Middle-Class Investing 108: Why Dividend Growth Investing?
Today, we will dive deeper into the world of wealth-building. Sadly, most middle-class folks will never buy individual stocks. The purpose of dividend growth investing is to build a nest egg that also pays you. In addition to a steady paycheck, your dividend payments grow over time to combat inflation. Does this method sound too…
Compound Interest: You Can Pay It or You Can Earn It
If you ever seek motivation in life, look no further than the power of compounding—everything we do in life compounds, either positively or negatively. “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy explores how we can exploit compounding to improve anything we want in our lives. The more things we put into motion, the more chances we…
Middle-Class Investing 107: Capture the Market with Index Funds
You must build the mindset of an investor; it doesn’t come naturally. We have gone from broke to saving throughout the Middle-Class Investing 101 series (101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106). Now, it’s time to dabble in the stock market. However, we need to understand the long-term advantages and disadvantages of simplified investing using index…
Home Buying for the Average Person 2
“You will own nothing and be happy.” This thought process comes from the higher beings inside our governments, businesses, and military. Why is this quote so important to the middle-class family? Because we must be wary of how things slowly play out to fulfill this new reality. We used to buy physical products such as…
Middle-Class Investing 106: Using Bonds to Create Safe Cash Flow
As we start understanding assets, we see value in safely accumulating more things that produce money. Just because we are middle-class doesn’t mean we can’t have access to some significant investment products. Treasury bonds are the safest investment instruments we can buy; we can purchase them directly from the US Treasury (like large institutions). Retirement…
Two People, One Budget: Create a Budget and Start Income Investing
They say finances cause most marriages to fail, but what specifically is the disconnect between couples? More importantly, how can we prevent these issues from causing a division between the lovebirds? My wife, Kristina, and I have been married for 17 years, and we are on the same page financially. When we didn’t have “the…
Middle-Class Investing 105: Start with Savings & Interest
Becoming a big-time investor doesn’t start with buying dividend stocks and real estate. First, you must appreciate every dollar you earn. The purpose of every dollar you earn is to earn more dollars. That’s right; your money makes you money. The first place we can start earning income from our money is in the banks.…
30-Year Bonds vs. Blue-Chip Dividend Stocks
Today is a great moment in time to be an investor. It’s been over 13 years since stocks and bonds had to compete for your investment dollars. If you are searching for a 4% yield, you can now choose between a 30-Year Bond or a blue-chip dividend-paying stock. However, the answer doesn’t lay in numbers;…
Middle-Class Investing 104: Building a Solid Retirement Plan
We all strive to leave the workforce with more cash flow than when we started. However, along the path to retirement, life happens. We hit multiple recessions, lost jobs, had children, paid for college, and bought a house. These events can derail our retirement dreams, but only if we do not fully flesh out our…
Middle-Class Investing 103: Create Additional Streams of Income
To sit comfortably in the middle class, you must create additional income streams. Holding one or two jobs in the household is risky. Rich people understand the power of having multiple streams of income. It is how they continue to accumulate wealth, even during a recession. Welcome back to the Middle-Class Investing 101 series (101,…
The True Power Couple: How to Build a Passive Income Marriage
Let’s start 2023 by dissecting what made marriages stronger 60-80 years ago. These topics are sensitive, but let’s focus on the financial side of the house. Somewhere along the lines, someone convinced the middle class that having two working parents was the path to financial success. But will having two working parents lead to marital…
Middle-Class Investing 102: Budgeting to Financial Freedom
There comes the point where we all must settle down, create a budget, and follow it. Whether this time comes in your 20s or 70s, it SHOULD happen. But why has budgeting become such a bad word? How have credit cards become a staple of middle-class families? It’s no accident that credit cards have become…
5 Takeaways from “Build Your Music Career From Scratch”
“Build Your Music Career From Scratch” by Andrae Alexander is a guide on how to build your music career from nothing. I am a fan of building a creative career independently by leveraging new tools at our disposal. Along with writing, podcasting, and video, music is much easier to start than 10-20 years ago. However,…
The Creative Blogger: Write What You Want
Why do you want to start a blog? For most of us, the reason is to make money. We don’t just want regular income but passive income. However, blogging is tough, and trying to stay abreast to search trends can be a full-time job. You can also fall into the trap of affiliating marketing and…
Middle-Class Investing 101: Investing is Essential for Freedom
There is nothing wrong with being firmly in the middle class. I am happy sitting in the middle because I can fly under the radar. As middle-class people, we get ourselves into trouble by trying to act like we are rich. Keeping up with the Joneses is a losing proposition on all fronts. However, we…
Bonds for Mom: A Low-Risk Retirement Plan for Mom
As our mothers increase in age, chances are they will receive some kind of windfall. This can be from an inheritance, a life insurance policy, downsizing a home, or cashing in a 401K. As the son or daughter, you will want to ensure this money lasts until the end. Most people will turn over the…
Podcasting vs Blogging: Start Your Creative Career Today
We live in a world where your job simply will not pay you enough. Even if you make $300,000/year, it won’t be enough to live comfortably in your high-income city. You must make additional income, and you can do that either actively or passively. You do the work once as you build a portfolio of…
What is Your Net Worth? How Long Can You Survive Without a Job?
Net worth has become a status symbol; apparently, if you are a net-worth millionaire, that is supposed to mean something. However, having a high net worth doesn’t necessarily mean you are wealthy. There is a massive difference between static and functional wealth. Today, let’s determine your net worth (and mine’s) and see how this money…
The Perfect Life: RV Life & Royalties
What a fantastic time in which we live. Never has it been easier or more convenient to make money from anywhere in the world. However, easier doesn’t mean less challenging. Living the laptop life comes with extreme discipline and consistency. We can merge the ideas of freedom and remote work with RV life. This means…