For those about to invest, we salute you! There is now one less impediment between you and your financial goals. Back in the dark ages, which is when I first started my investment portfolio, buying securities through a brokerage was expensive. For many years, I had automatic contributions withdrawn from my bank account by a […]
Learning about personal finance and investing has been a hobby of mine for the better part of 30 years… wow – that’s a long time! No wonder I make those odd noises when I get up from the couch… Anyway, one of the first books that set me on my successful path was The Total […]
One of the biggest downfalls of the online personal finance community is the lack of balance. I suppose that’s partly due to the fact that we’re all competing for eyeballs on the screen, and extreme headlines garner more attention. It’s unfortunate though. I think more people would be willing to consider pursuing FIRE if they […]
This week, I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine about spending money. She made the observation that if she spends money today, then there’s that much money less to pay for her retirement. I couldn’t argue with her. In fact, I was happy that someone else in my circle of loved ones […]
FU Money and being FI are super powers… Dave from www.accidentalfire.com I’ve written about FU Money before. It’s the money that you have set aside for those instances when you need to tell someone to “make love and go”. It’s not your emergency fund money. It’s not your retirement money. It’s not even your car […]
There are few among us who really and truly find deep life satisfaction from our paid employment. If you are one of these Fortunate Few, then you are truly blessed. For the rest of the good people reading this little blurb, I would urge you to err on the side of caution. Whatever do you […]
When I was growing up, my parents always encouraged to be a professional. I was told to aim for dentistry, medicine, and law. My parents wanted me to be a professional so that I could always create a job for myself. They knew, and wanted me to understand, that working for someone else meant that […]
I’m fascinated by people who oppose the idea of becoming financially independent. Personally, I think that this opposition is borne of the acronym FIRE. Most of us in the personal finance echo chamber know that this is an acronym for Financial Independence, Retire Early. It’s rather unfortunate that so many have twinned the two concepts […]
Roughly 20 years ago, I landed my first professional office job. It entailed monthly meetings with my manager, wherein I updated him on my current workload. He was an amiable man and most meetings were sprinkled with little nuggets of life advice. One of the acorns of advice that has always stayed with me is […]
Tempus fungit… which is Latin for time flies. And boy does it ever! In 2006, I was fortunate enough to pay off my house. Unfortunately, I wasn’t smart enough to immediately turn my former mortgage payments into investment contributions. Instead, I didn’t start dollar-cost-averaging into the stock market until 2011. This was on one of […]