Know Your Blogger Series
Abandoned Cubicle
Abandoned Cubicle started in September of 2016. The mission of the blog is to generate a cheering section of sorts, in order to convince myself to retire early.
If there’s one thing that maybe sets me apart, it’s that I’m all over the map with my interests and whims on the blog. One minute I’ll be posting hell-bent on early retirement, the next, I’m advising kids to stay in their cubes. For some, I suppose that could be entertaining to read about.
Check out our Q&A with Abandoned Cubicle here.
If there’s one thing that maybe sets me apart, it’s that I’m all over the map with my interests and whims on the blog. One minute I’ll be posting hell-bent on early retirement, the next, I’m advising kids to stay in their cubes. For some, I suppose that could be entertaining to read about.
Check out our Q&A with Abandoned Cubicle here.
Ditch the corporate life and make your cubicle abandoned with this interview from the blog, Abandoned Cubicle.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Abandoned Cubicle.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Abandoned Cubicle, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Abandoned Cubicle to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Abandoned Cubicle for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Abandoned Cubicle, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Abandoned Cubicle to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Abandoned Cubicle for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell Us About Abandoned Cubicle
Abandoned Cubicle started in September of 2016. The mission of the blog is to generate a cheering section of sorts, in order to convince myself to retire early.
At the very least, I’ve been able to commit a few thousand dollars over the past couple of years to Children’s Heartlink via scant blog revenues. That means a lot to me, even if the blog hasn’t “taken off” like some others in this crowded space.
The name “Abandoned Cubicle” came about from brainstorming between me and my wife. She deserves most of the credit, as I think the best name I could think of was “Cubicle Confidential” or something lame and uninspired like that…
What makes you and your blog unique?
I’m not certain there’s a whole heckuva lot that makes Abandoned Cubicle (and its author) different. You’re reading about a middle-aged, college educated white dude after all.
I’ve led a pretty fortunate life and took advantage of being “smart enough” to get educated coming out of a middle-middle class Rust-belt USA childhood. If there’s one thing that maybe sets me apart, it’s that I’m all over the map with my interests and whims on the blog. One minute I’ll be posting hell-bent on early retirement, the next, I’m advising kids to stay in their cubes.
For some, I suppose that could be entertaining to read about.
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?
It means controlling your impulses.
Most of us suffer from pangs of spendthriftery (as J. Money puts it). We want the newest iPhone or Tesla Model 3. We want our homes to look like Joanna Gaines spend a fortnight revamping the joint.
Being good with personal finance means keeping everything in a constant state of moderation. Severely limit what you spend on the big things (houses, cars, tuition) so you can spend a bit more freely on a few nice things or fun trips.
I’m not a hyper-frugalist but I don’t want to have a cloud of guilt hanging over my head for spending too much money on things that ultimately don’t make me happy.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
The main thing I do is keep track of our balance sheet. A simple spreadsheet in excel captures our monthly expenses and income. On separate tabs I’ll track miscellaneous expenses that are irregular or discretionary (insurance payments, home improvement materials, etc.)
I’ve found that the simple act of checking in a couple of times of week and logging expenses, gauging net worth gains and losses… it all helps give me the sense of control.
The other key habit is to talk about money subjects with your spouse or partner. Eliminate any and all surprises! It takes work to build harmony with shared budgets in a household, and you need to maintain that harmony with intent.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
My best advice is to first take an inventory of where your money is being spent: mortgage, rent, auto, shopping, travel, etc.
Next, have productive and open conversations with your spouse about where you can reasonably scale-back in order to achieve your personal ideal financial situation.
For some, that means a smaller house and used cars replacing large homes, a Ford F150 and a Lexus. Everyone’s situation is unique, but if achieving financial independence is something you want to attain, there’s generally a combination of living small and income improvement that needs to happen.
Also, consider exploring careers that pay well and might offer a rewarding enough work experience. You may need to take on debt to acquire a degree, trade, or license, but the increase in pay could make the investment well worth it (especially for careers in technology and healthcare).
Finally, geoarbitrage is worth considering. If you aren’t averse to leaving behind extended family and friends and can easily pull up stakes, research other states and towns that offer more affordable housing and job prospects. Just don’t sacrifice too much in the process.
In your opinion, what’s better? Renting a place or buying a house to live?
It all depends on your stage of life and where you live.
In your 20’s, renting is always smart. You never know what life events or career changes could pop up, so stay mobile.
Also, if you live in a part of the country with super high real estate costs, renting wins there too. (Think, L.A., NYC, San Francisco, etc.)
In your opinion, what should you do first? Pay down debt, or invest?
Both. Pay down high interest debts approaching 10% or higher, while you’re putting at least the amount needed for employer match in a 401k.
In your opinion, what’s better? Focusing on increasing your income, or focusing on decreasing your expenses?
Increasing your income, hands down. Sure, decreasing expenses helps in the immediate term, but an increased income can really ratchet up your financial independence game. If your career has limited income ceilings and you have a passion for the work, consider some side-gig businesses. This is where real estate rentals and having an Airbnb hospitality business have helped augment our income.
What is your favorite investment class and why? (stocks, private business, bonds, real estate, crypto, precious metals, etc.)
I like real estate above all else. Steady growth, favorable tax treatment, and income from rents make real estate an excellent cornerstone in one’s portfolio.
If you received a $5,000,000 windfall tomorrow, what would you do with the money?
What a wonderfully fun question! We’d probably buy a bigger house closer to nature (Ha! So much for living small??) Then, after paying off our remaining debts (rental mortgages and student loans), I suspect we’d try to mimic a small scale version of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It’d be great fun (and extraordinarily challenging of course) to explore new technology and policy solutions to address the biggest problems our global society faces.
That’s my Early Retirement ideal.
How You Can Contact Abandoned Cubicle for More Information
You can learn more about Abandoned Cubicle at https://www.abandonedcubicle.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cubertAC/, and follow them on Twitter at @cubertAC.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Abandoned Cubicle, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
Stop Ironing Shirts
I started Stop Ironing Shirts more as a hobby to write about finishing up my corporate career, early retirement, and life afterwards to help other professionals going through the same thing.
I always saved money by avoiding taking my shirts to the cleaners, but the goal was to stop that (and I ironed my last shirt in March of 2019).
Check out our Q&A with Stop Ironing Shirts here.
I always saved money by avoiding taking my shirts to the cleaners, but the goal was to stop that (and I ironed my last shirt in March of 2019).
Check out our Q&A with Stop Ironing Shirts here.
Come read how you can stop ironing your dress shirts on the way to early retirement in this interview with Stop Ironing Shirts.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Stop Ironing Shirts.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Stop Ironing Shirts, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Stop Ironing Shirts to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Stop Ironing Shirts for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Stop Ironing Shirts, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Stop Ironing Shirts to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Stop Ironing Shirts for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about Stop Ironing Shirts
I started Stop Ironing Shirts more as a hobby to write about finishing up my corporate career, early retirement, and life afterwards to help other professionals going through the same thing. It was difficult for me to part ways with my professional identity and a career I built after climbing the corporate ladder.
As for the name of the blog, I always saved money by avoiding taking my shirts to the cleaners, but the goal was to stop that (and I ironed my last shirt in March of 2019).
What makes you and your blog unique?
I look at the early retirement path solely using income from a corporate job and market investment. There’s no real estate wins, no tech IPO, no small business sale, and no side hustle that made the retirement possible.
Early retirement came after a decade and a half of earnings through sales and corporate employment while investing the difference between money earned and money spent.
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?
I think of personal finances in the same way I would think about a business: What you earn minus what you spend is the net profit, and the higher the net profit, the more money you will have.
For me, this means earning more than I spend, spending less than I make, and investing the difference.
There are so many expense pressures that come from being a human, so it’s easy to spend 100% or more of the incoming cash flow.
It takes self-discipline to overcome these pressures, but with practice, it can be done.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
Follow a budget, then starve it: The most important habit for our personal finances was always using a budget and tracking our expenses.
When my income grew, I set up automatic investments, increased deferrals, and kept the amount of money flowing into the budget low.
Every time I got a raise through work, I increased the automatic investments to keep lifestyle creep from showing up.
