Everyone knows that one of the most challenging parts about celebrating Valentine's Day is finding the perfect gift for your significant other.

INSIDER reached out to colleagues and friends to find out what gifts they would actually want for Valentine's Day. Then we sifted through those suggestions to bring you the best ideas under $50.

These gift are suited for every stage of a relationship. Whether you're married to him or still getting to know him, there's bound to be something he'll love in the list to follow.

Here are 21 gifts — both experiences and objects — that men actually want, all for under $50.

Get a massage together (instead of giving them to each other).

The good thing about being in a relationship is that you can give each other massages. The bad part is that while one person is getting a massage, the other person isn't.

Solve that by getting a massage together! Ask your local massage parlors for couples massage treatments.

Check out Groupon for deals on couples massages

If you're already bought him a tie, get a tie bar, too.

For those who may not know, a tie bar clips a tie to a shirt while also adding a bit of flair to an outfit.

Not only is it one of the few accessories most men actually want to wear, but by keeping the tie close to the body instead of hanging loose, it makes every suit look even more sharp.

Pipe tie bar, $15

That said, a beer tour would be fun for the both of you.

Hit up as many local breweries as you can with a beer tour.

Just remember to take lots of pictures, because after a few cold brews, it may be an experience you both accidentally forget.

Check out Groupon for deals on brewery tours

Dating is complicated enough without tripping over tons of extraneous "rules" about how relationships are supposed to work. (Who made those rules, anyway?)

Author and relationship expert Susan Winter shared the only guidelines you should follow in order to create the relationship you want.

SEE ALSO: Here's exactly how to ask someone on a date without making a fool of yourself

Customize your relationship

Whether you want to stick to standard dating conventions or shake things up, Winter encourages an "à la carte" relationship model.

"Take the pieces that you liked of the traditional, that feel right and good for you, keep the sweetness, [and] create a new model that's flexible and grows," she said. "It's your creation."

Forget the 'rules' about when to call or text

Ditch those "rules" about how long to wait before calling or texting and don't overthink it. If you had a good time, let your date know in a way that feels unstilted.

"Whether it's the 'two-day rule' or the 'one-week rule', that formula is guaranteed to backfire," she said. "The unedited, natural approach is a far better choice."

Don't skimp on respect

It's called "The Golden Rule" for a reason. Being a decent human being never goes out of style.

"Today's dating protocol is far more relaxed than in former generations, but that doesn't mean it should be stripped of polite behavior, kindness, respect, and thoughtfulness," she said.

Regardless of where you are in your relationship, Valentine's Day gifts are the perfect way to show you care.

Maybe you've been married for years and have run out of ideas, or maybe you're new to the dating game and have no idea where to start. Either way, forget about those cheap convenient store flowers and chocolates, and opt for something that's equally as inexpensive, but guaranteed to pleasantly surprise her. 

Here are 17 affordable Valentine's Day gifts that women actually want under $50:

Let her cuddle up in a cozy robe.

Another great option? Get her something you'll see her use everyday, like a cozy robe.

You could splurge on a fancy one, but you can easily find comfier and plushier robes for much less. 

Target Women's Cozy Robe, $25

Flowers for Valentine's Day never go out of style.

We're not talking any old bouquet though. Think about who she is and what she likes, then decide on an arrangement that's fit just for her. 

Need more flower advice? We've got you covered.

The Bouqs Co., Be Mine Bouquet, $40 and up 

Dainty rings will help her think of you whenever she looks down at her hands.

Yes, everyone loves big diamonds and rare gems, but it's the small dainty items that women tend to wear on the regular.

Get her something small and classic that she can rock every day. Whenever she looks down at her ring, she'll think of you.

Catbird Threadbare Ring, $44

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.       

I've been a big fan of Anker since I first started using their products a couple of years ago.

My main devices — the iPad Pro, iPhone, and MacBook Pro — wouldn't be as powerful or useful to me without their accessories. 

Anker is currently holding a 20% off sale on many of their tech accessories, so I rounded up the most useful ones for you, below. 

