I founded the website Invested Wallet back in June 2018, which is crazy to think I recently passed the two year mark already!

I started the website for a few reasons actually:

It’s been cool to not only work on something I’m passionate about and that helps others, but provides income as well. It’s incredibly satisfying. And my career I work in digital marketing, which I’m always looking to improve and learn — which a blog is a great outlet to do so.

The name Invested Wallet was one of the first things I came up with and surprisingly the domain was never taken. Not sure how considering it’s a short name and quite perfect for finances, so I took that as a sign this was meant to be.

While I naturally write articles that are SEO focused and answer people’s questions in search engines, I also think what makes me unique and my site unique is that I’m not a millionaire blogger. I also was not handed anything during my life and worked hard to improve my career and finances since 2014. If I can do these things and teach myself with no prior financial background, anyone can.

Certainly, it can be more challenging and even easier for others as we all have some advantages, privileges, and disadvantages. But my goal was to hopefully inspire others to learn and realize personal finance and investing is not as challenging as you may think it is.

So in my writing, I try to break concepts down as simply as possible. To provide some personal anecdotes that relate to the topic, but to show that I too may have struggled with something or tips that helped me.

Being good with your personal finances means you are living within your means, you know how much money you’re bringing in, and you know exactly how your money can work for you.

When you understand those concepts well, it creates a recipe of financial success and to feel less stress about money. Of course, personal finance can go much deeper but if you can really master those three — it sets you up to be way ahead of most people currently.

Developing good money habits that you stay consistent with will have big impacts on your wealth and family’s finances. A few that have helped keep my finances in order include:

Paying yourself first: When I first was teaching myself about personal finances and investing, I came across the simple idea that with each paycheck you should put a percentage away to your investing accounts and savings, before paying bills or spending. By doing this, I was able to save and invest over six-figures — without having a six-figure salary at the time and still having student loan debt.

Monitor Monthly Expenses: I’m not a big budgeting type of person, but a simple one I like to do is with a spreadsheet that includes all my expenses and income. Once a month, I look at it and update where needed. This gives me insight into what things cost, my potential savings rate, and where the money I’m saving will be divided up (like Roth IRA, Savings Account, other investments, etc). Some people prefer a super in-depth budget, but I found simple works best for me.

However, you should write these things down as prior to 2014 I never did and just thought I knew my expenses and income off the top of my head. And I was wrong! I was wasting tons of money and was living beyond my means at the time.

One of the best things someone can do to improve their financial situation is to start educating themselves and become financially literate. For most people, they are not learning about finances or investing in school and many aren’t learning from their parents either (or at least beyond the basics). To truly succeed, you’ll have to take the steps to make changes and you have to want it. From there, start reading books and blogs about money. Listen to podcasts or interviews with people talking about money. You won’t learn everything overnight, but it will help you think differently about money and teach you things that will have an impact on you from short-term to long-term during your life.

I think the answer here really depends on your personal situation. I actually did both because the interest rates on my student loan debt and car loan at the time were not very high. As I made more money, I continued to throw extra at the debt, but still invested what I could as well. I”m happy I did that, even if I could have paid off debt a bit sooner, because I’ve built a good investment portfolio that has had years to start compounding. If you are considering the options, I’d look at what kind of debt you have and the interest rates on them to make an informed decision.

There are tons of great personal finance books and I’m still discovering more all the time! But here are a few I read that were pivotal in my financial education when I was first starting out:

Honestly, both are extremely important but you should start by decreasing your expenses first. You’d be surprised at the stuff you spend money on or waste without really knowing at first. Plus, I think too many people who focus on more income at first, are not ready to handle it. By that, you end up falling victim to lifestyle inflation because you have more money.

Decreasing your expenses first and learning about finances sets a good foundation. Then as you make more money, you are hopefully way more responsible with it. For example, if I made what I do now prior to my financial education I’d probably be spending quite extravagantly and not investing or saving.

Nothing at first, because I’d be shocked and excited but that’s when mistakes can be made. I’d like to take 24-48 hours to soak it in and think. But I would do a few things with it, like:

Music! While I do not actually play any instruments I’ve been a music nut since I was a kid. I can thank my parents for that, who have a wide range of music tastes. Prior to my personal finance website, I actually started a music blog back in 2010. It was more of a hobby, but I got access to tons of free music, concert tickets, and exclusives. Plus, many artists I used to share or write about have gone on to be well-known names today.

But I’m also a fan of discovering new music and even collecting records. For instance, buying some from garage sales or antique stores not knowing some of the artists, then playing them to see what genre it is.

You can learn more about Invested Wallet at https://investedwallet.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/investedwallet/, and follow them on Twitter at @InvestedWallet.

I originally started the RTC blog at the end of November 2015. It began as an outlet to document a mini retirement year off work and to discuss my investments.

As for the RTC name, it is based on the premise that traditional day jobs are soul-crushing. The work is unfulfilling and the schedules are not flexible. So, “Reverse The Crush” is a metaphor for reversing traditional, soul-crushing, unfulfilling work. Hence why the blog is about financial independence though blogging and investing.

The mission of RTC is to document the journey to financial independence through blogging & investing.

The goal of RTC is to help others learn how to build income streams through blogging and investing.

Through monthly dividend income updates and blogging as a side hustle, reversethecrush.com chronicles the journey to financial independence and shares different ways to gain more time now.

My background working in the financial services industry, my unique experiences, and my perspective on ways to gain more time now. Also, because I share detailed dividend income updates with real numbers to show how much income I earn.

I worked as a Mutual Fund Advisor and Stock Broker for a large Canadian bank from 2013 to 2016.

Then I took a mini retirement year off work in 2016. That unique experience helped form the theme for the blog.

After that, I went back to work full-time for nearly 3 years for another large Canadian bank.

While I was working for the bank from 2017 to 2019, I built additional income streams by dividend investing and blogging.

So near the end of 2019, I accepted a part-time job that allowed me to spend more time blogging. Now I’m on a slow financial independence journey.

Overall, my background in banking and my tested ways to add more flexibility make my blog unique. Through mini retirement, part-time jobbing, and building income streams, I have shown that it’s possible to achieve financial independence at any pace.

Being good with your personal finances means making smart decisions with money over time so that you will have more options and flexibility in the future.

It means paying yourself first is a habit. Investing, whether dividend stocks, indices, real estate, REITs, or businesses, is a habit.

And it also means avoiding bad debt and keeping your fixed expenses low.

The main habit I practice to get ahead financially is I pay myself first.

Each pay, I pay myself a percentage of my income into my TFSA, RRSP, and a high interest savings account.

By doing this regularly and making it a habit, I ensure that I get ahead financially, even if it is at a slower pace.

Otherwise, I invest regularly in my TFSA and RRSP. I dollar cost average into high quality blue chip stocks as cash from savings and dividends buildup.

Of course, none of this would be possible without a proper budget. I typically have a budget created for at least 1 month out.

And I try to avoid debt at all costs.

The 11 Best Income Streams for Financial Independence: Since the blog is about building income streams to reach financial independence, this post is a great place to start. It provides different options to build income streams that will eventually add more flexibility and options to your life.

Dividend Income Updates: Next, I would recommend checking out my dividend income updates page, which is where I document how much money I earn from dividend investing.

This page links to every single dividend income update I’ve ever reported. As of now, there are 36 dividend income updates going back to June 2017.

Since dividend investing is my main strategy, and because I expect it to eventually be my primary income stream, I am chronicling my journey to show others how to make money from dividend investing.

Why Pursue Barista FIRE: Lastly, I would suggest ‘Why Pursue Barista FIRE’ because it is an example of an alternative way to gain more time now.

For those that don’t know, Barista FIRE is a way to retire early and have more time now, but it’s not full retirement. To support yourself financially, you work part-time.

Near the end of 2019, I accepted a part time job to have more time now. It is beginning to look like the best career decision I’ve ever made. The flexibility gained by working part-time has allowed me to spend more time on the blog. In turn, the e-mail subscription list doubled, and I’ve been able to increase blog income as well.

