In this post, I’ve decided to embrace my non-traditional and alternative thoughts on the personal finance space and talk about a number of things that I’ve been battling with internally about money, the markets and investing. This is the first post in this series, and will set the stage for several posts to follow.

One of the principles of living with an abundance mindset is that the world is infinite in possibilities. In the 21st century here in the United States, people have never in their history had the freedom that we do now to do what we want with our time and money.

Want to go across the country tomorrow? It’s a possibility – get an airplane ticket and you are there! Something to eat? Head down to the grocery store or your favorite restaurant and you’ll be fed! Air conditioning on a hot day, or heat on a cold day? Spin the dial and comfort awaits!

Why am I bringing this up?

Unfortunately, this freedom is expensive, from monetary, environmental and energy perspectives.

This series is going to be a challenge to people in the personal finance community, economists (real and armchair), politicians (real and armchair), and anyone interested in investing. Thinking critically is so important if you are going to navigate this world successfully.

I’m pursuing TRUTH and will not stop short of it.

In this first post, I’m going to discuss a topic so frequently ignored and touch on the surface of some of the consequences of this ignorance.

The Earth is a Closed System

I’m sure this is an obvious statement to you: the Earth is a closed system.

Humans know the dimensions of the Earth (diameter of 7,900 miles) and have pictures of the entire planet from space.

In other words, you could say that the Earth is finite.

In mathematics (namely, number theory), finite sets are a collection of things which can be counted and the count of the collection is finite (less than infinity). Subsets of a finite set are finite as well, and are not infinite.

Why do I bring this up?

Something that is so frequently ignored by economists, journalists, personal finance experts, investors, and politicians is that the Earth is finite and limited.

Because the Earth is finite and limited, there are a few things that cannot be limitless: population, man-made energy, and money.

The rest of this post will be touching on population dynamics, energy, and give a preview of the rest of this series.

Population Dynamics in a Closed System

In a biology class in high school or college, you may have learned about population dynamics.

In a closed system, the population of individuals is governed by following differential equation (from Wikipedia):

The solution to this equation is the following:The picture of this equation is the following:

At the beginning of time, the growth is fast, and as you come up to the carrying capacity of the system, the growth slows.

The carrying capacity is a level such that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water, and other necessities available in the environment. The carrying capacity is a dynamic number based on technology, weather, and a number of other factors, but this number is always a finite number (because of the closed system assumption).

While this is great in theory, how is this playing out in the real world?

Population Dynamics in the United States

I live in the United States, so it’s natural to start there.

Here’s a graph of the United States population over time:

Over time, the population in the United States has grown, and since 1950, has more than doubled.

If you are paying attention, you’ll recognize something that’s a little off. The United States is not a closed system.

While performing my research for this post, I found some information on immigration and people leaving the United States, but to perform a thorough analysis, I’d have to come up with some sort of cohorting methodology which would be outside of the scope of this post anyway…

What I did find is that the growth of the core population of the United States (ages 15-64) is declining and leveling off over time:

The population continues to go up, but the core population is going down? Well, the majority of the change and growth in the population in the past 30-50 years is due to immigration.

What does this point to? A maturing population in a space approaching it’s carrying capacity? I’m not sure the exact reasons, as I’m not an expert on population dynamics, but from our thought exercise, it would seem that the United States population has matured and has reached stability (ignoring immigration).

But why… we will get to that in a little bit. Let’s talk about population dynamics on Earth.

Population Dynamics on Earth

Since we live on Earth, and this post is ultimately about Earth being a closed system, I present below the Earth’s population over the past 500 years:

Again, we see massive growth around 1950, and little signs of this slowing down. But again, from population dynamics, we know that Earth is a closed system, so at some point, the population should level off.

Some scientists have us leveling off at 9 or 10 billion. Most projections have us between 6 and 17 billion in the year 2100.

Are we approaching our carrying capacity in the world today? Will people be able to increase the carrying capacity of the world? What factors will affect this?

These questions are outside the scope of this post, but leads us to my next point on the discussion of Earth being a closed system.

The Most Important Variable so Often Ignored: ENERGY

When you get out of bed in the morning, what do you do?

Your muscles move in such a way that allows you to roll off the bed and stand up. How do your muscles do this?

Your muscles tap into your body’s energy stores.

Where does your body get this energy? Easy, food.

Where does this food come from? The grocery store, which got it from a farm or food processor.

How did the farm or food processor get the food?

I think you get where I’m going.

ENERGY drives everything in our world.

Since energy drives everything in our world, why do economists, politicians, “experts” and talking heads ignore it? Let’s dive in a little more.

How Energy has Affected Population Growth

Again, I’m sure this is obvious to you since you learned this in history class in high school, but it’s worth repeating.

At the start of the 1800’s, the Industrial Revolution took place and brought extreme change to the way people went about their daily lives. Innovation and new technologies allowed humans to go places faster, do more work and produce things more efficiently.

Steam powered engines, the ability to mass produce steel and iron, and advancements in agriculture allowed people to live more comfortably and build up society to do things that were unattainable in the past.

Because of these developments, more people were needed for growth and building, and the population started to explode.

Over the next 200 years, more technological developments and growth allowed the population to keep its steady pace upwards. Electricity, oil discoveries, solar, wind, and nuclear energy advancements, all of these contributed to a surplus of energy which allowed humans to research and discover new and more efficient ways to produce food, build real estate, and create the society we know today.

Here’s the thing though: while yes, there have been strides in renewable energy, we cannot ignore the fact that the majority of the world is still very dependent on oil and fossil fuels. As we know, the Earth is a finite mass, and a subset of the Earth (oil) is also finite.

If energy drives growth and productivity, and one of the main sources of our energy disappears, what will be the result?

The Interplay of Energy and Earth Going Forward

While the financial media typically stays quiet about energy outside of the cost of different commodities, there is quite a bit of talk about it among academics and politicians (though not always as thoughtful or well-meaning as we may like).

Certain people argue that since humans are a dynamic species, we are adaptable to our different situations. Over time, if we run out of oil, we can find some other energy source which will fit our needs.

While this sounds great, in reality, people have been working on alternative energies for the past 50 years and these energies still aren’t as efficient as we’d like (or there is some other force blocking the widespread use – potential rabbit hole here).

Other people argue that the world is undoubtedly finite, and the rate at which we are using oil and other fossil fuels is unsustainable, and because we are so dependent on this type of fuel, we are in for a rude awakening.

Countries and businesses are spending more money, going into more debt, and getting less return on their investment for less of a yield.

Is this sustainable? Are new technologies on the rise? I don’t know.

I don’t know how the future will look, as I don’t have a crystal ball, nor does anyone else.

My point of this is to highlight that we cannot ignore something so fundamental to living and daily life in our macro projections.

Energy, population dynamics, and the environment drive the economy… it’s not the other way around

This statement is worth repeating since it’s so important: energy, population dynamics, and the environment drive the economy… it’s not the other way around.

I’ll be going into more detail in later posts in this series, but some statements which automatically fall out of this statement are worth mentioning here:

• To grow an entity (business, government, family, etc.), energy is required.
  • Everything takes energy, and growth and progress needs a lot of it.
• The economy is a subset of the environment and the world around us and is subject to the same rules from biology and physics.
  • Economists (with big egos and heads) think that the economy is the biggest thing, but without the environment, there is no economy.
• The stock market will not go up forever. 
  • Infinite growth in a non-infinite system is a logical mistake. Note: this is not saying that the stock market is not a good place for investment or store of your wealth.

Again, I will touch on a number of these later on in this series, but wanted to make these statements here to get the ball rolling.

Keep these concepts in mind in the upcoming posts

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m not an expert, but want to write in such a way which will spark original and critical thought in your brain.

Consideration of the impact of energy on the economy, productivity, and markets is critical and should not be ignored.

The world we live on is not infinite, and as a result, we should take care in our discussions to consider this.

In the upcoming posts, I will be talking about some concepts which are fundamental to the financial system today:

• What is money? What is debt?
• How do banks work? What is fractional reserve banking?
• What does it actually mean to want to invest in a stock?

I’m searching for the truth, and while I’m not there yet, this will be a fun set of posts for me to learn more about the world, and hopefully give you some good food for thought.

Thanks for reading,

Erik

A few years ago, I decided to start researching ways to make more money on the side of my day job. Searching “how to make more money” in Google kept leading me towards websites saying “start a blog”, fill out surveys, or join some silly apps.

After some thought, I decided to take a step towards creating an online business, and started a blog.

My goal with my blog was to see if I could turn it into an income stream and make money from blogging.

After 2 years of writing, hustling, and grinding away for hours and hours, I haven’t made a lot of money, but I have made some money.

Can you actually make money from blogging?

Short answer? Yes.

Long answer? It’s complicated.

In this post, I’m going to share with you my results from my first 2 years of blogging, what you can expect if you start a blog, the skills necessary for growing your blog, and an answer to the question if you can actually make money from blogging.

What a New Blogger Can Expect During The 1st 2 Years of Blogging

I launched The Mastermind Within on the 1st day of 2017. It’s now 2019, and I’ve been blogging for 2 years.

During this time, I posted a ton of content, redesigned this website a handful of times, made a ton of mistakes, and have made some money.

Overall though, after two years, my return from my blog is a large negative.

When I started blogging, I didn’t know how to build a following, provide value, and monetize this following.

Over time, I learned, but it’s been a long slog.

Below are the revenue statistics from the first two years of blogging on The Mastermind Within.

What You Could Expect in Your First Year of Blogging

In the first year (2017), I made $161 and received 40,957 page views (~3,500 page views a month).

Not included in the picture above is the expenses. In 2017, I spent around $1,300 on different software, website hosting, and education resources.

