Tag: Financial Independence
Saving & Investing with $200 a Month Available
Congratulations on having $200/month to save and invest—it’s a big deal. Yes, I am being serious. I remember a time (not too long ago) when I finished each month in the red. I created this series to give you ideas on how and where to save and invest your money as you build your financial…
Be Extreme Toward Your Dream
I read about passive income while on a trip to Turkey with my wife in 2019. Immediately, I knew I wanted to live overseas while using passive income from royalties, rents, and dividends. I became obsessed with tracking my passive income progress to the point that I thought something was wrong with me. All I…
Credit Card Users Beware: Companies Are Becoming Sneakier Than Ever
Wow, I never thought credit card companies could become sneakier than before. I had two credit card “issues” within the same month that were eye-opening. Today, I want to review these two incidents and give you a fair warning about the current situation. The incoming recession will see consumers cutting back on spending, but credit…
Quiet Quitting vs. The Great Resignation
Your job is not supposed to fulfill you; I don’t know when this theory became a thing. Yes, you can enter a career field that interests you, but eventually, you’ll have to deal with politics. I joined the Marines in 1999 and loved life as a younger military person. I got to work on the…
Using Credit Cards 104: Experts Using Leverage
Today we will get to the fun part of using credit cards. You only become an expert credit card user after you have mastered the game of money and finances. We will review what mastering the game means and how we can all get on track to reach this fantastic accomplishment. Welcome back to the…
Vacation Dividends: Use Dividends to Pay for the Rest of Your Vacations
If you are like most people, you save for your vacations every year. The money you earn is the money you save. You can afford to pay for more elaborate vacations as you make more money from your job. What if I told you someone else could pay for the rest of your vacation? Yes,…
Using Credit Cards 103: Advanced Cleaning Up Their Debt
To be honest, most people will never reach the advanced stage of using credit cards. This is the point where you absolutely hate credit card debt. People who reach this stage usually have had to crawl their way out from under debt. It’s not fun giving up your short-term future and fun to pay for…
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,…
Using Credit Cards 102: Intermediates Growing Their Lives
You are about to enter the most expensive time of your life. Between the age of 25-45, you will be responsible for buying a home, having children, and saving for retirement. It is a near-impossible task to make it out of this timeframe without debt. However, if we set a high enough goal, we will…
Big Cities Require Big Mindsets
Do you think that you will become rich living in a big city? Do you believe you will be the next enormous success story to come out of San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, or New York City? The chances are that you will not become rich or become a massive success story. It’s not…
Using Credit Cards 101: Beginners Building Credit
I remember getting my first credit card at age 22. I knew nothing of credit cards, but they were an excellent way to purchase things online. The year was 2005, and Amazon was becoming a big deal for online shopping. I stayed on top of my credit card for many years until I got married…
5 Takeaways from “How to Write a Novel”
“How to Write a Novel” by Joanna Penn gives us an in-depth look at the fiction writing process. I am not a fiction writer yet, but it’s good for me to understand the differences between fiction and non-fiction writing. To create a successful story, you need a character, in a setting, with a goal that…
Dividend Growth Investing vs. Bond Growth Investing
The market is moving into a bear market, and the economy is moving into a recession. There is a lot of doom and gloom floating around, but there is a silver lining. There has never been a better time to invest in the last 20 years. Stocks and bonds have been beaten down so severely…
Renting Rooms vs. Friendships
Renting rooms is the number one way for the average person to get ahead financially. It requires very little investment, and the returns are infinite. However, renting a room to a stranger can be intimidating. There are many unanswered questions until you physically live with someone. What if you knew your prospective roommate? What if…
Take Control of Your Financial Destiny: The Magic of Being an Insider
Are you trying to get rich by working a job? How is that working for you? The primary way to get rich by being an employee is time. When exchanging time for money, you don’t have the benefit of using leverage. One hour of your time is worth one hour of salary. So how do…
Inflation Ate My Paycheck 109: How to Beat Insane Gas Prices
I just paid $6.30 per gallon to fill up my car in California. That’s almost $7 per gallon just for the luxury of driving to work. I’ve been warning of a new financial crisis, and we are seeing evidence of it now. Welcome back to the Inflaton Ate My Paycheck series (101, 102, 103, 104,…
How to Buy and Track 30-Year Treasury Bonds
I was writing an article about my Recession Investing Plan yesterday and realized how tricky it is to purchase 30-Year Treasury Bonds. I started buying these bonds three years ago and had to learn via trial and error. I haven’t purchased a 30-Year bond in a couple of years because yields have been low. Free…
My Recession Investing Plan
Halloween (and October) is a great time to re-access our spending. It’s good to have a crystal clear picture of our finances going into the New Year. I recently moved from Japan to San Diego, which means that my budget, spending, and saving habits had to change. The impending recession and bear (stock) market add…
What is Your Dream Retirement?
Times are getting tough, so it’s the season for some daydreaming. The only way to stay motivated through this impending recession is to focus on the outcomes. Your dream retirement is a vital part of keeping you on the path. Now, more than ever, people will attempt to get you off your purpose. So let’s…
Your 401K is NOT Enough
This article will hit some people hard. They led us to believe that our 401Ks were the end-all-be-all for retirement. If we just saved enough in our 401K, plus maybe a small pension and social security, we would be alright until the end of life. Unfortunately, the world changes faster than we do as humans.…
