Tag: financial education
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…
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,…
Increase Your Savings Rate: It Determines When You Can Retire
How fast do you want to retire? Do you genuinely want to work until the full retirement age of 66? I know I don’t want to work for another 25 years. But what is the best way to retire early? We all hear terms like Financial Independence Retire Early (or F.I.R.E.), but what does that…
Middle-Class Investing 109: Create a Paycheck with Income Investing
We have finally made it to my favorite type of passive income—income investing. Although we took the long way, it is necessary to understand how we got here. Income investing is not for the faint of heart. That’s why starting with interest from high-yield savings accounts is good, and slowly work your way forward. Welcome…
5 Takeaways from “Unscripted: The Great Rat-Race Escape”
“Unscripted: The Great Rat-Race Escape” by MJ DeMarco is a fascinating trip down the path to being an entrepreneur and escaping the rat race. This book is long; however, it is an all-in-one guide to starting your journey into entrepreneurship. More importantly, it gives you the “why” and “how” to escape the rat race. Escaping…
Your Daily Routine is Your Success
I always tell my wife that life is supposed to be tough. Every day you should be challenging yourself in many aspects of your day. Life isn’t about getting to a magical point where you become comfortable. We can call this the “fat and happy” stage. In fact, life is about the exact opposite of…
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…
