Category Archives: Lessons

High Yield Savings Account: Adding Capital One and ~$100

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On your road to financial freedom, you look to maximize every aspect of your budget. Your goal is to maximize your income and minimize your expenses. While many transactions or activities may result in large dollar gains, the reality is that you must win a lot of the small transactions as well to reach financial freedom.  Growing up, and still today, I am a huge baseball fan. To incorporate a baseball reference here, the singles are just as important as the home runs.  Using a high yield savings account is a single; but it is critical to maximizing the interest earned on your cash.

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4 Strategies to Weather this Pandemic

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We are now in, officially, week 5 of the global Pandemic and our state of Ohio’s shut down.  I have recently wrote about different stocks and industries that are better investment opportunities versus others.  However, there are also many strategies to use to weather this pandemic of the coronavirus that I would encourage and explore. Continue reading →

Dividend Aristocrats – Who & What are They

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The name of the game is dividend investing.  For nearly 6 years, we have talked non-stop about dividend growth investing on this website.  We are always talking about Dividend Aristocrats, as we always focus on finding companies that increase their dividend.  However, I realized that we have never taken a step back to explain what companies are Dividend Aristocrats and discuss what makes them so desirable.  So today, we will do just that.  Enjoy the next installment of our Investing 101 series!

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Top 10 Ways We Saved Money in Italy

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My wife and I just traveled  an incredible journey to Italy.  We visited Rome, Naples, Sorrento, Amalfi Coast (including Positano), Capri and Florence.  We did this all in an astounding 9 nights and I documented everything we did, that ended up saving us quite a bit of money (Euro, US $, you can insert your currency here).  As a frugal individual and one that loves to travel and experience the world in a reasonable approach, we learned quite a bit on how to save money and stretch either your travel or living abroad budget further, while still taking in the history and culture.

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Refinancing My Mortgage After Two Years and Saving $48 per month

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This is an article that I am very excited to write.  And I owe a huge thank you to Lanny for helping me make it happen.  Ever since the rate cut in July, we have all been bombarded with emails asking us to refinance our mortgage.  “Why you need to refinance with Quicken Loans.”  “You’ve been pre-approved with Chase.”  Even Ally Bank, where we have both held our investment portfolios at one time, offered us a sweet refinance deal.

With an interest rate of 3.89% on a 30-year mortgage originated two years ago, I never thought that refinancing would work for me.  But as interest rates continued to slide and the refinance market exploded, rates finally reached the level where it was economically beneficial for me to make the move.  Here is why I am refinancing my mortgage after two years and unlocking some serious cash along the way.

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