DON'T MISS: 50 must-have tech accessories under $50

SEE ALSO: 10 awesome and weird iPhone accessories you probably need

A high-capacity external battery

I always find ways to recommend an external USB battery; it's by far the most useful accessory you can buy for a mobile device. 

This is one of the highest-capacity batteries than Anker sells — it can recharge the latest iPhone 7 times— and at this price it's a no-brainer. The other big benefit of picking up this battery over some of the smaller-capacity models is that you can charge two devices at once.

Anker PowerCore 20100, $31.99 (originally $39.99), available at Amazon 

Enter the promo code: AANNKK22

A USB-C battery

This is the same battery I just recommended, but this one has a USB-C port. 

That might not be important to most of us right now, but as USB-C adoption grows, it'll turn into a must-have feature. As it stands now, you can use this battery to extend the life of Apple's new MacBook and MacBook Pro, which can't be said for most USB batteries.

Anker PowerCore 20100 [With USB C] $47.99 (originally $59.99), available at Amazon

Enter the promo code: AANNKK88

A fast wall charger

If any of your devices support fast charging, you should pick up a wall charger that can keep up. 

Anker's supports Quick Charge 3.0, PowerIQ, and VoltageBoost, so you should be getting the fastest charging experience regardless of which devices you use.

Anker Quick Charge 3.0 39W Dual USB Wall Charger, $20.79 (originally $25.99) 

Enter the promo code: LY4FM6TX

Just five years ago, "The Simpsons" managed to predict Lady Gaga's performance at the 2017 Super Bowl Halftime Show in bizarrely accurate detail.

Gaga was in the 2012 episode "Lisa Goes Gaga," where the avant-garde artist flies over her fans in a space-age outfit using a harness during a concert in Springfield.

Gaga's loyal followers watching the Halftime Show quickly noticed the resemblance between her Super Bowl set and her "Simpsons" cameo.

And this wasn't the only time the writers had managed to predict the future.

Sixteen years ago, an episode of "The Simpsons" predicted that Donald Trump would one day become US president.

"The Simpsons" has been running for over 25 years, so it's inevitable that some themes that crop up in the show might occur in real life. But some of the plotlines are eerily close to events that have happened throughout the world.

We've listed some of the strangest predictions the cartoon's writers have made since the show's launch in 1989.

From Homer discovering the Higgs boson to animators drawing The Shard in London almost 20 years before it was built, here are 11 times "The Simpsons" predicted the future.

12. Lady Gaga at the Superbowl — Season 23, episode 22

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In "Lisa goes Gaga," Lady Gaga plays herself as a guest on the show, and answers a psychic calling to help Lisa find her self-confidence.

In the show, Gaga flies over concert-goers in Springfield wearing a revealing space-age outfit with the aid of a harness. This year's Super Bowl Halftime show was just as outlandish.

11. Faulty voting machines — Season 20, Episode 4

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In 2008, "The Simpsons" showed Homer trying to vote for Barack Obama in the US general election, but a faulty machine changed his vote.

Four years later, a voting machine in Pennsylvania had to be removed after it kept changing people's votes for Barack Obama to ones for his Republican rival Mitt Romney.

10. The invention of the tomacco plant — Season 11, Episode 5

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In 1999, Homer uses nuclear energy to create a hybrid of tomato and tobacco plants: the "tomacco."

This inspired US "Simpsons" fan Rob Baur to create his own plant. In 2003, Baur grafted together a tobacco root and a tomato stem to make "tomacco." Writers for "The Simpsons" were so impressed that they invited Baur and his family to their offices and ate the tomacco fruit themselves.

The burger is an American classic.

Whether it's served alone on a bun or stacked with cheese and bacon and smothered in condiments, a burger always makes for a satisfying meal.

We asked Foursquare City Guide to help us find the best burgers across the country.

Keep scrolling to see which burger joints should top your list.

