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The Hobbiton Movie Set is one of the biggest tourist attractions in New Zealand

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The Hobbiton Movie Set in Matamata, New Zealand, will make you feel like you’ve just stepped into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "The Hobbit" films and books. 

hobbiton

First opened in 2002, Hobbiton is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in New Zealand, drawing in more than 350,000 visitors a year.

When you enter the 1,250-acre Alexander Farm, you’ll see 37 hobbit holes waiting to be explored.

hobbitonYou can step inside the house of Bilbo Baggins and see where Samwise Gamgee and Rosie Cotton lived. Some of the hobbit holes are big enough to explore while others are miniature in size. 

Outside the homes are everyday items from the lives of hobbits including cabbage gardens, smoked fish, honey pots, butterfly catchers, and hobbit-sized shirts and pants hung on clotheslines to dry. 

hobbitonPeter Jackson came across the farm while conducting an aerial search of the North Island. When he saw the area, he thought it was the perfect location for Hobbiton, one of the places in the Shire where Hobbits lived. 

They began site construction in 1999, implementing incredible detail to make the set complete. The Party Tree was created with artificial leaves imported from Taiwan and individually wired onto the tree. 

hobbitonThe set was rebuilt again in 2011 for “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again.”

hobbitonSince then, it's been a permanent attraction adorned with bridges, gardens, the Mill and other locations you might recognize from the set. 

hobbitonYou can stop into the Green Dragon Inn, which opened in the park December of 2012 and is featured in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as the local meeting places for the Hobbiton and Bywater residents.

hobbitonThis was where hobbits would gather to drink, enjoy a meal, and discuss what was happening in the Shire.

Today, the Green Dragon Inn offers an exact replica of what is seen in the films, where you can enjoy a cold cup of beer or cider and sample traditional Hobbit fare like beef and ale pie. 

hobbitonYou can tour the Hobbiton Movie Set year-round for $75, which includes transport to and from the set, a complimentary drink at the Green Dragon Inn, and a guide who will explain how the set was created.

You can also embark on the Evening Dinner Tour at $190, where you’ll be treated to a banquet feast with Hobbit fare, and a nighttime tour where you'll be given an authentic handheld lantern as you walk through an illuminated Hobbiton.

HobbitonWhile you're in the area, be sure to see some of New Zealand's other locations that inspired the movie including Mount Ruapehu and Mount Ngauruhoe, which became Mt. Doom, and Queenstown, which was the setting for several scenes including the Eregion Hills and the Pillars of Argonath. 

SEE ALSO: There's a miniature park in the Netherlands that has replicated the entire country down to the very last detail

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NOW WATCH: 7 Disney World Hacks Just For Adults


11 short books to read if you want to get rich

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smart person

You don't have to be a money expert to get rich, but it can help to read up on investing and achieving wealth.

Good news: There are several concise books loaded with valuable information about accumulating wealth that you could start and finish in an afternoon. 

We can't guarantee a book will make you rich, but if you've always wanted to learn how to properly manage your money and never made the time, start with this list of brilliant personal finance books all under 160 pages.

'Rich Habits: The Daily Success Habits of Wealthy Individuals,' by Thomas Corley

In "Rich Habits," Corley outlines his findings after studying the lives of both rich people (people with an annual income of $160,000 or more and a liquid net worth of $3.2 million or more) and poor people (people with an annual income of $35,000 or less and a liquid net worth of $5,000 or less) for five years.

He managed to segment out what he calls "rich habits" and "poverty habits,"meaning the tendencies of those who fit in each group. 

His 94-pager provides 10 principles to help you start developing the right habits and walk in the footsteps of the wealthy.



'If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly,' by William Bernstein

William Bernstein, cofounder of investment management firm Efficient Frontier Advisors, originally published "If You Can: How Millennials Can Get Rich Slowly" as an e-book for $0.99 on Amazon (and made it available for free on his website).

The quick 48-page read details how people early in their careers can retire comfortably with $1 million in the bank if they take a few critical steps. 

You can get a preview of his thoughts in the article he published on Business Insider.



'The Psychology of Investing,' by John Nofsinger

Investing is one of the most effective ways to start building a fortune, and the earlier you start, the better.

Nofsinger, a finance professor at Washington State University, explores the ways psychology affects investors in "The Psychology of Investing," while also providing a concise overview of how to make smart investing decisions when just starting out.