During this first year, I added nearly 175 pieces of new content to the website, but my marketing wasn’t fantastic.

I wasn’t on Pinterest, wasn’t doing any Facebook advertising, and wasn’t super consistent with my posting or outreach.

Also, I was still learning how to make an appealing website, and was struggling with focus for my new and existing readers.

Some of this was addressed in year two, but after one year, I still didn’t really know what I was doing (and it shows in the results)

What You Could Expect in Your Second Year of Blogging

During the second year, I focused in a little more, secured some sponsored content contracts, and continued to build up the content on the website.

In the second year of the blog, I made $2,520, and received 128,932 page views (~11,000 page views a month).

During the second year, I posted 3 times a week, but the main driver of the increase in traffic was from search engines.

For money making, I was experimenting with a lot of different ways to make money blogging, but none of them really worked out. Some were based around affiliate marketing, other ideas were based around ads.

One blogging money making method that did work out was securing a sponsored post contract with an advertising agency.

Sponsored content is not for everyone, but I wanted to see if it would be beneficial. For this website, it seems it has been okay.

In the second year, I hired a few people to help me with this blog, but the return on that investment was not instantaneous.

Overall, for the second year, I took a monetary loss of $650, as well as all of the time I spent on the blog.

Can You Actually Make Money Blogging?

Let’s go back to the original question, can you actually make money blogging?

Yes, you can make money blogging. Affiliate marketing, ads, sponsored content, partnerships, paid products – all of these can lead to income if done right.

I’m currently working on a paid product that could bring in $3,000 a month if done right. We will see the result when I’m done with the product!

Making money online is certainly possible, but will take effort and patience.  For me, in my first two years, I made nearly $3,000.

However, to make this money, I spent about $4,500, and worked countless hours on writing, designing and learning how to become a better online business owner.

I made a lot of mistakes, but also have grown a ton from my experience.

During my first two years of blogging, I was exposed to the following concepts and experiences:

• providing value through your writing
• web design
• social media marketing
• lead magnets and email marketing
• search engine optimization
• community building and meeting other bloggers

I wouldn’t have learned any of these blogging skills, or had some amazing experiences with other awesome people if I didn’t start.

Also, what’s amazing about these relationships and skills is they will not go away over time.

For example, one of my side hustles to earn more money now is freelance web design. I design websites for small business owners who don’t know how to get started online.

Over the past 6 months, I’ve earned nearly $3,000 from this side hustle. This more than makes up for the loss I’ve taken on the blog.

In year three on my blog, I’m continuing to focus in and learn more about what makes my readers tick, how I can serve them, and what will lead to growth on this blog.

Can you actually make money online and make money blogging? Yes.

Will it be difficult? Yes.

Should You Start a Blog to Earn More Money?

Above, we talked about what you can expect during your first two years of blogging.

Maybe you are still thinking about starting a blog, or maybe you already have a blog and are looking to grow.

Buying a domain, getting paid website hosting, and installing WordPress on your website can be done in less than an hour for typically less than $150.

It’s never been easier or less expensive to launch an online business than it is today.

Even with my less than stellar results after two years, I’m still very thankful I took the plunge and started this website.

If you are on the fence about diving in deep on the blog, let me share some more thoughts on the benefits I’ve found from blogging.

The rest of this post will be talking about your mindset towards creating a great blog, how to start a blog, and my best tips I have for new bloggers.

Take Action and Do Work

On this blog, I talk a lot about the importance of action.

Back at the beginning of 2017, I started The Mastermind Within. I registered the domain, https://personalfinanceblogs.com, and got to work building out the website.

I decided to take bold action, and put my thoughts and opinions out into the wild World Wide Web.

What started out as an outlet to help others, to connect with like-minded individuals, to document my journey, and to potentially create an income stream has become all of this and more.

I’m incredibly thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people and am looking forward to continue on this journey in year number 3.

It would have been easy for me to not start this blog, but I decided to take action and do the work. It would have been easy to not write thousands of words spanning hundreds of blog posts, but I decided to take action and do the work.

There are so many “hard” things that are necessary for success in this world. But, speaking frankly here, they aren’t actually that hard. The difficulty comes in the consistency and application of discipline.

Ideas are Worthless Without Action

How many million dollar ideas have you came up with over the last few years?

How many of those have you implemented?

For all of your ideas that you’ve implemented, what was the gain or loss?

I have plenty of ideas, but have realized that all of these ideas are worthless unless I actually try and capitalize on them.

Starting a YouTube channel, buying a rental property, starting a blog, getting started with a new hobby, getting into shape, building a new company – all of these things make for great conversation and goals, but without actually doing the work, nothing will come of it.

This blog, The Mastermind Within, wasn’t the most original idea. There are plenty of blogs which talk about personal finance, self improvement or entrepreneurship.

Here’s the thing: you don’t need an amazing idea the first, second, fifth or tenth time you do something. Surprisingly, taking action actually will lead to bigger and better ideas!

Over the last two years, I’ve seen some fantastic results personally, on the blog, and in my other hustles.

These results include:

• A crazy amount of content on this website
• Personal growth and self improvement from my hustle
• New relationships with amazing people
• A potential income stream going forward

Let’s go into these in more detail.

The Raw Output of Taking Action on Your Blog

In 2018, I added nearly 200 pieces of content to this blog, with the word count totaling 253,515 words. In 2017, I added nearly 175 pieces of content to the blog, with the word count totaling 216,269 words.

That’s a lot of freaking writing.

One of my life mantras is the following:

Simple daily disciplines over time will lead to MASSIVE SUCCESS.

Over 2 years, I stayed consistent with my writing and growth on this website.

There were days when I didn’t want to write, days where I didn’t have a great idea, and days where I could’ve just pushed it off for another day.

Now, I have a strong foundation, and with consistent efforts, you could create a site like this as well.

Personal Growth and Self Improvement from Blogging

Growing up, English was my worse subject in school. I got B’s and C’s in English, whereas in my math and science courses, I got mostly A’s.

In college, I graduated with a math degree, and only took 1 writing class.

Communication, English and comprehension has always been a struggle for me.

With these as weaknesses, why did I start a blog? If I’m bad at these things, then why try?

Something I like to do is spin situations and look at them from a different angle. With these weaknesses, maybe they are reasons why I actually should start a blog or podcast!

Blogging has drastically improved my communication and ability to think on my feet. Writing over 200,000 words in a coherent matter takes practice (my first posts looked horrible – and my new ones still have room for improvement!)

With this improved communication, I’ve seen improvements and an impact in my relationships and career.

Communication is incredibly important for having a successful career, and through my efforts to improve my communication, I’ve seen an increase in my salary at my day job.

Another skill I’ve learned from blogging is web design. As I discussed above, this new side hustle has helped me increase my side income.

Designing websites and making improvements to this website has been a lot of fun, and also helped me in my day job.

Learning HTML and CSS isn’t too difficult, but there is definitely a learning curve to get started.

Now, I’ve been able to market this skill and help others with their websites!

From blogging, I’ve learned a lot of great skills which will help me going forward in my hustles.

Making New Connections, Forming New Friendships and Finding Love

When I started blogging, I had no idea that there was a huge community of other bloggers who all loved talking about money, hustling and personal growth.

Over my first two years of blogging, I met and interacted with hundreds of awesome people at different meet-ups and media conferences.

I even dated someone amazing for about a year who I met through this blog!

A number of these people I met over the last year I now consider some of my best friends 🙂

Discussing interests, having accountability buddies, sharing great stories and experiences, and raising my “average” (you’re the average of the 5 people you spend your time with in all ways – wealth, social skills, health, interests, career success, etc.) has been so much fun and so great.

I’m very excited to continue to keep having fun with these new blogging and finance friends, but also meet new people too!

A New Income Stream

In the first section of this post, I told you that one of my goals with this blog was to make money. When I started, I took inspiration from other bloggers who had turned their personal website or blog into an online business.

As we saw above, through the first two years, I made roughly $3,000.

While this isn’t a lot, it has set the stage for a potential income stream going forward with the correct actions and efforts.

Time will tell if I’m able to make it into a profitable endeavor, but if others can do it, then so can I.

What Can You Accomplish?

One of the sayings I hate the most is, “I don’t have enough time for X.” 

Yes, I do understand that there are situations where kids are involved, multiple jobs are being held, or because of past choices, there aren’t enough hours in a day to get everything you want done.

But for many people, a lot of time is spent on their phone, watching TV or laying in bed. Heck, I used to play 3-4 hours of video games EVERY DAY. That’s over 1,000 hours a year!

What is interesting, is humans underestimate how much they can accomplish in a year (or 3, or 5 years).

In my second year of blogging, I added over 250,000 words and nearly 200 posts to this website. In the past two years, I’ve added over 450,000 words and 350 posts to this website.

Could I have done all of this in 1 day? No.

Could I have done all of this in 1 week? No.

Could I have done all of this in 1 month? No.

What about 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? Yes 🙂 (I did it!)

Think about this for a second: in 5 years, you’ll be on this Earth for 43,800 hours.

How many hours does it take to reach your goal? 100? 200? 500?

I think you can carve out 100 hours in the next 5 years 😉

Spending 30 minutes a day for 200 days will hit lead to hitting your goal. Spend an hour a day for 100 days and you’ll hit your 100 hour goal.

I know you can do it.

Take action today. Do the work, and you’ll be on the path to success.

6 Steps to Starting and Growing Your Blog

At this point, you might be interested in starting a blog, but don’t know the next steps to getting your website started.

Maybe you are skeptical that you should start a blog.

There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t create a blog:

• You don’t know what you would write about
• You don’t believe your writing skills are up to par
• The time isn’t there to build and maintain a blog
• You don’t know anything about blogging and are scared to learn

While these are valid concerns, I will address each one of these concerns here:

You don’t know what you would write about

There are millions of things you could write about.

