Now that the year of 2016 is wrapping up and we are only around 4-5 weeks away until we ring in the new year, I have been deeply thinking about my extra-mortgage payment paydown strategy. Mortgage interest rates have been sky rocketing since the election, another element to showcase the rollercoaster ride that we are truly on. This has caused me to potentially make a tweak or two to my strategy that I have had in play for the last few years. Let’s see what I mean!
Category Archives: Lessons
My Plan to Pay Off Our Student Loans
Student Loans….a topic that almost everyone can relate to and almost every person in the personal finance community curse. We’ve all read the reports and the numbers are staggering: total student loans are over $1 trillion dollars here in the US and the average graduate is leaving school with an average of $37,712 (Source: Student Loan Hero). My goal today is to discuss my family’s student loan situation, some of the tough discussions we had before incurring the student loans, and then to cap it off, my plan to pay off our debt as early as possible.
Thinning Down on a Bare Bones Budget
Lately I have been thinking of my income and expense, seeing what goes in and what goes out. I couldn’t help but start to think that there are two ways to increase your financial moat to reach financial freedom in a shorter fashion. Those two options are increasing your income and reducing your expense. Without speaking on behalf of increasing your income, what if you already had a bare bones budget in your mind? Are there ways of thinning down still? Are there hidden pockets that one can slim down on? Let’s see what I’m talking about.
One Downside of a Roth IRA
I’m starting with a disclaimer here. We could debate for hours the pros and cons of a Roth IRA; Heck, Lanny has written about both sides of the Roth vs. Traditional argument already…first about maximizing your Roth IRA contributions for 10 years and then writing about his plan to use a Traditional IRA going forward during the summer. What am I proving here? There is not a one size fits all approach and using a Roth or a Traditional account may (and should) change as your financial situation changes. This last week I experienced one of the downsides of a Roth IRA and I wanted to share it with all of you.
5 Reasons Why You Need to Side Hustle
Most of us have our “Main” hustle where we go in for approximately 33% of our day, do what we need to do and “clock out”, then go home. In this day of uncertainty, passion provoking thoughts, technology advancement, ease of information access and freedom to expand your ability to gain wealth, one should establish the “Side” hustle. The side hustle helps accomplish many goals in your life, and I want to talk about the 5 reasons why I think everyone should work on their side hustle game! Why? Because we all want to be financially free, and have the ability to pursue what we want in our lifetime.
How My Stock Portfolio has Skyrocketed
Finally, a fun title, right? Labor day has just ended and I am writing this article, as I have recently updated my portfolio and just smiled at what has occurred. As the community may remember, I have been writing about my new strategies that I have put in place on my portfolio, and the results are quite pleasing. This article, I am hoping, will show you the actual impact on my portfolio from the actions I have taken and to also share my progress towards financial freedom. Remember – I am trying to keep as much money in our pocket from our income, to maximize the amount of assets we can buy, to decrease this thing called “time” that we are counting down towards financial freedom! Continue reading
Why We Didn’t Create A Wedding Budget
A month or so ago, I wrote about the best day of my life…my wedding day. I wouldn’t have changed a thing! Towards the end of the article, I mentioned that I was going to write a few more articles down the road about a few things about our experiences during the year and a half leading up to the big day and some things we learned along the way. There is so much that is involved in a wedding, it is insane! So hopefully some of you will be able to learn from our experiences or conversely, share your experiences in the comment section so future readers can benefit from things you may have done differently than we did! So here it is, the first installment of my post wedding article series. Today, I wanted to share with you why my wife and I did not create a wedding budget while planning our wedding!