 

 



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WHERE ARE THEY NOW: The first interns of the world's biggest tech companies

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Austin Geidt uber

Uber, Google, and Facebook are among the biggest, most powerful tech companies in the world.

But when they were founded, these companies were scrappy startups with small staffs. They hired interns — usually college kids or recent grads — to help keep things chugging along.

So where are the earliest interns from these companies now? We did some research to find out. In some cases, these companies' first interns have stayed onboard, moving up to new positions. Others have left to start their own companies or pursue other ventures.

Twitter's first intern, Kevin Systrom went on to found Instagram, which he sold for $1 billion to Facebook

After graduating from Stanford in 2006 with degrees in engineering and management science, Kevin Systrom interned for Odeo, the company that would eventually become known as Twitter.

After his internship, he worked at several tech companies: he had a stint at Google, at a travel advice website called Nextstop, and finally, a startup he founded called Burbn. Burbn would eventually morph into what's known today as Instagram. Today, Systrom is best known as the co-founder and CEO of Instagram.

 



Facebook's first intern, Darian Shirazi, became CEO and founder of Radius

Darian Shirazi became the first intern for Facebook when he was 19. Prior to that, at age 15, he had caught eBay's eye as a power seller on the website. The company invited him to intern there when he was 15. He stayed on for two summers in high school.

He stayed on board at Facebook, reporting directly to Mark Zuckerberg, for two years, first as an intern and then as a software engineer. He left to take classes at Berkeley at his parents' request. Now, Shirazi is the founder and CEO of Radius, a company that collects data about small businesses for sales and marketing purposes.



WeWork is now a $5 billion co-working space, and its first intern Alex Seeman, still works there as a digital product manager

Alex Seeman was an early intern at WeWork, the $5 billion company that divides up big, rented office spaces and sublets them to startups and other businesses.

Seeman started as an intern at WeWork in summer 2012, and now serves as a Digital Product Manager at the company.



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Breathtaking images of Saturn, the farthest planet we can see with the naked eye

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Saturn

Saturn flaunts the most majestic planetary rings in the solar system, but that's not the only thing that makes this beautiful gas giant unique. It's also the farthest planet from Earth that we can see with the naked eye.

From 746 million miles away, however, we can't observe Saturn like NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting the ringed planet since 2004.

While some of Cassini's photos portray Saturn as a tranquil giant floating in space, others reveal the dynamic, stormy nature of its windy atmosphere. 

Here's a collection of some of the most incredible images Cassini has captured so far. You can learn more about each image by clicking the link provided in each photo's caption in the lower right.

The sun is located directly behind Saturn in this image taken from 1.3 million miles away. The light from the sun passes through Saturn's rings, revealing the never-before-seen E ring, which is the faint, outer-most ring below.



Shown here is a beautifully detailed look at Saturn's four inner rings. The closest to the planet is the D ring and extending outward from there are the C,B, and A rings. Each ring is separated by a thin, empty gap.



This image highlights Saturn's north pole, which displays a six-sided hurricane that's 60 miles deep and a whopping 1,250 miles across.




See the rest of the story at Business Insider

14 photos of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading 35,000 people in yoga

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We write a lot about the economic policies of India's somewhat eccentric prime minister, Narendra Modi.

But maintaining a competitive rupee and a small current account deficit aren't the only things keeping the prime minister busy in office.

He also invented International Yoga Day.

That's right, all those people you saw practicing yoga in Times Square on Sunday? That was Modi's idea.

He proposed it to the United Nations last year and offered June 21 as a suggested date because it was also summer solstice.

People joined around the world, from France to China, Egypt and Afghanistan. And, of course, in India.

Modi made a speech to the nearly 36,000 participants who gathered in Delhi on Sunday. Then he surprised the crowd by getting down on the ground and joining in with them for a 35-minute session.

But his yoga day did not come without criticism: activists contend that the prime minister, who had a reputation as a hardline Hindu nationalist when he was a state minister, is trying to force yoga on minorities, according to Reuters.

Other people reportedly said that they're quite happy practicing yoga in their personal lives and don't need the prime minister to tell them what to do.

Here are 14 photos of Modi doing yoga.

SEE ALSO: The prime minister of India just made his first really embarrassing gaffe

Here's Modi, joining in on International Yoga Day.



