Tag: free-pdf-book
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…
How to Become Financially Independent in Your 20s
Being young grants you the gift of youth. Youth allows you to work as hard as possible and recover easily by the next morning—you are almost invincible. However, with youth comes hormones and pride. Indeed, fighting through your own mindset will be the biggest challenge of all. If you can get it together, you can…
High-Yield Bond Reinvestment in Action
I recently discussed high-yield bond reinvestment as a safe way to assume more risk in your portfolio. It’s a great way to dabble in the waters of income investing. My 30-year bonds just paid me their semi-annual payments, so it’s time to reinvest. Today, I will walk through how to convert a reasonably low-yield coupon…
Life as an Income Investor
Becoming an income investor changed my life. I used to believe that working hard at my job would eventually set me free. Sadly, this was not the case. My day job pays me a lot of money; however, learning to invest for income relieved me of my stress. Today, I want to give you a…
Down-sized? Time to Start an Online Business
As the recession approaches, mass layoffs will become more common. We are already seeing major corporations making significant cutbacks to personnel. Are you at risk of losing your job? Whether you believe your job is safe is not the point. Relying solely on your job for income is risky. Luckily, there are many ways to…
Individual Preferred Shares vs. Preferred Funds
So you want to start investing in preferred shares, huh? I am a massive fan of preferred shares because of the high yields and fixed income. My journey with preferred shares started with the book “The Billionaires’ Secret” and continues with articles by Rida Morwa on SeekingAlpha. I am utterly obsessed with preferred shares after…
Wiping the Debt of Christmas Past
Christmas is when we overindulge, over-travel, and, worst of all, overspend. However, racking up credit card debt during the holidays can leave us in a challenging situation for years. We live in a consumer-focused nation that thrives on spending in the economy. I love the holidays as much as everyone else, but we have to…
Welcome to Writing: Start Here If You Love The Grind
So you want to be a writer, huh? Writing is one of the most amazing things you can do in your life. You are expressing your values using words as a medium. According to “The Independent Homeschool,” writing is the toughest of the 3 R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic). You must make countless decisions just…
Losing Friends? You’re Doing Something Right part 2
The path to wealth is a lonely journey. No one will understand your obsession to become rich and live on passive income. Only three percent of the population will become wealthy, so your ascent to becoming elite is rare. You cannot expect 97% of people to follow you on your quest. Continuing education is the…
Bond Investing in Your 40s
Our 40s are a time to double down on life and start getting things done. Hopefully, we will leave our 30s with no debt and an online business or a high-paying job. The goal of our 40s is to ensure we have enough income in our 80s and 90s. We do that by focusing almost…
Watch Your A.R.M.s: Should You Get an Adjustable Rate Mortgage?
When times are tough, thinking outside the box is a good idea. In most cases, we all want a standard fixed-rate 30-Year mortgage. I talked about new options in “40-Year Interest-Only Mortgage,” which proved a bad idea. But do we have more choices with interest rates crossing 7% on new mortgages? Our old enemy is…