After testing out a mini retirement and part-time work, I prefer part-time because it is a way to gain more time but still maintain another income stream. Rather than feeling like you’re working all week for a weekend, it’s as if you’re off all week, but you work a couple days.

Flexible work is honestly a great solution for those that are too impatient to wait for financial independence.

I believe in consistency over the long term and in building good habits.

So the first thing I would recommend is paying yourself first.

Start small if you have to. Start by saving 1% of your net income each pay. Just put it in a high interest savings account. If you are able to save 1% for 6 months, increase it to 2% and so on. Eventually, aim to save at least 10% of your income. The more, the better.

If you have debt, pay it off. Debt makes it harder to save money. I would also try to keep expenses low to have flexibility and options.

Otherwise, once you save enough money, you need to invest in income generating assets. I prefer dividend investing and REITs. But if you’re not an investment expert, you should invest in a S&P 500 Index fund, or perhaps rental properties.

I think you should always invest, no matter what.

So I believe in investing first, but if you have debt, I believe in investing while you pay down debt.

There are three main reasons why I believe you should save first:

If you always make it a habit to pay yourself first, you will always find a way to do that — no matter what. Then you will have money for compound interest to work, and for building additional income streams.

If I had paid off my student loan before saving, my year off would not have been possible. It would only have been possible by going back into debt.

The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham: If you want to understand investing and how the stock market works, I would highly recommend The Intelligent Investor. By reading this book, you learn how to analyze stocks and you obtain a set of rules to go by. I think every investor should read this book.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad: Rich Dad, Poor Dad is the book that got me interested in acquiring assets. I read it in 2011. It taught me how to view money. From that point on, I knew I needed to acquire income generating assets to have a shot at freedom. So I chose investing because it was the quickest, lowest-cost way to start acquiring assets. Rich Dad, Poor Dad is the book you read to get motivated. The Intelligent Investor is what you read after to learn how to invest.

One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch: To further my investment knowledge, I read One Up On Wall Street by Peter Lynch. It is a book about how small retail investors can gain massive advantages over Wall Street. This book will add an extra layer to your investment knowledge. And it will also teach you how to invest in a ten-bagger.

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits: This is another book that is on the level of The Intelligent Investor, in my humble opinion. And Warren Buffet has kind things to say about this book too: “I sought out Phil Fisher after reading his Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits…A thorough understanding of the business, obtained by using Phil’s techniques…enables one to make intelligent investment commitments.” – Warren Buffet

I have to go with stocks because dividend investing is my main investment strategy.

Investing in stocks is one of the lower cost ways to acquire an asset, and it doesn’t take much time either.

Plus, quality blue chip stocks pay dividends, so it is a quick way to build an additional income stream. Some stocks increase their dividend annually as well, at a rate faster than inflation.

Investing in stocks is something that can be done from the comfort of your home. It just requires an effort to read and do research. And smart risk management.

But if I had to choose a second, I would pick a private business. I have always been interested in entrepreneurship, and I am in the process of building an online business.

A private, personal business can be an extremely fulfilling way to earn a living.

Damn, I love this question!

First, I would buy a quality piece of real estate. I would probably buy a house in the East York area of Toronto. I have recently been looking out of curiosity, even though I’m not ready to buy—at all. But some of the houses I like cost $1.75 million.

I’d spend 1.75 million on real estate. That leaves $3.25 million.

Next I’d buy a Tesla Model S. I would buy a white one with dark interior. That would cost approximately $120,000, based on the last time I looked.

So remaining is $3,130,000.

Of course, I need income to live off. I would consider keeping my job, because it is flexible and well paying. But, to boost my income, I would invest $2,130,000. I would invest it in mostly dividend stocks, but I would have 10% growth stocks, and a portion in index funds as well. But with over 2 million invested, I could easily generate more than $80,000 annually from dividend investing.

After investing, buying a Tesla, and buying a house, I would have $1 million left.

Invest in my blog. In addition to buying stocks, I would set aside 50,000 to invest in my online business and blog full-time.

Leftover: $950,000

Apple stuff. I would buy a new MacBook, iPhone 12 (when it’s out), Apple Watch, and iPad Pro. Let’s call it 10k.

Remaining: $940,000

Family. To keep it fair, I would just give close family members all an equal amount. Everyone would get $100,000 each. In total, 6 other people would get $100,000.

So now just $340,000 is left.

Donate. I would donate $140,000 to a charity. A good portion would go to Black Lives Matter, and I would also allocate funds to a charity for animals.

Finally, I would spend $100,000 on travel, and $100,000 on clothes.

It is important to learn about money and care about personal finance to help others.

After you learn about money, you realize that money is a tool to live the type of lifestyle you want.

But if you never have the opportunity to understand money, you could be headed towards a never-ending pile of debt. While I was working in the financial services industry, I learned that most people view income in terms of how much they can afford. So a raise at work means they can afford a new car payment.

However, if you begin to understand how money can be used to build income streams, it can change your perspective. Instead of new car, you see expensive car loan that subtracts from income.

With simple saving techniques and investing, you can build income streams that provide the flexibility to live life on your own terms.

It’s a much better way of life compared to endless payments holding you down.

You can learn more about Reverse the Crush at https://www.reversethecrush.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/reversethecrushblog/, and follow them on Twitter at @Reversethecrush.

Following and reading a lot of personal finance blogs, I originally had the idea of starting a blog in 2013. After a long period of consideration, I finally started my blog Tawcan anonymously in 2014. I wanted to use the blog as a way to chronicle my quest for financial independence and a joyful life. I wanted to show that it is possible to become financially independent as a single income family while living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. After blogging for a couple of years, I revealed my identity. In case you’re curious, Tawcan is a name that I came up with since the late 90’s which stands for Taiwanese Canadian.

For one, I don’t just write about personal finance and FIRE related articles. I write a lot of philosophical and life related articles that I think are important to talk about while on the financial independence journey. Life is so much more than just money in your bank account.

It means that you are living within your means and growing your net worth consistently. If you can control these two things, you are already well on your way toward financial independence.

We have been keeping track of every single expense since 2011. This has allowed my wife and I to review our spending trends every six months, and we then also do a deeper analysis every year. It is important to analyze the spending trends to see where our money is going, and whether the increase or decrease trend in expenses makes sense or not. Another habit that we do is saving money every month and use that money to purchase appreciating assets like stocks.

RIP. 2011-2018. In this long article I went over why we do not believe in early retirement and why we focus on financial independence instead.

Have-Do-Be or Be-Do-Have? That is the question. This is a philosophical article where I questioned our approach to life and why many people aren’t happy with their lives.

FI… 13 years and 4 months in the making. I examined why it’s OK to take the long game approach when it comes to FI.

Short term, the easiest and quickest solution to improve someone’s financial situation is to examine your expenses and see which expenses can be cut or reduced. If you are spending $500 a month on eating out, see if you can trim this expense and use the extra money for paying off debt or investing. This little exercise will do wonders for your financial future.

Medium-term, once you have your budget sorted out, I would look at ways to increase your income. It is far more advantageous to try to increase your income than optimize the heck out of your expenses and have poor quality of life.

Long term, I would set some life goals on things you want to achieve and set a timeline for these goals. For example, it can be getting out of consumer debt in 5 years, or it can be having $1,000,000 in net worth, or having $40,000 in passive income. Make sure these goals are attainable and realistic so you can stay motivated.

This is a very personal question and it really depends on your situation. For us it was the logical thing to own a house rather than renting because we do not plan to move anywhere for a while. We also like the idea of having a place of our own and being able to make changes to the house and property as we see fit. If we were renting, this would have been way more restrictive. Having said that, if you are planning to move around or are looking for better employment opportunities in other cities or countries, renting may be a good idea.

Over the years, I have read many personal finances books. Here are some of my favourite books that other personal finance bloggers may not have mentioned:

The Intelligent Investor – a must read for any value investors.

The Behavior Gap – the psychology behind money is very interesting.

