Saving

What to Do with Your Money Right Now

6 Comments / Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving / /

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 […]

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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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You’re Doing It Wrong! Your Personal Savings Rate

17 Comments / Saving, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Spending / /

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

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The 10 Best Financial Podcasts

The 10 Best Financial Podcasts

24 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Motivation, Saving / /

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”

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The HSA Benefits Just Keep Rolling In

8 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Investments, Saving / /

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

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What I’m Doing With My Money Right Now

6 Comments / Saving, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Investments, Real Estate / /

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

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It Doesn't Matter, So Stop It!

It Doesn’t Matter, So Stop It!

14 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Motivation, Saving, Spending / /

In general, we seem to have a tendency to focus a lot of our time and money on the things that don’t really matter.  It’s time to stop it and instead concentrate on what does matter… So far this summer we’ve taken a fantastic trip to Panama and spent a few days at a cottage on Kelleys Island on Lake Erie.  We’re starting to pack for a week-long vacation trip to Tennessee we have coming up in the next couple

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Why I Like Overdrawing My Checking Account

Why I Like Overdrawing My Checking Account

14 Comments / Saving, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments / /

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

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2017 Personal and Financial Goals

2017 Personal and Financial Goals

14 Comments / General Thoughts, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Investments, Motivation, Real Estate, Saving, Travel and Vacation / /

Well, it’s 2017, which means it’s time to take stock of how your previous year went, but more importantly, you should set your sights to the future and get your personal and financial goals put in place for the year. Here are my plans for the year… My 2017 Financial Goals   Buy another rental property Buying rental property is an important stream of passive income that I’m working on building.  Currently, we own a couple of rental properties – a single-family house and

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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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