Also, I try to drive vehicles as long as possible. I recently passed 230,000 on the vehicle I’ve owned for the last thirteen years!
I’m not dogmatic about the new vs. used car debate, or small vs larger vehicle, but I can’t believe how quick people are to buy a new car because of a single repair at 130,000 miles, just assuming it’ll keep costing money.
I had a round of repairs around 150,000 miles, but have since gotten another 80,000 issue free!
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
The three articles people should read are:
The First $500,000: My philosophy around financial independence is about getting to the first half a million dollars in net worth.
Getting to $500,000 puts someone in the top 20% in the United States in Net Worth (2017 statistics), and is what I consider a financial freedom number – especially when someone can make it there before 40.
It doesn’t mean you can stop working, but the need for money to be the primary motivator goes down.
Home Ownership Cost Us $60,000 in a Great Housing Market: This article is all about the rent vs. buy decision for housing. There are a lot of factors that go into home ownership: What is the comparable rent cost, what is the hold period, and what are the transaction costs?
A short hold period when combined with some maintenance expense and the transaction costs of selling can cause a massive loss on a home.
There isn’t an automatic answer for everyone and comparing the cost of renting to the cost of buying is important. Personally I’m going to rent unless a home’s price is roughly within 125x of the monthly rent.
I Gave My Early Retirement Notice….and Live Tweeted It: It’s not very often someone has been at the same company for 16+ years and gives a retirement notice just short of their 37th birthday. I knew this was a once in a lifetime moment and remembered to document it for the world to see.
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
The first step is accepting responsibility for your financial situation. Blaming someone else or “the system” is ceding responsibility and control for your outcome. Next, you have to figure out which levers you can pull to increase the gap between what you earn and what you save.
Mr. Money Mustache’s article on debt was one of the most impactful things I’ve ever read. I see too many people treating their financial situation like isn’t an emergency, when in reality, it is an emergency.
Debt, unless it is against reasonably purchased real estate that replaces rent (or an investment property), is a complete emergency. Interest is a negative charge to your financial statement each day you wake up. Too many people still don’t treat debt like the emergency it is.
Some other questions I have for you before I can provide more advice…
Do you have more income opportunities? Work more. If you’re in sales, make more sales calls, go to more events. If your income in the day job is capped, what type of gig work can you pick up in your down time? There are income opportunities that just weren’t available a decade ago.
What abut expenses? People talk about housing, food, and transportation because they are so important.
My short term/emergency advice, such as for folks carrying student loans, vehicle, and/or credit card debt looks like this:
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If you can’t afford to live alone, get roommates to help share the fixed costs.
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Do you have debt and want advice on food expenses? If Aldi doesn’t sell it, you can’t afford to eat it.
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Finally, understand that cars are expensive. The number of nice cars I see in “young professional” apartment complexes is both shocking and depressing to me.
It seems that the 20 something dream is to live in an expensive 1 bedroom apartment, have a financed new vehicle parked outside, and then buy restaurant food 3-4x per week.
For someone who wants to become financially successful, this dream seems asinine to me.
In your opinion, what’s better? Renting a place or buying a house to live?
Renting and buying a house are both great decisions. *Selling* a house can be a destructive financial decision.
Let the numbers drive your choice, buy a property with a good rent/price ratio and you’ll be fine. I’d advise people to avoid buying something that doesn’t work as a rental property unless they are sure it is *the* forever home.
Having to sell something that doesn’t work as a rental can be destructive financially.
In your opinion, what’s better? Focusing on increasing your income, or focusing on decreasing your expenses?
I’m on the income side of this argument. I pursued a career in sales, which has a higher income opportunity and surprised some people when I said our early retirement budget is in the $70,000/yr range.
Ultimately the gap between earning and spending matters, how someone gets a gap and grows it is a personal choice.
What is your favorite investment class and why? (stocks, private business, bonds, real estate, crypto, precious metals, etc.)
I’m a long term equity investor. I like owning pieces of companies. The great thing about investing is everyone gets to pick their own assets for risk/return and sometimes we get caught up dogmatically telling people that A is good while B is bad.
There are successful investors in many asset classes: Stocks, Fixed Income, Real Estate, and Entrepreneurial Businesses.
Either find one, and get really good at it, or invest the difference between what you make and what you spend in an index fund and keep earning money.
If you received a $5,000,000 windfall tomorrow, what would you do with the money?
I’d do a bunch of investing, but that’s not the fun part of the question.
I would improve our housing situation. If we stay where we live now, I’d either get a place on the beach or with a private dock.
Otherwise I’d move our primary residence to Florida, or Hawaii, and buy a second home in the mountains somewhere.
What’s a non-money related interest you have and what do you love about it?
I love the outdoors and traveling. Fishing, trail running, and hiking and high in my list of enjoyable activities. I’ve also recently taken up surfing, so I’m excited for more to come there.
Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?
There are so many institutions that profit by making money *more* complicated than it needs to be.
I used to joke when Investment Bankers came to visit and they’d be throwing around all these garbage terms that were created to make things more confusing.
Investment advisors are often guilty of the same thing.
Investing money isn’t complicated: Buy slices of companies and enjoy their future cash flow. It’s also not complicated, (but very difficult) to track every dollar you spend spending and spending less than you make.
How You Can Contact Stop Ironing Shirts for More Information
You can learn more about Stop Ironing Shirts at https://stopironingshirts.com/ and follow them on Twitter at @stironingshirts.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Stop Ironing Shirts, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
Financial Mechanic
I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, and I wanted to start a money blog. Financial Mechanic brings to mind tinkering with money and learning how to use money as a tool. I wanted to write about my own financial journey to help others hone their own.
I hope that by sharing my story, there is one more example for people to use as inspiration on their own financial journey.
Check out our Q&A with Financial Mechanic here.
I hope that by sharing my story, there is one more example for people to use as inspiration on their own financial journey.
Check out our Q&A with Financial Mechanic here.
Come learn how to flip the script and get to financial independence with this interview from Financial Mechanic.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Financial Mechanic.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Financial Mechanic, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Financial Mechanic to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Financial Mechanic for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Financial Mechanic, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Financial Mechanic to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Financial Mechanic for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about Financial Mechanic
I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, and I wanted to start a money blog.
Financial Mechanic brings to mind tinkering with money and learning how to use money as a tool. I wanted to write about my own financial journey to help others hone their own.
I wouldn’t have considered financial independence or early retirement as an option until I saw examples of other people doing it. I hope that by sharing my story, there is one more example for people to use as inspiration on their own financial journey.
What makes you and your blog unique?
There are lots of blogs out there detailing what the difference is between a ROTH IRA and a Traditional IRA, but this is not that – it’s a story.
I tell you about my life in snippets while still communicating money choices that I’ve made in order to reduce my spending (I only spent $15k last year) and increase my earnings (I switched into software engineering and through negotiation doubled my salary in two years.)
I share all of my net worth numbers in the hope of breaking down some money taboos. The more we talk about money, the better off we will be.
Year by year, I’m journaling my progress to financial independence.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
I spent many years acting like an ostrich with my money. I wasn’t exactly sure what my net worth was or how much I was spending.
In order to gain more perspective and set a reasonable goal towards financial independence, I started to put more effort in finding out the specifics of my money.
Now, I keep expense reports every month to keep track of my spending and try to pick out patterns for planning into the future.
I would recommend people break down their spending and find out where their money is going. I personally use Personal Capital to manage my investments and track my spending.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
The three articles that people should read on my site to get to know me better are:
You Flipped the Script: I try to take a creative approach to my writing, and really like this article.
How to Make your Significant Other Hate FIRE: I like to sprinkle in some humor with many of my articles.
Independence with a Side of Meatballs: But, ultimately, I want to drive home the importance of independence, whether it is personal or financial independence.
What’s an area of your life which has benefited from improving your personal finances? Have there been any areas of your life which have suffered?
Improving my personal finances meant I got to have more control over my life. Defining a goal to put my money towards means I’m not saving just to save, I’m making the decision to spend my money on freedom instead of a second car.
Another benefit of learning about personal finances is learning about other people’s goals. I would never have known that you could travel the world indefinitely for about the same cost as staying at home.
I wouldn’t have thought about the benefits of homesteading or picking up side hustles that I enjoy along the way.
