Looking back on my own path to financial independence, I treated the whole thing like a race in my mind. Reaching the finish line was the utmost important goal. As I continued to make more money every year through raises, I saved more and more. But the other side of the equation is cutting expenses… and cut expenses we did! In my mind, if it wasn’t a necessity, I really had to think about if it made sense to spend …
I don’t normally write book reviews on this blog, but I’m making an exception for the new Choose FI book. I was expecting my opinion to sway one way with the book but my impression after reading it went in a completely different direction. Chris Mamula is the author of Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence (along with coauthors Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa). If you’re not familiar with Chris, he retired in 2017 at the young age of …
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My nephew recently started reading this blog and it got me thinking. What would be valuable information for him as a reader? What do I wish I knew when I was younger? He’s almost 20 years old and he just started a career in construction probably close to a couple of years ago. At his age, I know I wasn’t very smart financially. Don’t get me wrong – I thought I was, but looking back, I made some stupid decisions. …
8 Financial Tips I Wish I Knew When I Was in My 20’s Read More »
I’m just going to say it – I have three very small businesses that I’ve been running for years and I’ve never paid estimated self-employment tax payments. Ouch, for shame, for shame! That’s right, I’m a complete failure in that avenue. And that could have cost me, too. If you owe $1,000 or more come tax day in April, you might be hit with a penalty by the IRS. In essence, it’s an interest penalty on the difference of what …
Early retirement planning. You’d think the closer we get to our FIRE date, the simpler things would become. I mean really – I’m leaving my job in just a few months so as I continue to train my replacement, my workload should start to diminish over time. Plus, we’re downsizing to an apartment soon (if we could ever sell our house!). What else could there be, Jim? How much early retirement planning do you really need? Didn’t you already get these …
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Ever had that thought periodically running through your mind to write a book? I sure did. Then one day I just decided to do it. I had some great ideas to write a book based on technology. I’ve been in the IT field as a systems engineer and now the engineers’ manager for almost 20 years now. However, my thoughts for the book were actually focused more on the simpler stuff that family and friends were always asking me about. …
Can you make money blogging? It’s one of the first questions people tend to ask once they find out I have a blog. I’ve seen plenty of posts that make it sound like you can make a fortune by blogging. Start a blog, put some ads on it, then just sit back enjoying piña coladas on the beach, while your steady flow of passive income rolls in. Jim, you’re giving me a look – are you saying there’s more to …
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 …
When I was younger, I used to think that a lot of the business opportunities out there weren’t for me. Maybe they weren’t worth the effort or they would take too much money to start. As I’ve gotten older (and a little smarter), I’ve realized that’s not the case. It’s simply a matter of just opening your eyes and then plucking out those opportunities. A number of years ago, I started playing FreeCell on my phone when I get a …
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 …
Another Reason Why Working for Yourself is a Smart Idea… Read More »
