Debt Archives - Route to Retire

Why I Like Overdrawing My Checking Account

Once upon I time, a young man we’ll randomly call “Jim” was in college and barely had a dollar to his name… Ok, fine – that young man was me – dang it, you ruin everything! Anyway, like a good number of college students, overdrawing my checking account wasn’t too uncommon. In fact, it actually wasn’t uncommon for me to blow out my balance on a periodic basis for a year or so after graduating college as well. Eventually, though, I started to make some good progress on my finances over the years and overdrawing my checking account became a pretty rare occurrence, if it happened at all. Over the past year or so though, I’m back to overdrawing the account again. And

Why Do We Buy Crap??

Sometimes I can’t help but shake my head that we as a society feel compelled to buy crap just because we feel we “need” it. There are millions of people here in the U.S. that, although not by choice, manage to live on $2 a day. But when it comes to the middle class, even with increasing salaries, most families buy and buy and still feel like they need more stuff. Why? Why do people love to waste their hard-earned money on crap? I’m not above this, but I think I’ve changed tremendously over the past decade. I’ve really become much better at just living more simply. When I was working during my college years, I was a spender. I’ve talked about how I

Protecting Your Assets

So, you’re going down the right path on the road to financial freedom slowly but surely, but you want to make sure that you’re protecting your assets in the meantime? Well, hopefully, this post will help you with some ideas! I’ve noticed that as I’ve started to build up my assets, my needs have started to morph as well. I now have rental properties, multiple LLCs, and growing and expanding savings, investment, and retirement accounts. And, as the accounts continue to grow, a lot of the money is starting to work more for me instead of the other way around. But, I now have a lot more to lose than when I first started down this journey. Making sure that I don’t

Year-End Review

Well, this is it – the last post of the year. I hope all of you had a great holiday and are looking forward to the new year! I thought this would be a good time to do a year-end review and look back at what I got accomplished throughout the year (and what I didn’t!). Let’s start with the 8 Financial Goals we had set at the beginning of the year for ourselves… 1) Build back up our online savings After the 25% we put down on the duplex we bought at the end of last year, our savings we had was pretty much depleted. We don’t have any consumer debt, so other than contributing to investments, paying regular bills

It’s All About the Expenses…

You’re doing your best to get yourself on the right track with your finances. You’re working your way out of debt and have turned your eye toward reaching financial independence. But the media wants you to focus on the money you have coming in. I want you to focus on your expenses instead. First of all, know that your income is important – no doubt about it. In my article The Steps to Wealth, the first thing I talk about is getting a high-paying job. Is that the end-all and be-all in reaching financial independence? Certainly not, but bringing in a higher salary can make the steps of the journey much easier. However, even if you do have a lot of money coming

Downsize My House to Quit My Job Sooner?

My wife and I are very happy with our neighborhood – we like where we live, we like our neighbors, and the schools are good. But I recently had a thought… the only thing holding me back from reaching FI (financial independence) is the dollars owed on my mortgage. Granted, I’ll reach FI before the mortgage is completely paid off, but for my plan to work, those extra payments for a couple of years will make things a little tight. So, here was my thought… What if I downsize my home? Look, a lot of the average Joes out there would look at me in absolute horror for even thinking such a thing. They would probably say “you’re too young to consider downsizing!”

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