What are your favorite personal blogs and bloggers you have been inspired by?
There are 5 personal finance blogs I love:
Frugalwoods (for life adventures)
Bitches Get Riches (for comic relief)
The Luxe Strategist (for prioritized spending)
A Purple Life (for gumption)
Four Pillar Freedom (for data)
In your opinion, what’s better? Focusing on increasing your income, or focusing on decreasing your expenses?
There is no telling which is better: earning more or spending less, as both are important.
I have doubled my salary in two years, but also cut my spending to the bone, which has allowed me to save $300,000 by the age of 26.
While many people might attribute that amount to a high engineering salary, I did the math and found that I could still retire early if I made any amount over $25,000. That kind of flexibility is made possible by low spending.
The years are long, and people are resourceful.
Choose one area to focus on first, like trying to decrease housing expenses, then focus on what you need to do to get that next promotion. Widen the gap between what you make and what you spend, and you will be successful.
What’s a non-money related interest you have and what do you love about it?
I read a lot, alternating between business-focused books and fantasy. I read Game of Thrones way before it was cool (13 years ago to be precise), and love everything by Brandon Sanderson.
Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?
Money touches every facet of our lives. It drives our decisions from where we want to live, what we want to do, and if we want to work. Having a handle on personal finance is the key to ultimate freedom. If we let our finances run amok, we are no longer in control.
Money is the tool to being able to take six months off of work to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, to travel the world as a nomad, or to be able to be there to raise your children rather than take that pressing work-related call.
I firmly believe that taking control of your money will enable you to take control of your life. It will set you free.
How You Can Contact Financial Mechanic for More Information
You can learn more about Financial Mechanic at https://www.financialmechanic.com and follow them on Twitter at @fimechanic.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Financial Mechanic, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
Life Outside the Maze
What would it mean to try to escape that system entirely and live life outside the maze?
I created this site shortly after realizing that I was in a position where I could stop working for other people to get money and start working for myself to get happiness. I wanted to share what I know that had gotten me to a level of financial independence. I also wanted to keep myself accountable while researching and exploring what a life might look like beyond traditional employment.
Check out our Q&A with Life Outside the Maze here.
I created this site shortly after realizing that I was in a position where I could stop working for other people to get money and start working for myself to get happiness. I wanted to share what I know that had gotten me to a level of financial independence. I also wanted to keep myself accountable while researching and exploring what a life might look like beyond traditional employment.
Check out our Q&A with Life Outside the Maze here.
Come read about how you can escape the maze of working and get on the path to early retirement!
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Life Outside the Maze.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Life Outside the Maze, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Life Outside the Maze to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Life Outside the Maze for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Life Outside the Maze, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Life Outside the Maze to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Life Outside the Maze for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about Life Outside The Maze
Coming from the startup world, I spent my career pushing others to raise the bar and sprinting to get ahead.
One day while we were pitching an extremely successful entrepreneur and angel investor for funding, he went off on a tangent lamenting how his money and lifestyle had complicated his relationships and actually made him less happy.
He paused and looked around our tiny box of an office and said “this is the happiest you will ever be. Remember this time.”
It kind of floored me. Drinking loads of diet Dr. Pepper and listening to a co-worker have yet another mild emotional breakdown in a windowless office did not seem like it was that great.
We were working our asses off and feeling like we were failing every day. “This time” that the investor had fondly spoken of actually really sucked. He had created and sold startups many times over but still he seemed unfulfilled. I started writing 30-40 pages of ideas just to work through it.
Those pages became the first 10 posts of Life Outside The Maze.
What makes you and your blog unique?
How much is enough, and what is the real correlation between money, success, and happiness?
The angel investor I mentioned earlier had lots of money and success but seemed to be running on a hamster wheel.
What would it mean to try to escape that system entirely and live life outside the maze?
I have never had expensive tastes and have aggressively saved and invested. I created this site shortly after realizing that I was in a position where I could stop working for other people to get money and start working for myself to get happiness.
I wanted to share what I know that had gotten me to a level of financial independence. I also wanted to keep myself accountable while researching and exploring what a life might look like beyond traditional employment.
Over time, 4 categories have emerged: Financial Independence, Building Happiness, Adventure / Travel, and Successful Habits. Currently the blog has no ads and I make zero profit from this endeavor. I write to be part of a community and to help others on the path.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
Investing a dollar and getting $1.07 back after a year sounds boring to most. When I started a Roth IRA as a teenager, my friends literally laughed out loud that I was talking about retirement before I could legally drink a beer.
However, compounding over 50 years at those boring 7% annual returns, $8,000 saved up by age 18 becomes over $235K by retirement. This blew my mind and I got hooked on saving money and investing money early in my life.
I have always been frugal by choice and lived on less than half of my income. I pursued aggressive pay increases in my career, real estate side hustles, and I fully used employer benefits and retirement plans in every creative way that I could.
At some point, I made a spreadsheet that included all of my accounts totaling up to a net worth. Along the way, I updated it once every month or two for the past 15 years. This was depressing at first but over time it became motivating. Eventually it became rewarding to open it up and look at the sizable nest egg building up.
Early on someone gave me the great advice that people work to pay bills, but people invest to become wealthy. “You can either earn the compound interest if you can get ahead of your expenses and invest, or you can pay it with rolling credit card debt,” he told me.
Long term investing through this last bull market created lots of wealth for those who were invested. The current situation with COVID-19 is challenging for all of us and the stock markets have fallen as well.
However, there will soon be another opportunity for more to copy this same path as this market recovers.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
Here are three posts which you should definitely check out to know more about me and my blog:
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
I love this question.
In the long term, I think about trajectory. I believe it is so important that I even made this short video to illustrate the concept. If you can do something to change your trajectory early in life, and that thing is applied over time, your life looks dramatically different over the long term.
Things that can change a financial trajectory are getting a college degree or piling up specialization certifications and credits early in your trade or career. Starting investing 10 years earlier than everyone else is also a good example.
In the medium term, improving finances comes down to only 3 things: making more money, spending less money, and investing the difference. I aggressively applied all 3 to make work optional for myself in my 30s and I write quite a bit about tactics and specifics.
In the short term, most would say “get rich quick” is for fools. However, what if you are 50 with no savings and you know that you have 10 years of hustle left in you at most? What if you are 20 and prepared to sprint like crazy to be wealthy in one decade?
I put this guide and examples together for those who want to become wealthy as quickly as possible while also not taking on inappropriate levels of risk In the short term, I know it is possible, but it is going to take some extraordinary effort to get those extraordinary results.
What’s an area of your life which has benefited from improving your personal finances? Have there been any areas of your life which have suffered?
This is an interesting one because the whole reason I ever started thinking about money was ironically so that someday I’d never have to think about money. This is perhaps the biggest benefit of personal finance for me is having a safety net during challenging times. With the COVID-19 pandemic, right now is a really hard time.
While money can’t buy happiness, it can prevent unhappiness, stress, and hardship in many cases.
What is your favorite investment class and why?
I don’t have a favorite because it is always about what asset class has the best risk adjusted returns at any given time and how these fit together into a balanced and cohesive portfolio.
I invest in stocks and bonds as well as buy, rehab and rent real estate. I have invested in some crazy stuff over the years including real estate loans and notes, swing arm oil wells, angel/venture capital, and more.
For the vast majority of people, as much money as possible parked for a long time in broad index funds with low expense ratios is the perfect mix of easy, safe, and has historically provided a great return. However, I delve quite a bit deeper into investing as well.
What’s a non-money related interest you have and what do you love about it?
Back when I was working in corporate land, I hung 5 photos in my cubicle. Today those same 5 photos hang in my office: Kurt Vonnegut, Socrates, Isaac Newton, Bob Dylan, and Leonardo DaVinci. Put these people together and that is kind of who I wanted to be when I grew up.
In addition to that Tom Hanks movie, DaVinci had another code. He championed this idea of the renaissance man, where you could be a master at lots of things. He was an inventor, sculptor, painter, philosopher, and more. I have always aspired to this.