Modi told the crowd that just making a body flexible and turning it into shapes is not really Yoga. Otherwise, everyone in a circus would be a yogi.



The prime minister is reportedly a big fan of yoga and practices every day.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

These are the 20 most stylish men on the planet

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Eddie Redmayne

We got scientific on this. Hundreds of candidates considered. Thousands of street style photos analyzed.

(To see exactly how scientific, click here.)

We even spent several hours just contemplating Jared Leto's hair.

Then, after endless rounds of debate, we finalized our list and made it the cover of GQ's July issue.

This is not about the celebrities who spend the most cash on designer clothes or hire the best stylists. Instead, we were looking for guys who carry themselves through the world with confidence and originality. 

Men who follow their own spirit guides. (Something tells us Kanye's is a peregrine falcon, but don't ask us why.) Men who can teach us a thing or two about how to get dressed — and whose moves we most want to steal.

So here they are: The 20 most stylish men alive...

SEE ALSO: Check out the 25 most stylish cars ever made

DON'T FORGET: Follow Business Insider's Lifestyle page on Facebook!

Kanye West



Ryan Gosling



Pharrell Williams



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The internet's hottest fashion blogger is a dog, and he's teaching men how to dress

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In the winter of 2013, David Fung and his wife Yena Kim drove up from New York to the Catskills for a weekend with Bodhi, their charismatic Shiba Inu.

Like pet owners are known to do, they dressed him up — cardigan sweater, shirt, and tie. 

Just like that, a menswear icon was born.

Today, Bodhi is featured in the New York Times ...



... and top-flight advertisements.



It all started back in January 2013, when David (a graphic designer) and Yena (a fashion designer) uploaded their first photos of a dressed-up Bodhi to Tumblr.



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7 ways to tell if someone is cheating on you

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couple kissing comforting

Ever wonder if your significant other isn't being entirely truthful?

First of all,there's a good chance you're right — it's perfectly normal to lie.

But if you're worried that someone's fibbing extends into the important stuff, like happiness or fidelity, you might have considered trying to catch them in a lie.

Unfortunately, science can't tell you if your partner is sleeping around, but it is getting better at spotting when someone — especially a significant other — is being deceptive.

Here are 7 ways to tell if your partner might be keeping something important from you.

SEE ALSO: Psychologist says these 2 patterns of behavior are the most common signs that a couple is going to divorce

READ MORE: 5 things that happen to couples who've been together a long time

Ask a friend.

Other people — strangers, even — have an uncanny ability to detect when something's not right in someone else's relationship.

BYU psychologists tested out this idea by having couples draw an object together, with one participant blindfolded and the other one giving instructions on what to draw. The whole thing was videotaped. Before they started, the scientists had the couples answer a few questions about their relationship in private, including whether or not they'd ever cheated. 

Then, the researchers had a group of strangers watch the footage and guess which couples included a partner who'd ever cheated. The volunteers were surprisingly accurate.

Although preliminary, the research suggests that, simply by watching a couple doing something that requires working together, an outside observer may be able to detect infidelity or unhappiness.

"People make remarkably accurate judgments about others in a variety of situations after just a brief exposure to their behavior," the researchers wrote in the study.



Mull it over while doing something else.

People are generally bad judges of character — consciously, at least. When we are given time to process another person's actions subconsciously, however, we're far better at telling truth from deceit.

In 2013, a team of psychologists had a panel of student judges watch people give testimony and decide if they'd lied or told the truth. The students who were given time to think before they made a decision — so long as they were made to think about something other than the case they were assessing — were better at figuring out whether the person they were judging had been deceitful.

"These findings suggest that the human mind is not unfit to distinguish between truth and deception," write the researchers in the study, "but that this ability resides in previously overlooked processes."



Listen carefully to the words they use.

For a recent study, Southern Methodist University professor of psychology James W. Pennebaker looked at some data he and his colleague Diane Berry had gathered from a text analysis program. They found that some specific patterns of language were helpful at predicting when someone was avoiding the truth.

