Tag: Budgeting
What is Your Food Budget? Use the Extra Money to Start Investing in Dividends
The food budget is the most challenging of all the allowances in your monthly household budget. That’s because food is an emotional element of our existence. However, starting the month without a food budget is akin to walking under the rain without an umbrella: it can be exciting but could make you sick. Today, I…
Count Every Penny: Budgeting Your Way to Financial Independence
Why is it so difficult for us to budget and save? Why do we use scapegoats like inflation, price increases, and wage stagnation to deflect? The simple fact is that we must count every penny that enters and leaves our homes. That’s the only way we will build wealth and retire early. But somewhere along…
Find Happiness Inside of a Budget
I learned many things during middle and high school. However, one thing that I don’t remember learning is budgeting. Budgeting is perhaps the most essential element of building wealth, so why don’t “they” want us to learn how to do it? It’s simply that they want us to spend our money frivolously and without regard…
Happy Cash Flow Retirement 11
It’s time for another journal about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Welcome to your Happy Cash Flow Retirement; I am glad you are here. But how did we get here? What does it mean to have a Happy Cash Flow Retirement? What steps can you implement today that can guarantee your success tomorrow?…
5 Takeaways from “My Money My Way”
“My Money My Way” by Kumiko Love is a step-by-step guide on how to turn your financial (and emotional) life around. This book does a beautiful job of talking about the psychology of money. Changing money habits without understanding why we developed them is almost impossible. Money is only a tool we use to achieve…
How to Control Your Spending 104: Implementing a Daily Budget
We don’t realize how much marketing we receive throughout one day. Even worse, social media has helped average people market to one another—no evil corporations required. Therefore, it’s not a question of whether we spend money but how much we spend. With that in mind, let’s find a way to spend but remain under control.…
How to Control Your Spending 103: Developing a Hardcore Budget
There are only two ways to become rich: lower expenses or increase income. If you can reduce your costs as you add more cash flow to your bottom line, you have a good chance of becoming wealthy. But how do we lower our expenses when inflation wreaks havoc on our budgets? The answer is to…
How to Control Your Spending 102: Using the Envelope System
We kids teach kids how to spend using the envelope system; however, adults can use this system as well. The envelope system gives us a better way to visualize our spending and income than debit cards and online banking. But who should use the envelope method, and how will it benefit them in the long…
If You Don’t Have Money: Don’t Buy Anything
“If you don’t have money, don’t buy anything.” Seems like a simple mantra, right? So, why is it so difficult for us to stop spending? The good news is that it’s not just you who cannot stop spending. The bad news is that you are 100% in control of your actions. Spending has become a…
How to Determine Your Bare Bones Budget: The First Step to Living on Passive Income
The single most essential part of retiring early comfortably is determining your Bare Bones Budget (BBB). Without a BBB, you’ll always feel you must work to pay all of your bills. What is a Bare Bones Budget? A Bear Bones Budget is the minimum amount of money your household needs to thrive every month. Notice…
How to Use a Daily Budget: The Best Way to Curb Personal Spending
Do you have your personal spending under control? If so, how do you measure whether you successfully keep your urges to consume at bay? Having financial control is tricky because we all work hard. We feel we deserve certain luxuries when we put so much into work. Some of us may love to spend on…
Balanced Books: Living By a Harcore Budget is Empowering
When you level up your budgeting game, you will instantly see the results in your confidence and bank accounts. Most people do not live on a budget at all. They simply funnel their money into their direct deposit account and try to have one dollar left at the end of the month. If you take…
The Golden Handcuffs of Lifestyle Inflation 2
The workforce is becoming a terrible place to spend your time. Everyone is running around with their hair on fire. If your company pays you, they expect you to always be on call, answer all emails within one minute, and never say “no.” Why do people remain in the labor market if things are going…
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…
Pay Your Bills with Dividends
Dividend investing will undoubtedly change your life, but it won’t happen overnight. In fact, it will probably take a substantial amount of time before you see tangible results. So how do you stay motivated as you work your way up from a “dividend drip” to a “dividend stream?” You simply work on increasing your dividends,…
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 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…
The Magic of Having (Budgeted) Fun: Be Creative Within a Daily Budget
Yesterday was a great day. My mom is in town, and all five of us (wife, mom, and two boys) went to Ruby Tuesdays. We ate whatever we wanted and walked out the door, spending $150. That’s not bad for a family of five, especially during an inflationary and recessionary timeframe. But the best part…
Living on $3,000/month in San Diego, California
The military can assign you any place it has a base. For my current duty station, they placed me back in my hometown, San Diego, California. During the 20 years I was away from San Diego, I fell in love with small towns. My wife and I have built extraordinary lives in cities like Yuma,…