I love entrepreneurship, write and record music, am an inventor, and I maintain a silly little blog. I practice Muay Thai kick boxing, like to cook, brew beer, and have traveled to over 25 countries. In short, I like to try things. I have found that being at the edge of comfort is often surprisingly fun and is where lots of learning comes from.
Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?
1 in 4 families are living paycheck to paycheck in the USA. When something happens like the loss of a job or the elephant in the room today that is COVID-19, the lack of an emergency fund is devastating. Several surveys have indicated that money is the thing couples fight about the most. Around 38% of Americans have revolving credit card debt. This culture of debt acceptance is choking our financial futures. Especially during times like this where many of those who have credit card debt are the same ones losing their jobs.
Believe it or not, the average American household brings in over $2 million dollars after taxes over a lifetime of working. If even 25% of that could be saved each year, the average household could retire with $3.4 million dollars (check it out).
I want to educate and inspire others about how to change their earning, saving, and investing habits for a better life. There has never been a better time to make a change, take control, and start seeing finances as something empowering rather than something stressful or boring.
How You Can Contact Life Outside the Maze for More Information
You can learn more about Life Outside the Maze at https://lifeoutsidethemaze.com, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/lifeoutsidethemaze, and follow them on Twitter at @OutsideMaze.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Life Outside the Maze, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
Nomad Numbers
In 2018, we sold most of our possessions, moved out of San Francisco and quit our jobs to slow travel the world… indefinitely.
Our mission is to inspire people to think differently about the life they can design for themselves. We are achieving this mission currently by sharing our nomadic journey of slow travel and show that the cost of traveling the world can be much cheaper than the cost of staying home.
Check out our Q&A with Nomad Numbers here.
Our mission is to inspire people to think differently about the life they can design for themselves. We are achieving this mission currently by sharing our nomadic journey of slow travel and show that the cost of traveling the world can be much cheaper than the cost of staying home.
Check out our Q&A with Nomad Numbers here.
Come read about how the blog Nomad Numbers is showing readers how to travel the world without breaking the bank.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Nomad Numbers.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Nomad Numbers, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Nomad Numbers to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Nomad Numbers for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Nomad Numbers, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Nomad Numbers to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Nomad Numbers for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about Nomad Numbers
In 2018, we sold most of our possessions, moved out of San Francisco and quit our jobs to slow travel the world… indefinitely. Our blog started as a way to share this next chapter of our lives and help us connect with like-minded full-time travelers. We are able to achieve this lifestyle through financial independence and live off of our savings and investments.
Our mission is to inspire people to think differently about the life they can design for themselves. We are achieving this mission currently by sharing our nomadic journey of slow travel and show that the cost of traveling the world can be much cheaper than the cost of staying home. We’ve been lately expanding our content to feature dozen of like-minded travelers that we’ve since met through this wonderful journey to showcase other ways to live a truly meaningful life through nomadic travel and different ways to financially support it.
We came up with the name Nomad Numbers because we wanted to share the detailed expenses about this lifestyle and how approachable it is. I am myself a big numbers cruncher so tracking expenses was already something I did since I was a teenager (I have been tracking my daily expenses since I was 17 years old!).
What makes you and your blog unique?
When we started to plan for a life of travel, we found a lot of beautiful travel blogs on the Internet but it was difficult to get solid numbers on what it costs to stay in such places. There are a few websites that crowdsource this information but we found such resources either inconsistent, incomplete or even erroneous. Also, most of this information does not seem to apply with our slow travel philosophy.
And since we have a passion for numbers, we like to track everything, especially expenses. So we are building a cost of living index for ourselves and decided that it might be useful to share it with people. Which is why we started writing both destinations reports and weekend guides.
We also design pretty infographics that give an at a glance view of our cost of living for each city we traveled to. Hopefully, people can use them to plan their long term travel.
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?
For us, it is first and foremost being educated on the fundamentals of personal finance and making sound decisions for financial independence.
Our philosophy is to keep it simple, let it run on auto-pilot and live our lives. During our working years, this meant keeping our expenses low, our savings rate high, increasing our earnings and investing early. We also follow the philosophy of keeping a simple portfolio of low cost index funds of the world market and bonds with some real estate for diversification.
Now that we are in the preservation phase, we mainly focus on keeping our expenses low while letting our investments run its course. In summary, being good with personal finance for us is not picking stocks, maximizing earnings, being up to date with the latest trends or understanding complex theories! We stick to the fundamentals and are very intentional with its simplicity.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
On a daily basis, we like to capture our daily expenses on the go and this has become a natural habit. On a monthly basis, I do a 30 minute check up on our finances to make sure our expenses are still within expectations. On a quarterly basis, we’ve started to rebalance our portfolio. Lastly, on a yearly basis, we look back at the previous year and define our financial goals and target for the year to come.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
In the short term (up to 1 year), educate yourself about personal finance, then start making an inventory of your finances (where your money is going) and start cutting unnecessary expenses.
In the medium-term (1-3 years), execute a plan to get out of debt, start building an emergency fund and invest the surplus.
In the long term, start investing your money(we suggest the approach in The Simple Path to Wealth by Jim Collins) and think about your ideal lifestyle if work became optional – this will be a big motivator. If you do it right and manage to save 50%+ of your income, you should be able to reach financial freedom in less than 15 years and live out your dream lifestyle.
What are your favorite personal finance books?
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Quit Like A Millionaire: No Gimmicks, Lock or Trust Fund Required (by Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung) – This is my current go-to book for people that want an introduction to the concept of financial independence. Whether you want to become a nomadic traveler or simply want to live your passion without having to worry about the financial aspect of life, this book will be life-changing.
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The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life (by JL Collins) – This is the book I always recommend to people that want to get started with investing. It is written by the Godfather of Personal Finance, JL Collins.
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Your Money Or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence (by Vicki Robin) – Whether you are a fresh graduate ready to take on the next chapter in life, haven’t yet begun to master money or are ready to make changes to improve to your current lifestyle, you will learn a lot from this book.
Do you have any financial mistakes you’d like to share, and how have you grown from these mistakes to improve your personal finances?
Poorly investing money in real estate in France at a time when I did not understand cash flow. We have since educated ourselves on real estate investing and invested in property in the US that has been providing much better and healthier cash flow.
Being mostly invested in individual stocks from companies we worked at. Luckily, none of those individual stocks tanked but it was a very passive way of investing to just let company stock collect and do its thing. Once we educated ourselves on personal finance and the importance of diversification, we sold all of the individual stock and moved it to low cost index funds.
Not discovering travel rewards until late 2016, I used to sign up for Amazon credit cards just to get a $50 credit! That was a missed opportunity of tens of thousands of dollars that we could have used towards flight redemptions. We’ve since been mastering travel rewards and have been saving about 10K / year in airfare thanks to them.
If you received a $5,000,000 windfall tomorrow, what would you do with the money?
We would pay the tax first, have some fun purchases, then invest the rest! A part of it would go towards a dream home that we would use as a home base but continue to travel for most of the year – this is something we think about doing anyways but this windfall would allow us to seriously upgrade the dream home.
We would also use the passive income generated from the investments to treat our family and friends to join us on some trips. Part of it would go to a good cause because it’s well beyond what we need to live very comfortably!
What’s a non-money related interest you have and what do you love about it?
I personally love photography and videography. I carry a drone with us and that has been a great way to capture amazing footage of the places we’ve been to. (See our Youtube channel to see all of our videos)
Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?
Personal finance and money can buy you the most valuable thing: freedom. There are so many unhappy people in the world that feel trapped because they are stuck in a job that they hate, are paralyzed by debt or are postponing their dreams.
If people had the freedom to live out their dreams, spend time with their family or pursue a meaningful job, the world would be a much better and happier place. I think most people mistake money as a means to buy more stuff when actually the value of money is to be able to have the freedom of choice.
How You Can Contact Nomad Numbers for More Information
You can learn more about Nomad Numbers at https://www.nomadnumbers.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/nomadnumbers/, and follow them on Twitter at @NomadNumbers.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Nomad Numbers, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
Full Time Finance
Full Time Finance started in September of 2016. The goal was to write for higher-income corporate professionals and those hoping to become one. I love reading and writing about financial topics.
So many blogs in our space focus on getting to retirement or out of debt. I try to write about enjoying the ride as a corporate professional in a somewhat higher income role.
