“Cheap…… Frugal…… Tightwad……” It’s fascinating how much people debate the wisdom of saving money on small items. There is no one answer. Do you savor the Starbucks experience? Then, great, go get your Starbucks. But if you are broke or in debt, it is just plain stupid to spend $5 on a Starbucks drive-through every day on the […]
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So you have set up your emergency fund. Maybe you have even built out your financial buffer. I have a question for you:Are you maximizing the returns on your emergency fund? If you have a stable job and career, there is no reason not to invest your emergency fund assets in a certificate of deposit (CD) to […]
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Once you get serious about achieving financial independence, you will quickly shift how you relate to the money flowing through life. You will realize that you need to save money if you ever hope to accumulate assets.Save Money – The $100 Per Day ChallengeHere is an example from my own life. When I finally decided […]
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Have you ever worked construction at the entry level? I spent part of a summer working for a general contractor, getting paid $8 per hour to pour concrete, hammer nails, and do whatever else they needed. That was hard work. I don’t regret my time working in construction, and the main reason is that it […]
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The Financial Buffer is the financial wall you build between yourself and economic insecurity. I want to stress that the financial buffer is not the same as an emergency fund. An emergency fund covers three to six months’ worth of living expenses. An emergency fund is just common sense and structuring your life so that […]
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Why, if you have credit card debt, would you buy a new pair of skis and bindings for over $1000 if you can buy demo skis (that have been used about five times) for $400? If you don’t have at least $1 million in assets, why would you spend $50,000 on a new truck when you […]
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Juliet Schor’s The Overspent American was one of the five books that put me on a vector towards financial independence. I read the book in my early twenties, and the material helped unhook me from the unconscious spending patterns of modern society.Key Ideas From The Overspent AmericanPeople use spending to establish their social position–to send […]
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Prices are often more negotiable than you think. I recently visited an REI to buy new hiking shoes in preparation for a trip to Croatia. I was kind of bummed that basically all the shoes I liked were selling for $120.00 or more, which seemed a bit rich. So I deployed one of my favorite […]
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It’s sort of nuts that people don’t use our beautiful libraries more. Especially those people focused on achieving financial independence and generally being smart with their money.You Can Get Kindle Books From Your LibraryFirst, did you know you can check out Kindle titles (and e-books more broadly) from the library? My library has tons of […]
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Here’s a counterintuitive approach to achieving financial independence. Indulge small luxuries. What do I mean by that? It’s simple. We all have the impulse to splurge sometimes–to buy something nice. To enjoy luxury. Rather than attempting to suppress that instinct completely, it is far better to indulge the urge on smaller, more affordable items rather than something […]
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