What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Budgeting for “discretionary money”
2. Bank recommendation
3. Advantages or drawbacks to marriage
4. Buying a beginner bike
5. Finding a good campground
6. Spending less on food
7. Cosigning advantages on car loan
8. 401(k) contribution question
The following post is by ESI from ESI Money, a blog about achieving financial independence through earning, saving, and investing (ESI). It’s written by an early 50’s retiree who achieved financial independence, shares what’s worked for him, and details how others can implement those successes in their lives. He is also the author of a free ebook titled Three Steps to Financial Independence and spends a lot of his time interviewing millionaires.
Several months ago, a friend recommended I give Reddit a try. He said there was lots going on at the site and I would enjoy it.
"Enjoy" was not the first word I thought of when he mentioned it. I think I was more in the "fear" camp initially.
It can be easy to forget that the things you own will someday need to be replaced, particularly big ticket items. There's a certain sense of finality about owning an appliance, vehicle, or piece of furniture that may make it seem like you'll never have to worry about getting another one again.
If your retirement plan is simply to keep working, you’re taking a very big risk.
You may think the solution to not having enough money to retire is to work beyond the traditional retirement age of age 65. Just remember that life is full of surprises, and not all of them are pleasant. Holding down a job as a senior citizen can be difficult. If you don’t save for your retirement, you may find yourself both out of work and short of money.
“It’s OK to plan to work past 65, but it’s reckless to not have a contingency plan in case you aren’t able to,” says retirement and wealth management planner Brandon Renfro. “You may not be the only one to pay the price for lack of planning either. You could significantly burden your loved ones who will be responsible for caring for you.”
Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life.
1. Bob Dylan on regrets
“I don’t believe in regrets. Regrets just keep you chained to the past. You gotta make peace with the past. There’s no reason to regret it. You’ve done it, just make peace with it.” – Bob Dylan
A few weeks ago, I was digging through some very old journal entries, some of my oldest ones from the mid-1990s. I read an entry about an old friend of mine who passed away several years later. Our friendship had faded and I actually didn’t hear about his passing for a while, well past his funeral, and it filled me with huge regret when I heard about it and I actually felt some regret when I read this entry.
Megan writes in with a great question:
Hi Trent! I am hoping your years of experience working at home can help out here.
My husband started a new job on January 1 where he works from home. We were excited for this change as we have a preschool aged child and the flexibility of his new position could really help out with child care. We were also excited about the big savings in commuting, food, clothing, and other work expenses.
It hasn’t quite worked out like we’d hoped, and we’re hoping you’ll have some good ideas with some of the problems we have run into.
While many rewards enthusiasts focus on signing up for new credit cards to earn signup bonuses, not everyone has the time or desire to play the signup game.
Join our Tweetchat Thursday, 5/2 at 12pm PST/ 3pm EST for lively conversation and a chance to win a $200 gift card or one of two $50 gift cards! Use #WBChat and #SmartyChat to participate.
This week's topic: Saving on Pets!
I grew up in the country. My family always had a vegetable garden. For us, gardening meant a large plot, plowed and raked, then planted with long, widely-space rows of vegetables. It also meant weeding and hoeing, weeding and hoeing. Lots and lots of weeding and hoeing.
Gardening was a chore.
When my ex-wife and I bought our first home, we both wanted a vegetable garden, but we didn't want the drudgery that came with it. Besides, we didn't have a big space in the country — we had an average city lot. Fortunately, we discovered Mel Bartholomew's Square-Foot Gardening.
Bartholomew's method allowed us to enjoy reasonable crop production in a small space. With his technique, almost any homeowner can grow her own food.
Given the enormous differences in the financial situations of different people, it’s easy to buy into the idea that those different stories have very little in common. After all, what exactly does a well-funded investor making his first millions have in common with a single parent with three kids trying to keep the rent paid?
While those differences might be important, when I hear those stories, what I look for are the similarities. Their external situations might be really different, but the things that drive those people internally are actually quite similar.
When it comes to homeowners insurance, typical policies cover such hazards as fire, vandalism, and lightning strikes.
And while every policy is different, there are also a variety of surprising or unusual items and accidents that your coverage provider may very well foot the bill for. Everything from hitting someone with a golf ball when enjoying a day on the greens to the costs associated with identity theft could be part of your plan.
Unfortunately, few consumers understand the full scope of their coverage. A study from the Insurance Information Institute found that while consumers understand the major areas that their house insurance covers, they often have gaps in their knowledge about policies.
