Tag: Financial Independence
High Yield Savings vs. Certificates of Deposit vs. Treasury Bills vs. Money Market Funds
Every dollar that flows into your household should serve a purpose, even if its primary goal is sometimes to sit in an account until you need it. As we become more financially sophisticated, we find ourselves using multiple types of accounts to ensure we are good stewards of our resources. Each account type serves a…
Investing for Interest 118: The Magic of Money Market Funds
As we transition from savers to investors, so should our mindset about the types of accounts we hold. High-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposits are great for building emergency funds and saving for house down payments. However, these accounts are a few steps removed from the stock market. If we want to become major…
Keep Rent in the Family: It’s The Best Way to Build Generational Wealth
Sometimes, we must step back and determine how we arrived at the unrealistic expectations we placed upon our kids and ourselves. Is it fair to expect someone to build an empire within 60 or 70 years? However, when we kick kids out at age 18, we expect them to do that exactly. From age 18,…
Preferred Shares vs. Mortgage REITs: Take Your Income To Next Heights
All is fair in love and war; however, income investing has different rules. Your income investing portfolio is just that—yours. How you build your income investing portfolio is near and dear to your heart and your circumstances. But it is essential to look at the options at your disposal. Today, I want to talk about…
Hustle Culture Represents the Erosion of the Family Unit: Build Passive Income as a Family
I’ve been watching lots of TikTok videos of people working multiple jobs due to inflation and high cost-of-living requirements. Sadly, working 40 hours at one job doesn’t provide enough income to support a person or family. However, there is still hope for the American Dream; it will just look different than you envision. Letting go…
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…
Why Do Men Date Outside of Their League? From a Financial Perspective
Who you decide to marry is the most significant financial decision in your life. If you get it right, you’ll both retire early and live happily ever after. If you get it wrong, it’ll be quite the opposite. I am gearing this article to men between 25 and 30, instead of dreaming of the perfect…
The Importance of Treasuries 2: The Value of High-Yield Bond Reinvestment
Reinvesting a portion of your returns is critical to compounding your investment portfolio. As we invest in Treasuries, we should reinvest some coupon payments into similar-yielding products. But what if we reinvested into much higher-yielding income-focused products like closed-end funds, mortgage REITs, and preferred shares? Welcome back to The Importance of Treasuries series (Part 1),…
Let’s Get Started with Index Funds: From Saving to Investing
We should all love to save our money; however, many of us have a tough time when it comes to investing. Putting our money into the stock market can be intimidating if we don’t understand the reason why. The last couple of years have been nice for our high-yield savings accounts and other savings vehicles…
The Importance of Treasuries: How to Define Risk
Many young investors get burned by trying to double or triple their money in a few months. Because of these unrealistic expectations, they chase bad cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, and shady real estate deals. These investors aren’t bad; they probably don’t know how to define their risk profile. Understanding how bonds work is essential to becoming…
Retirement vs. Financial Freedom: One is Financial; The Other is Spiritual
No one wants to work forever. As much as we love our careers initially, doing something for 30 to 40 years can tax our nervous systems. The idea of having multiple years in retirement is a relatively new concept. Before, people would work until they died. Once we moved into the city and began having…
The In-Debt-ured Servant 2: Avoid the Trap of Independence
I wrote “The In-Debt-ured Servant” on January 6, 2022, when the world was a much different place. I felt that the powers that be were at least TRYING to hide their true intentions then. Flash forward exactly two years, and there is no doubt about what they want for the average person—to become servants to…
The 100-Year Mortgage is Coming: How to Position Your Family to Avoid It
There are no more beautiful words than “generational wealth.” We should all strive to leave our families in better positions than when we first built them. One of the main ways to create and maintain generational wealth is through owning your primary residence. Your kids and grandkids can significantly benefit from the compounding effect of…
Where Should You Save Your Emergency Fund? The First Step to Building Wealth
Where you hold your emergency fund is a deeply personal choice that originates from how you feel about money. Ultimately, it’s about whatever allows you to sleep well at night. Where you hold your emergency fund also depends on how large of an emergency you can expect or how much risk you can accept. The…
America Will Never Let You Rest: We Must Achieve a 50% Savings Rate
Do you have the feeling that you are constantly running in place? That every time you make some progress, you have another financial setback? Welcome to America. Welcome to capitalism. The only way to get ahead in America is to become uber-rich. Yes, we can get ahead of bills by living below our means and…
New Year’s Passive Income Resolution 2024
2023 was a record-breaking year for our passive income streams; however, we will make 2024 even more lucrative and exciting. The magic of passive income is that it compounds itself every year. Once you get the income source going, it snowballs into a powerful stream that can change your life. How did my individual passive…
Santa’s Bringing Closed-End Funds for Christmas
It’s a jolly good time of the year to have a bank account full of income. How could you use an extra $500, $1,000, or $1,500 per month in revenue? Would receiving an extra $500 monthly in guilt-free dividends change your life? I know that it has changed mine in spectacular ways. Often, we ask…
5 Takeaways from “The Options Wheel Strategy”
“The Options Wheel Strategy” by Freeman Publications covers the cycle of using cash-secured puts and covered calls together. I have personally used this strategy to some extent. The book details the options wheel, selecting the right stocks, and positioning your wheel alongside your more extensive portfolio. After using the wheel for six months, I am…
The Magic of Trading Long Strangles: The Best Passive Options Trading Technique
Have you ever dreamed of creating a money machine? Well, the secret to getting rich is finding a way to generate out-sized returns—and continually repeating the process. I stumbled upon trading long strangles through my options trading journey. The returns have been magical. I am still waiting for the downside to show its face. In…
Should Multiple Families Live Together? Only If They Want To Become Wealthy
America will become a renter nation. We will own nothing and be privileged to be in that position. We will have no other options. I read a quote by Grant Cardone stating that we should expect 100-year home mortgages before the next century. And he is absolutely correct. In the meantime, 40-year mortgages will become…