Wealthing like Rabits – an original and hilarious introduction to the world of personal finance.

My favourite investment class is definitely stocks because I enjoy owning a part of a profitable business and have my money work hard for me so I don’t have to. Profitable businesses have a tendency to reward their investors and stock investing can be very passive. So far we have amassed a sizable investment portfolio that pays an average of $2,100 per month.

A while ago I wrote an article on what I’d do if I were to receive $10,000,000. So for this question I’ll just half what I had in mind:

Needless to say, we’d be in a very good place if we were to receive a $5,000,000 windfall tomorrow. Now who wants to give me that kind of money?

I love to take photos and have a side photography business. Photography is my way of being creative (writing on the blog is another creative outlet for me). I also love travelling and exploring different parts of the world. Last year in 2019 thanks to a combination of business and person travels, I had the chance to visit countries like USA, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Spain, France, and Finland.

You can learn more about Tawcan at https://www.tawcan.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Tawcan.00/, and follow them on Twitter at @Tawcan.

We started building our blog, “All Options Considered”, in February of 2019 because we thought it would be a great way to spend some of our time after we retired. Our goal as bloggers is to share our stories, connect with other people, and help others create their best life through financial independence. We love personal finance and we love travel so we use our blog to talk mostly about our experiences relating to those topics.

We first came up with “All Options Considered” in 2007 and made it our personal family motto. At the time we were working on making a change from individual stock investing to owning rental properties. We weren’t sure owning rentals would be our thing but we wanted to give ourselves permission to try anything.

We have used the idea of All Options Considered for all of our big financial decisions, including retiring in 2018, selling our condo, and starting our full time travels. All Options Considered has been a great mindset for us in terms of learning about personal finance and exploring our hopes and dreams, so it’s an idea we want to share.

When we stumbled across the FIRE movement in 2014 we didn’t find many voices we related to or were inspired by, not because they didn’t exist but because they weren’t being highlighted. When we retired we decided to do our part to add to the diverse voices talking about personal finance tools and ideas, because the reality is the FIRE community is fabulously diverse.

We are a lesbian couple and we reached financial independence in 2017 and retired in 2018. We wanted a complete and total change from our career-focused lives after we retired so we decided to leave Seattle and make travel our new lifestyle. By November of 2018 we had sold our home and car, let go of 99% of our belongings and started a new life as nomads.

As bloggers we aren’t trying to be influencers, we want to be supporters. So we aren’t releasing a ton of blog posts, and we aren’t telling people what they need to do. We’re talking about our own personal finance decisions and hoping to inspire other people to do what works best for them. We get a lot of direct messages from people asking us to chat with them about personal finance, and that’s what we love most about blogging.

For us it means being willing to learn about personal finance, being willing to own your own finances, and being brave enough to make mistakes and keep learning. As kids we didn’t get a ton of instruction about personal finance so we had a lot to learn on our own as adults. In the beginning we were nervous to take control of our money and to learn about investing, but we figured it out together.

Ali was a welfare kid with a lot of lessons about what NOT to do from her parents, and a lot of debt in her family. But Ali also had a Grandma who taught herself about stock investing, and inspired Ali to learn as well. Ali’s challenge has been getting to a point where personal finance is less tied to shame and grief about her early childhood experiences with money, debt, and poverty. Alison’s parents pinched pennies and clipped coupons when she was young, and then did well with commercial property investments as they got older which was inspiring for her. Alison’s dad was an accountant and managed their family’s investments, but he wasn’t comfortable talking about money with anyone, including family. Alison wanted to learn about money and investing from her dad but that topic was considered taboo in her family.

One of our first decisions as a couple was to talk about money with each other right from the start, no secrets and no shame allowed. We actually started talking about money as soon as we met, even before we were officially dating. We wanted to make sure we made personal finance a constant source of discussion and a core area of focus in our relationship. We wanted to learn everything we could about personal finance, starting in the very beginning with getting out of debt, buying a personal home, and learning about individual stock investing. We try to talk about money with all of our closest friends and family members on a regular basis, and we encourage other people we meet and interact with to do the same.

First, we make sure we talk through all of our financial decisions and all of our hopes and dreams as a couple. We follow our Personal Money Statement, and we don’t make any purchases or financial decisions until we are on the same page and in agreement.

When we met, Ali was still paying off her student loan debt. We both wanted to avoid consumer debt, and we especially wanted to save and invest as much of our income as possible. As we worked on our early retirement plan our most important habits were tracking our spending, and doing our best to avoid lifestyle inflation. We also made sure we had an emergency fund of a year’s living expenses available in case of unexpected costs.

Now that we are retired our most important personal finance habits are sticking to our budget, and leaving our portfolio alone. We increased our emergency fund to a few years’ living expenses since we no longer have job related income to rely on, and we no longer have employer provided health insurance to help cover our medical costs.

We track every dollar we spend and we watch the stock market the way we watch international football scores, as fans from a distance. And because we have more time available now we can track our spending much more carefully and accurately compared to the big picture tracking we did while we were working. But we don’t worry about our spending or get too obsessed with being frugal anymore, because those kinds of habits are simpler and more natural for us now. We know our budget and we know what kinds of purchases are reasonable for us at this point in our lives.

The first step is to get rid of any student loan debt and consumer related debt. We think it’s really important to be gentle with yourself when paying off debt, so don’t compare yourself to others and don’t waste time and energy on debt shame.

The next thing is to decide what your financial hopes and dreams are, whether that’s in a Personal Money Statement or on a post-it note. And if you have a partner, make sure you are sharing your hopes and dreams with each other and discussing your plans. Whether you blend your finances or not, it’s important to talk openly about money along with discussing your life goals.

Another great option for improving your finances is to keep growing and changing in your career. We both stayed in fairly consistent roles within one firm for the majority of our careers, and wish we had been brave enough to move around to other companies more often as a way to keep growing our salaries.

Once you get deeper into your career and your salary is increasing over time, it becomes much more important to live below your means, avoid consumer debt, and save as much as you can. For example, we only took vacations if we could save up in advance and then pay for them with cash and miles/points.

We also believe that people can manage their own investments, as long as they have enough time to learn about investment options. For us the tricky part with that was having enough confidence to take over our investments and build our plan based on our goals and dreams. With time, we’ve gained more and more confidence and feel much more at ease with managing our portfolio today.

Most importantly, remember that personal finance is personal and financial independence shouldn’t be a contest. It doesn’t make sense to say that people should retire at age 65, or that just saving 15% in your 401k is the best option, or that the 4% rule will work for everyone. These are all just generic concepts and average numbers. Everyone is different and everyone has different puzzle pieces to work with. People need to build financial independence plans that are not boiler plate, so their plan and portfolio will work well for them specifically.

Some people do really well with individual stocks, and at some level that was the investing option we enjoyed most, because we made a research project out of every stock we bought and we enjoyed the process of learning about individual companies. But ultimately we decided individual stocks took too much of our time to manage and it was hard for us to avoid trying to time the market with individual stock purchases. So we are done with individual stock investing.

Other people do really well with rental properties as investments, so we decided to try that as well. Our mistakes started with using personal properties as rentals, which not only made them terrible investments but also made managing the properties unpleasant for us because we also ended up getting too involved in our renters’ personal lives. We never felt comfortable asking for market rate rent amounts and we were more interested in being generous with our renters. So eventually we sold our rentals and assume we are done with real estate investing.

As we got serious about working towards financial independence we moved our investments into Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). We allocate our low cost ETFs based on our risk tolerance and desire for longterm growth. We maintain a straight forward mix of low cost ETFs, and we only modify our portfolio once a year as part of our annual scheduled rebalancing. This is the investment class and process that seems to work best for us. At this point we have no plans to modify change our investing philosophy, even with all the market chaos we’ve seen in 2020.

