Lately I mentioned that I was working on a new niche site (if you’d like to call it that), and so I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce you to it. The site is called 1,000 Ways To Save, and by the time it matures, this site will literally be a collection of over one thousand different ways you can spend less and save more! The idea behind this 1000 Ways To Save is to challenge the excuse that I often hear people hiding behind when it comes to money: “Oh, I’d love to save more money towards [whatever goal], but you know … we’ve just got so many bills. I couldn’t possibly save another dollar”. Nonsense! There are thousands of (if not more) ways that each of us could do a better job saving our money. All it takes is a … [Read more...] about Introducing My New Site: 1,000 Ways to Save
The Dangers of Early Retirement
MMD: The following post is a guest contribution from Deacon Hayes @WellKeptWallet.com. It's about a topic that I think about often: How will I constructively make the most of my time once I achieve financial independence? There are a lot of things about retiring early that people find enticing! The option of having to work ten, twenty or thirty years less than most people work brings with it many attractive benefits. First, there is the freedom. Having enough income from investments to do what you want, when you want means you are no longer forced to live under the schedule of the company you work for. If you want to travel, you can. If you want to live without an alarm clock, go for it. When you retire early your time … [Read more...] about The Dangers of Early Retirement
Niche Website Update 38 – How I Sold My Websites
Hello and welcome to the LONG overdue edition of my Niche Website update series. This is a very special write-up because it’s somewhat of a conclusion: The story of how I sold my websites, how much money they made, and what I will be doing next! But first … let’s go back to the beginning. Originally I had created these niche sites as a way to dive into the world of Internet Entrepreneurship. My goal was to use these websites to create multiple streams of passive income. And for a while, it worked! I was making a nice sum of money from the sites, and every month my progress seemed to be heading upward in the right direction. That was until 2015 when I discovered I had cancer. From that point on, everything changed. My health … [Read more...] about Niche Website Update 38 – How I Sold My Websites
Thinking BIGGER Than Early Retirement – Could You Build a Financial Legacy?
We’re almost there. For years, my wife and I have been aggressively saving towards our goal of early retirement, and according to our plan, things are right on track. Maybe too well … As an engineer by trade, I know the value of building in a good safety margin to your plan. And right now, ours has a pretty large one! But having taken some pretty important steps forward lately with estate planning, all of this has got me thinking: What if retirement (or even early retirement at that) is just the beginning? What planning for retirement is like standing in an art gallery and focusing on just one single picture in front of you? But when we take a step back, we realize there’s a WHOLE wall in this gallery we could have … [Read more...] about Thinking BIGGER Than Early Retirement – Could You Build a Financial Legacy?
Travel Hacking Chapter 4 – How We Got an All-Inclusive Trip to Los Cabos, Mexico for Just $95!
What’s better than getting your entire summer family vacation to Florida for almost-free? How about ALSO getting a second vacation to the warm sandy beaches of an all-inclusive luxury resort in Los Cabos, Mexico ... for just $95 out-of-pocket? Yes, it’s true! After strategically travel hacking our way to a whole bunch of Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) points and scoring nearly-free flights, a hotel, and rental car, we decided to go “all-in” and maneuver our remaining points towards yet another incredible vacation for barely any money at all! Here’s the back-story … As many of you already know from my previous Travel Hacking Chapters 1-3, originally our goal was to reduce the amount of money we were going to spend in 2017 by trying out … [Read more...] about Travel Hacking Chapter 4 – How We Got an All-Inclusive Trip to Los Cabos, Mexico for Just $95!
The American Dream Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Different Now
One of the sensational headlines I often see tossed around is the notion that the "American Dream" is dead, and that it’s impossible for the average person to “get ahead” anymore. But is that really true? Are we all really being held back by some invisible force, or has our idea of what the American Dream should be just become so skewed that we’re chasing after something that never really existed in the first place? The Origin of the American Dream The term “the American Dream” is credited to James Truslow Adams who wrote in 1931: "Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.” America was seen … [Read more...] about The American Dream Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Different Now
The 4 Percent Rule – Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know
The 4 Percent Rule has arguably become one of the best known and somewhat controversial strategies in retirement planning when it comes to safe withdrawal rates. Yet, despite how often we refer to it on this blog, it occurred to me that I’ve never actually written an article that talks about it comprehensively. While doing the research for my ebook “How Much Money Do I Really Need to Retire & Achieve Financial Independence?”, I got the opportunity to dive pretty deep into the publications that made the 4 Percent Rule famous and the studies where it originated. That ended up becoming a very interesting task because it helped me to understand this topic at a much deeper level. As it turns out, there is actually a lot of … [Read more...] about The 4 Percent Rule – Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know
Right or Wrong, Keep Planning Your Retirement
One of the most frustrating parts of retirement planning is the fact that no matter how ironclad yours might be, there will always be someone who will tell you that its wrong. And unfortunately they’re right. They’re right in the sense that no one can predict what is going to happen in the future. Assumptions are the gears that make our retirement machines work. Choose unwisely and your plan will deviate from reality very quickly. Nearly every assumption we use in retirement planning is up for debate. The average annualized market return we use to forecast how much our portfolios will grow is really nothing more than just an “average”. You see this all the time that someone will make an Excel spreadsheet where their nest egg … [Read more...] about Right or Wrong, Keep Planning Your Retirement
