When I was 27 years old I was at a crossroads. I was five years into my career, yet I was stagnating. Though I was making six figures, which was great for my 20s, I knew I couldn’t make much more at my job. Without an advanced degree, my future compensation would be an endless chain of 3% annual “cost of living” adjustments and nothing more. At that moment, I knew I had to make a change. So I considered getting an MBA. I did research on different programs, the kinds of roles they led to, and what I could reasonably earn after graduation. Unfortunately, that’s where my MBA journey ended. After looking through the data, I discovered that the post-MBA salary (back in 2017) wasn’t that much higher than what I was already making. So why would I give up two years of income and pay $150,000 just to get a job where I’d earn about the same? While money isn’t the only reason to get an MBA, financially, I couldn’t justify it. But here’s the real issue I was wrestling with: even if my earnings did increase after getting an MBA, how would I know that this was due to the degree itself and not just my increased age/experience?  This is called a counterfactual, or an alternate version of the world. If I got an MBA, the counterfactual would be how much I would’ve earned without one. Of course, we can’t actually know the counterfactual. We can’t reverse a decision in the past and see how reality would’ve played out instead. But there is something we can do. We can compare the earnings of those who got their MBA to those who didn’t get their MBA, but are similar in many other ways. Then we can find the present value of non-MBA lifetime earnings and compare that to the present value of the MBA graduates’ lifetime earnings (after netting out the cost of the program and the years of lost income). This is what Preston Cooper at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP) did when analyzing the return on investment (ROI) of various graduate degrees. And, unfortunately, my gut feeling about the MBA was right. As Cooper noted: High earnings are not as valuable if the counterfactual is also high. The MBA is a prime example of this phenomenon. The nation’s most popular master’s degree boasts median earnings of $88,000 by the time its graduates are 45. This sounds impressive — it’s well above the median for all master’s degrees — until we consider that counterfactual earnings for MBA graduates at the same age are $83,000. MBA programs often draw from high-earning undergraduate majors such as business and accounting. This pushes up counterfactual earnings for MBA graduates. As a result, MBA programs have to “work harder” to supply their students with earnings that exceed the opportunity cost…many MBA programs fail to do this. When you look at the ROI for different master’s degrees (adjusting

For many people chasing financial independence, clearing the mortgage ASAP is a key early retirement milestone. And if that’s your plan, then the notion of paying off your mortgage with your pension instead might sound painfully slow. But have you actually run the numbers? Recently, I’ve been considering moving to a more expensive house. There’s a snag, though: I won’t be able to pay down a larger mortgage over 25 years. Or even over 30 […]

When I first moved our savings to an online bank (Ally Bank) back in 2013, I was blown away by how much interest we got on our first statement. It was unfathomable to me at the time. It just didn’t make sense that there really wasn’t much difference moving to an online bank and it actually paid so much more. We’ve been with Ally Bank since then, and I’ve been very happy with everything from […]

With Lukas’s second month of life came lots of fun with family and exploring our city, but our house got a little jealous and released the gremlins! Continue reading Two Months In and the House Gave Up (Jul. 2026) at TicTocLife.

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The labor force participation rate among workers 55 and older never recovered after the pandemic shock and has dropped further since then.

It’s hard to believe that September is almost here! Here’s your friendly reminder to get your September budget ready pronto – and don’t forget to include these potential expenses in your September budget! The post THREE IMPORTANT EXPENSES TO INCLUDE IN YOUR SEPTEMBER BUDGET appeared first on a life on a dime.

New scheme seeks to improve trust in the building sector Following the recent announcement by the Government that it “steps in to protect families from cowboy builders” –  AKA I have been investigating the scheme further. The private service independent of government, Trusted Payments, is working in partnership with TrustMark, the only UK Government-Endorsed Quality Scheme, for work carried out in and around the home. The scheme will be launched on 1 September 2026. The video […]