Prior to our financial meltdown, my wife and I simply never sat down and talked about our finances. Right after our meltdown, we talked about things almost every day, but through our recovery, our discussions have slowly reduced themselves to the point where we’re effectively already having monthly family financial meetings. And these meetings have
One of my most loyal readers, a person named Brad who first emailed me about The Simple Dollar about a week after it launched, sent me an email this week that really struck a chord with me. Here’s the key part. Ever since I was a little kid, all I’ve wanted to do was play
When I was young, I dreamed about a lot of things. I wanted to be a writer, writing things that genuinely changed people’s lives. I wanted to have children and be a father to them like Ted Arroway without the collapse. I wanted to visit lots of different parts of the world and see how
My big, overarching dream is to achieve true financial independence. By that, I mean that I have enough money saved and invested that I can live off the interest and investment income – a point that I’ve discussed before as the crossover point. This is a huge goal, one that I won’t achieve for many
Hopefully, this headline woke you up a bit this morning. Several months ago, I made a list of 101 goals that I wanted to reach in the next three years. I piled this list on top of an already long list of medium term and long term goals – building a writing career, paying off
One thing I often do early in the morning on Mondays is make a list of the things I want to accomplish during the week. Some of them are simple enough that I can get them done in a half an hour when I find the time – others require some continuous effort throughout the
1. Play with a child. There are only 6,574 days between a child’s birth and their eighteenth birthday. Don’t waste a single one. 2. Keep that wallet in your pocket. Time is money and money is time – don’t spend either without a good reason. 3. Stop and smell the roses. You’re never too busy
Out of all of the challenging times since I began to turn my financial life around, I may be facing the most challenging of all right now. It’s not anything immediate or urgent. I have a nice healthy emergency fund to take care of that. It’s also not a temptation to buy anything, nor a
Almost every year, I define a handful of New Year’s resolutions for myself, as do many people around the world. The new year provides a proverbial “clean slate” – the turning of the calendar year provides a very clear psychological place with which to work on life changes we’d like to make. The problem is
Many, many people write letters to their past selves, advising their earlier selves to avoid mistakes that they’ve made. I thought it might be interesting to take the opposite approach and write myself a letter today to read on my fortieth birthday. Dear Trent, Today is your fortieth birthday. Your son is twelve years old,
As the end of the year approaches, we inevitably begin to look ahead to 2008 with a keen eye. Since I tend to be the goal-setting type, I’ve been thinking a lot about the goals I want to set for 2008, and I thought it might be informative (and perhaps inspirational) to share them. My
On an earlier post about losing financial focus, Erick left the following comment: You mention that you are making progress to your goals but still have a long way to go. What are these goals? I assume reaching the “crossover point”? And I know this is nosy but when you say you have enough money
As I slowly save for a new vehicle (we’re planning on a Honda Odyssey or a Toyota Sienna), I’ve come to realize that saving for a specific goal like this often seems slow and a bit unrewarding. Sure, the bank account goes up over time, but it still seems as though the goal is a
Over the last month, I’ve been re-reading Your Money or Your Life slowly and carefully for the book club, and it definitely again shifted the way I think about a lot of things, as I wrote about in the conclusion. One thing it made me realize is that I already have all of the things
A reader wrote in with the following complaint: You write all the time about starting a side business and about chasing your dreams but it’s all kind of a waste of time. Chasing your dreams is childish. Adults have things that they need to do. After all, 1 Corinthians 13:11 says “When I was a
No matter what your goals are, no matter what your financial situation is, some obstacle (or obstacles) sits in your way. To get started, here are my biggest obstacles: Time I have two successful side businesses right now in addition to my main job. Along with time I set aside to spend with my family,
I’m a very strong believer in setting personal marks of success for yourself, something that I’ve used both before and after my financial turnaround. Setting specific goals for yourself and working consistently to meet them fills you with a deep sense of accomplishment in your life. Before my turnaround, I would set achievement goals in
About a week ago, I mentioned my investment plans now that we have a house. This post happened to be at the top of the site when my wife visited it, and it spurred a week long discussion between the two of us on whether we should be focused on building up that investment or
A few months ago, I discussed the crossover point, the dollar amount you need so that proceeds from your investments exceed your living expenses. Here’s a visual example: In the above graph, the person is investing 30% of their income each year and receives a 4% raise each year. That person reaches a crossover point