Liars, they found, tended to use fewer of the following three types of words:

  • First person words, like "I,""me," or "my"
  • Cognitive words, like "realize" or "think"
  • Exclusive words, like "but" or "except"

But they tended to use more of the following types of words:

  • Negative emotion words, like "hate,""anger," or "enemy"
  • Motion verbs, like "walk" or "move"


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Go inside the Brooklyn home of New York's most sought-after architect

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Bjarke Ingels Dumbo Penthouse

Bjarke Ingels isn't a household name yet. But you probably know his buildings.

The Danish starchitect's 
international architecture firm, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), recently snagged the 2 World Trade Center commission.

On the heels of his big get, Ingels has acquired some fancy new digs: a gorgeous penthouse in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

The apartment has four private terraces with jaw-dropping city views — so Ingels can watch his 2 WTC masterpiece rise.

BIG has designed some of the world's most lauded buildings, including Google's new 60-acre headquarters in Mountainview, California. 

Karen Heyman of Sotheby's International Realty closed the deal in Dumbo.

If the penthouse at 250 Water Street in the exclusive Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo looks like it was decorated by an interior designer, that's because it was.



The previous owners were Athena and Victor Calderone — an interior designer and music producer, respectively.



The Calderones bought the penthouse in 2009 for $2.9 million. The apartment went on the market this January for $4.3 million. It underwent a series of price cuts before Ingels finally pulled the trigger at $3.9 million.



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A Wall Street exec is selling his gorgeous modernist home in Connecticut for $14 million

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House wiley

President of Freepoint Commodities, Frank Gallipoli, is putting a coveted modernist house up for sale at $14 million with Sotheby's International Realty.

The commodities trading executive originally bought the property $1 million in the mid-1990s — when the modernist housing market had fewer buyers.

That said, John Hersam, one of the realtors in charge of the project, said Gallipoli likely spent much more to restore the property than it's current asking price. 

"It was more of a project of passion, he didn't really think about the return," Hersam said. Hersam listed the property along with Inger Stringfellow

According to the Wall Street Journal, living inside feels like living in a "tree house," said Gallipoli, who now lives in New York.

The property is a contemporary collector's dream: it's stayed true to Johnson's original design with changes to decrease energy inefficiencies: heat-insulating glass panes and floor heating. 

 

SEE ALSO: Beverly Hills mansion with a scandalous Ponzi scheme past lists for $37.5 million

SEE ALSO: Hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones is selling his other waterfront Florida mansion for $14.5 million

Welcome to the Wiley House in New Canaan, Conn., home to many famous 50s modernist structures. You'll probably notice the six acres of well-manicured grass first.



Then the huge glass pavilion emerging from behind the trees. Despite its angular structure, the building is considered among the most "livable" of Philip Johnson's works. Four bedrooms make up the foundation of the house.



The house was remodeled to include insulating glass panels after Gallipoli moved in. Come in and take a look...



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Watch the original Mazda Miata race the all-new Mazda Miata

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Miata Race

There's a new Mazda MX-5, known more colloquially as the "Miata," on the block. The latest generation of the beloved roadster is set to arrive in the third quarter of this year.

A quarter-century after its introduction, the frisky little drop-top has been steadily improved. It's gotten bigger and faster. But how much faster?

Mazda decided to find out, pitting a first-generation MX-5 against the latest model and filming the excitement. A pair of endurance racers were recruited: Jade Paveley to pilot the 1990 Miata; and Owen Mildenhall to helm the new MX-5.

The earliest Miata managed only 116 horsepower. With a larger engine, the new MX-5 cranks out 155. At a race track in Spain, Mazda's thinking was that such a power differential translates into 4 seconds, so that's how much of a head start Paveley got.

Would she be able to hold her lead?

Jade Paveley gets the older, slower Miata — but a 4-second head start. Will she be able to drive the little roadster well enough to maintain her lead?



Owen Mildenhall got behind the wheel of the much-improved MX-5. But will better handling, better suspension, and more horsepower be enough? Driving skill can still win races, and Paveley has a head start!



Green flag means go!



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Step inside one of the world's most luxurious river cruise ships

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Suite 1

River cruises are taking over as the new vacation of choice.

Uniworld specializes in these types of cruises. The luxury river cruise ship operator has 21 ships that travel along rivers in Europe, Russia, Egypt, and China.

The company recently introduced a new ship to its fleet: the S.S. Maria Theresa.

The ship has a staff of 57, a total of 75 rooms, and can accommodate up to 150 guests. The lavish interior makes the ship comparable to a baroque palace.

