Personal Finance Archives - Page 2 of 11

Milestones Realized in 2016

Increased Dividend Income from 4500 in 2015 to 5580. (Increase of 25%)

As I’ve said before and I’ll say it again, invest today so that you can grow dividends. These dividends will pay me for life as long as I hold them, and if a company decides not to pay dividends one day, then I will just sell the stock and buy a competitor’s. Saving money has benefits, but investing money to get free money is the ultimate benefit in my book. I predict if I continue on this pace I’ll be able to reach 10K in 3 years. Some of you might think 3 years is a long time, but believe me it goes fast. Imagine how many shares I can pick up with 10 thousand dollars of free compounding money. This year dividend payouts amounts were down for the majority of my index funds, and this hurt my goal of 6K in annual dividends. FYI almost all dividends are reinvested into tax deferred retirement accounts and I do not have access to this money. What milestones realized in 2016 made you smile?

I saved 27% of gross income. (With the employer Match)

Hey man this is just simple to do, automate automate till your blue in the face. Set up 401K or IRA money to be deducted immediately from every pay check. The opportunities are everywhere to save so take advantage today. Connect bank accounts with investment accounts to make the transition even smoother.

I was able to do various spending freezes throughout the Year

Spending freezes are fun for me, and I do them to challenge myself from time to time. We all should practice this and when you do, funnel the money towards the next best goal. If that is paying down debt or funding your next vacation, as long as you act and don’t let the funds roll over into the next month.

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Personal Finance Myths We Need to Ignore

Hello friends it’s the 4th quarter of 2016, and as I get through a tough patch in my life, the blog has suffered without fresh new content. It is hard to find the right balance when you lose a loved one.(Miss you Mom) But I know it’s a part of life and we need to have the strength to move on. Let’s jump back into the topic at hand personal finance myths we need to ignore.

I hear random talks like this all the time and it is unbelievable people still can’t see the big personal finance picture. Why must some of us live with our heads in the sand per say?

If others have done well with money, you can do it to. People of various income levels are doing amazing things, like reaching financial freedom, paying off the mortgage, living a debt free life. These are only a few examples. Let’s not fall victim to the defeatist mentality of some people and please don’t listen to the personal finance myths we need to ignore.

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Why is Time Important

Time is of the essence since the day we are born. But many people do not understand this because when we are young, time feels limitless and abundant. Summers felt like a year and a school year felt like two years. The math quiz felt like 4 hours when in reality it was only 20 minutes. Time in the old days just took its sweet time. Is it a mix of young innocence and more patience, or was it really a slower paced life in the old days. No one really knows and you shouldn’t care, because the past is the past. Why is time important today, because we all need to grab time and use it wisely.

I lost my mom last week and it has been hard on me. I wish I would’ve spent more time with her and talked more. That feeling when you know you will never speak to a loved one again is tougher than I ever imagined. This is why time is important. The opportunity to not waste time is evident every day of our lives. It is right in our face, but what do we do, we just don’t realize that it could be slipping away minute by minute.

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What is Debt?

This is the piece I wrote on debt and I wanted to share a different aspect in describing debt to all of you today. Debt is really bad as all of you already know, and possibly you’ve read some debt articles in countless past publications. But what people don’t share on the vast web portals and pages, is that debt doesn’t define you in any way. The personal finance community has a fair share of indebted folks, and they are all truly supportive in helping anyone who really wants to be free of debt, find ways to eliminate the debt monster. What is Debt? Well it is an obligation to pay for something in the future you purchased in the past.

One thing that I continuously hear is can people actually live life debt free. I believe you can, and I am 1 step closer to it every day. The freeing feeling you will realize is the prize, and the gift you give yourself by tackling the immense debt freedom journey until you reach a new financial platform. Many people take the journey for granted but it is that journey that will lay the foundation to help you avoid getting back into debt in the future. I will now do my best to define debt in another financial poem below. Have fun with it and let me know your thoughts.

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Over Consuming Usually Leads to Financial Failure

Let’s discuss a major problem that is taking residence everywhere in the US. Over consuming in general is a problem for millions of people and these people actually think that no real issue exists with the behavor. When you take money, primarily income and you use all of it by spending it on consumables, you fail to use it towards imperative financial goals.Thus you might be headed down the wrong path because over consuming usually leads to Financial Failure.

The little squirrel in the picture is actually showing you an example of what happens in today’s modern day spendthrift society, we earn, we spend, and then we spend some more. If all your income is headed towards, living expenses, food, transportation, stuff, services, utilities, gifts, and more things something is fundamentally off. As you are a very astute person to see, that several important categories are missing to complete the big picture in a simple budget, and they are Saving, investing, and Donating. The trick is never ever remove saving or investing from an efficiently established personal finance budget.

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What is your Personal Finance Attitude?

Many times I sit and think about how attitude can be a deciding factor in how life turns out. If your attitude is steered towards a particular view point, it can either be a winning or losing battle for you. So knowing what is the right attitude to have towards money can once again be the answer your looking for. What is your Personal Finance Attitude? If you ask this of yourself from time to time it will trigger something within you to find where you stand.

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Why I’m not Buying Sneakers In 2016

As many of you know I am a sneaker fanatic. But I am coming to a realization that I need to reign in my expenses and I already have sufficient kicks to last me a decade. So in this new year I will not buy sneakers for 12 months. All year long I will not buy any sneakers for personal use. If I can find a good deal that I can later sell for a profit then I might buy something to resell. But I will only consider any sneaker purchase if and only if it makes business sense. (To buy and flip only) Why I’m not buying sneakers in 2016? Keep reading to find out why.

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The Solution to Money Problems is Solved by Not Spending

What’s going all you great readers today we have a post that is going to challenge some of you and possibly motivate others to do a spend freeze, so strap on for the fun ride. The secret thats not really a secret in the personal finance world, is how much money is wasted from spending excessively by people who appear to be in control of their money. In reality they are far from controlling those elusive dollars, who appear to slip down the imaginary financial black hole. The solution to money problems is solved by not spending.

If you can control and manage the consumption of things, services, foods, resources, whatever it may be, you can become stress free with life’s finances. The concept is really not that hard, and closing up the purses and wallets might be a wonderful solution for many who currently experience money issues.

The real question I wanted an answer for today by writing this post, is to find out how much do we as Americans spend per day and what day of the week is the most spend thrift day? After finding the info I wanted to share it with all of you so you can compare and contrast dollar amounts.

The Data was found and It is hint, hint – Saturday as the most costly day for non necessities at – $76 dollars per person * Last Saturday I spent less than this amount for non necessities and that makes me content.

The Data about total consumer spending is a bit harder to find, but one website said that is around $94 Dollars is the average total per day. My average per day is less than this because I go on various spending freezes.

I came across this cool Time article that gives us a real time info graphic of how much is spent in America per second and after 100 seconds,it showed the unabashed way we spend millions per second. After seeing the figures below, Do you still think Amazon doesn’t make a profit? (I doubt it)

Every 100 Seconds we Spend – $900,000 Online – $9,200,000 Off Line = around $10 Million Dollars

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