It’s time to raid the fridge again and tell you about my favorite foods (that’s Nonno Vincenzo on the right with one of his milk and cheese cows): Old Fashioned Quaker Oats Oat Meal – I usually change from cold cereal to hot oat meal around this time of the year because there’s something nice about a warm breakfast in the […]

Essential Kitchen Tools Basic Kitchen Tool Philosophy Let’s get something out of the way quickly: you don’t need a fancy kitchen or hundreds of kitchen tools and gadgets to produce superb Italian food at home.  There I’ve made a food claim that I categorically stand behind and encourage you to adopt when preparing food at home.  My bold claim stems […]

Continuing on the theme (see Part 1 here) of what every new homeowner should posses in terms of home improvement tools, equipment, and supplies, here’s Part 2 of “A Practical Tool Guide for First-Time Homeowners:” Basic Painting KitPainting is a very easy home improvement task and after a few trials even you can be an expert.  Painting is all about surface prep, […]

My parents emigrated from Italy in the early to mid 1970’s.  My father has the equivalent of a technical high school education and my mother finished her formal education in the 7th grade.  Yet my parents are one of the most financially savvy couples I know, often making smarter economic decisions then their US-born Boomer peers (with BAs and Master’s […]

As I’ve stated in an earlier post, please don’t skimp when it comes to purchasing food and shoes.  Specifically, on the latter item, I believe the well dressed man should own about six pair of high-quality footwear including: Classic Brown and Black Dress Shoes Dress shoes are the bedrock of any nice wardrobe (female or male).  For the sharp dressed man a pair of […]

There’s something about a freshly vacuumed carpet or newly washed windows that gets me excited – call me boring and dull, but I really do love cleaning stuff!  The fascination started when I was a young chap, often vacuuming and sweeping for my mother and grandmother.  As a college student, I would secretly curse my roommate for not making his bed or […]

People often by a home or rent an apartment and the only private room in their home turns out to be the bedroom.  This shouldn’t be the case as every woman and man deserves a home office or library.  You could use your bedroom to do work, read, make phone calls, email, etc., but I think a bedroom should only be […]

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a short article entitled, “Making of a Miser: Nature versus Nurture”  The article highlights a few important points in terms of what makes people cheap: If you have two thrifty parents, you’re likely to be thrifty as well. People who lived through the Great Depression were thrifty their entire lives. People have innate tendencies […]

There’s nothing like the feeling of owning your own home, provided that your ownership experience came without a complicated adjustable rate mortgage and with a nice sizeable down payment to off-set your monthly payments.  With that said, what does the first time homeowner truly need to run his or her own property/house?  And by run I mean basic maintenance and upkeep […]

“There’s a choice we’re making we’re saving our own lives. It’s true we’ll make a better day just you and me” I think it’s time Wall Street gets together and records its own version of We Are the World, maybe something along the lines of “We Are the Capitalists”. Seriously, folks, have a listen to the original 1985 recording and it […]