50. Dotty Dumpling's Dowry — Madison, Wisconsin

"Best burgers in town. Make sure to order a side of the garlic sauce for your burger or fries."Foursquare user Stephen Mundt

49. David's burgers — Little Rock, Arkansas

"Excellent service, extremely friendly staff, fresh cut fries and they are all you can eat. Best burgers in NLR hands down!!"Foursquare user Jason

48. Sylvester's Burgers — Atascadero, California

"Amazing burger! Loved the sauce."Foursquare user Tierra K

Tom Brady is 39 years old and just completed one of his best seasons ever with a win over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl 51 on Sunday.

Brady now has five Super Bowl wins, the most ever for a quarterback, and shows no signs of slowing down.

In other words, Brady just claimed the title of GOAT, the greatest of all time.

Brady's amazing career began in April 2000, when the Patriots famously rolled the dice and drafted the Michigan quarterback in the sixth round with the 199th pick overall. New England made the move despite Brady being thoroughly unimpressive at the NFL combine.

Six other teams drafted quarterbacks before the Patriots chose Brady. Here's a look at what happened to those other quarterbacks.

The Jets used the 18th pick on Marshall University quarterback Chad Pennington.

Pennington played 11 seasons in the NFL with the Jets and Dolphins, earning $51 million in his career. He now runs the 1st and 10 Foundation with his wife and coaches middle school football in Lexington, Kentucky.

Source: The Lexington Herald-Leader, 1st and 10 Foundation

The 49ers drafted Hofstra's Giovanni Carmazzi in the third round with the 65th pick overall.

Forget luxury hotels and first-class tickets. Here's how the 1% actually travels, from guided arctic expeditions to private island rentals in the Maldives.

SEE ALSO: The 10 best hotels in America, according to US News & World Report

&Beyond Private Jet Expeditions

Can't decide where to go on your African safari? With &Beyond's Private Jet Expeditions, you won't have to! Offering 15- and 19-day tours through east and southern Africa, the luxe safari outfitter arranges private air travel to and from remote bush destinations in Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa, Rwanda and beyond. While on your tour, you'll partake in once-in-a-lifetime activities like gorilla trekking, private hot air balloon adventures, full-day game drives, and shark cave diving, while learning from some of the continent’s foremost wildlife experts and conservationists. Other perks: private airport terminals, customs, and baggage claim facilities.

MV Cape Race Arctic Expedition

The MV Cape Race is a commercial fishing trawler-turned-expedition yacht whose 7,000-mile cruising range makes it powerful enough to reach the most remote areas of the Arctic. When it’s not being used for scientific expeditions and film projects, the vessel is rented out by deep-pocketed travelers with a hankering for adventure. On board amenities include a mahogany paneled saloon, a sauna, and an expansive front deck perfect for wildlife sightings and snapping photos of famous glaciers like Jakobshavn and Sermia.

Four Seasons Private Jet Experience

It'll take you less than 80 days to traverse the world if you do it through the Four Seasons Private Jet Experience. The luxury hotel chain sends passengers on 24-day trips around the world, stopping in cities across Asia, Africa, America and Europe, while flying on their private jet and staying at their most exclusive properties — all to the tune of $135,000 per person. The cities you stop in depends on the month you depart, but our dream itinerary is the Seattle-Tokyo-Beijing-Maldives-Serengeti-Istanbul-St. Petersburg-Marrakech-Boston.

China steals an unsavory global spotlight for the thick, noxious smog that often chokes its mega-cities.

Air pollution has become so bad in Beijing, for example, that Chinese officials aim to slash its local coal consumption by 30% in 2017.

Meanwhile, the US — which currently ranks eighth on the list of countries with the lowest air pollution — could be headed in the opposite direction. 

President Donald Trump has said that he intends to fulfill his campaign promise of revitalizing the American coal industry, despite the criticism of fossil fuel industry analysts and the rise of affordable sources of renewable energy. Congress is also working to repeal environmental regulations.

With these and other changes afoot, it's worth taking a look at current global rankings to see how China, the US, and other countries stack up when it comes to air quality, total energy use, and renewable contributions to power production.

Here the best and worst of 135 countries according to World Health Organization (WHO) and International Energy Agency data, which was shared with Business Insider by The Eco Experts, a UK-based solar energy comparison site.

