When Disney Plus came out, everyone was telling me how great this streaming TV service is. My students were trying to watch it in class. My kids had heard that there were a ton of great shows on it. Even adults were excited about the classic Disney movies that they used to watch as kids. Just like Netflix used to be, Disney Plus was The Next Big Thing. And the number of people who instantly subscribed to it showed just how big it would be. Over the first month, it was estimated that 24 million people subscribed to this service. And at a cost of only $6.99 per month, it…
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Don’t Wait for Early Retirement to Start Living
When I was 21 and fresh out of college, I got a job working as a credit analyst at a bank. One of my bosses at the bank was a 45 year-old guy named Jim. I don't think that I'm exaggerating when I say that Jim had it all in life. He had a good job, a beautiful house on a lake, and a great family. He was also a great person, even to a new bank employee like me. As a beginning distance runner, the thing that intrigued me the most about Jim were his many athletic feats. People around the office would always talk about Jim getting up…
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What Would You Do if You Were Rich?
One of my favorite movies is The Italian Job. After stealing $35 million worth of gold, explosives expert, Left Ear, asks his fellow thieves what they are planning to do with the money. In other words, now that they are rich, how are their lives going to change? The answers range from simple (a great stereo system) to extremely complex (a house in Spain that includes a library full of first-editions and a room for shoes). As the thieves go through their answers, we soon find out that all of the answers except for one involve buying stuff. And if we're honest with ourselves, buying stuff might be our answer…
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How Much Does This Evil Meeting Cost?
Have you ever been sitting in a meeting thinking that it is a pointless waste of time? "Why am I here," you may ask yourself. And even worse, often a meeting takes the place of very important work that you could be doing. You even could be doing tasks that would significantly help your company. Maybe even make your company money. But instead, you are sitting in this boring meeting. Honestly, we've all been there. As a matter of fact, I am sitting in one of those meetings right now. Depending on your corporate culture, you may even go to dozens of these meetings per month. Not only is this…
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Building Safety Into Our Monthly Expenses
One of the scariest things financially is relying completely on the next paycheck to pay for food, shelter, and utilities. However, 4 out of 5 Americans live paycheck to paycheck. This was highlighted by the government shutdown in the United States at the start of this year. Since many people were living without a safety margin, they were forced to immediately go into debt for basic needs. Of course, this isn't ideal and it's not a situation that anyone plans on. To get out of this paycheck to paycheck cycle, it helps to build a little bit of a safety margin into our monthly expenses. For instance, if we make…
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Are We Part of the 1%?
When someone such as an athlete, CEO, or actor is making millions of dollars per year, it is often easy for us to think of what we would do if we had that much money. We often feel that spending money on private jets, expensive yachts, or multiple homes throughout the country is wasteful and even a bit foolish. We also feel that there are better ways for the extravagantly rich to spend their money. Of course, we are completely right. Instead of buying a yacht, an athlete could set up football camps for youth in poorer neighborhoods. A CEO could avoid buying a private jet and instead invest the…
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3 Simple Ways for Couples to Budget
I strongly believe that we should design our life and things we want to do in it before thinking about how much or how little money we are spending. We definitely should not let money rule our lives. Instead, we should find out what makes us happy and do that, regardless of the cost! However ...
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4 Steps to Break the Cycle of Car Debt
Most people probably don´t realize it, but car debt is one of the main things that is keeping us from being wealthy. As a matter of fact, a $400 monthly car payment could become $467,000 if it was invested for 30 years and earned a 7% rate of return! Unfortunately, car payments are considered normal in middle class society. In any parking lot full of newer cars, we would be hard pressed to find a car that doesn´t have a payment on it. Because of this, most of us are missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment gains. Many of us may even want to get out…
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You Can Actually Save Money Shopping Online with Ebates
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that we’ve been inundated with ways to make money. Also, I’ve noticed that everyone says that these are easy ways to make money. Complete surveys while you are watching TV! Start a side business in your spare time! Sign up for this website and you can become rich! Everyone seems to have something that they are trying to market! Of course, I am guilty of this too with some of my recommendations. I think that credit cards can be great for their travel hacking possibilities, that Capital One 360 is a good place to stash your emergency fund, and that Fidelity and Vanguard are…
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Envy is Not a Tool For Happiness
Every single one of us owns something that we don’t feel too great about. Whether it’s a house that we feel is ugly, a treadmill that barely works, kitchen cabinets from the 1970s, or a watch that is only right twice per day, we all own something that we are not too fond of. For me, it’s a Chevy Malibu that has 180,000 miles on it. This car has a cracked windshield, a gap in the passenger door that lets water in when it rains, and a sound coming from the engine that is getting louder every month. I don’t love this car. However, I am not in a rush to…
