The rule on staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once.

Staying Alive.

You normally don't get a margin call unless your securities, minus the debt, are worth 30% or less of their nominal market value.

You'll almost certainly spend all the rest of your pay, but your daily expenses will adjust themselves, magically, to the amount of money in your account. You will budget mentally, without having to write everything down.

If your eight times income is half a million dollars and you have two kids, you'd add another $200,000, so you'd have a $700,000 policy. That sounds like a lot, but when it's term insurance it is actually cheap.

Everyone can get a little sloppy with cash and it's smart to notice. But what's squeezing you is the big stuff you ladle onto your credit cards.