Student Loans: Ali feels pretty strongly that she could have done better with student loan debt if she had been more well informed about personal finance when she was younger. The lessons Ali had as a kid included the idea that debt was a pretty normal way to pay for whatever she wanted in life. As a college kid Ali accrued more than $43k in student loan debt, along with a small amount of consumer debt. She attended a community college for initial credits, and then transferred to a lower cost university to finish her degree. For the entire time she was in school, which was longer than average, Ali was working minimum wage part time and temp jobs, and even a sub minimum wage restaurant job. She used student loans to pay for school and to supplement her regular living expenses. When we talk about those student loans today Ali is confident she could have managed the same process in the same timeline or even faster without the student loans, but she didn’t realize that was an option worth trying at the time.

Inheriting a House and Keeping it as a Rental Property: In 2007, we inherited a family home that had immense sentimental value. The house was on a rural Canadian island, and it had a tremendous amount of deferred maintenance needs. If we could go back in time, we would have sold the house immediately and then invested whatever proceeds there were. Instead of selling right away we decided to slowly improve the house over time, use half of it as our vacation home and the other half as a rental property. We didn’t have the cash to fix it up, but we got a new roof, had a new foundation poured, replaced all of the appliances, had a furnace and forced air system installed, finished the basement for our use, and so on. We kept the upstairs rented at a monthly amount far below the market rate, and way below the maintenance costs we were trying to cope with. We even took on additional maintenance costs to please our renter. Looking back this was actually our biggest lesson in lifestyle inflation, since we were trying to keep up with some friends who had rental properties and vacation homes. It took us almost 10 years to realize we had to sell the house in order to regain control of our finances, knowing we would not be able to recoup our costs.

Turning our Personal Home into a Rental Property: At the same time as we were trying to manage the Canadian rental property, we also turned our personal residence in Seattle into a rental property and moved ourselves into a small apartment. We rented our house below market rate in hopes if helping another family with their personal finance issues. We didn’t know anything about the 1% rule for rental properties at the time. Frankly we didn’t know anything about how to be landlords. We look back at the situation we created with both of our rental properties in Seattle and Canada as our most important lesson in personal finance. If there is a checklist for what not to do with rental properties we probably accomplished all of those things, and most of them twice. If we ever decide to own another personal home for ourselves, and especially if we ever decide to own another rental property, we are committed to making better financial decisions when it comes to real estate in the future.

After paying the taxes, we would set up a new Donor Advised Fund to make ongoing regular donations to programs that support racial justice and LGBTQ equality. We would also find a piece of property in the US where we could build a small home base for ourselves, and also provide co-living space for our chosen family.

Knowledge creates freedom and choice, and knowledge about personal finance can be very powerful. The more we learn about money, the easier it is for us to make better financial choices for ourselves. It’s very clear to us that learning about money and caring about personal finance has made it possible for us to accomplish our personal hopes and dreams and contribute to the communities we live in.

Travel! We love travel for a million reasons. When we lived in Seattle before we became nomads we were in our comfort zone, with a routine that was relatively fixed and a group of friends we could rely on. We aren’t particularly adventurous or outgoing, but when we travel, we are constantly learning new things, trying new foods, picking up friendly and respectful words in different languages, and meeting new people. Regularly packing and unpacking reminds us that things are less important than experiences.

Living as travelers reminds us to behave like respectful and gracious guests at all times, always adapting to other people and other cultures instead of expecting others to adapt to us. We are always on our toes when we travel, expecting the unexpected, and we love that.

Right now, in June of 2020, we are not traveling the way we would like because of COVID-19. We have talked about whether it might be time to settle down again now because of the virus and travel restrictions. But our plans are to resume our travels as soon as possible because that’s the lifestyle that we are most passionate about right now.

You can learn more about All Options Considered at https://alloptionsconsidered.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/alix2aoc/, and follow them on Twitter at @AllOptions_AOC.

We started Costa Rica FIRE in 2018, less than year after we bought our first two properties in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. We knew that we wanted to have a presence for our vacation rentals, so that we could market them outside of the vacation rental platforms, like AirBNB and VRBO. But we also knew that investing in Costa Rica real estate was a big part of our FIRE plan, and we wanted to write about that, hence the FIRE part of the name.

There are other FIRE blogs and other real estate blogs, and we ourselves read and learn from other blogs. However, Costa Rica FIRE follows our personal journey and approach to FIRE. We are a married couple with two kids that came to FIRE relatively late (early 40’s) and in a HCOL (high cost of living) city, and yet we managed to achieve a level of FIRE by late 40’s. I think that story is relatively unique since many FIRE bloggers are young or single.

We also pursued FIRE using multiple strategies – not just a high-income job or extreme saving or geo-arbitrage. Real estate is a big contributor in our FIRE plans. Adapting our consulting business to focus on topics we’re passionate about is another strategy we use – we call it “work as play” or finding work you love so much that you never want to retire from it. We used a modified geo-arbitrage strategy, going from a HCOL city in the US to a cheaper city in the US and having even cheaper Costa Rica as a backup. Finally, we believe in multiple income streams, so we still invest in paper assets and pursue a range of consulting projects, not relying on any one thing.

Being good with your personal finances is built right into the term – it’s about finances, meaning how you earn, save, invest and spend your money; and it’s personal, meaning that you meet your obligations and can support your interests, values and priorities. We place a high priority on freedom – freedom to work outside the traditional office structure, flexibility to spend our time on projects and hobbies that interest us and flexibility to travel and live wherever we want.

We also place a high value on family. We stayed for 40+ years in a HCOL city to be close to extended family and to allow both of our kids to finish high school in the place they grew up and wanted to be. We manage our businesses and investments to, not just provide for us, but to leave something behind for the next generation.

We manage our money closely, but don’t spend too much time on investment decisions or accounting. We track what we spend, but just in Excel, not a special software. We don’t budget, but we categorize our spending data so we know whether it matches our priorities and values.

We spend more of our time focused on income generation – managing our real estate so that we maintain the properties and keep good tenants, growing our consulting business so that we monetize our skills and interests and give our investments time to grow.

One Question That Saved Us Years On Our FIRE Journey (the mindshift change that propelled us forward)

Five Strategies We Have Used To Achieve FIRE – And What Has Changed (how we approached financial independence and how it has changed)

How To Pick Your First Real Estate Investment – A Decision Matrix (our advice on picking a first real estate investment – it’s about the decision process, not the decision)

In the short term, whether it’s a money goal or other (e.g., weight loss, habit change, etc), I would go for a quick win. How can you get more money today? Could you sell unwanted things? Could you cancel a subscription or membership you no longer use? Could you renegotiate a big-ticket item, like your lease or cable bill? If you have several debts, list all of them, look for the highest interest rate, and pay additional money towards that – that isn’t money in your pocket but it increases your net worth faster than if you just treated all of your debts equally.

In the medium-term, I would focus on automating as much of your finances as you can – e.g., online bill pay, automatic savings contributions, auto retirement contributions, downloading credit card transactions into a tracking system. By automating, you are building good habits. You also get a snapshot of your money and can see how much your spending and how much you’re saving. This can help you identify where you need to focus.

In our case, we were naturally frugal, and we saved quite a bit in our retirement plans but didn’t really have a plan outside of that. Our retirement plans were good enough for when we hit 60+, but what if we wanted to retire sooner? This type of big financial question is what long-term planning is for. In our long-term, we needed to funnel income into cash flow-producing assets that we could tap pre-retirement age. This led us to real estate as our asset of choice (I trusted our skills to manage a real estate portfolio more than a paper asset portfolio). Then our long-term goal became acquiring 10 properties, which we felt was enough to provide cash flow to help us transition from full-time work to part-time, lifestyle-focused entrepreneurship.

For others, long-term might mean building a retirement portfolio or financing a trip around the world. It’s the big goal that inspires you enough to make bold choices.

While the majority of our portfolio is in real estate, we are not of the mindset that everyone should own real estate. Renting is a viable option and can be the better option depending on the circumstances. For example, we rented for the first 20+ years of our adulthood. We lived in a HCOL city where the down payment for something comparable to what we were renting would cost well over 6-figures! That’s a lot of money to tie up into 1 property. Instead, we rented where we lived and bought rentals that paid us.