What are your interests?

• Do you like winter sports such as skiing or skating?
  • You could start a blog talking about different hills that you have tried out or different skating rinks.
• Do you like traveling?
  • There are many travel blogs (and the best part is, your tickets possibly could be tax-deductible!)
• Are you passionate about a certain topic?
  • Do you know about personal finance, cooking, survival, fashion, fitness, or something else other people are looking to learn?

There are millions of things you could write about; it is important to brainstorm and think big.

You don’t believe your writing skills are up to par

When I started blogging, I knew my writing skills were not perfect (I told you above, I’m a math major, not an English major 🙂 ).

That being said, I have been able to work on these skills over time and have developed a skill set that has helped me in my day job and in other settings.

Communication is extremely important in today’s world.

You don’t want to put in extra time to build a blog

As I will discuss later in the post, I only spend about 5-10 hours on this blog a week.

Setting up your blog does take some time initially, and depending on how big you want it to grow, you can put as much time in as you want.

As I said before, after setting it up and getting it rolling, you probably will spend 5-10 hours on the blog a week going forward.

You don’t know anything about blogging and are scared to learn

There are so many amazing resources on the web to learn about content creation, web design, email marketing, and successful blogging. Later in this this post, I’ll provide some amazing blogging resources which have helped me grow my website.

With these concerns out of the way, how can you start your blog today?

Steps to Setting Up Your Blog

There are 6 steps to set up a blog:

1. Choose a topic
2. Choose a domain
3. Get web hosting
4. Install WordPress
5. Design your website
6. Write your first post!

Let’s dive into each one of these.

1) Choose a topic

First and foremost, you need an idea for starting the blog.

For The Mastermind Within, the idea was to start a community that focused on discussing trying to live a balanced life. A balanced life would include being financially successful, holding a great job in the field you are passionate about, and pushing to grow over time.

For you, what are passionate about?

• Is it helping others?
• Winter sports?
• Do you love DIY projects?
• What about planting flowers?

There are many different avenues you can take here.

2) Choose a domain name (website name)

Once you have an idea for your domain, you can check the domain availability on a website like Instant Domain Search, or when you go to buy paid hosting.

3) Get paid web hosting

A web host is the server your website runs on. Web hosting is like the land, and your website is the house on that land.

Why paid web hosting?

When starting out blogging, some people will start with a wordpress.com or a blogger.com blog. While this is perfectly okay, there are so many limitations for designing, monetizing and growing your following on those sites.

It is possible to still have a free blog, however, to have complete control over your website, and have support if something went wrong, I still recommend a paying for web hosting.

For web hosting, you want a web hosting service that has been reliable, stable, and high performing.

Personally, I’ve used Namecheap, Bluehost and Siteground, and now have all of my websites running on Siteground. Siteground is super fast, affordable, and has great customer service.

If you need paid web hosting, I recommend Siteground. I will earn a commission if you buy through following link, but I truly believe Siteground is a fantastic web host for bloggers.

After clicking over to Siteground, for new bloggers, you can get the start-up plan, and then create your account.

Once you find a domain that is available, then you will enter your personal details and select the package information settings.

I recommend getting the “Domain Privacy Protection” for $0.99 a month.

If you are trying to stay anonymous, this will hide your name and phone number from others. For the other settings, I don’t select any.

The only one I considered selecting, in addition to the “Domain Privacy Protection” setting, was the Site Backup Pro. For me, I back-up my site manually, and save some cash.

4) Install WordPress

After purchasing hosting, it is time to get WordPress. To continue with our analogy, Siteground is the land, your domain is the house, and WordPress is the materials to build the house.

Just like you can pick different materials (i.e., wood floors vs. carpet), you can pick different blogging software.

WordPress is a fantastic blogging software application which makes managing and customizing your blog very easy.

Installing WordPress on Siteground is very straightforward.

After the install, you are ready to get to work on the web design and content 🙂

5) Design Website

There is a couple of things that are important to mention at this stage.

1) Theme (Free or Premium)

When you first start-up WordPress, you will probably have the generic WordPress theme activated.

This theme is fine for starters, but this one is as default as they come and may not have the customization you want.

There are many free themes you can get. The positives for these themes are they are free, and they will have more customization than the default WordPress themes. The negatives are there may be little to no support, and the theme may get abandoned and become outdated over time.

For starters, it might be wise to stick with a free theme.

For The Mastermind Within, we use the XTheme. This is a premium theme and costs $59.

The reason why I decided to go with a premium theme is premium themes are supported, the layout is more professional and the customization is superior to free themes.

To install a theme, go to the Appearance tab on the left sidebar of the WordPress dashboard, and select themes. You will be led to this page:

2) Plugins

Plugins are extensions to a base WordPress theme. These extensions help you do many specialized tasks.

Some plugins I use and I suggest are the following:

• Yoast SEO
  • Helps a TON with your writing
• Askimet
  • A spam blocker – no one likes spam!
• Contact Form 7
  • A simple and flexible contact form
• Pretty Link Lite
  • A plugin to convert ugly links into pretty links
• WP Rocket
  • A plugin designed to improve user experience and page speed
• Smush
  • Reduces the size of your media files and improves page load speed
• Sassy Social Share
  • An awesome social media sharing plug-in with the ability to share to 100+ platforms
• TinyMCE Advanced
  • Enables advanced post editing features

Depending on your goals, there are thousands of other plug-ins out there you can use to make our website perform how you want it to perform.

3) Integrate a Free Email Service

Growing your brand and following on your website can be done on social media, but an email list is what you want to start building from day one.

To start building an email list, you need to sign up for a free email service.

I recommend Mailchimp or MailerLite for new bloggers. I’ve used both, and think they are both great (plus they are free!).

After signing up for an email service, you will create a list and a form to collect emails.

Then, after creating your email form, embed this form on your website and you can then collect emails.

If you start collecting emails, you will need a privacy policy on your website. Contact and data storage is a HUGE area of scrutiny for online businesses.

These email platforms keep the data safe. But for your customers, they need to know exactly what you are doing with it.

4) Site Layout and Design

Once you have your theme and plugins, you can start to customize the layout of your website.

Go to the “Appearance” tab on the left sidebar and click “Customize”. Here you will be able to customize many different aspects of your website, from fonts to widget placement to backgrounds to menus to headers and footers.

There will be many different combinations you can choose from.

Find the one that is best for you!

If you need more customization, then you can create a child theme and change the template files.

6) Write your first post (and then your second and third…)

After completing the first 5 steps, you have your idea, you have your website, you have your design. Now, it’s time to produce some content for your readers.

Here’s the awesome thing: you can do whatever you want!

Maybe you want to do an introduction page, or an about me page.

It’s possible you want to get right into writing about your passions and save the intro page for later. Maybe you want to start promoting a product, such as an e-book, right away.

The possibilities are endless! You now have your own platform to do whatever you want on it!

Resources to Help You Grow Your Blog

Now, that you’ve set up your blog, you are probably wondering, “What’s next? How can I grow this website?”

There are a number of fantastic resources I’ve used over the past two years which have helped me improve my knowledge around blogging.

• Google Analytics 
  • A free and very powerful website traffic tracking software from Google
• Google Search Console
  • A free and very powerful website search engine tracking service from Google
• Content Inc
  • One of my favorite books, Content Inc is a fantastic resource about content marketing and building a content based business.
• Do You Even Blog
  • Pete McPherson has created an amazing blog and podcast all about blogging. His posts and tips are amazing for helping new bloggers get to their goals.
• Lindsay Lawless, for Pinterest
  • I hired Lindsay and she has helped me grow my Pinterest over time. She grew her personal Pinterest to 5,000,000 monthly impressions, and now she helps others improve their Pinterest accounts full time.
• Code Academy, for web design
  • I learned how to design websites through Code Academy, and then through practice. Without the basics though, I would have never succeeded.
• Canva, for graphic design

Searching on Google will lead to some other amazing blogging resources, but these should definitely help you get started.

Will You Make Money Blogging?

In this post, I’ve provided you some amazing resources and tips to get your blog started, or get your blog growing.

As I mentioned above, I’ve gained some amazing skills, met some awesome people, and created a space for myself on the internet for my thoughts.

While this website might never become profitable, the connections and abilities I’ve acquired are totally worth it.

For you, my number one tip is to start, and be consistent with your actions.

Simple daily disciplines will lead to massive success over time.

Can you actually make money blogging? Yes.

Will you love blogging even if you don’t make money? Absolutely.

In today’s world, where entrepreneurship is on the rise, financial management is one of the most critical aspects of running a successful business. As an entrepreneur, you must be equipped with the right skills and knowledge to manage your finances effectively. The ability to manage your cash flow, allocate resources and make informed financial decisions can make the difference between the success and failure of your business. In this fast-paced business environment, staying up-to-date with the latest trends and techniques in financial management is essential. With the right financial management strategies, you can set your business up for success, achieve your financial goals, and thrive in the competitive business world.

• Develop a Budget

Developing a budget is a crucial aspect of financial management for entrepreneurs, and it can be particularly challenging for those starting their businesses. An effective budget allows you to allocate resources efficiently and plan for future growth while identifying areas where you can reduce costs and increase profitability. 

With the right knowledge and skills, you can develop a budget tailored to your business’s unique needs, helping you achieve financial stability and success.

• Keep Learning

The world of finance is constantly evolving, and entrepreneurs who want to stay ahead of the curve must commit themselves to lifelong learning. By keeping up with industry trends and new financial strategies, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions that position their businesses for success. This commitment to ongoing learning can take many forms, from attending conferences and workshops to enrolling in online MBA courses or working with financial advisors. 

