Saving Archives - Route to Retire

What to Do with Your Money Right Now

We’re in an interesting cycle of the economy right now. Things are looking good, which helps boost the value of your money. When it comes to investments, stock prices and property values are generally up. And if you’re selling, that’s a good thing. Retirees and folks selling their houses or some of their stock investments are partying it up during these times. However, if you’re still in the wealth-building phase of your life, this isn’t as exciting. Sure, it makes your portfolio look good, but if you don’t need the money right now, it’s taking its toll on your buying power. Using your money to buy new shares in the stock market is expensive right now. Expensive is a subjective word,

The 10 Commandments for Kids and Money

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 important? I spend a lot of my time staring at Quicken and Personal Capital trying to plan for financial independence and early retirement. I feel very blessed that we’re in a solid position to make this happen. However, another part

You’re Doing It Wrong! Your Personal Savings Rate

Here’s the problem with calculating your personal savings rate… you’re doing it wrong! Ok, maybe you’re not, but I sure was! First off, let’s talk about what your personal savings rate is. In essence, it’s a metric to be able to determine what percentage you’re putting away in relation to your income. In other words, it provides a good way to tell at a glance how well you’re saving. Someone might make a ton of money at his or her job, but if that person’s spending it all, it’s really all for nothing in the long run. However, someone else might not be bringing home a large salary, but if she’s stashing away a good percentage of it, she’s going

The 10 Best Financial Podcasts

The 10 Best Financial Podcasts??? Aren’t podcasts for nerds? Who in the heck would listen to people droning on and on for an hour talk show?! A couple years ago, that’s what I was thinking. Then about a year ago, I canceled my Sirius XM radio subscription and learned something… local radio sucks. Maybe that’s not the case for all areas, but where I live in Ohio, it’s horrendous. So I was stuck. Fine, I decided, I’ll give these “podcasts” a try. And guess what – I’m glad I did. Now that’s all I listen to during my commute to and from work every day. But I don’t just listen to any podcasts – I listen, almost exclusively to personal

The HSA Benefits Just Keep Rolling In

I’ve written about Health Savings Accounts (HSA) before and how they are one the best retirement plans you can get your hands on. In fact, it might be THE best account out there. I thought I knew all the HSA benefits I could get out of this account, but in this post, I’ll tell you about a new one I learned about. If you’re not familiar with an HSA, it’s a medical savings account that’s paired with a high-deductible medical plan. Because you’re on a high-deductible plan, you usually pay less of a premium (the amount a lot of us see taken out of each of our paychecks). What usually gets people started in this is that they can then

What I’m Doing With My Money Right Now

I’m pretty excited to see that our net worth has grown over $70,000 in just three months since I wrote the post $1 Million Net Worth… Now What?. It’s great to see my money continuing to grow, but there’s still a downside to it. Most of the money is tied up in the stock market right now and it’s a bull market right now. No one has a crystal ball to tell us if this is only the beginning. The gains could just keep rolling in for years to come. It’s also possible, however, that we’re at the top of the market and a recession is just around the corner. I don’t know what’s going to take place in the

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