Owning a property has high transaction costs when you buy and when you sell. Real estate takes time to unwind – it’s essentially illiquid because you can’t count on selling it if you really have to. If you think you’re going to move in a few years, or want the flexibility to be able to move, renting could be the better choice.

This depends on your situation. For us, we were already good savers – maxing out the employer retirement plan, going after discounts and on-sale items. Focusing more on minimizing expenses would have a minimal effect on our bottom line. At the same time, we were in high growth careers (we both started in management consulting) so paying attention to our career advancement – negotiating good job offers, developing our professional skills – would have a significantly higher payoff. There is a limit to how much you can cut expenses, but no limit to how much you can grow your income.

That said, if you already make a good income but still can’t make ends meet, you should take some time to figure out where your money is going because just making more money won’t help if it gets spent faster than it comes in. It’s like filling a leaky bucket – you’re better off fixing the bucket than finding more water.

We are majority real estate – about two thirds of our net worth is in real estate, with the rest in cash or paper assets. So in terms of a mostly hands-off investment, real estate is our favorite investment class. That said, we are actively focused on our consulting business and are the most bullish about private business as an investment because our special skills and expertise are here. If we were architects, engineers, interior designers or other experts in real estate-related spaces, we may be more active there. But we’re not, so we focus on what we know and what interests us. That means, our business is the priority, then real estate, then paper. Our paper is managed by a turnkey online system that offers recommendations based on tactical asset allocation, and this includes precious metals, bonds and stocks. We did a crypto investment for fun and to learn about the space but we’re not active there.

There are many financial mistakes first and foremost including not starting soon enough to diversify from paper into real estate, from traditional corporate work to entrepreneurship, from assuming that retirement was decades away to realizing FIRE was possible. Oh well – it’s the Chinese proverb about the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time is today. We try to focus on today and what is the best move right now.

There are real estate properties we wished we bought – several over the years. There are some we sold too early. We were afraid of taking on too much leverage, and by the time we got comfortable, we were in our consulting business instead of traditional employees, and so we couldn’t get as much leverage as we wanted.

We grow from the different mistakes by looking at what we would have done differently and then trying to factor that knowledge into our analysis or that quality into our lives. For example, we’re more comfortable with leverage now, so stopped prepaying on the mortgages we do have and saved the cash for reserves – this was pre-pandemic and now we’re glad have those loans. Regarding the general mistake about not starting soon enough, we try and act on information we learn as soon as we have an idea of what to do and not deliberate so much. This helped us amass the 11 properties we have now, and also helped us exit an entire real estate market (Indianapolis) without second-guessing ourselves.

We grew up in comfortable, middle class families where there was enough money for the necessities and some extras. Money was very clearly a tool for supporting family, experiencing nice and important things like travel and pursuing passions (Caroline studied piano at Juilliard, while in high school, which was a significant investment for her single-parent household). In other words, money is opportunity to be, do and have things that are priorities for you. It is the ultimate freedom.

You may not be born into lots of money, but you can learn how to make the most of what you have, whether that’s advancing your career, saving more, investing better or starting a business (or several) to have multiple income streams working for you. The freedom and opportunity that money provides is why we spend the time to develop good money habits and share what we find out with others.

You can learn more about Costa Rica FIRE at https://costaricafire.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CostaRicaFIRE/, and follow them on Twitter at @CostaRicaFIRE.

Hi, everyone! I’m David. I’ve been pursuing financial independence in big cities (New York, Toronto, San Francisco) for the past seven years.

Conventional financial independence wisdom says that leaving a big city is the best way to accelerate your FI progress. But where does that leave the folks who love living in cities? What about those who need to live in one for work or family reasons? Are we all screwed?

Not quite.

I believe that living in cities has pushed me toward FI rather than slowing my progress. That’s why I started writing CityFrugal back in 2018.

I’m always experimenting with strategies to improve my life and optimize my finances. That’s how I’ve saved 40% or more of my income while living in some of the most expensive cities in the world.

I share the results of my experiments on CityFrugal. I don’t write about the core concepts of FI – those are covered well by countless others – but I do offer a fresh perspective on what a thoughtful, exciting life can look like.

It doesn’t matter how you spend your money so long as you save a lot of it.

The most important habit I practice is automating my savings decisions. I make the best decisions when I make fewer decisions.

At the start of the year, I choose how much of each paycheck will go to savings and investment accounts and set up a direct deposit. That money never hits my checking account, so it’s never “available” to spend.

Changing the behavior would be more work than letting it run. Since I rarely mess with it, savings effortlessly pile up.

Financial Experiments: Wasting Money for A Better Life – I’ve spent years developing habits and routines that make me happier and healthier via trial and error. When your life is already working well, it’s hard to avoid getting set in your ways. I don’t want to stop testing, so I recently conducted a few experiments in wasting money.

Forget Your Five-Year Plan. Get A Grand Strategy Instead – Long-term planning can be valuable to set your direction. Still, a single-minded focus on a five-year plan guarantees you’ll miss opportunities along the way. That’s why I recommend swapping your five-year plan for a grand strategy. A grand strategy is a powerful and flexible mental model that will allow you to adjust to changes to the environment around you, but also stay on track as you change.

Everything is Temporary; Nearly Everything is Reversible – As with many people lucky enough to choose what to dedicate their lives to, I try to minimize regret as I make life choices. In this article, I explain that treating your time here solely as something to be taken very seriously and worrying about tiny missteps is an excellent way to go through life having no fun at all.

The piece of advice I give most often is that you should conduct lots of tests – big and small – that might improve your financial situation. If an experiment fails, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Pretend you’re a scientist; every failed experiment is useful information for the next one.

The secret is that this isn’t just great advice to improve your financial life – it’s the best way I’m aware of to improve your life, period.

I can only answer for New York, where buying an apartment is usually a bad financial call.

Home prices are high, most people don’t stay in one place for long, and monthly maintenance and taxes are often exorbitant.

Renting comes with high sticker prices than a mortgage payment, but tends to be significantly cheaper once you factor in taxes, maintenance, repairs, etc.

Still, the idea of owning a home is alluring. Perhaps it’s the result of lifelong cultural brainwashing in favor of home-ownership, but I think the qualitative benefits would tip the scales in favor of owning for me if the money side was close.

While I’ve read and loved many personal finance and investing books (e.g., Your Money or Your Life, The Intelligent Investor, etc.), most of my favorite financial writing is by those who weren’t explicitly writing about money.

Here are a few good ones to check out:

How to Live On 24 Hours A Day by Arnold Bennett – I reread this tiny, 110-year-old book about time management every January. If how we spend our days is how we spend our lives, how we spend our days is also how we spend our money. Bennett recommends dedicating seven hours a week to a hobby, a small outlay of time that will inevitably change your life. In my experience, money is similar. Small changes can have an enormous impact.

Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by George Horace Lorimer – Pithy and witty advice from a (fictional) business owner to his son as he’s set to graduate from college and join the family firm. Though it’s over 100 years old, Self-Made Merchant is packed with practical wisdom and could have been written yesterday. It’s a business course that many of us never had.

What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg – A cautionary tale about an ambitious, driven young man who makes it big in the budding movie industry in 1940s Los Angeles. We probably aren’t running for the same reasons as Sammy, but we’re running, nonetheless. If part of you thinks that accumulating more money is the answer to your non-money problems, this is a must-read.

Financial peace of mind has been the best side effect of having enough money to live on, a fully stocked emergency fund, and no debt.

But the key to victory is knowing when to stop. This is a constant focus for me.

At the start of my career, I worked aggressively to earn more money, but I’ve stopped pushing to earn more because I make enough money. I like to spend time working, but I’ve learned to stop before I grind myself into oblivion.

The guiding principle behind all of this is marginal utility. The first few dollars saved and hours worked are tremendously valuable. The 60th hour of your workweek is less so, as is the dollar you save by cutting out something you love to do.

I’ve made countless financial mistakes, so many that my greatest hits warranted an entire article last year. I’ll pick one of my favorites to focus on here.

