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I am not from Chicago I was just was wondering is Evanston a good area? How does it compare to Park Ridge? Evanston is okay for now. Its is a mixed bag since Chicago trucked alot of its section 8's over to the southern parts of Evanston. Shootings, gang bangers and more. I'd buy close to Northweste...

Financially I'd say Dr. Bernstein's books have had the greatest impact - The Investor's Manifesto epescially.

Healthwise it would have to be "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes and "The Primal Solution" by Mark Sisson that have helped me on my physical transformation.

A salad bowl

This book might be of interest: http://www.amazon.com/An-Economist-Gets-Lunch-Everyday/dp/0525952667 Great food doesn't necessarily need to be $100. Of course the ambiance is lacking in a hole in the wall shop in the middle of the poor section of town but its where some of the best ethnic food can b...

There was some talk about having a second meeting but not many folks responded to the poll on the best date and time. April 19th at 6PM was a day that seemed to work for those who responded. My company has offered to host the group but our space may be limited (our spare cubes have been converted in...

My pull up bar cost me $20 off of amazon, that's about all the workout equipment I need for the winter

I follow the paleo diet as well, over 40 lbs lost. I did the bodyweight exercise routine from marksdailyapple.com I enjoy http://robbwolf.com/ for the blog and podcast. However the forums are much less populated than the one on marksdailyapple.com which gets a thumbs up from me too. reddit.com has s...

If anyone is looking for a low cost solution for basic computing or a media PC, check out Rasberry Pi. I learned about this neat little piece of tech recently and am planning on building a HTPC to replace my Roku (lack of youtube really killed it for me): http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://en.w...

Jay69 wrote:Are you going to try a network tuner for OTA?

I don't live in an area where I can get very good over the air signal without installing a good size antenna in the attic. One of my co-workers did just that and loves it but I just catch shows on the internet and don't see the need for it.

I've got mine up and running now. Paid $~42 for it shipped. Picked up a wifi adapter for around $6 (generic off E-bay with Ralink RT5730 chipset) and a $10 wireless keyboard. Used a power cord from my new cellphone. Both ran fine without and fiddling with drivers. I am using RasBMC for the OS. It is...

http://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/

There's also subreddits on investing, frugality and financial independence. The level of expertise is nowhere near bogleheads though.

William Bernstein's "The Investor's Manifesto" gives some great advice: Hope for a decades long bear market so you can buy stocks cheap

What kind of specialty are you pursing and what is the local market for that specialty? Realize the more specialized you are the harder it is to transition a job locally. My uncle is a radiologist and has had to move once or twice to a different state per decade (he is a radiologist). Hospital group...

Having worked in the restaurant industry at my parent's and other relative's restaurants since I was 8 I would not recommend it to someone that is looking to escape a 12 hour workday. You are only signing yourself up for more 12+ hour workdays getting into the restaurant business. Its a closely held...

Seller can choose their own title insurance company. Did a short sale and got hit with a big increase due to seller (bank) choosing a very expensive company. They probably get a kick-back.

Are we going to confirm a date? Seems like the former ING space will work. Next week works; I think the key is to get the ball rolling with the first one and go from there. Earlier people were kicking around Friday as the preferred day of the week. Does the 15th work for those that can make ING Caf...

Ok so here is what I am thinking -$1000 cash in a savings account -$5500 in a roth -$8500 in a short or mid term bond fund (suggestions?) (or should I actually buy individual bonds?) -$5000 mango account (is this legit?? sounds too good to be true) then i will slowly transfer everything to the roth...

So what should I do with the money that I don't invest? Can I put it in a short term bond fund or something? I don't want it to just sit there in a bank account. That is way too tempting to spend! I'd stick $5K in a Mango money account to get 6% interest: https://www.mangomoney.com/ That is $300/ye...

I am not a big fan of Upromise. Other websites give you a percentage based rebate off of online spending as well without the restriction that the funds be only used for education spending: fatwallet.com, ebates.com, mrrebates.com couponcactus.com are some I have used. Many credit cards also have pro...

Excellent post, especially the latte factor. It amazes me how some people get so silly with little food costs. I was talking to one of my fellow grad students the other day and he mentioned that it was such a great deal to buy a Domino's pizza for $5 because he'd get two meals out of it-$2.50 a mea...

Her current path is the result of a lifetime of others bailing out her boat for her. If you continue to do so, do not expect her course of action to change. Her own son seems to recognize this. She will have the money in the house to access after selling it. After she blows through all of that money...

$80K in equity on my house, no other debt. $74K in investments (taxable and tax advantaged) Saving aggressively, more than 50% of my income - mostly because I am not a spender. Also aggressively building my "human capital" but haven't committed to going back to school yet but am active in ...

Still planning on going ahead with this but been quite busy! Looking to schedule this for March 15th - how does this work for everyone's schedule?

My outlook is extremely positive. I am actually incredibly grateful to be part of this "great recession". I graduated and started investing in 2008 - just in time for the big market crash! My lesson in ignoring Mad Kramer was quite cheap. At that time I did some research and was lucky enou...

Our Costco sells gift cards for local restaurants; the deal is typically 2 $50 gift cards for $80. So after tax it comes out to around 12% off. They have similar deals for movie tickets, gyms, amusement parks etc. Are you sure you are paying sales tax on the gift card, or just the other non-food an...