Cruises on the ship range from eight to 15 days and cost anywhere between $3,200 to around $12,000 per person.

Here's the S.S. Maria Theresa ship from the outside. It's 443 feet in length, has three decks, and an elevator.



The ship has three different routes, all of which are in Europe. The longest — European jewels — goes from Budapest to Amsterdam in 15 days and makes stops in Cologne, Germany, among other cities.



The two other routes go between Passau and Budapest. One of the main stops is the town of Salzburg in Austria.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Tyler Perry is selling his ridiculously lavish Atlanta mansion for $25 million

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Tyler Perry Home

Tyler Perry is an actor, screenwriter, playwright, director, producer, and, last but not least, major real estate collector.

Although he just listed his palatial Atlanta mansion for $25 million, he still has a $62 million estate, $3.6 million chateau, and $7.6 million pied a terre — and that's just in the state of Georgia. 

Josh Reeves and Chase Mizell of Sotheby's International Realty hold the listing for the seven bedroom behemoth that just hit the market. 

Sitting on 17 acres of private land, this 34,688 square-foot mansion has it all.



Built in 2007 along the Chattahoochee River, it's described as "the most compelling private residence to ever be offered to market in the history of Atlanta."



Winding bike trails let you explore the great outdoors without ever leaving the property.



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What 11 extremely successful people were doing as teenagers

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young bill gates

Many highly successful people started their ascent to fame and fortune early.

Bill Gates, for example, spent his teenage years learning to code. Meanwhile, a young Warren Buffett worked several jobs and had accumulated today's equivalent of $53,000 by age 16.

Find out what they and others at the top were doing as teenagers.

Bill Gates was falling in love with computers.

The Microsoft founder spent his early teens attending the prestigious Lakeside prep school in Seattle. While there, Gates discovered his love of computers by writing a computer code for a version of tic-tac-toe.

Gates and fellow student Paul Allen, his Microsoft cofounder, went into business together for the first time in high school. When Gates was 15, the duo created Traf-O-Data, a tool for tracking traffic flow in the area.

After high school, Gates attended Harvard University but dropped out in 1975 to work full-time on Microsoft, which ultimately made him the world's richest self-made billionaire.



Warren Buffett had multiple revenue streams.

The billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway started building his wealth early. By the time he was 16, he had earned today's equivalent of $53,000, according to the biography "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life" by Alice Schroeder.

One of Buffett's first jobs was delivering The Washington Post. As a teen, he also had several personal business ventures, including selling golf balls, buffing cars, selling stamps, and setting up pinball machines in barbershops. 



Oprah Winfrey worked for a local radio station.

Winfrey bounced between family members before moving in with her dad in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 14. The move sparked a drastic change in her life.

Winfrey studied her way to honor-roll status at East Nashville High School and became the most popular girl in her class. More importantly, she established a love for media and joined the school's speech team.

She got her first job when she was 16 as a broadcaster for WVOL, a Nashville radio station. As a 19-year-old sophomore at Tennessee State University, Winfrey got a call from a local television station and left school to start her media career. The gamble paid off



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Help Business Insider spruce up its office with our first photo contest!

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business insider new office

Here at Business Insider, we're growing rapidly. In the last year, we've moved into a new office and have since expanded to two floors. We just keep getting bigger and bigger!

One thing we also have a lot of is wall space. We thought the lack of art in our office was starting to look sad, so we called on our team to submit their best photos for our first ever Business Insider photo contest. They gave us some amazing shots taken all over the world, including great snaps from our offices in San Francisco and London.

When it came time to pick the winners, we thought who better to decide the best pictures than our loyal readers. So, check out the pictures and at the end, be sure to pick your favorites. We'll post pics of the framed art hanging on our walls.

The streets of New York City are busy, no matter the hour.



But you don't forget to look up every once in a while.



No matter how you travel in the Big Apple, you can find beauty.



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The 14 best money management tips from real people's budgets

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Over the last few months, over a dozen readers from across the US have been generous enough to share their budgets with Business Insider.

From a 25-year-old with impressive financial management skills to a would-be retiree trying to figure out if he can afford to take the plunge, they all have something to teach the rest of us.

Here are some of the highlights.

Don't sweat the dollars and cents.