When I graduated from college, I was working in a job in a field I didn’t love. I decided to take a grueling multi-part professional exam to jump from that job to a more interesting one in another industry.

I registered for the exam, bought premium self-study materials, and got ready to work.

I did everything except get to work. Intimidated by the mammoth task in front of me, I studied halfheartedly before giving up less than a month later.

The study materials and exam registration cost $1,600 at the time (about 10% of my net worth), but that’s not the point of the story.

Having the best tools for whatever you’re doing (e.g., studying, writing, reading, working, etc.) is secondary to having good habits. Money can’t create a work ethic.

My takeaway: establish good habits first and optimize them later.

In the past two years, I’ve spent a lot of time woodworking. I started with no experience, but I’m typing these answers on a desk and chair I took from rough cut boards to finish products.

I’m by no means a great woodworker – I mostly still suck, and my shop instructor has helped me salvage countless errors on each of my projects. I learn something every time I go into the woodshop.

Working with your hands teaches you to be present. Learning a subject from the beginning teaches you humility. Being bad at something teaches you not to take yourself too seriously.

I highly recommend trying something – it doesn’t matter what – that sits far outside your comfort zone. Think of it as an experiment.

You can learn more about CityFrugal at https://cityfrugal.com/ and follow them on Twitter at @CityFrugal.

About a year ago, in May 2019 I started up The Little Dollar, a blog I thought would be about my journey from broke to financially independent, however after researching, I found it best to help others reach their goals, and showcase my journey. By providing finance tips, advice and resources to help others achieve their financial goals.

I came up with The Little Dollar as a catchy name to showcase my beginner journey, as when I started I only had a $1000 emergency fund, some debt and a 600 credit score. I was no expert. (I still am nowhere close, but we all journey together). The full mission of The Little Dollar is to make money simple and understandable.

The most unique thing about The Little Dollar is the perspective which you will find articles written from, I was never rich, never above poverty line. I was homeless for a while actually.

The articles are written from a person who has learned how Personal Finance works when you make $10 an hour in one of top 5 expensive cities in America.

The Little Dollar offers readers a chance to understand how the concepts of money work on a simple and easy level. There is no need for fancy and crazy formulas or obnoxious strategies to reach higher. Simple easy math is integrated into the ideas of budgeting, savings and investing to make money topics more available.

Another great unique feature from The Little Dollar is the against the grain attitude towards wealth building. Many personal finance gurus will claim that you aren’t gaining wealth because you buy too much avocados and coffee. I disagree here.

The simple math suggests that if its not easy to save $1000 this month, no help from saving $4 on coffee is really going to move the needle. A more realistic approach will be needed.

All you need to be good with your personal finances is just to pay attention to your spending, budget and know what you value.

If you value cutting out everything that is seen as luxury until you reached a certain point with your finances, then that’s good. If you enjoy little treats along your journey while still being informed about and taking action towards, your financial future, that’s good too.

I do not believe that life is all about building wealth then just “being free”.

Life is meant to be enjoyed in the ways we see it. I think the best way to be ‘good with your personal finances’ is to not be stressed out by your financial situation.

My main habit is tracking my net worth. I post mine on the blog monthly, but I will usually hop in every week just to see how things have moved.

I also have become obsessed with my budget, I tend to follow more of a pay yourself first budget lately, 20-30% goes to savings or investing, then the rest covers bills, If I have anything left after bills, then it goes into investing again.

I also budget in fun money, I don’t mind spending $60 on a video game if it gets me to decompress a bit from the day. Most of the work I do in a day is my job mixed with side thoughts about my finances. I give myself room to slip so its not so stressful on me.

If you are not on my about me page, you’re missing out.

You can also check out one of my favorite posts I have done, My latest Net Worth Report for June 2020 – where I almost reached $5,000 in net worth! It was surreal for me to be quite honest.

Finally, one of my greatest pride and joys on my blog is my Net Worth Series. Tracking my Net Worth has guided me to think more intentionally about my finances and I only hope that that post does the exact same for its readers.

Short term, budgeting. Mid term, increasing income. Long term, invest in yourself.

This may be cliche or cheesy, but budgeting and curbing spending habits will help not only in the now, but in the long run as well. If you have trained your mind to not be so impulsive with spending. You can save a few dollars at Target, and when you make extra money, you can save that too.

Increasing your income is also key. And will help long term too. Nobody has ever become rich from a part time job and saving that money. Growth is key. So growing your income seems only fitting.

My first ever blogger that I noticed was J Money from Budgets are Sexy. I remember the first thing I said to my girlfriend. That his blog looked super outdated and I was confused on why anybody would read it. Then a week later I spent more time reading his blog than I did Facebook. J does it well. Fun fact, I shed a tear on this one. Thank you J!

Grant from Millennial Money is a top blogger of mine as well. He seems to be kinda headstrong in his approach whenever I read his content, although I am sure he isn’t as heavily vocal as I imagine him to be, the authority that I read his content in seems to draw deep respect from me. Thank you for your work Grant.

If you haven’t read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, what are you doing with your life. The weirdest thing is that my girlfriend’s dad mentioned the book to me, I read it and went to tell him, and he said he has yet to read it fully. I was blown away to be honest – that book changed my view of money.

Another good finance book I absolutely love is ‘I Will Teach you to be Rich’ from Ramit Sethi. One of the great personal finance minds that agrees with me that coffee is not a financial sin. He also has a beautiful approach to how to build wealth.

My absolute favorite is Crypto. I actually plan on starting a crypto blog on Medium shortly, however I do enjoy my REITs as well.

I really enjoy my Crypto investments as they are the ones I love to learn about. On a political spectrum I find myself to be very detached from the same old same old system that we have. I enjoy the innovative and community nature that crypto offers. I may also love crypto because I am a millennial but who knows if that’s really a good reason, haha.

I also enjoy REITs, the dividends they offer are top notch in my opinion and they are great to get involved in real estate without buying an actual property. I also want to give a fair shoutout to Precious metals as well. Silver is all I have at the moment but I do care for the weight that it carries in its reputation.

One of my absolute favorite questions! I love thinking about and talking about these situations.

First- $250K goes to a high yield savings account that is FDIC insured and will now serve as my emergency fund.

Second- $750K goes to a giving pledge. This will be money I just give away, to random homeless people I see on the street to a friend to my mother. Just because I got extra money doesn’t make me better than anybody.

Third- $2 Million will fund a few real estate investments that will bring in some passive cashflow. This includes the purchase of the property, any remodels or upgrades to that property and administrative costs for a property manager, site manager and accounting fees.

Fourth- $990K will go Into various investments in the markets, This will be Crypto, Gold/Silver, and any stocks and REITs I am currently buying.

Finally- $10K will be spending cash for maybe a fancy steak dinner, a few suits and some new tech products. While I know 10K will not go far with these splurge purchases, 0.2% of a windfall spent on random items I like that are shiny might be fair enough.

This of course is considering that the $5 million is post tax windfall money.

I’m very into 1600’s Golden Age Piracy and Ships. I am in complete awe of how a group of people became so entangled in community – they treated their ship as a company, they even had bean counters (Accounting!!) and took shares of the loot they stole.

I enjoy playing games that center around Piracy, watching movies and shows about it and studying the actual history. While a lot of my enjoyment is centered around a romanticized persona of the life. The viewpoint of them being criminals seems odd to me. They were placed in a system of servitude or death. The lifestyles of the times were different than our modern times. I find it all fascinating and enjoy learning more.

You can learn more about The Little Dollar at https://www.thelittledollar.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thelittledollar, and follow them on Twitter at @littledollar.

I have always been “into” personal finance but I really got inspired to start my blog after I was in a period of extended unemployment. That experience really changed the way I viewed our relationship with money and the importance of accessible personal finance education. When I was unemployed, I found that a lot of the information and content that I was looking for wasn’t readily available. I didn’t feel that anybody was talking to me and who understood my situations and circumstances. So I decided to write it myself!

