We have all heard that compound interest can help us become wealthy. Even Albert Einstein knew this when he famously said: "Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it . . . he who doesn't . . . pays it." But unless you remember the lessons from your high school Algebra classes, you may not really understand how compound interest works. Don't worry, I'm here for you! Not only will this article help you to understand exactly how compound interest works, but it will also show you the power of compound interest by using a few examples.
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30 Ways to Build Wealth in Your 30s
Your 30s can be one of your best decades ever for building wealth. You may finally have a job that you want to base your career around and you may have started to build some wealth. But your 30s can also be very difficult financially, as you may be starting a family, preparing for your kids to go to college, thinking about saving for retirement, and even trying to keep up with the Joneses. Fortunately, there are some great moves that you can make with money in your 30s to put you on the right path financially. Here are 30 things that you can do to build wealth in your…
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Fire Your Financial Advisor and Become Rich
To meet any of our goals with money, it helps to make sure that both our big and small expenses are under control. Therefore, many financial websites focus on eliminating small expenses (like getting coffee out), while also working on larger expenses (like buying used cars). However, one of the largest expenses that most people don't focus on is the cost of a financial advisor. A financial advisor may charge between $1,000 and $2,500 for the creation of a financial plan or $150-$300 per hour. Although this is a large dollar amount, having to pay $1,000 or $2,000 for a financial plan is not the reason that we should fire…
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The Worst Financial Advice Ever
Most of the time, the financial advice that I hear is pretty good. Things like buy used cars, invest for retirement, and pay down debt are all solid pieces of advice that will help us to become more financially secure. However, I have also heard some pretty bad financial advice. I asked some of my friends online about the worst financial advice they had heard. Just like me, they have heard a lot of bad advice. Here is some of the worst advice that they have heard.
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Early Retirement: You WILL Need More Money Than You Planned
As many of you know, the FIRE movement stands for ¨Financial Independence, Retire Early.¨ And, for many people, the ¨Retire Early¨ portion of FIRE is the most intriguing. After all, wouldn't it be great to spend your time learning new things, pursuing hobbies, and hanging out with friends and family without having to worry about that 9-5 job? Even if you absolutely love your job, you are probably slightly intrigued by the concept of retiring early.
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How to Start Investing
Investing is not necessary. This statement used to be true back in the mid to late 20th century. People would work for a single company for 40 years, retire at the age of 65, and live quite well financially. Not only did they have Social Security to rely on, but many people also had a nice pension that they earned throughout their working career. However, times have changed. In most industries, pensions are going away. Social security isn´t going away, but its benefits will continue to shrink. The three-legged retirement stool of investing, pensions, and social security is getting weaker. And even though investing didn´t used to be necessary, it…
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It’s Actually Good to Get a Tax Refund
Most articles that I read and financial writers that I respect claim that it’s not good to get a tax refund. The general consensus is that you wouldn’t want to give an interest free loan to the government. After all, the government already has tons of money. Why would it need more of yours? And I completely see their point. In a perfect world, I would use the money that I could have gotten as a tax refund every single month. Instead of getting $1,200 back from the IRS, I would take $100 extra per month and use it to pay down my debt, invest, or save for a big…
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You’ve Already Done the Toughest Part
They say that saving your first $100,000 is the toughest. Or saving your first $1,000,000. Or your first $10,000,000. Or any other impossibly large number of dollars that wealthy people like to talk about. I completely agree with them. Personally, my wife and I have a net worth between $100,000 and $1,000,000, so I would say something stupid like “Saving our first $100,000 was the toughest. Each additional $100,000 wasn’t as bad!” Although what I just said is completely true, it doesn’t help people who aren’t in my situation. Maybe it doesn’t help you if you are living paycheck to paycheck or if you are in huge amounts of debt…
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The 10% Solution
When many people are looking to make a change in their lives, they often make a huge change. Some people go from a completely sedentary life to working out for one hour each day. Others may vow to cut their spending budget in half as they try to get out of debt. Still other people may quit their jobs as they try to gain control of their crazy schedule. We often go all in when we try to make a change in our lives. And honestly, this can be a good thing! Sometimes the best way to make a change is to make a big change. However, we don’t always…
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4 Non-Sophisticated Things That You Should Do With Money
There are many sophisticated things that we could do with our money. We could: Create a CD ladder for money that we want to save. Use tax-loss harvesting to save on taxes when we invest. Convert our IRA to a Roth IRA by using a backdoor Roth conversion. Each of these sophisticated financial techniques could save us anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars throughout our lives. Because they are so valuable, I definitely encourage you to become educated about each of them and see if you can use them either now or in the future. While each of these are very valuable techniques to save money, they…
