Picking a state to retire in sounds like a fun problem. You picture yourself with a coffee on the porch, flipping through real estate listings in places you’ve always half-dreamed about. Then reality starts loading. Property taxes, healthcare access, state income tax on your 401(k) withdrawals, hurricane insurance premiums, the distance from the grandkids –...
Tell someone where you’re from, and you’ll see it happen in real time. The slight shift in their expression. The knowing nod. The “oh, so you’re a…” that trails off into whatever assumption has been living rent-free in their head since they saw a meme about your home state. It’s one of the most universal...
There’s a particular kind of loneliness that doesn’t come from being alone. It comes from lying in bed next to someone who’s scrolling their phone, or eating dinner across from someone who hasn’t asked how your day was in six months, and slowly realizing you can’t quite remember the last time they actually seemed glad...
Buying a home is one of the most significant financial decisions a person makes. The mortgage, the inspection, the moving costs – most buyers plan meticulously for all of it. What catches nearly everyone off guard is what comes after. The appliances, systems, and structures that make a house livable don’t last forever, and when...
Somewhere between the financial advice your uncle gave you at a cookout and the retirement calculator you abandoned halfway through, a set of persistent beliefs took root. They feel like common sense. They get repeated at dinner tables, shared in Facebook groups, and occasionally used to justify not opening that brokerage account. The problem is...
In a survey, seventy percent of Americans agreed that “it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking” [1]. But spanking children may have undesired results. Adults sometimes hit their children to punish bad behavior, and while it might appear to be effective in the short-term, there is evidence to suggest...
There are over 100 thousand people awaiting a kidney transplant in the United States, and someone is added to that list every fourteen minutes [1]. The average wait-time for a kidney is between three and five years, and thirteen people die every day waiting to receive a transplant. The organ shortage in the United States...
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of losing a tooth, you may have considered dental implants in the past. You may also have been surprised to learn how expensive they are, and that oftentimes materials such as mercury or silver are used. But what if we could actually regrow teeth back? Fortunately, there is some incredible new research...
If you often find yourself dozing off at your desk in the middle of the afternoon, or driving with your windows down in hopes that the fresh air will keep you awake during your commute home, you’re not alone. The American Sleep Association has done the research and the results are in- America is a...
In my opinion, there is nothing more challenging and heartbreaking than having to end the connection and distance yourself from a loved one. Family ties are some of the strongest bonds anyone has in their entire life. Whether you are family by blood or family by choice, everyone has certain people they consider to be...
Did you ever go out with friends as a child and roam around the neighborhood, pretending to look for space rocks? Any time you found something that looked “out of the ordinary”, you would come up with all sorts of ways it could have gotten there, and imagine the far off planet it might have...
At one time in history, hunting and trapping were a significant part of the fabric of North American culture. Over the last century, however, individuals and groups have become increasingly opposed to the activities, and farming and conventionally-raised animals have replaced wild game as a food source. One Alaska teacher hunted a moose in order to...