By exploring new approaches and challenging their assumptions, entrepreneurs can continue to grow and develop their financial management skills, enabling them to adapt to changing business environments and remain competitive in the marketplace. By keeping learning at the forefront of their financial management strategy, entrepreneurs can unlock new opportunities and achieve their goals, no matter how challenging the economic landscape is.

• Separate Business and Personal Finances

One of the most critical aspects of financial management for entrepreneurs is separating their business and personal finances. Keeping separate bank accounts and credit cards for personal use ensures you can track business expenses, maintain proper accounting records, and avoid personal liability for business debts. 

Separating your finances also helps you to manage your cash flow effectively, as you can see the amount of money available for business use versus personal use. Today, with the ease of online banking and accounting software, it is easier than ever to separate your finances and keep them organized. By doing so, entrepreneurs can ensure that their finances are well-managed and their businesses are positioned for success.

• Keep Accurate Records

Keeping accurate records is essential for effective financial management for entrepreneurs. Accurate records of all financial transactions, including sales, expenses, and taxes, allow you to track cash flow and monitor the financial health of your business. This information can help you make informed decisions about future investments, identify areas where you can reduce costs, and ensure you comply with all financial regulations. In addition, maintaining accurate records can help you prepare for audits, secure loans, and demonstrate your financial stability. 

Today, many tools are available to entrepreneurs to make record-keeping easier, from cloud-based accounting software to mobile apps that allow you to track expenses on the go. By keeping accurate records and leveraging the latest technology, entrepreneurs can ensure that their finances are well-managed and that their businesses are positioned for long-term success.

• Monitor Cash Flow

Monitoring cash flow is an essential part of financial management for entrepreneurs. Cash flow refers to the movement of money in and out of your business and is a critical indicator of financial health. By regularly monitoring cash flow, you can identify problems before they become major, such as a cash shortage to pay bills or meet payroll. 

Effective cash flow management requires a thorough understanding of all income and expenses and careful planning to ensure that cash is available when needed. By keeping a close eye on cash flow and making adjustments as needed, entrepreneurs can ensure that their businesses are financially stable and poised for growth. In today’s fast-paced business environment, many tools and resources are available to help entrepreneurs monitor cash flow, such as cloud-based accounting software and mobile apps.

• Manage Debt Effectively

Effective debt management requires balance, skill, and agility. Debt can provide the necessary capital to grow your business but can also become a heavy burden if not managed properly. Entrepreneurs must consider the impact of their debt on their credit score, cash flow, and overall financial health. With creative debt management strategies, entrepreneurs can find innovative solutions to minimize debt while achieving their business goals. For instance, they may consolidate their debt, negotiate lower interest rates, or pursue alternative financing options. By managing debt creatively and effectively, entrepreneurs can maximize their chances of success and minimize the risks associated with financial instability.

• Seek Professional Advice

The expertise and guidance of a qualified financial advisor or accountant can help you navigate the complexities of financial planning, tax laws, and investment strategies. Working with a professional can also help you to identify blind spots and potential pitfalls in your financial planning, giving you peace of mind and greater confidence in your decision-making. 

By seeking the guidance of experts in the field, you can position your business for long-term success and make informed decisions about your financial future.

Conclusion

In conclusion, financial management is a crucial aspect of running a successful business, and entrepreneurs must be diligent in managing their finances effectively. While financial management can be complex and challenging, it is also an area where entrepreneurs can significantly impact their business’ success. By implementing the tips and strategies outlined in this article, entrepreneurs can take control of their finances, minimize risk, and maximize their chances of achieving their business goals. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, investing in your financial management skills is a wise choice that can pay dividends for years.

Starting a small business is an exciting and rewarding venture, but it can also be challenging. Small businesses play a critical role in the United States economy, and entrepreneurs need to understand what it takes to make their businesses thrive. In fact, in South Carolina, small businesses are a vital part of the state’s economy. According to a report by the SBA, there are 445,804 small businesses in South Carolina, accounting for 99.4% of all businesses in the state. These businesses employ over 830,094 people, which is about 43.6% of the state’s workforce.

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), only about half of new small businesses survive for five years or more. However, you can take steps to increase your chances of success. In this blog, we will explore some critical strategies for making your small business successful.

Acquire Business Skills

Here are some tips on how to acquire business skills and make a small business successful:

• Identify your strengths and weaknesses: You need to know where you stand to improve your business skills. Identify your strengths and weaknesses and focus on improving your weaknesses.

• Read and learn: Many resources are available online to help you learn about business management. Read books, articles, and blogs related to your industry and stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices.

• Pursue an MBA degree: Pursuing an MBA degree can give you a comprehensive understanding of business management. An online MBA program can allow you to balance your studies with your business responsibilities. South Carolina has several reputable universities that offer online MBA programs, such as the University of South Carolina online MBA, which provides a solid foundation in business concepts such as finance, marketing, operations, and leadership.

• Attend workshops and seminars: Attend business workshops and seminars to learn from industry experts and network with other business owners.

• Take online courses: Online courses can be convenient and affordable for gaining business skills. Online platforms also offer courses on various business topics, from accounting to marketing.

By following these tips, you can acquire the skills and expertise you need to make your small business successful. But aside from these tips, working with a business coach can help enhance your ability to run your business. For example, Angela Henderson business coach can assist you in creating campaigns and strategies to help your small business grow.

Utilize Technology

One tip for making a small business successful is to embrace technology to improve core business operations. For example, implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system can help businesses streamline communication and track sales leads. In addition, using social media platforms can provide small businesses with a cost-effective way to advertise their products or services and engage with their target audience.

Other examples could be the use of private duty scheduling software to schedule appointments and employee shifts in an automated way. This way you don’t have to worry about the details of scheduling and can focus on delivering the best product and value to your customers..

By leveraging technology, small businesses can improve efficiency, increase productivity, and reach a wider audience, ultimately leading to greater success.

Understand Your Customers

Understanding your customers is crucial for the success of any small business. This involves understanding their needs, preferences, and behaviors to create a product or service that meets their expectations. For instance, a small bakery in a busy city can identify the needs of its customers by analyzing their buying habits and preferences. By understanding that their customers prefer fresh and organic ingredients in their baked goods, the bakery can tailor their offerings to meet this demand, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Keep An Eye On The Competition

By regularly monitoring what your competitors are doing, you can identify their strengths and weaknesses and make informed decisions about improving your products or services. For example, a small coffee shop owner might keep track of other local cafes’ prices, promotions, and menu offerings to stay competitive and appeal to their customers. They could then use this information to adjust their pricing or add new items to their menu to differentiate themselves from their competition and attract new customers.

Build A Strong Team

Bringing on talented individuals aligned with your vision, mission, and values is essential. Team members can achieve great things when they are united in their purpose and work collaboratively towards a shared goal. To do this successfully, you need a comprehensive recruitment and onboarding process. Look for online guides and things like scenario based sql interview questions to build a portfolio of interview questions specific to each role in your business. Supplement your interviews with employment tests as well, to ensure the competence of your team.

Manage Your Finances Effectively

It involves carefully monitoring cash flow, creating and following a budget, and making informed financial decisions. For example, a small business owner may choose to invest in new equipment to increase productivity and profits, but they must first assess their current financial situation and determine if they can afford the investment. Regularly reviewing and adjusting financial goals can help a small business stay on track and avoid unexpected financial challenges. By managing finances effectively, a small business can improve profitability, reduce debt, and increase long-term success. Don’t forget that business includes a lot of risks which is why investing in business Insurance Ontario is a prudent decision that can safeguard your company’s financial stability and protect against unexpected setbacks that could otherwise threaten its survival.

Be Adaptable

Now, to make a small business successful, it’s essential to be adaptable to your core business. This means being willing to adjust your strategy as market conditions change and being open to new ideas and opportunities. Small businesses must be agile and flexible to stay relevant and competitive in a constantly changing environment. Successful small businesses can pivot and adapt quickly when faced with unexpected challenges or new opportunities.

Stay Motivated

It’s easy to get sidetracked by day-to-day tasks and lose sight of the big picture. One way to stay motivated is to set goals and milestones and celebrate when you achieve them. For example, if you own a small cafe and aim to increase sales by 10% in the next quarter, set smaller milestones, such as introducing a new seasonal drink or hosting a community event. When you hit these milestones, take the time to celebrate your successes with your team and customers. This can help boost morale and motivate everyone toward the bigger goal.

Conclusion

Successful small businesses require hard work, strategic planning, and a customer-focused approach. Having a clear vision and mission for your business is essential. 

Building strong customer relationships and maintaining a positive reputation are crucial for long-term success. By following these tips and staying committed, small business owners can build a thriving enterprise that serves their customers and achieves their personal and professional goals.

“Abundance mindset” has become a fairly common term, especially in the world of personal development. In this post I will explain what it really means to live with an abundance mindset and give examples of ways to apply this mindset to your life, resulting in a win-win attitude.

I wake up each and every day excited. I’ve been on a roll lately, and I’m not stopping.

The following quote has been on my mind:

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” – Albert Einstein

Become a person of value. Put the best version of yourself out into the world. Give and keeping giving, and give some more.

It’s a law of physics: for every force, there’s an equal and opposite force. Put a different way:

The energy you put into the world comes back.

Give, push, and grind – you will be rewarded.

What does all this have to do with living with an abundance and growth mindset? Let’s first talk about what an abundance mindsets means.

Living with an Abundance vs. a Scarcity Mindset

Imagine you and I are walking down the street, side by side.

You breathe in. You breathe out. I breathe in. I breathe out. We both need oxygen to survive. Would it cross your mind that there would not be enough oxygen for both of us? Of course not—air is abundant.

