How are you doing with your retirement savings? The most important first step is to start making contributions to your retirement savings as early as possible. Using a retirement calculator, if you contribute as little as two hundred ($200) dollars a month at twenty-two years old, you will have one million four hundred thirty ($1,430,000) dollars ...
Keep Reading
How to Take Control of your Life
Control is subjective! Control is the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events. Taking control of your life is much more personal and involves the financial, personal, social, physical fitness, work and personal relationships and career portions of your life. Are you one of those people who just complains about things ...
Keep Reading
Determination Beats Everything Else!
Determination beats everything! Determination is a personal quality that makes you continue trying to do or achieve something that is difficult. In other words, determination is simply not giving up! “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ...
Keep Reading
Does a Spending Freeze Work?
A spending freeze is when you stop spending money for a period of time. You could lock up you credit cards and cash, avoid the mall and just stay home. How long could you go without spending money? When the federal government has a spending freeze, they just maintain a certain level of spending. They may tie spending to GDP growth or per capita ...
Keep Reading
Buy a New Car or Used Car?
Buy a new car or a used car? Is this a trick question? Many personal finance experts recommend buying a used car versus a new car because it has already depreciated some of its value and you get a better deal. Particularly if you find a used car off a lease and it was well maintained. Many car dealers offer certified used cars with warranties and ...
Keep Reading
Measure Twice and Cut Once!
Measure twice and cut once is an old proverb that is still relevant! It means one should double-check one’s measurements for accuracy before cutting a piece of wood; otherwise it may be necessary to cut again, wasting time and material. It also relates to all of life’s decisions! Often, you do not think through all the consequences of your actions ...
Keep Reading
10 Steps to Financial Security
What is financial security? Financial Security is having sufficient resources to support a standard of living now or in the future. What does this mean to the average person? A good working definition may be having enough money to cover your current and future expenses. Everyone has a different definition of what is financial security because our ...
Keep Reading
Labor Day is more than a Holiday
Labor Day is the first Monday in September and an American holiday! It is supposed to be a national tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers made to this country. It was established abut one hundred twenty years ago. It usually signaled the end of summer and children return to school. The last weekend to get away or relax ...
Keep Reading
Car Free in Los Angeles
Yes, I will be car free in Los Angeles in three years. Why am I writing about it now? I am taking the first step to be car free in Los Angeles. I will retire in the next three years and have no need for two cars. Los Angeles is a very much a car town. Los Angeles used to have one of the best public transit systems in the country, but that was ...
Keep Reading
Hobbies Can Be Expensive!
Hobbies take time and money! My wife's garden is only forty-eight (48) square feet and she spends hours in it every week. It is flowers, plants, herbs and even a few vegetables. I am not complaining because she enjoys it! Hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable and a distraction from your day to day activities. Hobbies can also be expensive, addictive ...
Keep Reading