My views and blog have evolved over the past three years but the main principles have remained the same.

I speak specifically to low-income people who are not looking to get rich or retire early. I am not trying to preach anything- I am just sharing my experiences and ideas and hope that someone out there can relate to my content. My blog isn’t about working towards a goal, necessarily. It is for people who aren’t “obsessed” with personal finance or making money- but just want to have their finances in order so they can live the life they want to live.

Being good with personal finances means having a system set up that works for you. It means making proactive decisions about money instead of constantly reacting to what life throws at you.

I live on a strict budget and use mostly cash. I think that having a budget is the biggest and most important part of personal finance. It is the cornerstone of all personal finance. Creating and sticking to a budget is the most important thing you can do. I am strict about my budget, no matter what.

I also automate all my savings. I very rarely spend time actually dealing with my finances. Everything is automated and set up to work with minimal intervention.

The most important thing to do to improve your financial situation is to take control of your finances. Create a budget and stick to it. A good budget has a savings portion and includes saving for emergencies. The first step would be to save at least $1,000. If you can set this goal and complete it, it will completely change the way you view your finances.

I think the biggest change happened when my husband and I created a budget. We had, like many, many couples always had squabbles about money. The constant questioning and second-guessing were taking a toll. Once we had a budget in place, there was no reason to argue anymore. There was no need to constantly be discussing money or purchases. It gave us each the freedom to spend money the way we wanted to. Neither of us feels the need to control the other’s purchases as the budget tells us where our money goes. Creating a budget has been one of the best things that we did for our marriage.

I do find myself sometimes more reluctant to spend money on things that I may have spent on in the past because I am more aware of the future value of our money. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I am still deciding ;). On the one hand I sometimes deprive myself of things that may make my life easier because I am so motivated to save as much as I can. On the other hand, I am saving a lot!

There is no better! There are so many factors that go into deciding what works for each person with their specific circumstances. Not everyone has the same goals, the same circumstances, have the same amount of money, or live in the same places.

That is the difficult thing about personal finance. There are no easy answers. I can’t tell you exactly what to do and I can’t give you a specific answer. I can only give you some core rules and ideas that you have to apply to your specific circumstances. It’s the old cliché that personal finance is personal. That is a cliché because it is true! There are very few hard and fast rules about things like this.

That being said, I have always personally dreamed of owning a home and I think that for most people it’s a dream that they will also make sense financially and emotionally. If that is your dream, then go for it! Not every decision has to be about where it makes the most sense financially.

Both! I am a strong believer that every single bit helps. So even if you can only cut down on things and save a dime, it’s still better than not saving a dime! Both increasing your income and decreasing your expenses can only be taken so far. There is a ceiling that you will eventually hit and there will come a time when you cannot cut a single thing. The best thing to do would be to work on both. Since increasing your income takes time, patience, and a bit of luck, you should start with decreasing your expenses and then work towards increasing your income as much as you can without sacrificing what you don’t want to sacrifice (self-care, family, morals, etc.). If you have already decreased your expenses and then your income increases your money will stretch even further! You can always add back the expenses that you cut. Increasing your income is very rarely a quick fix while decreasing your expenses is.

The biggest mistake that I made was not taking control of my finances as soon as I was “on my own”. I assumed that as long as I could pay my bills every month then I would be fine. However, this didn’t really let me save money for emergencies or the future. I also assumed that since I was paying my bills I didn’t really need a written budget. It seemed a bit superfluous. I cannot stress enough the difference having a real, written budget makes to your finances. There is only so much that you can accomplish by winging it.

There are things in life that I want and the only way to get them is to save money and be purposeful about my money. I would suggest to every single young person out there: make a WRITTEN budget and start saving.

I don’t think that amassing money is important. I have no plans to retire early or become a millionaire. What I do want is to be able to have the freedom to do what I want and create a life where I can provide for my children, give to charity, and not have to make decisions based on a lack of money.

Whether we like it or not, in the society where we live, money controls almost every single aspect of our lives. Money dictates a lot of the choices that we make in life. Having money or not “not-having” money gives you the freedom to lead the life you want. That is what I want for myself and for the people who read my blog. To not be constrained by lack of money and to be able to make the decisions that are best for you- not based on what you can afford.

You can learn more about A Dime Saved at https://adimesaved.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DimeSaved, and follow them on Twitter at @adimesaved.

I started my blog because I thought it would be a fun project and would allow me to get more involved in the personal finance community. I started reading dozens of blogs when I graduated college in 2011, but had stayed mostly silent since then.

The “EAT” in EAT money stands for Earn, Automate and Track. Earning more at my 9-5, automating my life and tracking my expenses is what has allowed me to have the financial success I’ve had.

My purpose is to give people the freedom that I have achieved! I have SO FAR to go on my journey but I’m confident I’ll get there. To do this I show people what I’ve done and how they could think about incorporating it into their life. I don’t save 80% of my income and I don’t plan on retiring when I’m 35. I just want to have a good financial cushion and not have to worry about my finances.

I think its really the focus on earning more at your day job and budgeting. A lot of blogs talk about side hustles, retirement accounts and taxes. Those are all important things.

My site focuses on being an outstanding employee and tracking your money. If you do those long enough the gap between your income and expenses will grow each year. It takes hard work and it takes patience but I truly believe it can work for anyone!

Being good with your personal finances means having a:

1. Firm foundation on your income
2. Understanding where you spend your money
3. Having a financial plan, however simple, to get you where you want to go

I believe that with those pillars put in place it really will make everything else in life easier. There are certainly things you can do past those things but they are mostly building off of those three key items.

It certainly takes some work to get there but once you are it doesn’t take a lot of work to maintain.

I’m a strong believer in habits and how they can have out-sized impacts on your life (either positive or negative). I actively track my habits and work to get better each day. Like any walk of life, your finances can benefit from positive habits.

The first habit that I started in 2011 was tracking every expense. My systems and methods have changed along the way but I’ve always done it. This has given me a crystal clear picture of what my family spends our money on and how that has changed over time.

The next habit is putting together a monthly budget. I’m not someone that follows their budget to the dime. I use my budget to really understand what expenses are on the horizon this upcoming month and what we may want to try and hold off on. I try to avoid big spikes in spending as that tends to create bad habits.

The last habit that I’d like to mention is one that I have cultivated that helps me in every facet of life. I’m an avid learner. Starting in 2012 I’ve tracked every book I read and have read (or listened too) as many as 40 in a year. Being a learning machine is a competitive advantage no matter what you are doing.

My posts tend to fall in one of three categories. I’ll select one from each category:

I write about earning more money. A great way to do that is with a graduate degree. I wrote a post about is an MBA worth it?

The next major area I talk about is budgeting. I have hit on this from several different angles but did write a post on the different types of budgets.

Lastly, I try to write periodically on mindset/motivation and how it can be beneficial. With that in mind, I wrote a piece on how your actions should match your ambition.

In the short term, you should focus on tracking and understanding your expenses.

This will allow you to ensure your spending aligns with your priorities. For instance, if cars don’t matter to you a whole lot but you have a $400 car payment that may be something to rethink. Doing this in the short term will allow you to make fairly quick gains.

In the medium term, I’d start reading books, blogs and listening to podcasts associated with personal finance.

This education is the single most important factor for your long term success.

In the long term, I’d focus on optimizing your income.

Are you being the best employee you can? Would getting a certification or degree give your income a jump? This will take extreme patience but can have huge dividends on your long term success.

Over time I’d say every area of my life has improved because I continue to get a stronger financial foundation under me. Frankly, just not having the stress of living paycheck to paycheck and knowing we can handle the unknowns that will pop up is key.

I’m very numbers & plan based while my wife is not. Early in our marriage we had several disagreements (still do occasionally) about why we need to watch our spending so closely. While having a partner that is the opposite of you is great in several regards, when it comes to budgeting it gets a little trickier.

I believe its very situation dependent. To me the most important metric is what percentage of your take home pay is going towards debt payments. I myself haven’t paid off all my student loans because its a very small percentage of my income and I’d rather have the cash in the bank.