It doesn't matter exactly how much you spend, just how it relates to the amount you planned. Clarence Reed, a 57-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia, highlights any cell in his Excel spreadsheet that shows he's spent less than 75% or more than 125% of what he planned.

And if a few categories seem a little out of whack in a month, he doesn't drive himself crazy about it.

"I love to travel," he tells Business Insider. "I spend what I consider a reasonably high amount of money, but as long as the yearly number is within the realm, I'm perfectly OK. Boating is another bigger one: I do not care about it."

See Reed's budget.



Keep your budget in perspective.

Brett Schock, a 32-year-old father from Fort Worth, Texas, has two budgets: His real one, based on his actual income and spending, and his "happy budget," or how much he and his wife estimate they'd need to live a life that makes them happy.

In fact, the Schocks have started earning enough money — $142,000 a year before taxes — that their happy budget is more reality than dream. 

"The 'happy budget' is more of a self-realization thing, because I've seen too many people who work themselves really hard for that little bit of extra money, and I don't know if it's worth it," Schock explains. "Right now things are pretty good — we feel like we've kind of made it."

See the Schocks' budget.



Start planning for retirement as soon as you can.

Ron Zahn explains that he and his wife Joan have been investing for retirement from "day one."

"In 1962, we started investing $25 a month into a mutual fund," he remembers. "Those investments, over time, allowed us to have resources in retirement, and I committed to not extracting more money than the required minimum distribution each month."

In retirement, the Zahns live comfortably on a little over $4,000 a month, and don't touch the bulk of their retirement savings.

See the Zahns' budget.



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The cycling world can't stop talking about this new super-fast bike going into the Tour de France

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2016 Specialized Venge bike full picture

This year's Tour de France, as with most Tours, will see the rolling out of new bikes, wheels, tires, helmets, sunglasses, shoes, apparel, and more. Because it's the world's largest annual sporting event, it's an ideal time for manufactures to show off all their new stuff.

One bike that seems to be getting more attention than all the others is the just-revealed Specialized S-Works Venge ViAS. The company recently invited Business Insider to check it out in person, but because it was under embargo until now we didn't get to take it for a spin. Yet during our brief meet-up with a Specialized rep we got to snap a few pics and learn a bit about it. Specialized claims it is "the fastest bike in the world," which is a bold statement considering how many fast bikes are out there.

The carbon Venge is actually one of five new products Specialized is unveiling this week as a "complete aerodynamic ecosystem." Along with the Venge, there's a new skinsuit, helmet, shoes, and wheel-and-tire system. All together, the project is dubbed "5 Minutes," which is how much time you'll save over 40 kilometers, or about 25 miles, if you're riding this bike and wearing the gear, the company says. That is, compared to its previous similar bike and gear.

There will be limited availability beginning in August, the company said. The price for the Venge: $12,500. See more photos below, along with further details.

SEE ALSO: Cycling officials keep checking riders' bikes because they think there may be motors in them

DON'T MISS: Millionaire entrepreneur explains why cycling — and not golf — is the new sport of choice for young professionals

Meet the road bike that's getting lots of attention right now, just ahead of July's Tour de France: the new Specialized S-Works Venge ViAS.

Although we didn't get to ride the bike — not yet anyway — it does look impressive. The first thing we noticed was the headset, stem, and handlebar; it looks like a super-stiff setup. Then the new proprietary brakes; they're integrated, behind the fork and seat tube. Third, there are no cables showing — they're all internally routed. The company says this bike, ridden with a Roval CLX64 wheelset, will save 120 seconds over 40km. Overall, as a first impression, it might be the best-looking aero road bike we've ever seen. Hopefully we'll get to test-ride one soon.

Here's what Specialized's Chris Riekert said in a statement sent to Business Insider:

The all-new S-Works Venge ViAS Di2 was developed with one objective in mind—to be the fastest bike in the world. The design for this bike started with building our own Win Tunnel, and with more than 1000 hours of testing, prototyping, and refining, we can say with confidence that we nailed our objective. The high level of performance starts with a Rider-First Engineered frame and fork that feature a new level of aerodynamics. This is coupled with the added benefit of the Roval CLX 64 wheelset—the fastest wheels we've ever made. Along with the zero-drag brakes and Aerofly ViAS cockpit, the S-Works Venge ViAS Di2 is, quite simply, the fastest bike in the world.