Now, imagine we are scuba diving and my scuba tank starts to malfunction. I signal that I need to share the oxygen in your tank. All of a sudden, the air becomes a precious commodity. Its scarcity makes us worry. What if there isn’t enough for both of us?

Many people live with a scarcity mindset – a mindset which is zero-sum.

You win, I lose.

I win, you lose.

People with this type of mindset have a hard time sharing success with other people and are jealous of others’ success. As you can see above, this mindset results in a win-lose attitude, where there has to be a loss in order for there to be a win. When you live with an abundance mindset, you have a win-win attitude.

Why I’m Choosing to Live with an Abundance Mindset

Instead of a scarcity mindset, I’ve tried to implement an abundance mindset – and view the world as unlimited in it’s potential.

Starting out, it was tough. I definitely struggled with living with abundance as a kid, always competing with my sister in different ways. It always seemed like, ‘Erik got this, so that’s not fair that I didn’t,”  or “What? She got to go do that, why didn’t I?” were common phrases around the house.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that everyone is unique and there is enough to go around.

Enough? Enough money, enough love, enough time, enough effort, enough praise, and enough success to go around.

If I lose my job, there’s another one for me somewhere. If my relationships don’t pan out like I’d like them to, there are other people out there who will appreciate me for me. If my business fails and I lose $10,000, I’ve learned something along the way and will be better for it the next time around!

For a concrete example, take this blog:

Scarcity Mindset: I’m a math major who isn’t very good at writing. People aren’t going to read my content because there are already hundreds of blogs out there. What do I have to say? What can I add? Who’s going to read me? There are so many people with thousands of followers – how will I get any?

Abundance Mindset: I’m a math major who could work on his writing. People might be interested, and hopefully I can help people with my message and story. I’m unique, just like everyone else! Maybe someday I’ll have thousands of followers and be successful like those other amazing bloggers.

It’s the same concept of seeing the glass half full or half empty! Which way do you view it?

I’m very glad I started a blog and have been practicing living with an abundance mindset. Life is so much better when you realize there is so much potential out in the world and you can unlock it for yourself!

6 Exercises to Practice Living with an Abundance Mindset

Here are a few exercises you can try to help you live with an abundance mindset:

• Practice Gratitude
  • Try keeping a gratitude journal where you keep track of things you’re thankful for. If journaling isn’t your thing, it’s simple to just make a short note or list of three things you’re grateful for at the beginning or end of each day. Reflecting on gratitude regularly can help you get into an abundance mindset.
  • What are you thankful for?
• Appreciate Others and Congratulate them on Success
  • If one of my friends or family members succeed in something, it’s time to celebrate! Why should I be mad, upset, or jealous? I’m succeeding too, just in different places and at different things! There’s enough cake (and drinks) to go around for all of us!
  • A bonus is that this makes you a better friend in general and someone that people will be naturally more attracted to – we want to be around those who lift up our successes. Remember that win-win attitude!
• Give
  • Amazing things happen when you put yourself out into the world through giving – be it your time, your effort, your money, your personality, whatever it is! I’m putting myself out there with this blog – and I’m not going to stop! Positive energy is coming back to me and there’s no stopping me now!
• Be Mindful (and Forgive Yourself)
  • Mindfulness is simply being fully present and aware. In terms of living with an abundance mindset, being mindful would mean recognizing when you fall into the patterns of a scarcity mindset and not being hard on yourself about it but instead turning that situation into one of abundance in your mind (another word for this is reframing). This isn’t always easy, but the more you do it the more natural it will become.
• Take Small Steps Every Day to Improve Yourself
  • Part of an abundance mindset is the knowledge and confidence that you have valuable skills and talents. Take time each day, even just a few minutes, to build upon those talents and sharpen your skills. This can be done through reading self development books, spending time writing or drawing or practicing an instrument or whatever else you’re interested in, investing in your personal relationships, or anything else that will give you more confidence in yourself.
• Learn From Others
  • When you’ve got the win-win attitude of an abundance mindset, you know that there is enough “winning” out there for everyone. So why not connect with a mentor who can help you achieve your goals – personal, professional, financial – whatever they may be? Someone who’s already where you’d like to be can inspire you to get there and give you concrete advice along the way. And when you reach those milestones, you’ve got a built-in person to celebrate with!

Being a Servant and a Giver

I’m finding incredible happiness, energy, and purpose in creating content for this site, building and designing websites and applications, and having coffee and phone calls to provide my perspective on a person’s life, or gain perspective for me to pass on at a future time.

Giving my time and energy has resulted in some amazing opportunities and relationships. Just being open to the possibility of meeting a special someone, getting that next client, making the big sale, or making a new connection can result in wild success.

Open yourself up to the world with an abundance mindset!

Conclusion

There’s so much potential for wealth, love, support, praise, success, the list goes on.  Being open to these areas of life, both for you and for other people, and taking action will allow you to experience things you have never been able to experience before.

You can win and I can win. We can win at the same time! Your success is my priority – something I work toward each and every day on The Mastermind Within.

I’m going to give you my time and effort – with consistent blog posts and podcast episodes.

I’m going to give you my wisdom and tips – I’m going to continue to pour my heart out into every post and podcast.

By living with an abundance mindset, we all win.

Readers: do you live with an abundance or a scarcity mindset? Are you a giver or a taker? 

Dear Dad,

On this Father’s Day, I’m writing to thank you for being there for me throughout my life.

You’ve supported me when times have been tough, celebrated my successes and growth, and taught me some invaluable lessons about success, work, and life.

Here are some of the things I’ll always remember in my life:

Your Work Ethic

Each and every day, there’s work to be done.

Grinding through life and making things happen is never an accident – it’s a conscious effort that becomes routine overt time.

Growing up, whether it was for your small business, your day job, or work around the house, it was never “I’m not feeling like work today” or “it’s Sunday, it’s my day off”.

Each and every day is a concerted effort to keep things rolling, in line and in your control.

Something I’ve embraced in my life is a quiet and unstoppable energy – which I believe everyone can tap into.

You showed me the way and inspired me with your work ethic, something I will never forget.

It’s possible to balance family, fun, and business

Your true resume is pages and pages long: corporate executive, small business owner, coach, dad, son, teammate, friend, and I’m sure I’m missing some titles as well.

Work and being productive always was number one, because that’s what put bacon on the table and a roof over our head.

BUT! I can’t remember you ever missing a practice, game, graduation, birthday party, or anything because of it.

You always prioritized family and fun and made sure to be there for us kids.

Being my coach in baseball and basketball, taking me to golf with you, and showing me the ropes in my first job all showed me first hand that being present in the moment, but also remembering the priorities of life is possible.

At the end of the day, FAMILY is all a person has to fall back on and because of that, it’s so important to be involved and active.

I can’t wait to coach my kids, influence them to become the best they can be, and apply many of the things you helped me do in my life.

Your ability to balance family, fun and business is something I will never forget. It inspires me to do the same in my life with my hustles, work, and desire for fun with family and friends.

“Keep your head down, and your eyes up”

A few years ago, we were in the car talking about career progression.

Becoming a corporate executive in the 90s at a regional company, you know a thing or two about success in a person’s career.

You told me, if you want to progress in your job, “Keep you head down and your eyes up. Focus on your day to day tasks, but make sure to keep knowledgeable of the team, department, and organization goals to see if you can play a part in bringing those to fruition.”

Both of these parts are key: if I don’t have my head down, I won’t get my work done; this isn’t good for performance. If I don’t keep my eyes up, I won’t be able to spot an opportunity to grow and influence.

Both are key, and this is something I won’t forget.

Pay attention to the details

An accountant by trade, you know how to dig in to the details and made sure to instill this same habit and skill into me.

It’s interesting. Growing up, I didn’t consciously think about these things, butthe habits and mindset formed over time and came out in adulthood.

I remember, around age 13, we would go to the batting cage to work on my hitting for the upcoming baseball season.

“Knob to the ball, you want to extend your arms in such a way where the knob is brought to the ball and boom!”

I struggled at the time because I struggled to focus on the details, but over time, it’s become one of my best skills.

You told me to pay attention to the details, and I won’t ever forget it.

Keeping composure might be the most important skill of all

Growing up, I had emotional issues when it came to frustration towards myself.

Displaying my emotions and frustrations on the pitching mound had its effects on the rest of the team and the opponents.

“We are in the pitcher’s head, we got him!”

Ugh, those days were not good.

When I got wrapped up in my emotions, I was never successful.

Keeping cool and calm is incredibly important in all areas of life: business, sports, communication, and fun.

By keeping composure, rational and critical thinking can occur to drive results and bring success. It’s something many people can work on, but you instilled in me at a young age.

Keeping my composure is one of the skills you taught me was important and after working on it for years, I’ve become better at it and used it to my advantage in my work and play.

Thank you for showing me how to be successful

I am thankful for all of the time you’ve taken over the years to influence and help me become who I am today.

What I’ve written here is what I will always remember about success in all areas of life, and what I plan and hope to pass down to my kids.

Thank you again for inspiring me to become better, for being the rock of our family, and showing me first hand what success looks like.

Happy Father’s Day!

Love,

Erik

Readers: what have your parents taught you that stuck with you into adulthood? What habits and sayings are you looking to have your kids grow up to?

“Let’s go out to eat!!!”

I had just played in a college kickball tournament on a Sunday afternoon and the team was hungry.

“Sounds good, where are we going?”

“How about Potbelly’s? It’s close and a lot of us really enjoy it.”

“Okay, I’ll join – but I don’t think I’ll eat and get something at home.”

It was sophomore year, and I only had $50 in my bank account. After paying for my Spring tuition and making some dumb decisions, I was down to my last dollars.

There was no way I could justify spending $10 at dinner when I had a meal plan and other bills to pay.

I sat there in the booth at the restaurant while I saw all of my friends and fellow teammates eating their fun sandwiches and shakes.