SEE ALSO: At one end of Trump's revived Keystone XL pipeline there is a scene you must see to believe

DON'T MISS: The EPA just delayed 30 environmental regulations created under Obama — here's what that means

There are many ways to measure air pollution, but a key indicator is called "PM 2.5"— one of the most harmful classes of airborne pollutants.

The "PM" stands for "particulate matter," and the "2.5" stands for 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller — roughly the size of a single bacterium. Such pollution, as Business Insider's Lydia Ramsey explained in 2016, "is especially dangerous because it can get lodged in the lungs and cause long-term health problems like asthma and chronic lung disease."

When PM 2.5 levels go above roughly 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air, it can become a major health problem. The WHO recommends keeping PM 2.5 levels to about 10 micrograms per cubic meter.

Air pollution levels are one thing, but deaths attributed to them are another.

Take China, for instance. The country isn't in the top 10 for highest average levels of air pollution, in terms of PM 2.5 (Saudi Arabia wins that contest, thanks in part to its oil industry). However, it ranks fifth for having the most deaths per capita due to air pollution, in part because if its high population density.

The US currently has one of the lowest death rates attributed to air pollution.

The retail industry is on the cusp of a fundamental transformation driven by digital technologies. And as retailers adapt to the digital age, the line between physical and digital commerce is becoming increasingly blurred.

BI Intelligence has created a slide deck exploring the most disruptive trends in e-commerce.  Access the full deck now for free by clicking here.

Some of the topics covered include:

• The size of the retail and e-commerce markets.
• The breakdown of e-commerce sales by product category.
• How legacy retailers are adapting to digital.
• Which e-commerce companies are leading the way.
• What omnichannel strategies retail companies are adopting.
• And much more.

The companies mentioned in this year's presentation include:  Sports Authority, Amazon, Best Buy, Apple, Wayfair, Target, Dollar Shave Club, Instacart, Walmart, CVS, and Sam's Club.

Below are 8 sample slides from the 65-page deck.  Want the full deck? Access it here for FREE >>

Want the full 65-page slide deck?  Access it Here - FREE >>

Want the full 65-page slide deck?  Access it Here - FREE >>

Want the full 65-page slide deck?  Access it Here - FREE >>

Up nearly $8,000 from 10 years ago, the average American wedding now costs $35,329 — the highest it's ever been. 

That's according to new data from wedding planning site The Knot, which conducted its tenth annual Real Weddings Study to uncover how much brides and grooms across the country are paying to get hitched.

For the study, The Knot surveyed over 13,000 men and women who said "I do" in 2016 to determine the average cost of weddings in America, including everything from the price of the dress to the venue to the cake.

Below, Business Insider highlighted the 25 most expensive places to get married, with locations in and around New York City dominating the list. Other East Coast locales made a strong showing as well, with Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and anywhere in Rhode Island also appearing in the top 10. 

Read on to see where couples are spending the most on their weddings across America. 

SEE ALSO: The 10 hottest neighborhoods in America for 2017

DON'T MISS: 21 US cities where making $100,000 a year isn't enough to put you in the top 20% of earners

25. Upstate New York — $34,874

24. Orange County, California – $35,303

23. Detroit – $35,576

As the traditional career advice goes, you usually shouldn't include your hobbies on your résumé because they take up valuable space and waste the precious few seconds a recruiter spends skimming through your history.

But in some situations, they can actually add value to your résumé and help you stand out in a good way.

If you're looking for an internship at a company like Google, for example, one previous intern says hiring managers want to see interesting personal details on your résumé. "This is your time to shine and share some of the quirkier aspects of your personality that other, more traditional companies may not appreciate,"she writes. The key, as with all résumés you send out, is to know and target your audience.

Companies may also appreciate seeing a hobby on your résumé if it's related to the job you're pursuing, Ana Recio, senior vice president of Global Recruiting at Salesforce, tells Business Insider.

And if there's a chance your hobby makes you stand out as the more attractive candidate, you'd be wise to include it, Alyssa Gelbard, the founder and president of the career consulting and personal-branding firm Résumé Strategists, tells Business Insider.

"When a potential employer sees a candidate's hobbies, it provides insight into personality traits, industry knowledge, and can make you more attractive for a role," she says.

