There isn’t a week that goes by that someone asks for personal financial advice. The problem with giving personal financial advice is that in order to give truly useful advice you need to know a whole lot about the person. This week someone asked me how I became so wealthy and what they could do…
Category: Financial Odyssey
What’s The Best State To Retire In?
I have been thinking about that question for quite some time. It’s not an easy question to answer because there are so many variables and everyone has different priorities. I know some people that love being near National Parks so they move to states that have them. Others I know love being in large metro…
How Much Is Enough?
A friend recently asked me if I had enough money to retire right now if I wanted. The only answer I could give her was it depends. Our household has enough money to theoretically never starve or be homeless. I live in a house that is paid off but it has operating costs of $1400/month…
2024 Financial New Year’s Resolution
It’s 2024 and I’ve been thinking about my New Year’s financial resolutions and over time I’ve learned that the key to successful resolutions is to keep it simple and achievable so here are mine: 1. Max 401k As I creep closer and closer to retirement, I worry that I haven’t saved enough so for 2024,…
My Personal Financial Operating Manual
Yesterday I wrote about what held me back in personal finance in a post entitle, “What’s Holding You Financially Trapped?” A key blocker in my personal life and a “wall” in my prison cube was insufficient Education about all things personal finance. As part of my learning and discovery journey I learned that sometimes it…
What’s Holding You Financially Trapped?
One of my favorite Simpsons episode is the episode where Montgomery Burns is asked to speak at elementary school and his speech is essentially, “Family, Religion and Friendship, these are the three demons you must slay to succeed in business…” But I think a more accurate representation is a cube because it has six sides…
Investing When In Your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s
Investing is a journey much like human life and I can’t write about anyone’s journey but my own so here’s how I did things and would do things differently for every age period. The 20’s How I lived it: I paid my own way thru college and graduated with student loans that were the bane…
Wealth Distribution Across America
The Federal Reserve released their wealth distribution data for Q2 of 2023 and it has some very interesting charts and data. Wealth Distribution The Federal Reserve breaks down wealth distribution into five groups. Wealth Distribution By Generation According to the Federal Reserve, the Baby Boomer generation has the bulk of the wealth followed by Generation…
How Much Money I Save Working From Home
The last three jobs I’ve had the opportunity to work from home. I have had, on occasion, travel to the office for certain events or activities but for the most part, I work home nearly 99% of the time. So let me go through the list of money I save now by working from home:…
The Odyssey To Multi-Million Dollar Portfolio
I started my financial odyssey at $4.25/hour with my first job in the 90’s and now I’m managing millions of dollars in cash. Most people dream of getting to a million+ dollar portfolio so that they can retire and live a carefree life but I’m sorry to tell you that things don’t actually work out…