In the short term, I believe decreasing expenses via tracking every expense is the way to go. You can see immediate gains in the gap between income and expenses.

On the other hand, its very hard to pinch pennies on your way to a high net worth. After you have your spending under control you need to focus on raising your income WHILE NOT raising your lifestyle to match these raises.

While the level of your incomes and expenses is important the most important metric to track is the gap between the two. It needs to keep growing over time!

The first thing I would do is let it sit in the bank for 6 months while I put together a plan. While that may not be the most optimized solution in the short term, I’d rather optimize for the longer term (if you haven’t picked up on it yet this is how I live my life: long term thinking and optimization).

I’d imagine some of my first actions after the plan is put together would be:

1. Paying off all my debt
2. Giving some of it away/setting up a non-profit
3. Maxing out all possible retirement accounts

I think the final big step would be to take a significant chunk of it and put it into index funds at a relatively conservative allocation. Those monies would be for future generations most likely in the form of a specific sum of money to either start a business or go to college.

The only reason that matters is because money gives you freedom. The more discipline you have in any area of life (physical, financial, or emotional fitness), the more freedom you have.

I know people that live paycheck to paycheck delay getting much needed healthcare and aren’t saving adequately for their future because they haven’t learned about personal finance and put together a plan.

Your happiness, the happiness of your partner and your family will all go up as you put together a financial foundation.

You can learn more about EAT Money at http://www.eat.money/ and follow them on Twitter at @eatmoneyblog.

I started Partners in Fire back in 2017. My mission is to help others reach financial independence, along with us (we aren’t there yet!), with finance tips and by promoting the type of lifestyle that being financially free can buy (RV life, travel, security, etc.).

I chose the name Partners in Fire because, in my opinion, we are all on this journey together, and I want readers to know that they have a partner and some support on their own quest for financial independence.

There are two things that makes Partners in Fire unique among finance blogs. First, and most importantly, is that I don’t shy away from discussing big picture societal problems. I’ve written about poverty traps, the unfair banking system, our healthcare system, wage stagnation, and a host of other issues that, in my opinion, prevent so many other people from even being able to consider financial independence.

Partners in Fire isn’t just about the upper middle class who has the same options that we do. It’s about all of society – and I want even the poorest among us to be able to achieve financial independence. That’s nearly impossible in our current economic system, and I use my platform to call it out.

The other thing that makes the blog unique is that I talk about so much more than finance.

Financial Independence isn’t just about the money. It’s about the lifestyle that having money can afford. It’s about being able to follow your dreams and do whatever you want, whether that be stream video games, travel, or adopt a ton of cats. While I don’t shy away from financial topics like investing, real estate, taxes, etc., it’s not the blog’s main focus.

Being good with your money means that you know where it is going – and it’s going where you want it to go.

I don’t think life and finance is all about building wealth. It’s about living the lifestyle that you want. If you’re spending all of your money on travel, but your life goal is traveling the world, are you doing it wrong? I don’t think so. I think you’re putting your money where your priority is.

That being said, I do think it’s smart to have a financial cushion and a back-up plan. Those who are really good with finances will have both.

I’m really good at not buying stuff. I make budget every two weeks, and I write down exactly where all my money is going to go for that period.

Bills, savings, and investments all get taken into consideration first, but then I also decide whether I need anything from Amazon, I think about what my grocery and gas budget for the period will be, and I decide if I’m going to do anything like go out to dinner or have a special event. I decide all of this before anything happens – and I stick to it!

Obviously sometimes things come up last minute, but having a plan in place to guide most of your spending on a weekly basis is extremely helpful.

The about me page is a great place to start!

If you want to know more about me and what I think of the FIRE movement, check out: Passion Fire

If you want to know more about the societal issues that I like to write about, check out my post on what family values should mean. This post gets a little political, but it’s the first time I ever wrote about policy and structural issues that prevent people from achieving freedom. I have more posts of this nature on my blog now.

In the short term, you should really start tracking your spending and budgeting. Stop letting your money decide where it goes, and start making it a conscious decision of where you want it to go.

The medium term is all about improving yourself. Find ways to increase your income, whether that means going for a promotion, changing jobs, or picking up a side hustle. Most of these things take time and investment into yourself.

And for the long term – you need to be investing. I don’t care if you have debt or no emergency fund, you need to put something – anything – into an investment account. Time in the market beats everything, every time (historically), and if you aren’t investing for your future self now, you are losing out.

I have so many favorites! But I’m going to try to narrow it down.

Angela @ Tread Lightly, Retire Early is an inspiration. She spearheaded the movement to show how many women actually are involved in personal finance, and her weekly roundups celebrating the women in finance are spectacular. I love the spirit of her blog (making environmentally friendly choices while on the path to financial independence) and her commitment to lifting up fellow lady bloggers.

Ryan @ Arrest your Debt is one of my best blogger friends. We started around the same time (though I think he started a few months after me) and it’s been amazing to see his growth. He takes blogging seriously, and it shows in all of the content he puts out.

Andrea @ Saving Joyfully is probably the nicest blogger I’ve ever come into contact with. She always seems to have a positive attitude and is always there to help someone else out. I love her positivity.

Purple @ A Purple Life is just all around fantastic. She has such great energy and won’t fail to remind you to do whatever it is that you need to do. Her blog is awesome, and she seems like just an overall great person.

I’m probably an outlier on this – but my answer is both! If you wait to invest until all your debt is paid, you may never get started – or you won’t start until your mid-to-late thirties. Study after study has shown that time in the market is the most important thing, and the sooner you start the better off you will be.

So you can’t wait until your debt is gone to invest.

But you also can’t ignore your debt for the sake of investing. Debt keeps us trapped, and the only way to achieve true freedom is to dig out of it. Having an enormous amount of debt also impacts our credit scores and our abilities to do normal life things – even renting a home requires a credit score!

So you need to do both. How much you should put to each is dependent on your priorities and how much debt/extra money you have, but you should absolutely put something into both pots.

I love stocks, but not individual stocks. Index funds are the best. You get to buy a variety of stocks in one bundle and most of them reinvest dividends for even more growth. Also, index funds tend to have lower expense ratios than other funds, so it’s not costing you much to manage it.

Real estate is okay – it can be incredibly valuable, but it generally has higher start-up costs and definitely isn’t as passive as you’d like (unless you chose an REIT – which in my open is basically an index fund for real estate).

I don’t have a lot of experience with the other classes – I have a small portfolio of precious metals as a hedge against a recession and I don’t like the volatility of crypto, so I stay away from it.

My biggest financial mistake is taking care of other people. I’ve gotten myself into so much debt and have had so much hardship because I can’t tell people no.

I cosigned a mortgage for my brother which continues to negatively affect my credit. I’ve been stolen from and lied to by ex-boyfriends, who have promised to pay me back and never have. I’ve cosigned cars for exes who can’t pay for them.

I learned these lessons the hard way. Never cosign for anyone. Choose your partner wisely, and cut them loose at the first sign that they might be taking advantage of you. I spent too much time, money, and emotional energy on people who were only out to use me, and that has pushed my plans back by a few years.

Don’t ignore red flags folks!

My favorite thing is travel.

I love travel because I love history, culture, food, and people, and I’d much rather experience those things for myself than read about them. Reading about the Coliseum and the Temple of Delphi isn’t nearly as exhilarating as seeing it in person. It gives you such an amazing feel for the history of these places and the cultures that built them.

Seeing the world is my number one passion – one that I indulge in as often as possible. I’ve already visited over 20 countries on 4 continents, and have no plans to stop. In fact, my first attempt at blogging was with a travel blog!

Unfortunately, with my full time job, 4 cats and 2 dogs, I don’t have as much time to travel as I’d like, so that’s been put on the back burner for now. But it’s one of my top passion fire goals! 🙂

How You Can

You can learn more about Partners in Fire at https://partnersinfire.com/ and follow them on Twitter at @partnersinfire.