Making a per diem budget using the simple expense tracker
One of the most popular things on this site is a free budget and expense tracking spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has been downloaded over 21,000 times in the past two years and I get a lot of feedback for it. Occasionally I get a request for a new feature. Here is an ...

The Price is Right Wheel Game: what is the optimal strategy?
The Price is Right is a wonderful game show that lends itself to game theory analysis. Earlier I have posted about the games Pay the Rent and Lucky Seven. My friend Aaron emailed me about another interesting problem from the show: I've got a good problem for you to throw at your ...

Brendon, Brendon, you gotta read this. 8 financial lessons from Coach McGuirk
He's not the most famous character, but he is one of my favorites. Coach McGuirk is an oddball character from an old animated show called Home Movies that originally aired on Cartoon Network from 1999 to 2004. To get a sense of the character, you need only know that Coach McGuirk ...

Puzzle: the math behind an Indian bowing custom
Growing up with an Indian heritage, I followed a tradition of bowing to elders as a sign of respect. On very special occasions, the custom was a bit more strict: each person in the group would have to bow once to each person who was older in age. For example: --in  a group ...

How to save 15 percent on Groupon, and other sites ShopDiscover can save you big bucks
Groupon is already cool enough about deals on restaurants and fun activities. But did you know you can essentially save even more just by using the right credit card website? There's a way to earn 15 percent cash back through Discover's shopping website plainly named ShopDiscover. The ShopDiscover rewards program offers a way ...

How many pairs of underwear should you own?
Laugh it up. But I am sure you have thought about this very question at some point. Sure, you may not remember your reasons, and I doubt you wrote down the logic to derive an answer as I did. But since you own underwear, you must have had some reasons behind ...

Puzzle: a probability drinking game
One night you find yourself drinking at a bar with a group of mathematicians. At the end of the night, the bar tab needs to be settled. To make things interesting, the group agrees to play the following game to determine who has to pay for everything. The game is played as ...

16 ways WolframAlpha can help you manage money
I think it's always important to try out new tools and see how they can help me. One of the coolest tools I've come across in the past few years is WolframAlpha. The site debuted in 2009 to much praise and was voted that year as the greatest computer innovation by ...