GeekMBA360

When I graduated from college fifteen years ago, the advice I received was that I should save three months of living expenses as my emergency funds. At that time, I was single with a good salary. The economy was at the height of the dotcom bubble. In the Silicon Valley it seemed that there was [...]

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Every Christmas we travel from Seattle to San Francisco Bay Area to visit my folks. On average I spent over $1,500 for four round-trip tickets. This year I’m only paying $100 plus tax for four tickets because I signed up for Chase Southwest Airline Rapid Reward credit card. The only requirements for getting the 50,000 [...]

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New York University economist Nouriel Roubini recently predicted 2013 Perfect Storm May Surpass 2008 Crisis. Many people have been intrigued by the idea of buying gold as part of their investment portfolio. However, not many people know how to buy gold. Today I have a guest post on how to buy gold from an online [...]

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A few weeks ago I was in middle of a real estate transaction. I received an offer from a very excited buyer. Things went downhill after both sides signed the sales agreements. The buyer’s behaviors suddenly became extremely unstable, inconsistent, and demanding. (I will write a separate post on what I learned from dealing with [...]

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I have heard from countless people that their dream is to retire early. Unfortunately I know very few people who are able to retire early and young. I think one problem is that most people never set specific income goal for retiring early. When I ask them how much money they will need to retire, [...]

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The convention wisdom is that Amazon.com offer the cheapest cell phone deals if you purchase a two-year plan with your phone purchase. I beg to differ. My family cell phone recently expired. I was shopping around. I need to four lines in total, plus two data lines. Here is what I found: Most online mobile [...]

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It’s pathetic. One friend hasn’t gotten any pay raise for three years. He works for a Fortune 500 company and he had no performance issues. Most people I knew got 2-5%  annual pay increase in the past couple of years. Even if you switch jobs, the pay raise is no longer the 10-25% you can [...]

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I recently bought a new car. I had to admit that I hate to deal with car salesmen. It was one of my least favorite activities. Unfortunately, I needed a car. And I didn’t want to get ripped off. So, I was determined to get a good deal while minimizing my pain. Here are 11 [...]

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I’ve been a loyal customer and a fan of Toyota for a long time. I’m not a car enthusiast. When I buy a car, all I need is a safe and reliable vehicle that can move me from point A to point B. I’m not the most mechanical inclined person. I don’t like to do [...]

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Yesterday I wrote about the pressure of living in the bay area due to high cost of living. Today, I’m going to write about a fascinating story of how one family made it all worked out although their household income was less than $70K. Uncle John is a long-time family friend. On New Year eve, [...]

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