Sometimes I feel like all throughout my life I was lead by the media to believe I was going to be entitled. When I was a little boy I used to watch Scrooge McDuck swim through his giant money bin full of cash. When I was teenager I watched MTV’s The Real World and couldn’t wait to live in giant apartment with no job for 2-3 months. When I was an adult house hunting shows made me think that living in a beautiful, luxurious $300K home was completely normal. With messages like that, how is someone supposed to stay humble? By getting back to their roots every now and again. By serving those who need served. Helping My Dad with Building His Deck: The summer is not just a great time to be outside, but also a good time to … [Read more...] about Stay Humble – You’re Still Just a Ditch-Digger
I Want to Be Your Personal Money Coach – A Free Giveaway
For years now I’ve had this idealistic vision in my head that someday when I reach financial freedom and retire early that I’m going to become a money coach. There’s just one problem … I’ve never actually been a money coach – to anyone ever. That creates a little bit of a situation for me. How can I really know if that’s what I want to do with the rest of my life if I’ve never actually gave it a try? What if I test it out and find that its not for me? What if I’m no good at it? Or more realistically - what if I find out all this (what I think is) great advice I have to offer is really nothing more than superficial tips that barely scratch the surface? Perhaps I’ll find that I need to dig deeper into certain topics to really be … [Read more...] about I Want to Be Your Personal Money Coach – A Free Giveaway
Niche Website Update 21 – Getting Interested Again in Affiliate Marketing – Plus $853 in Income
Its official – summer is over. The kids are back in school, the pool is closed, and I’m scheduling the sprinkler system to be winterized. In terms of my online business, that also means that I’m running out of time to hit the goals I had set with my niche websites before 2014 comes to a close. Personally I feel like each of my websites has got a LONG, LONG ways to go. Which can be both a fun and creative thing. I’m not just talking in terms of making money. I also mean in developmental things like content, SEO, traffic, etc. Those are the kinds of activities that I believe will ultimately bring in the money if you do them right for the long run. … even if no one wants to help you get those activities done (a funny story about … [Read more...] about Niche Website Update 21 – Getting Interested Again in Affiliate Marketing – Plus $853 in Income
Tax Saving Strategies and Outsmarting the System – A Book Review
One of the principles I preach here on My Money Design about building your wealth is to find smart ways to KEEP more of what you earn. And in no other way can you accomplish this more than by using the right tax saving strategies to help avoid paying more than you have to. I say that because taxes are something that eats into your finances no matter how low or high your income is. In fact the more money you make, the worse your tax bill becomes because it scales upward with your earnings to the point where it could potentially be one of the largest expenses you have. But with the right tax planning strategies it doesn’t have to be this way. There are many ways to lower your tax bill that you probably either don’t use or simply … [Read more...] about Tax Saving Strategies and Outsmarting the System – A Book Review
Never Let Anyone Compromise Your Goals in Life
My wife and I have been having a lot of discussion lately about some of the changes we want to make that will help us reach our goals in life sooner rather than later. Don’t worry – there’s nothing wrong with us or our marriage. But for reasons I won’t get into publicly, let’s just say that the working-world has decided to pose some complicated challenges that would otherwise make it take longer to get there. Since going down this path of reaching financial freedom, we’ve both been so completely infatuated with the goal of getting there. We’re seduced by the thought of what our lives will be like when we do. Unfortunately though sometimes even though you think you’ve got all the pieces to your life in place, things beyond your … [Read more...] about Never Let Anyone Compromise Your Goals in Life
My Money Design Turns 3! What I’ve Learned About Writing Blogs for Money
I’m proud to announce that as of last week MyMoneyDesign.com is now 3 years old! Running a blog is something that unfortunately not a lot of other people can claim to have accomplished. During my tenure I’ve seen a lot of websites start, a lot of them fail, and some of them just completely disappear of the face of the Internet. But I’ve also seen a lot of the good ones carry on and take their sites to the next level. They’ve encouraged me, inspired me, and even challenged me at times to improve. I’m very thankful for all the friends I’ve made and for everything I’ve throughout this whole experience! If someone would have told me 3 years ago that this would be my primary way of making money on the side, I would have told them … [Read more...] about My Money Design Turns 3! What I’ve Learned About Writing Blogs for Money
Can the Experts Help Us with Investing in Dividend Stocks? 6 Month Update
What if there was a really simple way for investing in dividend stocks and knowing which ones were going to do better than others over the next year? What if all you had to do was just read the expert opinions to know how they were going to do? That’s the fun little experiment I started about 6 months ago when I bought my last round of dividend stocks to add to my money design. Of course this is NOT how I picked my stocks and I would NEVER advise you do this. There are plenty of other ways to evaluate the assets of a company. All the same though, I thought it might be fun to note the “expert opinions” for each of the stocks I bought earlier this year and see how they did every 3 months are so. Who knows – could any of these … [Read more...] about Can the Experts Help Us with Investing in Dividend Stocks? 6 Month Update
Niche Website Update 20 – Copying My Competition – Plus $1,226 in Income
When you’re like me and depending on your hobby of blogging to supplement your income, you start to take a very active interest in how exactly you can do things better. Why? Because better = more money! That’s exactly what I’ve been up to this month – trying to figure out creative ways how to do things better. Though I’ll get into more detail about it below, I’m confident that the things I’m doing will have long lasting positive benefits on my niche websites. Even though I declared in my last Niche Website Update that I wasn’t going to invest much more effort into my latest niche site #4 (which I call NS4), ironically that’s the one that I’ve been working on the most when it comes to “experimenting” with a few new … [Read more...] about Niche Website Update 20 – Copying My Competition – Plus $1,226 in Income
