About

Welcome to Lazy Man and Money

Lazy Man and Money is my personal journal where I explore how I can save money and make more money. I try to cover topics such as: banking, budgeting, career, credit, debt, entrepreneurship, investing, taxes, real estate, insurance, spending, retirement, and estate planning.

I get a lot of questions, so I thought I'd start with the one everyone asks.

Q: Why on Earth would you choose to call yourself a Lazy Man?
A: There are four reasons:

• The Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) - This philosophy states that one can accomplish 80% of their task in 20% of the time. It's that last 20% of trying to get everything perfect that takes 80% of the time. I'd rather get 5 things 80% done than one thing 100% done.
• It's more efficient - If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness has to be the father. I think part of what sets human's apart is that they typically try to find a better, more efficient way of doing something. Usually, that's because the current way of doing it is simply too much work.
• Work Smarter, Not Harder - In the Information Age, I believe those that get ahead will be those who can process and act on that information.
• I am lazy in real life - I get very annoyed with repetitive tasks that don't improve my life in the long term. For instance, let's examine the chore of making a bed. It's the kind of task that you can perform everyday for the rest of your life. It may be only 3-5 minutes, but over a lifetime that really adds up.

Q: Isn't blogging a repetitive task? You have to write every day or so.
A: It is repetitive, but once it's written, it stays out in cyberspace and potentially earns me a little money each day. Yesterday's thoughts aren't "destroyed" by today's. It's not like making a bed where you are back to the start every day. Writing is a creative process and it's quite a bit different each day.

Q: It's weird to call you Lazy, do you have another name I could use?
A: Sure you can call me Corey (a pen name that I've been known to use). I really don't mind if you call me Lazy or Lazy Man.

Q: Can you give us a little more biographical information?
A: I'm 32 years old and married to a wonderful woman, I often refer to as Energy Gal. I spent 30 of those years in the suburbs of Boston, until 2006 when I moved to Silicon Valley in Northern California. I graduated from a top 30 university with degrees in Computer Science and Linguistics. Until October of 2007, I was a full-time software engineer. Since then I've focused on my online businesses full time.

Q: Why do you blog about personal finance?
A: I've been interested in personal finance for nearly 20 years. I was the only person I know in high school with mutual funds. I started this blog because I have some different views on finances and Money magazine usually doesn't cover them. Here are ten more reasons why I blog about personal finance.

Q: You've convinced me that I should blog, can you help me get started?
A: I can. Note that blogging for money is a lot of work. For the first 7 months, I blogged almost every day and didn't make a penny. I'm at the point now where I'd probably do a little blogging than working at a Starbucks. However, if you really want to blog, read this advice for new personal finance bloggers.