We’re less than a full month into the new year. Did you make any resolutions? If so, how’re they doing? If you’ve already broken your New Year’s resolution, don’t be too hard on yourself. It turns out that the odds were stacked against you. A study in 2007 by Richard Wisemen from the University of [...] Read more »

Imagine your wrist is itching right now. It’s the kind of itch that just has to be scratched – it doesn’t matter what you are doing, because the urge to scratch rises up and blocks your ability to concentrate on almost anything else. I am sure you know this feeling – the sudden intensity of [...] Read more »

  One of the problems I have with writing here at brip blap tends to be the question of “what to write?” I’ve never made this a blog that covers the subjects that many personal finance blogs cover: what credit card should I get? Should I invest in an IRA or a Roth IRA? I [...] Read more »

When I first started looking at this, it cost anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 to die in New Jersey (note that I said “to die”, not “to kill someone” – we weren’t all captains in crime families in the Garden State where I used to live, although we did have our fair share and even [...] Read more »

Years ago, on a weekend visit, I spoke to a friend of mine from a Middle Eastern country while our family was visiting with his family. We spoke over a huge pile of Legos and the Bert-n-Ernie Garage and a full set of Thomas the Tank Engine trains (although, in all fairness, most were gifts).  [...] Read more »