Up front things look stiff and fast with the new stem and headset and the new proprietary "zero-drag brake" tucked in behind the fork and out of the wind.

And here's what Specialized says about the new wheelset:

Roval CLX 64 wheelset provides the ultimate in speed and performance. Optimized for both head- and crosswinds, the CLX 64 wheelset is tubeless-ready and features a 21mm internal rim width for enhanced traction, minimal rolling resistance, and improved aerodynamics.



A view of the cockpit and the Aerofly ViAS handlebar from the rider's point of view.



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This 2-year-old became a Yelp celebrity, and now his family eats all over NYC for free

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foodbaby screen shot

For some parents, going out to dinner with a baby might be a stressful event, but for Mike Chau and his son Matthew, it's the perfect photo-op. 

Chau is a popular Yelp reviewer and the Instagrammer behind @foodbabyny, an account devoted to taking pictures of delicious food.

In 2012, Chau posted his first restaurant review on Yelp, but it wasn't until 2013 — when he started including his son in the pictures — that his foodie fame began, Cosmopolitan reports

It seems people were more interested in the cute baby in the background of the photos than the snaps of the actual meals. And it worked for Chau and his family in a big way.

Today, Chau has posted over a thousand Yelp reviews and has been approached by restaurants all over the city hoping the father-son duo will make an appearance and take a photo.

SEE ALSO: One photographer amassed thousands of Instagram followers after repeatedly organizing her food in a very particular way

It all started when Chau posted a Yelp review of a sushi order in 2013.

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Chau's first food picture of his son occurred "almost by accident,"he told Cosmo. He was snapping a shot of a sushi take-out order for Yelp and newborn Matthew just happened to be positioned behind the table.  



Since then, Chau has continued to include Matthew in his food photos.

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"Even before Food Baby became what it is, I would take pictures with him in the shot because with him in the pictures, it's funnier,"Mike told Cosmo

His sense of humor has paid off. Today, Chau has 5,000 followers on Yelp and over 43,000 followers on Instagram



Getting the perfect picture of both food and baby is a tricky task.

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It takes three different cell phones to create the pictures shared on @foodbabyny, Chau told Cosmo. Two are used for lighting and the third is used as a camera. Chau's wife, Alex, often helps him position the phones and Matthew to get the right shot.

 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

WELCOME TO SEALAND: The bizarre independent micronation that's been sitting off the coast of Britain for 50 years

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Map_of_Sealand_with_territorial_waters.svgYou've almost certainly heard of some of Europe's smallest nations — San Marino, Liechtenstein, and Vatican City immediately spring to mind.

But there are a host of other tiny, self-declared independent states around the continent that haven't been recognised by other countries. The Principality of Sealand is at the top of the list.

Nearly 50 years since this man-made platform split from the United Kingdom, Sealand is still going strong. Check out some of its weird and wonderful history here. 

Sealand is one of the world's smallest micronations — though it is not recognised by the UK, it is effectively autonomous since it wasn't located in British territorial waters when it was established in the late 1960s.



It's off the coast of Essex, located 7.5 miles from Great Britain. The site was previously known as HM Fort Roughs, a military installation built during the Second World War.



As you can see, it's pretty small and isolated, with a helicopter platform taking up much of the space at the top of the building. Full-time military personnel were withdrawn from the structure in 1956.



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24 people who became highly successful after age 40

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vera wang

For the more neurotic among us, a birthday can be a reminder of how another year has passed and our loftiest aspirations have faded farther into the distance.

There are plenty of examples, however, of successful people across many industries who prove that you don't need to have it all figured out by the time you turn 30.

We'll take a look at some of them, from renowned fashion designer Vera Wang, who didn't design her first dress until she was 40, to writer Harry Bernstein, who authored countless rejected books before getting his first hit at age 96.

Get inspired by those who show it's never too late.

Stan Lee created his first hit comic, "The Fantastic Four," just shy of his 39th birthday in 1961. In the next few years, he created the legendary Marvel Universe, whose characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men became American cultural icons.



Donald Fisher was 40 and had no experience in retail when he and his wife, Doris, opened the first Gap store in San Francisco in 1969. The Gap's clothes quickly became fashionable, and today it's one of the world's largest clothing chains.



Vera Wang was a figure skater and journalist before entering the fashion industry at age 40. Today she's one of the world's premier women's designers.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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