Tag: retirement
My First Day of Retirement: It’s Time to Live
Can life truly be this good? I finally retired from the Marine Corps after 24 years, and yesterday was my first complete day away. It was a fantastic day. I accomplished so many things that I’ll just list them instead of discussing them. I did all this at my own pace without any rushing or…
The Road to Homeownership #2: Reducing Emotions
Purchasing a home is one of the most emotional experiences of your life. The process will send you to the highs of the mountains and the lows of the valleys. I would never suggest removing emotions entirely from the process; however, reducing your feelings to make sound decisions throughout the journey is a great idea.…
Love, Passion, & Freedom: Welcome to Passive Income
How do some people get to live the life of their dreams while they are stuck working a 9-5 job? Is it because they were born into wealth? Are they risk-takers, entrepreneurs, or gamblers? They may be lucky. Sure, some of these things may be true, but the truth is they discovered that money is…
Don’t Gamble with Retirement 11
There couldn’t be a better time to release Don’t Gamble with Retirement 11. I will retire from the Marine Corps in 10 days after 24 years of service. I will not work another job, instead relying on the principles of passive income to increase my revenue every year. But, I didn’t always understand passive income…
Happy Cash Flow Retirement 10
Another day, another dollar; better yet, another passive income dollar. In two weeks, I am retiring from the Marine Corps after 24 years of service. I have never been more excited in my life because this is the result of hard work and planning. I have wanted this outcome since I began writing about passive…
Investing for Interest 114: Individual Treasury Bonds vs. Treasury Bond Funds
Investing in bonds was nearly impossible for 15 years (2008-2022). The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low to spur the economy meaning bond yields were abysmal (1-2%). However, the Federal Funds Rate is above 5% currently, and bonds are back to being a good source of safe yields. Now we must decide the best ways…
Can the Military Elevate You to the Middle Class?
The middle class is under attack, and soon no remnants will be left. There are a few reasons why this is happening, mainly increased college costs, the price of housing, out-of-control healthcare expenses, and lack of financial education. America had a good run for its middle class—when workers had pensions for staying with a company…
Closed-End Funds vs. Dividend ETFs: It’s All About Life Stages
When do you plan on retiring? Are you already retired? These questions will be vital in determining what financial instruments you’ll need to leverage. Investing is all about your time horizon, goals, philosophy, and risk tolerance. The good part is you don’t need to have all of the answers the first day you start investing.…
Financial Security vs. Financial Freedom 2: The Difference Between Saving and Investing
Financial education given in school is a disgrace to the American public. We all have different viewpoints on why this is, but finding a solution is a better use of our time. The main thing hurting Americans is not knowing the difference between saving and investing. I have met many people who can balance a…
Passive Income: How Do You Spend Your Free Time?
The main difference between the rich and the poor is how they spend their time. How do you spend your free time? Feel free to answer honestly to yourself. Once I learned this golden rule, my income, and net worth doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in a couple of years. If you want to create…
Dividend Investing 106: Building a 60/40 Portfolio
Receiving dividends is one of the best joys in life, but you can make it even better. As much as I love the stock market, it does have its ups and downs. One of the best ways to counteract (or hedge) the unpredictability of the stock market is to invest in something more solid and…
Debt is Your Birthright: How to Overcome It
You shouldn’t feel bad about being in debt; however, you shouldn’t be comfortable living in debt either. Debt is a very complex topic with a straightforward premise—debt is about control. I’m fresh off the book “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” which changed how I view debt. There is nothing new under the sun, and our…
Dividend Investing 105: Add a Safe Options-Trading Strategy
Trading options get a bad reputation from horror stories of people losing it all in a casino-like fashion. But options trading can actually be quite safe. As you amass a huge portfolio of dividend stocks, you may get the urge to generate some more income. Likewise, you may look to buy dividend stocks at rock-bottom…
My Secret Formula to Determine Housing Affordability
The housing market is out of reach for most American households. However, there are still small pockets of affordable places to live—you just need to find them. I have been using an affordability technique over the last ten years that has served me well. It uses a combination of Zillow and Military housing calculators to…
Happy Financial Independence Day 3
The American Dream is still alive and kicking, just not in the same way we envisioned. We thought it would be easy (and straightforward) to free ourselves from our jobs. NOT. In 2023, we will have rampant inflation, crazy housing costs, high utility bills, and low marriage rates. So we are getting squeezed and are…
Cursed Retirement? What is Sequence of Returns Risk?
Most of us spend our working years dreaming (and planning) for retirement daily. We know that to free ourselves from bondage, we must have a solid retirement plan in place. Conventional wisdom has us invest 10% into our 401Ks and Roth IRAs over 35-45 years. Hopefully, we retire with $1-2 million, but that is rare.…
Dividend Investing 103: Picking Your Platforms
Your investing platform will determine how much you invest. You’ll have a blast if it gives you many options and tools. You’ll avoid it like the plague if it is old and clunky. I use five different brokerage platforms because they all offer different experiences. These experiences include depositing money, automated investing, instant investing, fractional…
The Magic of High-Yield Index Fund Reinvestment
Index funds pay an embarrassingly low amount of dividends. However, they are a great product to dollar-cost average over a long time because it’s hard to beat their gains. The problem arises when you need to generate income from your index funds in your working or retirement years. Most people cannot live on a 1.5%…
Dividend Investing 102: Picking the Right Dividend Stocks
Now that you know some basic terms of dividend investing, it’s time to jump into picking the right stocks for your risk tolerance and investment philosophy. Welcome back to the Dividend Investing 101 series (101), where we get you into the passive income game. The three types of dividend securities. I categorize dividend investing into…
My Five Year Plan for My Book Business: I’m Creating a Passive Income Machine
I have 930 books on Amazon. Yes, they are high-content books with words and pictures. I published my first book in January 2021 (today is June 19, 2023). When I first started, I aimed to create 1,000 books on Amazon. Well, now I don’t have an end goal because I plan to write until the…