Check out our Q&A with Full Time Finance here.
So many blogs in our space focus on getting to retirement or out of debt. I try to write about enjoying the ride as a corporate professional in a somewhat higher income role.
Check out our Q&A with Full Time Finance here.
Come read about Full Time Finance, a blog about helping you succeed with your finances as a corporate professional.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Full Time Finance.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Full Time Finance, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Full Time Finance to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Full Time Finance for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Full Time Finance, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Full Time Finance to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Full Time Finance for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about Full Time Finance
Full Time Finance started in September of 2016. The goal was to write for higher income corporate professionals and those hoping to become one. I love reading and writing about financial topics. My wife however hates the topic. As such we decided the site would be a great outlet for me. She came up with the name actually. Basically it is the combination of working full time in the corporate world while managing one’s finances.
What makes you and your blog unique?
So many in our space focus on getting to retirement or out of debt. I try to write about enjoying the ride as a corporate professional in a somewhat higher income role. The middle step in life where you look for optimization and/or how to get to that middle step. In addition I sprinkle in some stories about our experiences as foster care parents.
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?
The number one most important thing for your personal finances is to define your goal. Once you decide a direction take definitive action to hit those goals. That’s it. But so many people either never define their goals, are afraid to take the first step, or don’t stick with the action.
The actions and goals actually are unique to the individual. Which ones chosen in many way’s matter less than that you plan them out and take action consistently. Not everyone wants to be the next Bill Gates or Retire at 30. But everyone needs their financial house in order in some way to live their desired financial life without finance strife.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
Simplify, Automate, Plan.
Studies show that the more complex you make things, the harder it is to make decisions. They also show that making decisions in the heat of emotion leads to worse outcomes. I’ve taken this information, which I have also found true about myself, and applied it to my personal finance habits.
Wherever possible I simplify things. As few accounts as possible. I automate the saving in those accounts which reduces questions around budgeting or investment in the heat of the moment. And finally, I plan ahead for down turns and other major actions so I can adapt to changes without having to make sudden emotional direction changes.
What’s an area of your life which has benefited from improving your personal finances? Have there been any areas of your life which have suffered?
In general, I practice a balance between finances and other aspects of our life. As such I cannot say our life has suffered. I will say the main benefit is a decrease in anxiety.
I grew up in a lower middle class household, always living paycheck to paycheck. I felt the anxiety and strife that caused. Part of what has driven me to where I am today is avoiding having those feelings in scenarios in my adult life and that of my family. I’m happy to say, these days finances are not a source of anxiety for our household. I guess you could say that financial acumen is what removed my suffering.
In your opinion, what’s better? Renting a place or buying a house to live?
Like everything else in life it depends on your goals and situation. If you plan to live in the same area for the next 10 years, or want to customize a place to your liking, then buying wins hands down. If you want to move around regularly, and have someone else responsible for home upkeep, then rent. For us, we currently prefer customization and 10 year plus stays. But I could see that changing depending on my phase of life.
In your opinion, what should you do first? Pay down debt, or invest?
I believe the answer is both. All investors should have an asset allocation plan defining what they are willing to invest in both low risk and high risk investments. High risks investments drive your return while low risk investments keep you from doing something stupid like selling low.
Debt pay down is in essence a low risk investment. I.E. it does not matter what the market does, the debt you pay off still increases your net worth. If you have liquidity issues handled, then you should pay down debt in lieu of buying additional low risk investments. Doing so, at the same proportion you’d say buy bonds, captures both the security of paying off debt with the benefit of still increasing the risky investment elsewhere. Doing so aligned with your AA aligns your choice with your risk tolerance.
In your opinion, what’s better? Focusing on increasing your income, or focusing on decreasing your expenses?
As with anything else it depends on where you are in life. If you make a lower income or are just starting out then increasing income should absolutely be your focus. If you are later in your career, or near the top of your potential pay, the answer is decreasing your expenses.
The example I give is when I was 25. I put maybe 8-10% of my income into savings. As I increased my income and got married we kept our spending relatively similar to then. These days that 10% is more like 50%. But my income is nearly 3x what it was 14 years ago. Conversely, I’d be a fool to expect that my income will be 3x what it is today 14 years from now. Especially not if I’m unwilling to abandon my work life balance to obtain that number. As such today my focus needs to be on continuing to keep my expenses in check.
What is your favorite investment class and why? (stocks, private business, bonds, real estate, crypto, precious metals, etc.)
I am not really a fan of precious metals or crypto. I tend to prefer investments that have some sort of income component based on the belief that other things are speculative in nature. I currently actively invest in stocks and bonds.
Conceptually, I prefer bonds. I have done academic research on the subject and really understand the fundamentals. But mathematically I maintain an 80-20 split stocks to bonds. Having sufficient risky assets in my portfolio makes sense at my age and investing stage.
Recently I have begun experimenting with real estate investing. Our percent real estate, beyond publicly traded REITS (included in stocks) is currently a rounding error. This is not my area of expertise so I am proceeding with caution.
While I have interest in private business investing, my time is currently limited so only passive investments really work for me at this time.
So I guess you could say where it fits my lifestyle I prefer to spread our investments around.
Do you have any financial mistakes you’d like to share, and how have you grown from these mistakes to improve your personal finances?
When I first started investing I did so via individual stocks. This was during the Dotcom Bubble so everyone thought they were going to retire and be a day trader. My first stock I purchased was Nvidia, during the IPO. I was 17 and used almost all $1K of my summer earnings. The stock shot up about 10 dollars a share and I sold.
I invested the earnings in a company called Inktomi. A search engine company, they were selling at the time for $15 a share. Less than a year later Inktomi was bought by Yahoo, for less than $1 a share. The dot-com crash has arrived.
I lost all my gains and all my original investment. I was left with pocket change. Had I stayed with Nvidia that money would be worth nearly $115K as of this writing. The key learning? Even if you are right once by buying the right stock, you have to be right twice by selling that stock at the right time. The data shows no small investor does that consistently so index funds are the better investment.
Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?
Money is the one universal topic. No matter if you want to be rich, retire, or even just go to work every day, you still need money to get the things you want. Removing the anxiety around money by learning about how to manage it likely means the difference between achieving your goals in life, and not.
It’s very easy to sabotage your dreams with poor personal finance habits and lack of knowledge. Resolving any potential gap should be everyone’s priority. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Personal finance knowledge brings a layer of protection against that surprise that can be achieve no where else.
How You Can Contact Full Time Finance for More Information
You can learn more about Full Time Finance at https://www.fulltimefinance.com, and follow them on Twitter at @fulltimefinance.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Full Time Finance, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
The Frugal Engineers
I started my blog in 2019 to make friends and to help people. I noticed a lot of my colleagues and friends were experiencing the same dissatisfaction with their professional careers after they started having kids, but they didn’t know what other options were available.
I’m an engineer, and most engineers are great with math, but not necessarily great with money. I write each post with my friends in mind, thinking “what could I write today to help them solve a particular problem they’re facing?”.
Check out our Q&A with The Frugal Engineers here.
I’m an engineer, and most engineers are great with math, but not necessarily great with money. I write each post with my friends in mind, thinking “what could I write today to help them solve a particular problem they’re facing?”.
Check out our Q&A with The Frugal Engineers here.
Come read about how you can achieve financial independence as an engineer from the blogger behind The Frugal Engineers.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, The Frugal Engineers.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind The Frugal Engineers, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from The Frugal Engineers to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for The Frugal Engineers for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Editor Note: As of July 2020, The Frugal Engineers has discontinued their blog. We have removed any links to their blog.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind The Frugal Engineers, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from The Frugal Engineers to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for The Frugal Engineers for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Editor Note: As of July 2020, The Frugal Engineers has discontinued their blog. We have removed any links to their blog.
Tell us about The Frugal Engineers
I started my blog in 2019 to make friends and to help people. I noticed a lot of my colleagues and friends were experiencing the same dissatisfaction with their professional careers after they started having kids, but they didn’t know what other options were available.
I’m an engineer, and most engineers are great with math, but not necessarily great with money. When we spend all our time and mental energy focusing on engineering (or other professions), there’s little brain bandwidth available at the end of the day to come home and check how your net worth’s grown.
