualified and Non-Qualified Plans Short-term vs. Long-term Capital Gain 6. Ho ..read more

Before we had kids, we would travel internationally a lot. Twenty years ago, online banks were just starting to become mainstream so most of our options were brick and mortar banks. I took some local currency with us but I also relied on the partnership between Bank of America (my bank) and Barclays. You could go to a Barclays ATM and withdraw cash without paying a huge fee – a nice little perk and there was even a Barclays ATM down the street from our friends' flat in Chiswick, London. If you've ever traveled internationally, you know that you really try to rely on credit cards as your first ..read more

We have two HVAC systems in our home that are likely within the last few years of their working lives. They’re both A/C only using coolant that’s been “outlawed” (R-22) and were installed in the 1980s. They work fine, with the occasional replacement of their coke can sized capacitors, but we’re getting close to needing to replace them. I know that there are some high efficiency units available today and spending the $15,000-$20,000 to replace each unit will pay off in efficiency gains over the next twenty years. I was excited to hear about the Inflation Reduction Act and the various tax credit ..read more

I have a Solo 401(k) at Vanguard for many years and it has served me well. The small business portal, when you manage the account from the employer side, looks a bit dated but functions just fine. I’m able to quickly make contributions once a month (I’d have loved a way to automate it but alas that was not to be) and it recorded each transaction so I could just “repeat” them. It turns out that Vanguard has sold the Individual 401(k), Multiple Participant SEP (Multi-SEP), and SIMPLE IRA Plans business to Ascensus, per their press release. On Monday, I received a letter notifying me of the chang ..read more