Tag: Financial Independence
Retirement Plus: Supplement Your Retirement with a Treasury Bond Ladder
How secure is your retirement? Do you feel confident that you have the financial sophistication to survive and thrive into old age? We can all take steps to ensure a healthy, wealthy retirement. One of these steps is to use US Treasuries to protect our principal and create great passive income. But what makes US…
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…
Retirement Plus: Supplement Your Retirement with Dividends
Nobody teaches us how to retire. Few people can think about life in their 60s while dealing with life in their 20s. Therefore, to facilitate a healthy, wealthy retirement, we must prepare for it. The best retirement system for the working class was the pension system. However, gone are the days of corporations and governments…
Using Leverage with Options Trading: Wise, Prize, or Snake Eyes?
You don’t need to use leverage (also known as margin) to trade options, but what would be the point of trading options? Leverage is a double-edged sword: mighty in good times, disastrous in bad times. So, how do you decide when to use leverage and how much to use? The key to using leverage is…
Don’t Gamble with Retirement 13: Serious Lives Lead to Extraordinary Retirements
Why is being serious considered a bad thing? I was always a serious person, and it has served me well. I joined the Marines 10 days after high school in 1999. In the Marines, I never got passed over for promotion because I always took my job seriously. I retired at 42 and never have…
My Three Favorite High-Yield Savings Accounts: Get Paid While You Save
Most Americans realize the importance of saving money—whether they choose to save is a different story. Saving is a mechanism we put into place to protect ourselves from emergencies while also preventing us from using our investment accounts. I always tried to save early in my adult life—to no avail. However, in 2019, I started…
Trading Long Strangles vs. Mortgage REITs: The Most Hardcore of Income
The goal of life is to make money while you sleep; there is simply no other way to get ahead of life expenses. But how do you make passive income? Some people turn to the stock market to earn dividends while they sleep; others use the options market to create large amounts of passive income.…
Life as an Income Investor 2: How to Become a Cool Kid
I always wanted to be a cool kid, but sadly, this wasn’t the case. I never thought I would have the chance to be the coolest kid on the block—but then I became an income investor. Becoming an income investor isn’t about bragging to others about how much money you make. Instead, you get a…
The Options Wheel vs. Business Development Companies: The Most Hardcore of Income
The most essential part of your financial plan is cash flow; without it, your plan will fail. Cash flow allows us to make decisions based on the amount of money “moving” through our hands, not “sitting” in a bank. But how do we increase our cash flow? We can get a promotion at work or…
Dividend Growth Investing vs. Income Investing 2: Current and Retirement Income
Many people consider passive index fund investing the gold standard of stock market investing. The main advantage of index funds is that you don’t have to pick individual stocks to achieve success. The main disadvantage is that you will likely have to sell shares during retirement to generate enough income to survive. This means you…
Selling Cash-Secured Puts vs. Preferred Shares: The Most Hardcore of Income
You’ll have to take risks to become wealthy, but how much risk is enough? The answer depends on many factors, the chief of which is your emotion toward money. I absolutely adore preferred shares; however, I must take a gamble to get the best deals. Selling cash-secured puts is relatively safe, but there is a…
The Dividend Savings Account: M1 Finance Gives Us A New Way to Save and Invest
For years, I stuffed my money in a standard savings account at Wells Fargo, which has a measly 0.01% interest rate. They should be ashamed of themselves. In 2019, I learned about high-yield savings accounts and immediately opened an account at Discover. My favorite high-yield savings account pays 4.10%, an enormous increase from Wells Fargo.…
Selling Covered Calls vs. Closed-End Funds: The Most Hardcore of Income
What’s the difference between being rich and being wealthy? Rich people have assets that don’t necessarily produce income, for example, a house with $1 million in equity. Wealthy people accumulate assets that produce income, for example, a home that rents for $4,000 per month. It takes much more financial sophistication to be wealthy. I am…
Retirement Planning for the Average Person 7: Yes, You Can Retire
Retirement planning is still the same as it has always been; it just seems more complex. To have an amazing retirement, you must generate income passively. Most of us have never considered the idea of making money while we sleep, but the basic gist of the story is that the person with the most passive…
Overcoming Your Limiting Beliefs #2: Options Trading
There is nothing quite as feared as options trading. Whenever people think of options traders, they think of stressed-out bankers on the brink of disaster. However, options trading is really quite logical. There are only two directions that the stock market can move: up and down. From there, you set up your desired options strategies…
Stocks, Bonds, & Options in Your 70s: Taking Care of Everyone Else
Let me be 100% honest; we should have money pouring out of our eyeballs in our 70s. By leveraging the power of compounding early in life, we ensure our 70s are plentiful. For example, let’s say my $340,000 portfolio compounded at 10% annually while I added $1,000 per month. In 27 years (I’m 43), I…
Overcoming Your Limiting Beliefs #1: Dividend Investing
Fear can motivate you to do extraordinary things. For me, the fear of being broke motivated me to invest in the stock market. Many times, our fears come from limiting beliefs—thoughts that form through a series of experiences, concepts, and feelings. For example, if everyone around you is poor, you may form a limiting belief…
Trading Long Strangles vs. Dividends: The Best Passive Strategy
Let’s talk about passive income. I love receiving $2,100 per month in dividends; it’s my favorite part of each month. However, I have $250,000+ invested in the markets. Passive income takes a lot of capital to generate a decent income stream. Options trading can help you close the gap in your income, but it comes…
How to Save Money: My Journey from -$77,000 to +$340,000
Can people save money today? I understand that times are tough and there are not enough resources. However, times are always tough. In 2019, I earned $100,000+ a year, and my wife earned $35,000; we lived in Florida. For all intents and purposes, we should have been doing very well. However, we were in $77,000…
Stocks, Bonds, & Options in Your 60s: Ensuring a Great Retirement
Our 60s should be a time of joy and celebration. In fact, the only stress we should have is from babysitting our grandkids. But these magical times don’t just happen; we must create them. We must build a level of financial sophistication that ensures we can weather any economic storm. This foundation starts by understanding…