I came up with the name The Frugal Engineers because it captures our personalities. My husband and I are both engineers, and we’re both known as the frugal ones in our friends and families. I write each post with my friends in mind, thinking “what could I write today to help them solve a particular problem they’re facing?”.
What makes you and your blog unique?
I’ve been writing for a year now, and some of my views on early retirement have changed after living through it. I like to use the term WATER: Working After Trying Early Retirement. Reaching financial independence was the catalyst for me to say “no” to the types of work I didn’t love, and to make room to say “yes” to the types of work I’ve always wanted to do.
I also write a fair amount on parenting topics, including how to afford college while also retiring early, the importance of raising kids to do chores, and changes I’ve noticed through my volunteering with young adults.
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?
It means being conscious of where your money is going. Knowing how much you’re paying for services, and taking the time to look up how much something costs before you decide to purchase it. It also means knowing what you’re actually earning from your job, in terms of your “real hourly wage”.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
Every week, we have a family meeting where we reconcile our transactions in Personal Capital. Once a month, we set our budget for the next month, and we do a mid-month check-in to plan social activities & travel with what’s remaining.
Another habit I have is filling up our family’s social calendar with free activities FIRST. Events at the library, free community events offered by the local university, or free adventures like hiking make it onto the calendar before events that cost money.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
Start Here explains how we retired from full time work at age 35.
My first blog post, Financial Independence: REWIRED, not Retired, explains our philosophy on being REWIRED, Not Retired. Although we’re financially independent, we still enjoy working on our own terms.
FIRE as a Family: Our Plan to Retire at 35 explains how I taught myself how to invest so that we could retire from full time work at 35 (even with a kid!).
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
You can’t manage what you don’t measure, so the first step in getting finances in order is to track your spending, debts, and assets. If you’re married, look at all the accounts combined (with both of you present!). When you have a list of all your financial obligations, you can start to set some realistic goals.
It’s also important to make a commitment to understanding your finances the same way you understand other forms of self maintenance (like diet and exercise). No one else is going to value your money as much as you do, so it pays to educate yourself on how money works. For about a year after discovering FIRE and committing to the goal, I spent 30-60 minutes/day online reading everything I could about investing, index funds, Roth IRA conversion ladders, tax minimization, etc. That was time well spent, while my peers mostly watched Netflix.
In your opinion, what’s better? Renting a place or buying a house to live?
I’ve made and lost fortunes from owning homes, and I still continue to own. However, I completely understand why folks choose to rent. If you’re in an uncertain phase of life, like if you’re single and willing to move to be closer to your future spouse, then owning a home doesn’t make sense.
I don’t know if I’ll buy another house after this one (our third) because we do want to explore the world more after our daughter grows up and I like the flexibility of renting. We also plan on moving to wherever she lives with her own kids, which may be our current hometown or somewhere far away. Being mobile certainly has its advantages.
In your opinion, what should you do first? Pay down debt, or invest?
Pay down debt, because the mental weight of debt can not be underestimated. I didn’t sleep through the night for years when I carried credit card debt, student loans, and a car payment. I like to think of it like this: debt is what you owe the past, investing is what you owe the future. I can’t imagine planning for the future without reconciling the choices of my past first.
Also, I think it’s dangerous how comfortable our culture has become with carrying any form of debt (even a mortgage). Setting up your lifestyle based on minimum monthly payments is tenuous and stressful, especially when your employment situation is in the hands of someone else (your boss).
When I was paying off personal debt during my first job after college, I dropped my 401K contribution down to the minimum amount to get the free employer match. I paid off all my debts in 1.5 years, then maxed out my 401K most years since then. When we had our first mortgage (for 2.5 years), we still maxed out our retirement accounts while paying extra on the mortgage.
What are your favorite personal finance books?
Your Money Or Your Life and The Millionaire Next Door were the first two money books I read in college, and are my go-to recommendations. Many of the books written afterwards say the same thing in a different way.
In your opinion, what’s better? Focusing on increasing your income, or focusing on decreasing your expenses?
Decreasing your expenses, since you don’t always have control over income stability. I graduated during the recession and experienced a 10% pay cut at my first job. At the time, the opportunities to increase my income just weren’t there. However, by living like a college student, my husband and I were able to base our spending off one of our jobs and build wealth even in a down market.
What is your favorite investment class and why? (stocks, private business, bonds, real estate, crypto, precious metals, etc.
I’ve found the best ROI is when I invest in myself, in terms of education and personal development. I spent almost $2,000 on a life coaching package that was truly transformative.
In terms of traditional investments, I’m a big fan of stock index funds.
If you received a $5,000,000 windfall tomorrow, what would you do with the money?
I’d buy my mom a house and set up an annuity to pay for the maintenance costs, insurance, property taxes, and utilities. I’d choose a house big enough to host the rest of our extended family too. With the rest, we’d donate some to causes we care about and take time off from school to try world-schooling as a family.
What’s a non-money related interest you have and what do you love about it?
My main hobby is teaching dance fitness. I started doing this after my daughter was born and the local dance studio was the closest exercise facility to my house that offered childcare. The ladies at the studio welcomed me (and my baby) with open arms and after a year, I began teaching my own classes. I’ve been doing this for years and love it because I never miss a workout! It keeps my brain sharp, provides a social outlet and gives me a break from technical tasks like engineering consulting.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, The Frugal Engineers, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
I Like To Dabble
I started iliketodabble.com back in April of 2017 when I intended to buy the domain as a hobby blog. I was going to blog for the fun of it, and thought first to make a crafting blog.
After thinking on our current situation of side hustling and trying to pay off our debt, I thought I’d make the blog more honed in on money, exploring different side hustles and looking help others in their journeys.
Check out our Q&A with I Like To Dabble here.
After thinking on our current situation of side hustling and trying to pay off our debt, I thought I’d make the blog more honed in on money, exploring different side hustles and looking help others in their journeys.
Check out our Q&A with I Like To Dabble here.
Come learn about side hustles and more about the blog I Like To Dabble in this interview!
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, I Like To Dabble.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind I Like To Dabble, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from I Like To Dabble to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for I Like To Dabble for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind I Like To Dabble, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from I Like To Dabble to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for I Like To Dabble for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about I Like to Dabble
I started iliketodabble.com back in April of 2017 when I intended to buy the domain as a hobby blog. I was going to blog for the fun of it and then wanted to head in the direction of a craft blog.
Then I realized I didn’t want to blog about crafting. I love crafting, but I hated blogging about it.
After some introspection on our current situation of side hustling and trying to pay off our debt, I thought I’d make the blog more honed in on money, exploring different side hustles in addition to writing about our own and help others in their similar journeys.
I Like To Dabble’s main mission is to help you drop the stressful hustle and find what clicks. We’re all about dabbling for dollars, finding excitement in experimentation and how to use that extra money as a tool towards your own financial goals or towards building a business.
What makes you and your blog unique?
It isn’t exactly an all around money focused blog. I Like To Dabble is very much honed into the life of the side hustler but it also isn’t “just” a side hustle blog. It is a blog about life at work as a side hustler too.
We dive deep into many issues other side hustle and money making blogs don’t necessarily touch on such as the downsides of the gig economy, burnout, and mental health as both an employee and business owner.
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?
This means I know what is coming in and going out. Before I was “bad with my finances” because I never checked. I never set a budget and spent whatever I wanted.
It all started with looking at our bank account and going through each and every item. Then we created a budget, set up text alerts and tracked everything we could. Starting to look at where your money is going and starting to sit down as a individual/couple/family to create a budget is being good with your finances.
All you have to do is start with a goal in mind.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
We automate as much as we can which makes it easier to pay our bills and save on autopilot. But we also have text alerts set up with our credit union for those transactions so if something funky comes across, we’ll get a text (or an alert if an auto-pay fails).
Because sometimes automation fails.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
Three posts you should read to know more about my blog are:
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
First, I’d want to know what that person’s goal is for improving their situation. What are they working towards? Are they trying to pay off debt? What are they wanting to save money for?
Then, look at their money – where is it going, what is it being used for and do they remember all the purchases when they look at them? Write it all down and a printable budget sheet is better than an app as you physically have to write everything down. Writing things down make them more real for me, I feel, and I am more likely to continue with good habits this way.
