Kids

Um, I Was Told to Stop Talking to My Kid About Money…

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

Everyone has opinions on how kids should be raised.  And there really are no perfect answers.  However, I never thought there’d be a day when my own parents would tell me to stop talking to my kid about money. But that’s exactly what happened. If you’re not familiar with my daughter, she’s a stellar writer on the Route to Retire blog.  Her post Like Father, Like Daughter… got some pretty good attention – including making it onto Rockstar Finance. She’s seven and […]

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I’m Struggling Right Now

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

I’m struggling.  I’ve been very careful to keep politics and other sensitive issues out of my blog.  We all have our opinions, of course, but I just don’t think this particular blog is the right place for that kind of discussion. So I’m going to try to keep this high-level on that front, but there’s something that’s affecting me deeply right now. Unless you’re living under a rock, you know about the shootings that have been happening in our school

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Like Father, Like Daughter…

39 Comments / Kids, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

Like father, like daughter… Recently, my 7-year-old daughter started asking me some questions about my blog.  She wanted to know what I write about and why I do it. I’m very deliberate in making sure that I don’t treat her like a kid when she’s interested in answers to something.  I have a couple reasons for this: 1) I want to ensure she’s never afraid to ask questions.  And so far, that’s always been effective.  She never feels like she

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The 10 Commandments for Kids and Money

10 Comments / Kids, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving, Self-Employment / /

When it comes to kids and money, we all want to ensure that they’ve got the greatest chance to succeed in life. We can push our kids to be smart and learn in school.  We can teach them to be good to other kids and to share. We can help them to understand that they should respect others.  We can show them good manners and how to be polite. But what about the money side of the formula?  Isn’t that

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Another Reason Why Working for Yourself is a Smart Idea...

Another Reason Why Working for Yourself is a Smart Idea…

27 Comments / Self-Employment, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Kids / /

We all know that working for yourself has a lot of benefits that you can’t get from working for someone else.  The ability to better control your company’s destiny, the independence and freedom you can gain, and the flexibility in hours are just a few of the possibilities that might be gained. However, I was thinking recently about another major benefit that working for yourself can provide.  But what fun would that be to just share it outright with you? A personal anecdote would

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An Open Letter to My Daughter

An Open Letter to My Daughter

10 Comments / Kids, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Motivation / /

An Open Letter to My Daughter My father passed away when I was around the age my daughter is now.  That’s made me think over the years that, should something ever happen to me, I’d like to know that I was able to pass on some of what I’ve learned. With that, I decided to write a letter to my daughter with some of my thoughts. I consider this a work in progress.  There’s ultimately too much information to share at

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Saving for Kids - Thoughts to Consider

Saving for Kids – Thoughts to Consider

10 Comments / Kids, Investments, Saving / /

When it comes to saving for kids, there are a ton of different options out there.  Should you start a separate account for them somewhere and if so where? Mrs. R2R and I have a 6-year-old daughter and we’re starting to think through this whole problem right now. Here’s what we’ve figured out so far…   First things first Before you do anything for your kids, you need to make sure to get your own finances in order.  If you have

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What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

17 Comments / Kids, Education, General Thoughts / /

I recently asked my 6-year old daughter “what do you want to be when you grow up?”  She answered back that said she wants to buy duplexes. That’s my girl! Now, before you start chastising me for trying to force my daughter to be something she doesn’t want to when she grows up, let me explain. When I grow up… When I was young, I had my sights set on being an artist for Disney.  I had a pretty good knack for drawing and that just

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Is It Possible to Reach Financial Independence with Kids?

Is It Possible to Reach Financial Independence with Kids?

33 Comments / Kids, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

When I set out on this journey toward financial independence, I knew I had some work to do.  I started out with around $30k of credit card debt and didn’t know anything worthwhile on how to make it happen. I even bought into one of those late night real estate scams on how to get rich.  I wasted some of my hard-earned money late in my college years thinking that was the way to go… it wasn’t. Eventually, I got on track.  I read as many books as I

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Is 50¢ Too Much Money for Garbage?

Is 50¢ Too Much Money for Garbage?

6 Comments / Kids, General Thoughts / /

50 cents…  two quarters. That’s what we pay our daughter every week to gather the trash from all the bedrooms, put new bags in the cans, and bring all the garbage downstairs to stuff in the bag to go out.  50 cents a week for one of her chores. Ah, chores – a subject of great debate. Now, there are a couple different ways to look at this.  Maybe you’re thinking… “Jim, you can’t pay your daughter to do chores!  Aren’t

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