March 2017

You’re the Average of the Five People You Spend Most of Your Time With

You’re the Average of the Five People You Spend Most of Your Time With

18 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

Jim Rohn, businessman and motivator, once said, “You’re the average of the five people you spend most of your time with.” It’s something that actually makes a lot of sense since those are the people who influence you the most.  It also might make you a little uncomfortable if your friends aren’t the most motivated people. Most likely, you enjoy your time with your friends (they are your friends after all!) and wouldn’t want to think that they might be holding you back in some way. […]

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Four 401(k) Mistakes That Can Crush Your Retirement Savings

Four 401(k) Mistakes That Can Crush Your Retirement Savings

12 Comments / Investments, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

401(k) mistakes have the potential to easily ruin your retirement savings.  If you have the opportunity to contribute to a 401(k) plan at work, hopefully, you’re taking advantage of it. But even if you do, most of us just hand over our money and don’t think any more of it.  That’s a problem – potentially a big problem and one that can cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars if you’re not careful. The good news is that these 401(k) mistakes are

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I Had to Fire an Employee Today

I Had to Fire an Employee Today

19 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / /

I had to fire an employee today. I’ve let a number of people go over the years and it’s never something anyone enjoys… not me as the manager and certainly not the employee. But, it had to be done.  His performance was definitely sub-par and it was affecting relationships with customers and hurting morale with good employees. Here’s the thing, though – it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that it went as good as it could go.  It doesn’t matter that he knew

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Identity Theft – Are You Protected?

6 Comments / Consumer Protection, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

A good friend of mine at work recently said he’s struggling on his month of trying not to spend money on non-essentials.  He said he’s already had to spend $250 on a plumber and $200 to renew his identity theft protection for the year. Ok, well that makes sense— wait, WHAT?! $200 for identity theft protection?!!  Holy mackerel!!! First of all, I’ve always wanted to work the phrase “holy mackerel” into a post, so mission accomplished. Since that’s out of

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