For a non-toxic route you can try diatomaceous earth (note I've never tried it myself, no pest issues to date): http://www.ehow.com/how_5386904_rid-sil ... cides.html

You can get a 10 lb bag from Amazon for around $25 shipped.

With the energy consumption you might end up losing when money on it when compared to a raspberry pi or andoid on a stick. I'd donate it. Sometimes Staples offers a $100 credit towards the purchase of a laptop/desktop if you give them your old PC/laptop. I'd be interested in any experiences with ra...

With the energy consumption you might end up losing when money on it when compared to a raspberry pi or andoid on a stick. I'd donate it. Sometimes Staples offers a $100 credit towards the purchase of a laptop/desktop if you give them your old PC/laptop.

I am definitely interested in a meeting. We could meet at the Wit hotels restaurant - "State and Lake" - its not loud (I think) but might be a little expensive. I can also book the event room in my apartment building for free [could find out more if people are interested]. Whats the addre...

I'd be up for a meeting as well, although I'm not back in the country until the end of Feb/early Mar. I think venue will depend on where people are coming from and going to. If there are a lot of Metra folks, we can pick something that way. If most are heading north on 90/94 and LSD, something on O...

I am looking to re-start the Chicago chapter. Please post if you are interested. I am looking to set up a meeting in the next month or so. First meeting will be informal, we will introduce ourselves to each other, describe investment goals, methods, etc. Weekday evenings work for me since I do not l...

If anyone is looking for a low cost solution for basic computing or a media PC, check out Rasberry Pi. I learned about this neat little piece of tech recently and am planning on building a HTPC to replace my Roku (lack of youtube really killed it for me): http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://en.wi...

It's going to be hard to resist getting into Linux when I can build my next computer (a media PC) for around $100 System on a chip will run around $60 for shipping plus an enclosure: http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs After accounting for the other supplies (SD Card, wifi adapter, blue tooth adapter fo...

I am in the process of refinancing my residence - a duplex where I reside in one side and rent the other. I would drop from a 4.375% rate down to 3.625%. However the appraisal came back 20% less than my original purchase price from a year and a half ago due to the difficulty in finding comps for the...

The generic versions such as wal-zyr from walgreens can be a cheaper option.

I eliminated most of my low grade allergies by a paleo diet (I recommend the auto-immune diet on Robb Wolf's website) but still have reaction to cats and dogs if exposed over an extended period.

Have you tried pulling the laptop battery out (usually just have to pull back on a latch at the bottom of the laptop) and then popping it back in? I just fixed my aunt's laptop yesterday doing this. She said it would no longer start and was going to throw it away

I purchased a duplex rental property last year. Am doing okay. First time landlord and having to deal with the existing tenants who weren't very prompt in paying. One of them stuck me with 4 months back rent (unfortunate, job lost and husband abused her so I let her stay till she could get on her fe...

Only a cool million but here's a thread on that very topic: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1203806/

Reddit.com is the 125th most visited site in the world and 58th most visited site in the USA. I post regularly on the personal finance and investing sections of the website. I am constantly recommending Vanguard and now the dominant opinion in those forums is in favor of a passively managed index a...

http://platinumtel.com/plans/realpaygo $0.02/ text, $0.05/ minute, $0.10/MB Cheapest plan out there. Most of the phones they sell come with time. You can get more phone selection by going through this third party seller (he seems to sell the time cards for cheaper too): http://www.ptel.ws/store/en/ ...

Regardless of what path you take, turn off the monitor, especially if you are using older models. Leaving a monitor on can actually use more power than a computer in sleep mode. Plus there is no boot up time for a monitor so there is no excuse not to

Since the S&P 500 fund is cheaper and much more diversified, I'd choose it in a second over SDY. Correct. The issue is not one of experience but one of the principles of asset allocation. I guess one question is what thought is occurring to motivate an investment in SDY? There's been quite a pu...

https://www.tdameritrade.com/trade/etftrading.html TD Ameritrade offers free etf transactions. The caveat is that there is a holding period before you sell, otherwise you incur the transaction fee which is not a problem for us bogleheads. You need to log into your account and then enroll in order to...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Vegetarian-My ... 1604860804

Ask your vegan relative to read the above book - might turn the person into a happy customer of your grass fed meat

Perhaps some interesting matter to get her started? Devil Take the Hindmost is a very fun read. Who doesn't want to learn about the tulip bubble or the stock crash that brought down Sir Isaac Newton and forced Daniel Defoe from being a merchant to being a writer. Otherwise I recommend getting her ho...

I was speaking to my boss the other day regarding how he holds his real estate and he said he has a separate company that employs his wife to manage the properties so she receives income to qualify for a 401K. He owns an investment condo and also owns and rents out suites in the office building our ...

We have only liability insurance on our three cars (two of which are over 10 years old). We have no health insurance and do not plan to have any until I turn 65 in two years. We had to insure our home for fire to get homeowner's liability insurance but our three rental homes do not have anything bu...

I recommend Citi Forward which gives 5% cash back on music stores, restaurants, theaters and bookstores (everything on Amazon counts). Redeemable for Amazon or Walmart gift cards, though you get less if you go for straight cash. Chase Freedom is also nice - 5% on rotating categories and 1% cash back...

http://platinumtel.com/plans/realpaygo Cheapest option out there for the most part though the phone selection is limited (do you really want to give a pre-teen a $500+ phone?). Better phones available if you go through a third party dealer. This guy has a decent Android phone (Evo 4G) for $220. Add ...