There are benefits to having a hobby in personal finance. In a world where money moves products and services, understanding how it works is a powerful thing. When you enjoy learning about it, that makes things even easier. From complex tax law to convoluted retirement accounts, it is worth spending some time figuring all this stuff out. But there are also some basic things we should keep an eye on. One of the metrics that...
In my experience, a decent number of health insurance plans carve out an “individual” deductible separate from the “family” deductible. This is sometimes referred to as an embedded deductible system. Since I prefer simple terms, I normally call it a “per-person” deductible. I like this model. If you are lucky enough to have it, it can help mitigate the financial risk of individual family members. Unfortunately, the concept often goes misunderstood by patients and their...
I think it’s pretty well known around here that Mrs. Max OOP is originally from Canada. She grew up in Southern Ontario and moved to the United States for college. Canadians call it “university”. Although all of her siblings live in the United States, she has hinted over the years that she would like to move back to Canada someday. But between my career in healthcare and a few other ambitions, the closest we have...
For the first time since launching this little project, I took a few weeks off from writing. It wasn’t planned, but it was a nice break. I even took back-to-back Fridays off work. Experimenting with a 32-hour workweek? Maybe. We have been busy hiking, swimming, exercising, and yes, even golfing. We also squeezed in a little trip to Cape Cod. But it’s time to get back to work here at Max Out of Pocket. I...
The next time you are slogging through months of 60-hour workweeks wondering where large sections of your life went while at the same time periodically snapping at your friends and family for absolutely no reason, think back to this post and try to explore your options. Life is too short. But I get it. I’m not going to sell any books hyping a 32-hour workweek. It’s just not as sexy as the four-hour workweek. But...