Author: kingmarine
The Leveraged Millionaire: Increase Your Risk, Increase Your Returns… Maybe
Leverage is a powerful tool to expedite your path to wealth. Leverage, sometimes called other people’s money (OPM), can also destroy your wealth, progression, and livelihood. I read in a book (I can’t remember which one) that you can only become as rich as the amount of money you borrow. For example, if you borrow…
Becoming an Entrepreneur #2: Dropping the 9-5 Mindset
If you feel weird without a job, it is not a coincidence. From the start, they programmed us to find a job and stay there until retirement. Consider the school system, where you attend from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Does this sound familiar? However, having a job isn’t a bad thing—what’s…
Annuities vs. Income Investing
Do you like betting against yourself? Do you believe someone can handle your money better than you? Although there are times to let the professionals handle the situation, we can still learn the information to give us additional options. Every American should have an income investing portfolio to assist them through life. Even passively earning…
5 Takeaways from “The Everything Budgeting Book”
“The Everything Budgeting Book” by Tere Stouffer is a massive book covering everything about budgeting (as the title implies). You will find budgets from having a baby, saving for college, and growing a retirement fund. This is the book I should have read right before I joined the military in 1999. Many of the lessons…
I Love Paying Bills Because I Mastered the Process
I remember hating to pay my bills in my early 20s. I didn’t have a cell phone back then, but I had a car loan, insurance, and maintenance costs. I hated paying bills because I didn’t comprehend the process; I wasn’t serious about keeping tabs on my expenses. I got married in 2006, and my…
Financial Freedom is a Mindset, Not an Account Balance
I didn’t feel financially free when I was $77,000 in debt. I was earning over $100,000 at my day job, but I still felt behind. However, once I started to read articles on passive income, compound interest, and getting out of debt, I immediately knew I would free myself and my family. That was back…
Series “I” Bonds 4 Life: It’s Always a Good Time to Buy Savings Bonds
As inflation slowly recedes, so does the hype for one of my favorite investment tools—Series “I” Bonds. The hype turned into mania when they paid 9.62% interest last year. The goal of an “I” bond is to protect your cash from inflation while giving you a modest return. When they hit 9.62%, it was probably…
Achieve F.I.R.E. via Income Investing
We all want to escape the workforce. I have been working since 1997, when I started at McDonald’s, and I’ve never seen an employment market like this. Everyone is overworked, underpaid, and struggling to survive. Leadership is even more chaotic and unorganized than the employees. If you do not have your finances in order, you…
Becoming an Entrepreneur #1: Reading the Right Books
What’s the difference between an entrepreneur and an employee? The employee receives a paycheck for going to work, while the entrepreneur gets compensation for adding value. They may sound similar, but they are vastly different mindsets. Why would an employee want to become an entrepreneur? Over the years in the workforce, your company will severely…
Position Yourself for the Next Bull Market
We are near the bottom of the bear market. Pessimism in the markets peaked, and we can begin to see optimism show its lovely face. But we still have time to make some life-changing moves while prices are excellent and everyone focuses on surviving. To invest wisely during a bear market and recession, we must…
How to Start a Business Cheaply
The future of the economy is unknown. Will we delve into a recession or start the next bull market? We all must lay and wait, but we can take massive action to improve our chances. One way to change our fortunes is to start a business. When people think of business, they think of physical…
Change Your Money Cycle: Your Spending Habits Determine Your Wealth
We hit the jackpot by being born in America. We have the chance to go from broke to rich in one lifetime. Heck, we can achieve incredible wealth in 20 years if we truly try. Unfortunately, most people will never seize this fantastic opportunity. Not because they didn’t work hard but because their money cycle…
Rental Income vs. Income Investing
Every middle-class American should aim to achieve three types of passive income: dividends, rents, and royalties. We ALL have access to these types of passive income; we need only make an effort to build these revenue streams as early as possible. If you are a young person just starting in the world, which is the…
Dividend ETFs vs. Index Funds
A few improvements to investing have changed the game for the average middle-class investor. These are fractional shares, zero commission fees, and automated investing. Today, we can invest $5/week into our favorite index funds and dividend ETFs to slowly grow our portfolio. Plus, we can still go all in with $5,000 when we get our…
Power Writing: Write a Book in a Week
Becoming a writer is one of the most empowering things you can do in your life. Writing is demanding because you must articulate your thoughts and convey them so others can understand. Many people fear writing because of nightmares from high school or college. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart. But if you…
My High-Yield Savings Account: Year in Review 2022
Today we celebrate. 2022 was an incredible financial year; therefore, we can ring in 2023 with a bang. My high-yield savings account is one of my favorite investment vehicles of 2022, so I want to explore it more in-depth. Discover did me a solid by sending me an email summary of my HYSA. This also…
Middle-Class Investing 111: Middle-Class Investing COMPLETE
The Middle-Class Investing 101 Series was super fun to write and develop. Investing gets a bad reputation among the middle class. People believe investing is about taking all kinds of crazy risks and flying by the seat of your pants. In reality, it is the exact opposite of this scenario. Investing is about creating a…
The Great Family Reset: The Independent Person Experiment Failed
It was an experiment for the ages. The idea was to send a person out of the home at age 18 and see if they could make it in the world. They used words like “be independent,” “go build,” and “become a man” to entice us into the world alone and without resources. A few…
Middle-Class Investing 110: Create a Wealth Generator
We have come a long way on our investing train, and we arrive at our final stop today. Now that we know exactly what to do with our money, we need to make a lot more of it. But we don’t want to do all the work; we want our investments to carry the load.…
Diversify Your Home Equity: Protect Yourself with Multiple Investment Strategies
The run-up in housing prices has slowed down, at least for now. However, many of us are still sitting on tons of home equity. Is it a good idea to let your house value determine your net worth? What if the housing market drops again, like in 2008? I don’t believe housing prices will drop…
