Tag: free-pdf-book
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;…
Social Security vs. Income Investing
We should not depend on the government. That’s not to say that the government is terrible or plans to ruin our lives. However, the government is not our best source of reliable income; we are. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to create our own happy cash flow retirement system. I wrote an article titled…
The True Power Couple: How to Build a Passive Income Marriage
Let’s start 2023 by dissecting what made marriages stronger 60-80 years ago. These topics are sensitive, but let’s focus on the financial side of the house. Somewhere along the lines, someone convinced the middle class that having two working parents was the path to financial success. But will having two working parents lead to marital…
The Creative Blogger: Write What You Want
Why do you want to start a blog? For most of us, the reason is to make money. We don’t just want regular income but passive income. However, blogging is tough, and trying to stay abreast to search trends can be a full-time job. You can also fall into the trap of affiliating marketing and…
Bonds for Mom: A Low-Risk Retirement Plan for Mom
As our mothers increase in age, chances are they will receive some kind of windfall. This can be from an inheritance, a life insurance policy, downsizing a home, or cashing in a 401K. As the son or daughter, you will want to ensure this money lasts until the end. Most people will turn over the…
What is Your Net Worth? How Long Can You Survive Without a Job?
Net worth has become a status symbol; apparently, if you are a net-worth millionaire, that is supposed to mean something. However, having a high net worth doesn’t necessarily mean you are wealthy. There is a massive difference between static and functional wealth. Today, let’s determine your net worth (and mine’s) and see how this money…
Feel Special with Special Dividends
Every day as an income investor, makes my life more enjoyable. It’s incredible to receive money from thin air. I didn’t grow up with a lot of money and worked hard to provide for my family. I have worked for the US Government (as a Marine) for over 23 years. I fully appreciate the hard…
Preferred Shares vs. Common Stocks
There are tons of securities you can buy on a given day. So knowing what you are buying and why you are buying it is vital to long-term success. Most investors will purchase common stocks inside their various portfolios. However, many other options exist, including treasury bonds, Series “I” Bonds, closed-end funds, and mortgage REITs.…
College vs. Property: Which is the Better Investment for Your Children?
As parents, our children need us more than ever. This goes beyond the ages of zero to eighteen; they will need us until the day we leave this Earth. Why do our kids need us so much compared to yesteryear? The world has changed a lot over the past two decades. Everything is more expensive,…
Income to the Moon: Income Investing Your Way To Retirement
Saving for retirement is boring. Somehow, at age 25, you are supposed to prioritize your retirement planning over buying a flashy car. This rarely works in reality because it’s a tough pill to swallow. However, there is a different way, but it will take a complete shift in mindset. What if I told you that…
Don’t Gamble with Retirement 9
It’s always exciting when I add to the “Don’t Gamble with Retirement” series. It is one of my longest-running series, and I love documenting as the world changes. I wrote the first article in a series in February 2021, when we were in a raging bull market. Today, the stock market is in the opposite…
LBYM: Live Below Your Means and Increase Your Savings Rate
“Living below your means” gets a bad reputation. People hear these words and assume you need to eat grits, make honey sandwiches, and recycle toilet paper. But that’s not the case at all. Living below your means simply means creating cash flow through your household. It also means that you do not subscribe to the…
Build a $1,000 Emergency Fund in 10 Steps
Saving money is a process that most of us need help understanding. If you want to save a large amount of money, your system will need to operate like clockwork. You’ll need to visualize your money before you can save consistently. You can see your money best by using spreadsheets and following a budget. You…
Will Being Cheap Make You Rich?
Most of us grow up with a sense of happiness about our surroundings. We don’t understand how rich or poor our family is, nor do we care. We enjoy playing with our friends, eating with our family, and not having many responsibilities—we call this childhood. We can live like this for 10-12 years until we…
YouTubing vs. Your Job: How Do You Like Your Grind?
We live in an exciting time where the average person has more financial choices than ever. You no longer have to work a 9-5 job to succeed in this world. Many kids and young adults dream of being YouTubers; however, it’s an illusion. Becoming a successful YouTuber requires more upfront work than most jobs on…
Make Your Primary Residence Your Retirement Plan
What is your plan for retirement? How do you plan to replace at least 100% of your employment income with annual increases for inflation? For most Americans, this is a tough question to answer. It seems impossible to make more money without working than they made while employed. If you own a home, you have…
Mortgage-Backed Securities vs. Treasury Bonds: An Introduction to Mortgage REITs
As an income investor, some of the highest-yielding products you can buy are mortgage real estate investment trusts (mREITs). As a trader, some of the most dangerous products you can buy are mREITS. Indeed, you must be extremely careful when purchasing mREITs because their price (not value) can fluctuate wildly on the stock market. To…
To Become Rich, You’ll Need Leverage
Getting rich in one lifetime is nearly impossible—yet this is the path our parents taught us as children. Here is the plan in a nutshell: Please tell me if I am missing something. The problem with this typical scenario is that at no point did you exert any leverage. 40-Year Interest-Only Mortgage In fact, when…
Bond Investing in Your 50s
Hopefully, we will figure out our financial path during our 20s, 30s, and 40s to focus on our family in our 50s. That’s right; time to build passive income for our children through bond investing. Can you imagine if you had $20,000, $30,000, or even $50,000 of Series “I” bonds waiting for you by age…
Why Are You NOT in the Work Force?
Everywhere I look, it seems people are quitting their jobs. Whether it is quitting in place, also known as quiet quitting, or walking away completely (the Great Resignation), the world is turning upside down. However, this is a social media ploy to slow down the average American. Many reasons contribute to this mass exodus from…
