Mike Piper

Mike Piper, aka Oblivious Investor

I’m a fairly young fellow (28), married, living in St. Louis. Prior to becoming a full-time personal finance writer, I worked as a financial advisor (for Edward Jones) and as a tax accountant for a large real estate company in Chicago.

I now make a living writing a series of books that’s somewhat akin to Cliffs Notes for personal finance topics.

Books

Accounting Made Simple: Explained in 100 Pages or Less ISBN 978-0981454221
Oblivious Investing: Building Wealth by Ignoring the Noise ISBN 978-0981454238
Taxes Made Simple: Income Taxes Explained in 100 Pages or Less ISBN 978-0981454214
Surprisingly Simple: Independent Contractor, Sole Proprietor, and LLC Taxes Explained in 100 Pages or Less ISBN 978-0615158433
Surprisingly Simple: LLC vs. S-Corp vs. C-Corp Explained in 100 Pages or Less ISBN 978-0615158433
Investing Made Simple: Index Fund Investing and ETF Investing Exlained in 100 Pages or Less ISBN 978-0981454245
Can I Retire? How Much Money You Need to Retire and How to Manage Your Retirement Savings: Explained in 100 Pages or Less ISBN 978-0981454252
Social Security Made Simple: Social Security Retirement Benefits and Related Planning Topics Explained in 100 Pages or Less ISBN 978-0981454283

Any purchases made at Amazon.com will result in a small referral fee for us. It does not cost you anything extra.

Blog

Mike Piper - Oblivious Investor

Why Are Funds-of-Funds Tax-Inefficient? (19 June 2013)

A reader writes in, asking: “You’ve mentioned in several articles that target retirement funds are not tax efficient. I don’t fully understand why they would be any worse than just holding a few index funds, since they own the same stuff in the end. Could you elaborate on this idea in an article?” There are [...]

Brokered CDs: Are They Worth Using? (17 June 2013)

A reader writes in, asking: “I am retired and would like to put half of the bond side of my portfolio in CDs. My total retirement IRA is now at Fidelity. I also like to take the ‘lazier approach.’ So my question: What do you think about new or secondary market CDs from Fidelity?” CDs purchased [...]

Investing Blog Roundup: Staying Oblivious (14 June 2013)

The original message of this blog was the idea that you don’t have to check your portfolio everyday or listen to financial news (ever) in order to be a successful investor. You can be “oblivious” to most of the day-to-day happenings in the financial world. Or, as Jack Bogle once phrased it, “Follow the basic [...]

Variable Annuity with a 5.5% Guaranteed Growth Rate? (12 June 2013)

A reader writes in, asking: “Several friends have purchased the Prudential Defined Income Variable Annuity. The illustration we were given shows a guaranteed 5.5% growth rate, meaning $100,000 invested for 12 years would be almost $200,000. But everything I read says to stay away from variable annuities. Have you published anything that explains why this [...]

Getting Crafty with Two-Fund Portfolios (10 June 2013)

After the recent article explaining that, yes, my wife and I still use Vanguard’s LifeStrategy Growth fund for our retirement savings, and, yes, we’re happy with it, a number of readers wrote in to ask about other ways to build a simple portfolio or to share their own methods of doing so. Two-Fund Portfolios Using [...]

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