With the advancements in the digital
media, professionals these days have launched new features to the social media
websites. Facebook, Instagram, and
Twitter have gained huge popularity online. Individuals are using these
platforms for having fun with their near and dear ones. Whereas business owners
make use of it to attract audience attention. They are always interested in using the latest features of social media websites
to create brand impression online. It can help them to get twitter
votes for their products and services, and
within very less time, their brand can beat competitors online.
HubShout started out in 2008 by offering a multitude of services including SEO, analytics, content marketing, and PPC, as well as other associated solutions for your online business.
What’s Good About Hubshout?
HubShout have grown over the years into one of the industry’s most well-known online solution providers. They have gained a lot of recognition from reputed customers who are very satisfied with HubShout services. One of the best things that customers like about HubShout is their openness with stats. Skimming through the reviews, one can easily observe the level of customer satisfaction HubShout has consistently maintained since 2008.
HubShout believes in the lean startup methodology, where numbers matter more than the words.
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” – C.S. Lewis
Whenever I look back at the life I led early in my adult years, I can’t help but feel a strong twinge of frustration. I see myself wasting tons of money, digging myself into a financial hole that took a very long time to dig out of. I see myself making several career missteps which led me to gradually becoming deeply unhappy with a field that I loved. I see myself not having the faintest idea of what it meant to be a good father or a good husband.
I look back and wonder what could have been had I been smarter with my money and smarter with my career. I have a good marriage and good relationships with my three children now, but what did I miss out on and mess up?
Sometimes even the best-prepared households get knocked sideways, financially speaking. Illness, unemployment, divorce, a car accident that triggers a lawsuit – these and other situations can quickly put a hurt on the budget. In such times a personal loan or one of several types of home equity loans can provide a little breathing room until you rebuild your finances.
As noted, money woes are sometimes the result of plain old bad luck (illness, job loss). However, sometimes we’re our own worst enemies: We buy too much, we save too little, we plan not at all.
You can’t get ahead that way. And you can’t keep borrowing your way out of trouble. A loan won’t help you unless you fix the following issues.
The big day has
arrived when you will be moving home. It is a stressful occasion, so you may be
worried about what to expect on the day of your move. Here’s how your moving day might unfold, with thanks to
Mod24, who are a movers on demand service.
Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 during the gold rush era in the Western United States. While the bank’s first real branch opened for business in San Francisco, new offices began to pop up in small towns and mining camps within the next few years. In 1888, Wells Fargo became the country’s first nationwide express company, expanding into 2,500 communities in 25 different states.
Since those early days, Wells Fargo has grown to be one of the most prominent banks in the nation. These days, you can turn to Wells Fargo for nearly all your banking needs from mortgage loans to auto loans, checking and savings accounts, home equity loans, and credit cards.
On Saturday evening, I had a chance to chat with my friends Wally and Jodie. You might remember them from a reader case study from last August. They're the couple that wants to get their finances in order but they're worried because they're starting with less than zero.
When we chatted in August, Wally and Jodie had over $35,000 in debt. They had variable incomes, but somehow seemed to spend exactly what they earned — about $3000 per month after taxes. Worst of all, they were behind on some payments.
Now, eight months later, their situation has improved.
Over smoked German sausage and beer, Wally and Jodie told me about their progress. (My dog, Tahlequah, was eager to take part in the conversation. Or maybe it was the sausage she wanted?)
An ACH API is able
to offer the opportunity for developers and “software as a service” (SAAS) platforms
to debit and credit bank accounts by making use of the ACH network by using
an Application Program Interface, more commonly known as an API. This enables
the automatic ACH payment collection, disbursement and reconciliation.
If you have an
application that makes use of a recurring or subscription payment-based setup,
making use of an effective ACH Payment Gateway API is a real game changer
and will ensure a seamless user experience for platform users.
What are the Benefits of an ACH API?
You might be trying
to get your head around how ACH APIs will benefit your business. If you have
some knowledge of credit cards, ACH transactions are completed differently to
credit cards.
I recently came across a wonderful essay by Michael Barrish entitled System. In it, he describes a model for life made up of three stages:
In 1988 Laura and I created a three-stage model of what we called “living process.” We called the three stages Good Thing, Rut, and Transition. As we saw it, Good Thing becomes Rut, Rut becomes Transition, and Transition becomes Good Thing. It’s a continuous circuit.
A Good Thing never leads directly to a Transition, in large part because it has no reason to. A Good Thing wants to remain a Good Thing, and this is precisely why it becomes a Rut. Ruts, on the other hand, want desperately to change into something else.
This pattern immediately made sense to me. In most aspects of my life, I follow this cycle, except that the three stages are never anywhere near equal in length.
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