"But remember: Anything you include on your résumé is fair game during an interview, so make sure you can really talk about your passion for the hobby and why you included it on résumé," Gelbard says.

Here are 13 hobbies you should consider including on your résumé, as well as one you definitely shouldn't:

SEE ALSO: 34 things you should remove from your résumé immediately

DON'T MISS: 15 hobbies highly successful people practice in their spare time

Yoga

Yoga demonstrates your ability to stay calm and in control, Gelbard says: "If you're seeking a role in very busy, high-energy environment, like an advertising or PR agency, it can make you more attractive because you can better handle pressure."

Extreme adventure sports

Extreme sports like ultramarathons, racing mountain bikes, or skydiving can show potential employers that you're comfortable pushing boundaries, you're disciplined, you don't fear the unknown, and you are a calculated risk-taker, Gelbard says. "These traits are desirable for any leadership role, especially in younger, growing organizations," she says.

Video production

Video production as a hobby can make you an appealing candidate for a role in production or event planning. Broadcasting and live streaming are often components of events or conferences, so your knowledge or interest in video production can be helpful in the job. It also shows that you are precise, highly detailed, and focused — all key to events positions.

Netflix has an insane amount of content, but it's not always easy to find exactly what you want.

The categories that Netflix normally gives you access to while browsing are pretty broad, but below the surface Netflix actually splits movies and TV shows into hundreds (potentially thousands) of incredibly specific micro-categories.

All these categories are tagged with a number — for example, "Epics" is category No. 52858. If you know the code, all you have to do is type it into your address bar after "genre/," like this: http://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/52858.

But it's annoying to try to find those codes, which is why engineer Deekshith Allamaneni decided to make a Chrome extension that makes it easy for you to find them.

The extension, called "Netflix Categories," gives you a dropdown menu for the categories and a search bar. It lets you mark your favorites. Right now, the extension has more than 100 categories, and Allamaneni says more will be added.

This short video shows how it works:

If you're curious to see some of best secret categories, following is a list we put together of 18 of them:

SEE ALSO: Netflix's catalog is set to explode

Wine and Beverage Appreciation (1458)

Sample: "Drinking Buddies" (2013). Complications ensue when Chicago brewery workmates Luke and Kate — the best friends on and off the clock — spend a weekend at a lakeside retreat.

More examples: "The Birth of Sake,""Three Stars,""A Yeah in Champagne"

Steamy British Independent Dramas (4170)

Sample: "The Look of Love" (2013). This bittersweet biopic chronicles the over-the-top life of Paul Raymond, England's Hugh Hefner, from nightclub to mind reader to burlesque impresario.

Other examples: "The Duke of Burgundy,""Perfect Sense,""The Comedian"

Movies for Ages 0 to 2 (6796)

Sample: "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" (1999). Who stuffs your stocking with tales of holiday cheer? The one and only mouse with big, round ears!

Other examples:"The Very Hungry Caterpillar,""Three Little Pigs,""Piglet's Big Movie"

Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback of all time. 

With a dramatic come-from-behind win in Super Bowl LI over the Atlanta Falcons, Brady now has now won five championships. He is also as good as ever at 39 years old, an age when most football players are already retired.

Off the field, Brady's life is pretty fabulous also. He's married to the world's most successful supermodel and once owned a $20 million house with a moat.

Tony Manfred contributed to this report.

Brady was the fifth-highest-paid player in the NFL this season, making $28.8 million.

Source: Spotrac

Brady recently signed a 2-year, $41 million extension with the Patriots. A big chunk of his earnings this season came in the form of a $28 million signing bonus.

Source: Spotrac

Brady is also the third-highest-paid player in NFL history, having already earned $196.2 million in his career.

Read more: The 25 highest-paid players in NFL history

Real weight loss is hard work. Faking weight loss is as easy as taking a selfie from just the right angle.

Just ask the professional trainers and fitness enthusiasts on Instagram who are snapping hundreds of fake before-and-after photos simply by tweaking posture, lighting, clothing, and camera angle. In the span of a few seconds, they appear to lose weight, gain muscle, or both.