I swore to myself that day I wasn’t going to ever put myself in that situation again. It was that day, 7 years ago, when I told myself, “Erik, you are going to become financially literate, and you are going to have savings and be able to afford fun if/when it comes up.”

Since that point, I’ve read many personal finance books and blogs, talked with many personal finance experts, and gotten my financial house in order.

Now, I’m here to share with you some finance tips this month to help you get out of debt, build wealth, and get your financial house in order.

Welcome to Financial Literacy Month!

April is Financial Literacy Month in the United States, and on this site, The Mastermind Within, I’m embracing this and bringing to you targeted information on personal finance, ALL MONTH.

Last week, I gave you a little preview into the type of content you will read this month in my article What Makes You Happiest and Why Money Matters.

In this post, I will be sharing with you why financial literacy matters and why you should care about getting your financial house in order.

The Current Financial Situation of the Average American

Back in 2015, a research team at Wharton published a paper called The Economic Important of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence.

In it, they propose and show that there are 3 main questions that can show a person’s level of financial literacy:

1. Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?
   • More than $102
   • Exactly $102
   • Less than $102

2. Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After one year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account?
   • More than today
   • Exactly the same
   • Less than today

3. Is this statement True or False? Buying a single company’s stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund.
   • True
   • False

How did you do?

In the paper, only 34% of participants were able to answer all 3 correct. (The correct answers are more than $102, less than today, and false).

These questions are tricky, but with some financial literacy, these shouldn’t be too tough to answer correctly.

Diving into Some More Statistics

Here are a number of other statistics on personal finance:

• 59% of Americans could not cover an unexpected $500 bill.
• 69% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings account.
• The national savings rate at the end of February was 3.4%.
• The average American has around $250,000 in various debts.
• The government is $21 trillion (21,000,000,000,000) in debt. (I’m still baffled at this, and WHY THE HECK ISN’T EVERYONE INCREDIBLY UPSET AT THIS??? This is irresponsible… okay I’m done with this mini rant… leaving this here for another day)
  • Could financial literacy have helped this out? I don’t know.

All of these numbers lead to the conclusion that on average, Americans don’t understand how to manage their money.

Are people spending more money because they are stressed? Is this the millennial mindset of spend today and push off tomorrow in play? Has depressed income growth and increased inflation crushed any opportunity to save?

I’m not smart enough to answer any of these questions, but I’m feeling inspired to improve my personal situation (and I hope you are too.)

In 2017, I saved nearly 50% of my income and this year, I’m saving at roughly about the same clip. I want you to be able to save money for the future as well.

Let’s change this – it’s time to get our financial houses in order!

Why Financial Literacy is Important

My money epiphany happened in college as I shared with you in the introduction of this article.

Maybe you’ve had a similar money epiphany, or maybe not.

Unfortunately, it’s a sad place to be.

With bills to pay, mouths to feed, and fun to have, not having the cash or means to do what you want when you want is painful and uncomfortable.

Financial literacy is important because without it, we can get into a lot of trouble with credit card debt, not having an emergency fund, or simply not being able to do what we want with our time!

With financial literacy, we can start to build wealth for the future, get ahead in life, and be able to do whatever we want with our time and money.

I live with an abundance mindset, and as a result, my take on financial literacy will not be so much on frugal tips and how to cut costs. While I believe these are important subjects, I’m naturally frugal and cheap, so I don’t have too much direct experience in this area.

Instead, I will be sharing with you how I’ve escaped my own financial prisons through simple living, increasing my income, tracking my income and expenses, and building wealth month by month.

There is so much money in this world – all you have to go do is just get a little bit of it and you can be wealthy.

Conclusion

Let’s get our financial houses in order together this month. There are certainly areas of improvement that I can work on, and I will be sharing with you what steps I’m taking to get better with my finances…

It will be raw and transparent – I’m a little bit uncomfortable just thinking about sharing with you my information.

But, because we all know that true results and learning comes from the raw details, it is necessary.

I’m very excited to join you on your journey, and I hope this Financial Literacy series this April helps inspire you to crush your debt, build wealth for the future, and become a financial expert!

Readers: have you ever had a money epiphany? Did you say to yourself something like, I’m never going to be in that situation again? What area of personal finance do you need help with?

Erik

I built a Node.js Twitter bot! I’m super excited to share with you all the details of how to build a Twitter bot using Node.js for your own personal benefit.

Last Thursday night, I was pretty tired. After a week of grinding, I had hit a wall. I took work off Friday to sleep in and relax.

Friday morning, this was me:

At the same time, this was my Twitter account:

I didn’t tweet this out using Buffer or some other Twitter automation tool. I sent it out using my own Node.js application.

One of the reasons I didn’t get much sleep over the last 2 weeks was because I have been working on fully automating my Twitter game. I was sick of the lack of customization of the Twitter share plug-ins I was using, and wanted to learn a new technology.

I’ve had an absolute blast these last two weeks, and am very excited to continue to build cool applications like the Twitter bot I’m going to share with you in this post.

In this post, I’m going to be sharing with you what Node.js is, how you can build a twitter bot using Node.js, and finally how you can deploy it on a virtual machine.

How to Build a Twitter Bot using Node.js

The rest of this post is going to be laid out in the following way:

• Why I wanted to build a Twitter bot
• What is Node.js?
• Using the Twitter API
• What are the actions possible with Node.js and the Twitter API?
• Building a Twitter Bot for Yourself to Tweet out the Most Recent article of an RSS Feed
  
  • I’m going from start to finish: from installing Node.js and a text editor, to writing the code, to running the code.
• Deploying your application on a virtual machine to run 24/7

Why did I want to build a Twitter bot?

With any project or action, we should start with why. Why did I want to build a Twitter bot? For a couple reasons:

• I wanted to learn a new technology and programming language to add to my repertoire
• I’ve been disappointed in the “free” tools around the web
• I’m of the mindset that I can create something as good or better than other free solutions

About 3 weeks ago, I started learning Node.js. I had never heard of it before, and was suggested by a good friend to take a look if I was interested in building web applications.

This set off a very fun 3 week… over the last 3 weeks, through YouTube, Googling, and doing tutorials, and finally, doing different things on my own, I’ve created something awesome.

To comment on the “free” tools around the web, I’ve employed 3 different tools and plug-ins which my blog interacted with: Buffer, Revive Old Post, and a standard Jetpack sharing tool. Buffer was fine, but the free version only allows 10 scheduled tweets – which required manual input on my part at the end of the day. I’m trying to decrease the time I spend on things like this, not increase them!

The Revive Old Post and standard Jetpack sharing tools were too rigid for me. The old posts were nearly the same every time it seems, and were never the ones I really wanted to share.

All of these are limited for what I was looking to do with my Twitter account. I wanted to be completely automated: tweeting out various quotes, old posts, and sharing other people’s posts, all without my involvement. For me, I wanted to send out about 60 tweets a week at specific times. To do so in Buffer would have taken quite some time, and possibly some money.

There is probably something out there that can do this, but I wanted to create something myself – I wanted to create something awesome.

With that said, let’s get into it.

First, what is Node.js?

What is Node.js?

This next sentence might be a little alarming.

Node.js is an open-source JavaScript run-time environment for executing JavaScript code server-side.

Okay, let’s try to break that down a little bit for you if you are not a coder.

• Open-source code is code that any programmer can contribute to, making it community-based.
• Javascript is one of the core web programming languages.
• Run-time environment for executing code server-side is saying there has to be a space or location where the Javascript is being performed. You can think of it like a pan on a stove. The pan is Node.js – it allows us to be able to cook safely over a gas flame.

Putting it all together, we get a language which is highly capable, flexible, and easy to use with many technologies on the web.

How Can Node.js and Twitter interact?

At some point, we have to connect to Twitter.

For developers, the company, Twitter, created an application program interface (API) which provides numerous endpoints to build programs and solutions using Twitter.

What kinds of actions can we perform programmatically with the Twitter API?

There are a number of actions we can perform programmatically with the Twitter API.

I won’t list them all here, but you can do almost anything you could think of:

• Tweet
• Follow or unfollow a user
• Send direct messages
• Change your profile picture

With these simple actions in mind, we can go to the next step and actually learn how to build a Twitter bot with Node.js.

Getting started with our Twitter Bot

Okay, now we know what is possible with Node.js and the Twitter bot. – let’s get to the coding.

First though, we need to prepare our computer to be able to write the code and run our programs.

Step 1: Download and Install Node.js

Go to the Node.js website and download the LTS (long term support) option.

After downloading and installing Node.js, we can begin writing code.

Step 2: Download and Install a Text Editor of your Choice

Next, we need some software to help us write code: we need a text editor. There are a number of text editors out there, from Notepad (the most basic and simple text editor) to other solutions which are specifically used for programming.

I’m using VS Code, because it’s free and supports many different computer programming languages. Again, you may have your own favorite text editor, VS Code is just the one I use.

Step 3: Opening our Text Editor

At this point, we are ready to go. Our computer is able to run and execute Node.js code, and we have a place to write our code. I created a folder called “twitter_bot_example”, and opened that folder in VS Code. Here’s what our screen looks like at this point:

We are almost to the part where we connect to Twitter, but not quite there. The first thing we should talk about is Node.js packages.

Remember in our Node.js definition when it said something about being open-source?

Node.js packages are pieces of code which are created by various community members. These packages can be installed through the Node.js package ecosystem called npm and are completely free to use.

This is the beauty of open-source programming languages. We are going to use a number of packages for our Twitter bot.

Step 4: Getting Ready to Connect to the Twitter API

Let’s connect to Twitter.

First, we need to do 2 things. Let’s bring up the integrated terminal in VS Code (View -> Integrated Terminal).