They should definitely cut out excess spending that is almost mindless and find ways to add money back into the existing budget with finding bills to lower through switching auto insurance providers, working with apps like Trim for lowering Wi-Fi and cell phone bills, etc. To jump start savings on top of that new found money in the budget, look for ways to increase their income either in their day job or take on a side hustle.
You don’t have to commit to a long term side hustle but something that is a fun side project that can fit into your life easily (think freelancing in a skills set you have, making YouTube videos or pet sitting on the weekends) can help you stash more into savings.
The more you make, the more you can save.
What’s an area of your life which has benefited from improving your personal finances? Have there been any areas of your life which have suffered?
One word, four letters: debt.
I didn’t care AT ALL about my student loan debt or any of our debt for that matter before we started reading about personal finance and wanting to better our situation. Since taking control of our finances though I paid off my $15,000 student loan debt in May 2019 (with the help from my blog) along with another $20,000 in interest from that student loan, hospital bills, credit card debt and the last of our debt: our Rav4.
The area of my life that suffered a little was my stress. I actually wasn’t that stressed about money until I started thinking about it and writing about it so much. It might seem that it is the opposite, that you’d be less stressed after paying off debt.
I was stressed when I was paying off debt, stressed to get it all paid off quickly then stressed because I want to make sure we never have to take on debt again.
What are your favorite personal blogs and bloggers you have been inspired by?
Some of my favorites are:
In your opinion, what’s better? Renting a place or buying a house to live?
Even though we own, renting is better! I say that as we are currently gutting our place to renovate some areas and try selling this beast. There are a lot of hidden costs with owning a home and you can’t get up and move at any time you want.
But we also have a lot of pets that make it almost impossible to rent.
In your opinion, what should you do first? Pay down debt, or invest?
There is a large chunk of people that are literally not able to pay down debt and invest at the same time. The only money left over from their budget may be only enough to cover debt bills.
However, as soon as they start adding more money to that budget (if they can) through side hustling and other ways and build up an emergency fund of *cash*, they should try to start investing as they pay off debt. The best time to invest was yesterday, the second best time is now.
What are your favorite personal finance books?
I LOVED Work Optional, by Tanja Hester, and it was one of the first introductions I had to the concept of FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) and exactly how to achieve it. It completely opened my eyes.
How You Can Contact I Like To Dabble for More Information
You can learn more about I Like To Dabble at https://iliketodabble.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/iliketodabble, and follow them on Twitter at @iliketodabble.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, I Like To Dabble, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
Eat Sleep Breathe FI
I want to share my FI knowledge because I want more people to discover FI and improve their lives. I truly believe that FI can change our world for the better.
A FI lifestyle can help all of us to live happier, healthier, more financially-stable lives. (Plus, FI choices tend to also be good for humankind and the planet!)
Check out our Q&A with Eat Sleep Breathe FI here.
A FI lifestyle can help all of us to live happier, healthier, more financially-stable lives. (Plus, FI choices tend to also be good for humankind and the planet!)
Check out our Q&A with Eat Sleep Breathe FI here.
Come read about Eat Sleep Breathe FI, and see how you can reach financial independence.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Eat Sleep Breathe FI.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Eat Sleep Breathe FI, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Eat Sleep Breathe FI to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Eat Sleep Breathe FI for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Eat Sleep Breathe FI, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Eat Sleep Breathe FI to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Eat Sleep Breathe FI for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about Eat Sleep Breathe FI
Eat Sleep Breathe FI officially launched on January 1, 2019. I decided to start a blog because that’s what all FI-seekers eventually do, right? Ha!
While there is some truth to that, the real reason why I started my blog is to share my FI knowledge with others.
I want to share my FI knowledge because I want more people to discover FI and improve their lives. I truly believe that FI can change our world for the better.
A FI lifestyle can help all of us to live happier, healthier, more financially-stable lives. (Plus—FI choices tend to also be good for humankind and the planet.)
What makes you and your blog unique?
What’s unique about my blog and story is:
- I live in Canada (there aren’t enough Canadian FI blogs).
- I live in a high-cost-of-living city (Vancouver, BC).
- I’m not single or childless (I’m married with two kids).
- We’ve lived on a single income for nearly 15 years.
- We’re pretty normal, but will reach FI in our 40s just by optimizing our money a little more than the average family.
While each of these things are not necessarily unique, in combination, I’m able to connect with a certain population of readers with similar interests and goals.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
Three articles I’d suggest new readers start with are:
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?
I believe that “being good with your personal finances” simply means spending less than you earn, and wisely investing the difference.
What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
Some habits I practice to keep our finances in order are:
- Using YNAB to track our spending.
- Regularly communicating with our financial planner.
- Continuing to learn new ways to save money and invest.
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
My advice for someone looking to improve their financial situation is just get started! It can be daunting to think about all the things that need to be done—so don’t do that. Start small and focus on one thing you can do right now.
This will build your confidence and motivation and keep you going. When you look back in a year, five years, ten years, you’ll be amazed at what you’ve accomplished. All you need to do is get started, then just keep taking the next step.
In your opinion, what’s better? Focusing on increasing your income, or focusing on decreasing your expenses?
I’ll give a cop-out answer here and say BOTH! You really need to address both sides of this equation to be the most successful with your money. But as far as which order to work on them, I generally suggest tackling your expenses first.
That’s because anyone can do that at any time. There’s no barrier to entry when finding ways to reduce expenses—we can start with the tiniest things, like turning off lights we’re not using.
Increasing income usually takes a lot more time and effort to accomplish. But it can give you a lot more bang for your buck, so it’s definitely something everyone should work on and revisit often.
What is your favorite investment class and why? (stocks, private business, bonds, real estate, crypto, precious metals, etc.)
I keep things simple and invest 100% in index stocks (no bonds). I used to DIY our investments with Vanguard and iShares index ETFs. Nowadays, my financial planner has an investment manager handling our investments, and he invests in individual stocks using an index fund-like approach.
I would love to invest in real estate, but haven’t been able to make the numbers work. I could achieve better returns by investing in a lower-cost area, but I’m not confident enough to be a long-distance landlord.
Do you have any financial mistakes you’d like to share, and how have you grown from these mistakes to improve your personal finances?
My biggest mistake is not learning how to invest sooner. I ignored our investments for close to 15 years, thinking it was just too hard and boring to understand. We’d be so much farther ahead if I’d taken the reins from the start.
Since then, I’ve become fully involved with our investments and have even taught my in-laws how to handle their investments (which helped them gain the confidence to finally retire)! I’ve also shared resources and knowledge with anyone who will listen—both in real life and through my blog.
Teaching others helps me to solidify and deepen my knowledge. This has given me greater confidence to pursue more advanced strategies, such as leveraged investing. In turn, our net worth has grown far faster than it would have with more basic strategies.
If you received a $5,000,000 windfall tomorrow, what would you do with the money?
Wow, that would be amazing. My dream would be to put $2,000,000 of that into a donor-advised fund to support causes I’m passionate about. The other $3,000,000 would be more than enough for us to live on, in complete luxury, forever.
But the funny thing is, we likely wouldn’t change our lives all that much! I’m not that into material possessions, so more travel and eating out is what we’d spend the bulk of the excess on. (But I’m sure my husband could think of a few toys he’d happily splurge on!)
Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?
This is something I’m very passionate about. I feel that everyone needs to learn and care about their money because, well, it’s your money or your life. You want to trade as little of your life as possible to earn and grow your money.
The best way to do that is to get educated and smart about your money. That’s how you’ll find ways to make your money work harder for you, so that eventually, your money will do all the work and you can stop (if you so choose).
Speaking to why you need to care about your money: no one else will care about your money like you do. You’re the best person to manage and grow it, so learn how! Once you get started and see success, it’ll be easier and easier to keep the ball rolling.
How You Can Contact Eat Sleep Breathe FI for More Information
You can learn more about Eat Sleep Breathe FI at https://www.eatsleepbreathefi.com/, like them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/eatsleepbreathefi, and follow them on Twitter at @esb_fi.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Eat Sleep Breathe FI, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!
Know Your Blogger Series
Best Interest
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Ben Franklin.