But they're not trying to deceive their followers: There's a powerful point to all this visual trickery. 

"A lot of the imagery we see on Instagram is unrealistic and unattainable," model Jess King wrote on Instagram, where she posted her own fake before-and-after photos a few months ago. "We are all guilty of taking a million photos and uploading one that highlights our supposed 'best angles' —  myself included. So [this is] just a little reminder to not base your #bodygoals on anything you see online. We will only ever see someone's highlight reel, and not the 50 pics they took to get their best angle."

Check out these 18 "transformation" photos taken just seconds or minutes apart from one another — and remember them next time you're tempted to compare your own body with the perfectly posed ones you see online. 

Trainer Anna Victoria has gained lots of fans by sharing photos of her stomach in a relaxed, natural state.

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By the way: She says that lots of women make two big mistakes when they're trying to get in shape.  

"Our belly rolls, cellulite, [and] stretch marks are nothing to apologize for, to be ashamed of, or to be obsessed with getting rid of," she captioned this post.

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 Here's Victoria's best advice on how to love your body more. 

Weight loss expert Jen Widerstrom of "The Biggest Loser" took these two photos just two minutes apart.

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"We all look like this when we sit," she wrote in the caption. "Don't stress about the way your body looks in certain positions."

Lady Gaga thrilled the Super Bowl crowds Sunday night with a performance that began with her literally falling out of the sky. 

But it turns out that the Houston home that she stayed at over Super Bowl weekend was equally over the top.

Reportedly worth $20 million, the Villa Encantado has more than 9,700 square feet of space, plus some extravagant amenities. When she wasn't prepping for her performance, Lady Gaga could enjoy the home's massive pool area, private screening room, and fully equipped gym. 

Though she stayed in the home on Airbnb's dime, the mansion would usually cost travelers $10,000 a night.

SEE ALSO: The 10 best hotels in America, according to US News & World Report

Designed in the Mediterranean style, the home has an expansive backyard area, complete with pool and palm tree.

The theme continues inside.

The kitchen has dark wood cabinetry and an impressively wide island.

Uber made a huge hire to advance its flying-car plans.

Mark Moore has left his position as an advanced aircraft engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center to join Uber's flying-car project, dubbed Uber Elevate, Bloomberg first reported Monday.

Uber isn't pursuing a flying car, per se, because it isn't being designed to fly and drive. Instead, Uber, like many other companies, is looking to build an electric, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft for shorter urban commutes. Moore published a white paper outlining how electric VTOLs could work in 2010.

But competition is mounting when it comes to the flying-car moonshot — here are 5 other companies working on their own VTOL aircrafts.

SEE ALSO: Airbus is building a high-speed flying taxi fleet so you never have to sit in traffic again

1. German company eVolo wants to make its multicopter the future of urban mobility. Called the Volocopter, it has 18 rotors and can fit two people.

The Volocopter is powered by six batteries that allow for 20 minutes of flight, but eVolo is working to get that up to an hour. The company has begun manned testing in Germany and aims to roll out a production model in 2018.

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The final version of the Volocopter will be able to reach 62 miles per hour. It has more than 130 independent computers onboard that could allow it to fly autonomously later on.

Warren Buffett isn't your typical billionaire.

And with a net worth of $70 billion, he lives a modest lifestyle.

Buffett still lives in the house he bought in 1957 for $31,000, forgoes private jets for public transportation, and plays bridge instead of throwing parties.

And it is that juxtaposition of vast wealth and a desire to live simply that has captured the awe of people around the world.

His lifestyle was recently captured in the HBO's documentary "Becoming Warren Buffett."

Following are interesting things we've gleaned from the billionaire's eventful, 86-year-long life.

The "Oracle of Omaha" was born in 1930 in Omaha, Nebraska, to Howard and Leila Buffett. His father was four-term US congressman from Nebraska and a stockbroker.

Source: Investopedia

While most kids were playing stickball out in the street, Buffett was rubbing elbows with Wall Street's most powerful players.

At age 10, Buffett had his "road to Damascus" moment, on Wall Street.