The first thing is initializing our project with npm init. In the terminal at the bottom of the screen, type “npm init” and press enter.

npm init initializes the project and creates a package file for our program which will contain a bunch of information.

The command prompt asks for a few pieces of information:

• package name: (twitter_bot_example)
• version: (1.0.0)
• description:
• entry point: (index.js)
• test command:
• git repository:
• keywords:
• author:
• license: (ISC)

At this point, a lot of this doesn’t matter since we are just testing. You don’t need to enter in anything if you don’t want to, using npm init is just good practice for creating a Node.js program.

Now, we are finally ready to go.

For the second thing we need to do, let’s install the Twitter Node.js open-source package we are going to use.

At the command line, enter in “npm install twit”. This will install the twit package. We are almost ready to go!

Step 5: Getting Access to the Twitter API

Okay, we need one more thing. We need our config file.

Go to the Twitter Apps page, create an account, and find the following pieces of information: consumer key, consumer secret, access token, and access token secret.

In the same folder as your program, put these pieces of information into a json object and save it as a .json file like so:

{
    "consumer_key":"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "consumer_secret":"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "access_token":"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "access_token_secret":"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}

We do this for security and flexibility reasons. We don’t want to hard code these values in.

Step 6: Connecting to the Twitter API

Okay, we are finally at the point where we can actually start coding and get tweeting!

Open a new file and save it as a Javascript file. I’ve called my file “index.js”.

In your file, we can now connect to Twitter and tweet. Let’s connect to Twitter through the Twit package. The following code will allow us to connect to Twitter:

const Twit = require('twit');
const options = Object.assign({'timeout_ms':60*1000}, require('./credentials_example.json'));
const client = new Twit(options);

Let’s walk through this code to get a little bit of an understanding of what’s going on. (also, as an aside, for non coders who want to learn how to code, I’d recommend Code Academy – it’s free)

The first line, we are telling our program we want to require that it uses the “twit” package we installed earlier.

The second line is reading in our credentials we got from the Twitter Applications website.

The third line is creating the connection between Twitter and our program.

It’s as simple as that! Now, let’s tweet from our program!

Step 7: Sending a Tweet

Sending a tweet with the Twit Node.js package is very easy. I’ve written a function which takes in a message, and will send a tweet with that message in it!

Here’s the code, and we will go through it in the paragraph after:

function sendTweet(message) {
    client.post('statuses/update', {status: message }, function(err, data,response) {
        if (err) {
            console.log(err);
        } else {
            console.log('Tweeted: ' + statusUpdate);
        }
    });
}
sendTweet("Hello World!");

First, I’m defining a function called sendTweet which takes in a variable called message. I can use this function later on in my code (and I do – in the example, I have a tweet which sends “Hello World!”)

In the Twit package that we installed before, there are functions (or also called methods) called post, get and delete. Computer science people are fairly simplistic: you use the get method to get information, you use the post method to send information, and the delete method to delete information (You can learn more about HTTP methods here, as going into these is beyond the scope of this article.)

To send a tweet, we want to use the post function, as we are going to be sending information to our Twitter account to create our tweet.

In the post function, we specify, in the first argument, that we want to send a status with the ‘statuses/update’ variable, and then we say in the second argument we want to use the user defined variable called ‘message’ for our status.

The rest of the function (the part inside the curly brackets { }) is something specific to Node.js – a callback function which can capture any data sent back to use. For our tweet, we will receive back a confirmation that the tweet has successfully been added to our account.

To run this code, in the terminal, type “node index.js” and you’ll send a Tweet saying “Hello World!”

Step 8: Reading a Website’s RSS Feed

The goal of this tutorial was not to just be able to send a tweet from the terminal. While that’s cool, let’s go another step. We are going to read a website’s RSS feed and tweet out a link to the most recent article.

We are going to install another Node.js package which will allow us to easily interact with the RSS feed of any site.

In the terminal, type “npm install feed-read-parser” and press enter. This will install the package.

Next, let’s make sure our program will use this package by including the require package statement at the top of our code:

const Twit = require('twit');
const rss = require('feed-read-parser');

Now, we want to use this rss feed parser to read a site’s rss feed and extract that information. At the end of the next step, we will be sending out the most recent RSS entry.

Step 9: Tweeting out the most recent RSS entry

Let’s put our RSS package to work.

Here’s the code to get the RSS entries from The Mastermind Within, select the most recent one, and then send a tweet with the title and link.

function tweetArticle() {
    rss("https://personalfinanceblogs.com/feed/", function(err,articles) {
        if(err) {
            throw new Error(err.message);
        } else {
            statusUpdate = "Check out this awesome post! " + articles[0].title + ' ' + articles[0].link;
            sendTweet(statusUpdate);
        }
    });
}

Again, I’ve created a function called tweetArticle, so we can use this over and over if we so choose. Inside the function, we are using the RSS package object (Object is the correct word to use here – the package is the actual code, and the object is the use of that code in the program).

The RSS object takes in the RSS Feed URL of whatever site you are looking for (https://personalfinanceblogs.com/feed/) and then returns the articles in that RSS feed.

Inside the callback function (the function which returns any data back to us), we get back the articles from the RSS feed. This articles data object contains things such as the content, publish date, title, author, and link. This articles object has a number of articles.

We want the most recent article. How can we get it? In Javascript, we can access the first entry of our article list by typing articles[0] (some programming languages start at 0).

Let’s create our message. We want to create a message which has the title and the link, and then send it out. We have the most recent article (articles[0]), and to get the title and the link, we do articles[0].title.

After storing our message in a variable called statusUpdate, we call the sendTweet function. Congrats on sending a Tweet with dynamic information!

Step 10: Scheduling Tweets for Certain Times

Congratulations! We are almost done automating this thing completely. At this point, if you want to run your application, like I mentioned above, type in the terminal “node index.js” (or whatever your file is called), and you will send a tweet.

Unfortunately, this will only send 1 tweet, and then the program will terminate. What if we want to do a certain action at 3 PM Every Monday? What if we want to tweet something out at 9 AM every day? We can use a scheduler!

Let’s install another package: node-schedule. node-schedule allows us to schedule things simply based on the time or day of week. In the terminal, type “npm install node-schedule” and then in our code, we will require(‘node-schedule’).

Let’s schedule our tweet to go out on Monday at 8 AM. This is as simple as the following line of code:

var tweet = schedule.scheduleJob({hour: 8, minute: 0, dayOfWeek: 1},tweetArticle);

As long as our program is running, we will be sending tweets out on Monday at 8 AM! We tell our node-schedule object (called schedule) to schedule a job at 8 AM, Monday, and this job executes the function “tweetArticle” at that time.

I scheduled the code we have written above to tweet at 2:30 PM this past Sunday. Here was the result:

There’s still one problem. What if I don’t want to run my program all day long on my computer? That’s where a virtual machine comes in.

Step 11: Setting up a Virtual Machine and Running the application continuously

At this point, we are 99% of the way there. This is where most tutorials stop online, as it’s almost like the writer knows you know can get to this next step.

It took me a week to realize this was the next step. I was running my application on my desktop and just keep my computer open. For security reasons, I don’t think this was the best idea, but I did it because I wanted to test my code.

It worked, but this past weekend, I went to visit a friend and wanted to bring my computer… if I shut down my laptop, then I’d have to terminate my program, and I wouldn’t want to do that!

Enter virtual machines.

What’s a virtual machine? A virtual machine is a server or computer you can remotely connect to and have running all the time. Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are two of the leaders in this space.

For my application, I went with Microsoft Azure and got a $200 credit. My virtual machine is one of the lowest tier ones, and will end up costing about $13 per month. With a $200 credit, I will be running for free for the next 15 months – not bad!

I’m not going to go into the details here, because that would be another 1,000 words, and there are plenty of great resources on the Microsoft site.

After setting up your virtual machine, you can then go through the above steps (or just send your code to yourself via email) and run it continuously! Here’s my terminal (on my virtual machine) now running my Twitter bot!

Next Steps

For me, I’ve done a couple more things for my Twitter bot, and now am running the application continuously with Microsoft Azure.

For you, it’s really dependent on what your goals are with the project. You are able to do a lot with the Twitter API: following, unfollowing, creating lists, analyzing the engagement of your tweets, and the list goes on and on! There is just so much!

As I’ve recommended a few other times on this site, check out Code Academy for free interactive Javascript interactive tutorials.

Also, Google is amazing for information. As you gain more experience, you will become better at this, but a simple google search of “how to read text files with node.js” (or whatever you want) will give you plenty of resources to check out.

Conclusion

I’m really excited to see where this takes my Twitter account. I’m learning so much about web development and absolutely loving it.

I think web development is my true calling. Hours pass without a care in the world. I’m creating some amazing things, and I’m really just getting started.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial and I’m looking forward to sharing with you the next application I build.

Readers: Did you find this tutorial on how to build a twitter bot using Node.js useful?What could I have done better explaining? Are you interested in programming?

Erik

P.S. here’s the full code from our example above:

const Twit = require('twit');
const rss = require('feed-read-parser');
const schedule = require('node-schedule');

const options = Object.assign({'timeout_ms':60*1000}, require('./credentials_example.json'));
const client = new Twit(options);

function sendTweet(message) {
    client.post('statuses/update', {status: message }, function(err, data,response) {
        if (err) {
            console.log(err);
        } else {
            console.log('Tweeted: ' + statusUpdate);
        }
    });
}
function tweetArticle() {
    rss("https://personalfinanceblogs.com/feed/", function(err,articles) {
        if(err) {
            throw new Error(err.message);
        } else {
            statusUpdate = "Check out this awesome post! " + articles[0].title + ' ' + articles[0].link;
            sendTweet(statusUpdate);
        }
    });
}

var cf = schedule.scheduleJob({hour: 16, minute: 30, dayOfWeek: 0},tweetArticle);

This article is about the importance of financial modeling for startups and small businesses.