Ben Franklin’s quote inspired me to help others invest in their own financial knowledge. The Best Interest focuses on simplifying complex ideas so readers can truly build their knowledge base. I try to keep the Best Interest neatly balanced between technical complexity and easy reading. My mom is a retired English teacher, so reading and writing have always been a big part of my life.
Check out our Q&A with Best Interest here.
Ben Franklin’s quote inspired me to help others invest in their own financial knowledge. The Best Interest focuses on simplifying complex ideas so readers can truly build their knowledge base. I try to keep the Best Interest neatly balanced between technical complexity and easy reading. My mom is a retired English teacher, so reading and writing have always been a big part of my life.
Check out our Q&A with Best Interest here.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Ben Franklin. Come read Jesse’s interview about the blog, Best Interest.
Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, Best Interest.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Best Interest, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Best Interest to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Best Interest for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind Best Interest, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from Best Interest to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for Best Interest for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.
Tell us about Best Interest
My name is Jesse Cramer, and I write at Best Interest – as in, “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Ben Franklin’s quote inspired me to help others invest in their own financial knowledge. The Best Interest focuses on simplifying complex ideas so readers can truly build their knowledge base. Sometimes that involves long articles (4000+ words) or complex analysis (e.g. using MATLAB software)…but the explanations are always straightforward and entertaining.
What makes you and your blog unique?
I try to keep the Best Interest neatly balanced between technical complexity and easy reading. My mom is a retired English teacher, so reading and writing have always been a big part of my life. I appreciate good writing and try to practice it myself.
But I work full-time as a mechanical engineer. I think in terms of numbers and systems and cause-effect relationships. That technical background comes out in my writing. I think it’s necessary to explain the many different mathematically concepts in personal finance and investing.
What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you? What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?
I think it’s important to practice what I preach. So these two questions have, essentially, the same answers.
Being good with personal finances means having knowledge—past, present, and future—of how money will interact with your life.
Measurement is key for the present and past portions. In the short-term, this means having a detailed budget that tracks your earning and spending.
For the future, and longer-term, good personal finance requires a few different parallel tasks. It means planning for upcoming purchases. It means running “trades” like the common rent vs. buy comparison. It means understanding how choices today will affect your retirement, your children’s education, or your ability to eventual buy that dream home.
What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?
The three articles you should read to better know Best Interest are:
For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?
The best short-term task to improve your personal finance is to get gather complete knowledge of where you stand. If you want to move forward, you first have to understand where you are and what direction you’re pointing.
You need to understand what you’re earning, what you’re spending, and what you’re saving. In my opinion, that means tracking every single dollar that passes through your hands. While it might seem like overkill, I saw a huge change in my personal finances after I incorporated 100% tracking into my personal finance.
Over the medium-term, I encourage people to follow the “personal finance order of operations.” Different versions exist depending on your source. But most start with the same basic tasks: build an emergency fund, maximize any “free” money from your employer’s retirement plan, and pay off any high-interest debt.
And then long-term, I like to put together a tentative 5-, 10-, and 20+ year plan. Nothing too serious—a lot of changes can happen in a few short years. But it helps to know things like:
- Will you need a new car at some point?
- Do you plan on buying a house?
- Will you have (more) children?
- Will you move? How could you cost of living change?
- Are you going to retire? How much do you need to save?
What are your favorite personal finance books?
Whenever someone asks me, “What’s the first personal finance book I should read?,” I point them to I Will Teach You To Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi.
This funny book could easily be titled, “My First Book of Real Personal Finance.” It doesn’t get into the gritty details, but it does a terrific job explaining some simple concepts that every adult ought to know.
- Why credit cards can be your worst enemy
- How to properly set up various bank accounts
- What’s a 401(k)? What’s a Roth IRA? And should you use them?
…And a few more concepts. If you already know answers to the questions above, then this book probably won’t add too much new knowledge. But if you don’t know the different between a Savings account and a Checking account, this would be a great way to learn some personal finance basics.
A Random Walk Down Walk Street, by Burton Malkiel is my pick for the best book on investing ever written. The book was first printed in 1973, two years before John Bogle started Vanguard. Yet, what did Random Walk presciently tout? Practices like passive investing, index funds, and the best methods for laymen to make money in the market. The very same practices that Bogle would use to revolutionize the financial services industry.
That’s why Random Walk is a cut above. It’s a book that aimed to teach the most good to the most people. And over it’s 47-year life and multiple re-printings, Random Walk keeps on proving Burton Malkiel and John Bogle right.
What is your favorite investment class and why? (stocks, private business, bonds, real estate, crypto, precious metals, etc.)
I’m a big fan of stocks—specifically, stock index funds. In my opinion, index funds provide the single best “success-to-stress” ratio of any investment out there. They keep fees to a minimum while attaining average returns. They are designed for the layperson to use and prosper from.
But beyond true investment classes, I’m a huge proponent of these (unfortunately overused) clichés: invest in yourself and learning is a lifelong process.
I use my 401(k) and Roth IRA to invest in stock index funds. But I make sure to use other money to invest in learning, to try to grow my side projects (e.g. my blog), or to take courses and classes. The return on investment (ROI) for investing in yourself can be monumental.
I feel that our society preaches “invest in yourself” throughout childhood—“try new things” and “make sure you do well at school!”. But that encouragement slows down in adulthood. It takes focused effort to continue learning, but it’s so worthwhile.
Do you have any financial mistakes you’d like to share, and how have you grown from these mistakes to improve your personal finances?
I love telling this story from my article about the “Buy that!” brain.
In short, I learned that I can be a sucker for a salesman. A little part of my brain was wild for the idea that a hot tub was the ultimate value-added item for my new house in snowy Rochester, NY. I mean, what else are you going to do on all those cold winter nights? I let my enthusiasm drag me in front of a hot tub salesman—you know, just to see what the options are. And, naturally, I walked away having bought a hot tub.
I learned some pretty important lessons about how my brain works. And I’ve taken some important steps in mitigating those monkey-brain mental shortcomings.
I know what kind of items make my brain scream “BUY THAT!!!” Usually it has to do with hiking/camping or an interesting non-fiction book. Other times, it’s as simple as a crunchy & salty snack when by stomach is rumbling. The important point is that I recognize my triggers. And because of that, I can fight them before they overwhelm my rational decision-making.
What’s a non-money related interest you have and what do you love about it?
I really love the sport of squash. I only picked it up after going to college, and it’s now my favorite form of fitness and recreation.
Squash is a racket sport played indoors. It’s a bit like racketball. But squash also has elements of chess. Sound crazy?
Chess can be played a couple different ways. Some chess players look for safe strategies that provide small advantages. They play it safe and wait for their opponent to make a bad move. It’s a grindy style. Other chess players are more dynamic. They play risky moves, attacking styles, and hope that their opponent will leave themselves open to a checkmate.
Squash is the same way. Some players hit low-risk shots, play long rallies, and do their best to keep the rallies steady and calm. But other players hit shots from wild angles or try to hit “kills” or “nicks” that win the rallies outright.
The best players, in my opinion, understand that there’s a time and place for both.
And while there’s a mental battle going on—what’s my opponent doing, and how do I counter it?—there’s also an extreme physical battle. Squash is one of the most aerobic sports and best workouts out there. It involves sprinting and lunging and, of course, hitting the ball.
Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?
Great question. And my answer is kind of funny. When I pare down my motivations, I don’t care about money. I care about time. Time is truly the most limited resource.
Money, it just so happens, is the preferred method to place a value on time. In the long run, I want to try to maximize my time. In fact, I’ve got some interesting theories about the value of time, or the time vs. money debate. Since we measure the value of time using money, it means that we should place priority on being smart with our money.
Need more to ponder? After taxes, the median American earns about $160 per day. So if my budgeting method saves me $1000 per year, I could think of that as saving about 6 days of working time. Or, I could say that a person not using a budget might we wasting $1000, or wasting 6 days, per year.
That time will never come back. It’s gone. And I want to minimize that wasted time.
How You Can Contact Best Interest for More Information
You can learn more about Best Interest at https://www.bestinterest.blog and follow them on Twitter at @BestInterest_JC.
Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, Best Interest, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!