During a visit to New York City, Buffett and his father joined At Mol, a Dutchman who was a member of the New York Stock Exchange, for lunch.

"After lunch, a guy came along with a tray that had all these different kinds of tobacco leaves on it," Buffett recalled. "He made a cigar for Mr. Mol, who picked out the leaves he wanted. And I thought, this is it. It can't get any better than this. A custom-made cigar."

It was at that moment Buffett realized he would dedicate his life to making money.

Source: Business Insider

Buffett caught the investing bug early. When he was 11 years old he purchased his first stock.

He bought three shares of Cities Services Preferred at $38 per share. The young Buffett held on to them despite a quick price drop, to $27 per share, but sold them as soon as they reached $40.

Buffett's small profit could have been tremendous if he had waited it out a little longer, as the price of Cities Services Preferred's stock ultimately soared to nearly $200 per share.

The experience imparted an important financial lesson, which has informed his investment decisions to this day: Buy and hold.

Source: Biography.com

Tax season has come around, and many of us have begun the thrilling task of gathering year-end statements from banks and brokerages. Opinions are often divided over which taxes and tax rates are reasonable, but there are some state tax laws that most people would view as weird -- or at least surprising. Some can offer lessons for us all, too.

SEE ALSO: Credit conditions for most business lending unchanged in fourth quarter : Fed

Alabama: A Confederate veterans tax

The last veteran of World War I, which ended in 1918, died back in 2011, but in Alabama, taxpayers are still paying a Confederate veterans tax -- tied to the Civil War. The war ended in 1865, and its last surviving veterans died decades ago. What's going on, then? Well, this tax is a reminder of how persistent taxes can be. Once a tax is set in place and its revenue is expected and planned for, many won't want it to be curtailed. This tax used to support needy veterans at the Alabama Confederate Soldiers' Home (which closed nearly 80 years ago), and is now used to maintain the Confederate Memorial Park in the town of Mountain Creek. With the tax reportedly generating around $400,000 annually, the park is one of the best maintained in the state.

New Hampshire: No income tax and no sales tax

Most states in the U.S. levy an income tax and a sales tax. Some sales taxes are very low, if income taxes or other taxes are relatively high -- and vice versa. New Hampshire thus seems an oddity for charging neither. So what gives? Well, it does tax interest and dividends to a modest degree. More importantly, it charges hefty property taxes -- recently the third highest in the nation. That's a good reminder that towns and states unavoidably require lots of dollars to run their governments and towns and that the money has to come from somewhere. If you're attracted to a certain state because of low property taxes or low sales taxes or low income taxes, dig deeper to see how it's generating its income.

Missouri: A bachelor tax

If you're an unmarried man between 21 and 50 in Missouri, get ready to bear a higher tax burden than your married neighbor. Missouri taxes such guys $1 per year -- costing some long-term Show-Me-State-dwellers about $30, in total. The law dates all the way back to 1820, when the value of that dollar was equal to about $20 today. Similar taxes have existed in many countries and times, often for the purpose of encouraging marriage.

Several reports citing anonymous sources have come out seeking to shed light behind the scenes on the day-to-day operations of the new White House.

President Donald Trump has been in office for 18 days, and while he's made sweeping changes to the government, his life has been upended, as well.

A New York Times report published Sunday from Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman offers one of the most detailed accounts of how Trump spends his days, and especially his nights. The president called the article a "total fiction" on Twitter Monday.

Here are nine of the most bizarre details we gleaned from The Times' report, and other stories about Trump's White House:

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Since his wife Melania and their young son Barron are still living in New York, Trump spends most of his nights alone, typically retiring to the residence by 6:30 p.m.

Source: New York Times

He apparently had a much larger TV installed in the presidential dining room so he can watch cable news during lunch.

Source: New York Times

The Times also suggested Trump watches more cable news in his bathrobe, upstairs and alone in the White House at night.

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https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/828714562966974464
Sean Spicer: "I don't think the president owns a bathrobe." (via @justinsink

Let's see, Google "Trump""bathrobe" ... OH MY GOD pic.twitter.com/bnb0odcTXD

Source: New York Times