When you own a company, managing your finances can be difficult without the right tools and knowledge. With a lot of uncertainty these days, understanding the financial outlook of your company in different scenarios is critical to the survival of your company. Forecasting can be a great tool at your organization’s disposal.

To build a financially stable business, for example, you must understand how the price of your product affects profitability, or whether a different cost structure will increase or decrease your profitability.

In other words, accurate financial modeling is required and necessary to help build your company and ensure that you that your growth and expectations for growth are in alignment.

What is Financial Modeling? 

Financial modeling is the process of making financial projections and forecasting earnings and expenses based on past performance, expenses, and revenue assumptions.

The idea of financial modeling is to first define the different components of your business. Then, you can test each of these components against different scenarios. After you’ve designed the different scenarios and events, you can plan on how you’d handle different events.

Your financial model should be able to handle these different scenarios and calculate the business impact of these different extraordinary events.

Before creating your financial model, you should consider a wide range of details, such as how the model should reflect your company’s goals so that you can create a format that addresses all relevant financial aspects of your business.

Building a solid financial model takes time and effort, as well as extensive knowledge of several technical and non-technical skills. That being said, anyone can do financial modeling with the right education and knowledge.

Why Startups and Small Businesses Need Financial Modeling

There are three reasons why startups and small businesses need financial modeling: fundraising, building a business plan and gaining detailed knowledge of your business.

1. Fundraising 

Raising funds is an important process that ensures the availability of working capital needed in your business’s day-to-day operations. Additional advantages of funding for your business include the necessary monetary support to test ideas and develop concepts, as well as the support of marketing and promotional activities.

A financial model is a standard requirement for any company seeking to raise funds. Financiers and investors will typically request a detailed financial report before funding your business, so developing a model to provide them with high-level data is prudent.

Put another way, if you don’t know how much money your company requires, then how are you going to put together a fundraising pitch?

2. Business Planning

To determine your company’s economic viability, you must quantify your business plan and validate your assumptions and ideas to see if they can be turned into a profitable business. The truth is that understanding all of this requires a solid financial model.

Your financial model will not only help you plan for the future, particularly when things don’t go as planned, but it will also predict how the worst-case scenario will affect your cash flow, funding, and profitability.

The model will account for a variety of scenarios, such as underperformance, hiring new talent, increasing revenue, and marketing spending, all of which can be critical to your company’s survival and scaled growth.

3. Gaining Detailed Knowledge of Your Business

A financial model accounts for likely changes in business conditions, allowing you to be better prepared for unexpected events.

It will also demonstrate to lenders and investors that you have a concrete plan in place for what it will take to remain successful in the face of adverse or unexpected circumstances.

They will also be able to use the information provided by your financial model to establish benchmarks for your business, as well as gain insights into how you are spending their money and whether you are performing as promised.

Types of Financial Modeling 

Startups frequently face the challenge of determining what data to use as the foundation of their financial models because they have little to no sales history or metrics on customer satisfaction.

Fortunately, there are a lot of different templates available online. So, luckily for you, as long as you have someone in your team familiar with Excel, creating one will be simple.

Below are 5 types of financial models that you can use to help you model and forecast in your business.

1. Three-statement model

The three-statement model is the most fundamental financial model, intending to connect all the accounts and a set of assumptions that can drive changes in the entire model.

2. Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Model

The DCF model values a business based on the Net Present Value (NPV) of its future cash flows. It takes the cash flows from the three-statement model, makes any necessary adjustments, and then discounts the cash flows back to today at the company’s Weighted Average Cost of Capital.

3. Budget Model

This model is designed for financial planning and analysis (FP&A) professionals to create a budget for the coming year and is typically based on monthly or quarterly figures.

4. Forecasting Model

The forecast model predicts costs within a company’s budget and you can use it for financial planning and analysis. It can assist your startup in estimating future expenses and developing a forecast that compares to the budget model.

5. Initial Public Offering Model

This financial model shows how much investors will pay once your company goes public. It entails conducting comparable company analysis for investors to determine the value of your company.

Hopefully this article has been useful for you for learning why financial modeling is important for startups and small businesses.

Today, I want to share with you why it doesn’t matter how much you make, but that it matters how much you save.  I could make $1 million dollars in a year, but at the end of the year, if I’ve spent it all, it doesn’t matter. It matters so much more how much you save, and I’m sure you will be convinced by the end of this post.

Saver Sally vs. Spender Sam

I want to share with you a story. I have 2 friends, Saver Sally, and Spender Sam.

Saver Sally makes $60,000 a year at her corporate job. She has a husband and a family, lives in a nice neighborhood, and drives a dependable car. She saves $10,000 a year in her retirement accounts.

Spender Sam makes $150,000 a year through his entrepreneurial efforts. He’s single and loves going to the bar to show off his most recent Rolex. Driving his new BMW to work, and hitting the clubs each weekend, he believes he will be able to save once he cashes out of his equity holdings, and only puts $1,000 a year towards his retirement.

Who is Wealthier: Saver Sally or Spender Sam?

If you saw Sally and Sam at the same time, you’d guess Sam was the wealthier one. With a nice car and great taste in the way he dresses, he has to be the wealthier one… right?

WRONG.

After one year, Sally has $9,000 more than Sam. But, Sam has a nice Rolex and a sweet BMW!

Yes, that is true, but does it really matter? With $150,000 in income, that’s great, and I’m sure he is having a lot of fun. What happens if his business goes belly up? That BMW won’t feel as nice to ride in without his paychecks rolling in!

The Power of Compounding

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.” – Albert Einstein

Compound interest is an multiplier of wealth. Let’s see the impact if Sally keeps saving $10,000 a year, and Sam saves only $1,000 a year. In 30 years, the results are shocking. Sally will be nearly $900,000 richer than Sam. Take a look at the calculations below:

Still not convinced? Who do you think is wealthier now?

Practicing What I Preach – How I Saved 48% of My Income in 2017

I track every dollar I earn and spend. Last year, I made just over $107,000, I saved roughly $51,000, I spent about 33,000 and paid roughly 23,000 in taxes.

While my taxes will be adjusted up a little bit because of my withholding’s on my W2, I can safely say my pre-tax savings rate was roughly 61% and post-tax savings rate was roughly 48%.

Of the $51,000 saved, I was able to put $36,000 of that towards retirement and various other investments (business and taxable account). $18,000 of that went towards paying down various debts of mine (my mortgage). I had a decrease of cash by $3,000 throughout the year.

Breaking Down My Savings into 3 Buckets: Cash Savings, Debt Reduction and Investments

I consider there to be 3 ways to save: reducing my debt, putting money into a checking or savings account, and investing in my retirement accounts, investing in my taxable account, and my business.

Last year, I reduced my mortgage by a little nearly $18,000. This was above and beyond the roughly $6,000 I would have eliminated through the monthly principal pay down. Last February, I thought it would be a great idea to pay an extra $25,000 of my mortgage and get rid of PMI. After starting a business, and putting my money to work elsewhere, I’ve put this goal to the side. I have a 2.625% interest rate, and while $144 in private mortgage insurance adds up, I’m still about $13,000 shy of getting rid of private mortgage insurance. We will see if I get rid of it this year.

Putting Money to Work For the Future

Last year, I ended up putting about $36,000 to work for the future through my investments in my retirement, business, and taxable account.

I ended up doing my Roth IRA contributions in full, and as well as contributing a decent amount to my 401k.

With overall savings of nearly 50% of my income, I’m very pleased with my performance. Obviously, this can be improved, and I’m going to look to save at least 40% of my income in this year. I’ve already maxed out my Roth IRA for this year, and will be looking to max out my 401k. We will see if I can get there!

My Tips for You to Increase Your Savings

There are 3 tips I have for you to increase your savings:

1. Look at your expenses and identify any areas of weakness you could work on
   • Tracking your income and expenses is the first step to financial success. Even finding savings of $10 a day can add up over time. $10 a day is $3,650 a year. $3,650 a year for 30 years at 7% compounded is over $300,000!
2. If you are employed, set up your retirement account and increase your contribution
   • At the end of last year, I was saving roughly 6% of my pre-tax income in my 401k. Bumping it up to 20% only resulted in a decrease of cash to me of $300. I was able to up my investment amount by over $500, while only losing out on $300 in cash, for a net gain of $200 in the long run (ignoring taxes in 34 years).
   • Try bumping your contribution up by 1%. I know you can do it.
3. Look for Unique Ways to Save Money Every Day
   • There are many different ways you can save money just by being opportunistic or doing something yourself. For example, if you are planning a birthday party, there are many ways you could save money. One possibility is filling helium balloons yourself. If you have a lot of balloons, you could save a decent amount of money.
   • Just by considering different options, you could save a bunch of money!
4. Destroy Your Debt!
   • Debt is typically the biggest deterrent of saving cold hard cash. That being said, I consider debt reduction to be savings, even if it’s technically paying back your lenders for previous purchases.
   • Use your identified savings from step 1 to up your debt payment over time.

Two final resources would be to read my article for other ideas, 9 Ways to Save Thousands Each Year. There are so many ways to save money. Hopefully this article provides you some ideas to implement in your life.

It Doesn’t Matter How Much You Make, It Matters How Much You Save

At the end of the day, end of the year, the true winners are the savers, not the spenders.

I hope this article has inspired you to save more. It’s very possible to improve your financial situation through income creation, but also expense reduction and paying down debt.

It doesn’t matter how much you make. It matters how much you save.

Readers: how much were you able to save last year? Do you have any savings goals? Do you have any super saving tips?

Erik