finance

  • FI – Financial Independence

    What does financial independence mean to you? Is it a number? A time frame? What is financially independent? What does it look like? These are questions I never really asked myself before until recently. Early this year I reached out to a friend whose advice I value about some financial choices I was weighing at Read more

  • Renting vs. Owning: Making Informed Decisions for Your Future

    After a handful of years working very hard to repair rebuild my credit, a whole new adulting idea came to mind. The thought of owning my own home. I made a call to a realtor last year and made it very clear that I wasn’t ready to buy, but that I wanted to gather information Read more

  • Credit Repair – Negative Items

    Using credit wisely is the best way to avoid the need to “repair” credit. But for many of us, this lesson is learned the hard way long after our credit reports show a multitude of late payments and even collections. We find ourselves with an attitude of acceptance that our credit is just “ruined” and Read more

  • Effective Credit Card Usage: Benefits, Cautions, and Guidelines

    If you use credit cards wisely, you can benefit from a lot of perks, depending on what that card offers. For example, if your card has a cash back benefit, you earn money as you use the card, and can generally trade in this money for a credit to your account, a gift card, use Read more

  • Investment Options: Individual Stocks, Mutual Funds, and Index Funds

    Any time you put money aside, you are making an investment in your future. That may be in the form of saving for a future purchase, a future expense, an emergency fund, a new car, a home, retirement, etc. If you hold that money in cash, it actually loses value because inflation causes the value Read more

  • Retirement – Work Options

    If you don’t want to live on Social Security in your golden years, which we’ve already discussed, is not going to replace your income when you want to retire, you need another plan. What do you want your life to look like when you’re in your 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s? Do you want your standard Read more

  • Debt-Free Transportation: Tips for Ditching Car Loans and Interest Payments

    A vehicle is one of the most expensive things you will ever buy and most of us need, or at least believe we need, a car. If you live in an area that doesn’t have an easily accessible public transportation system, you probably need one. Owning a car is expensive. You have to pay for Read more

  • Debt Payoff Methods: A Personal Success Story

    I believe it’s true that wise people learn from their mistakes and experiences. Even wiser people learn from the mistakes of others. We can all learn from each other, but only if we are willing to share those experiences. I would like to share some of mine with you to give you an example of Read more

  • Debt

    “Don’t have the money right now? Just charge it.” This has become the norm for too many of us. We can’t afford something so we purchase it with a credit card. We don’t have the money for a new car so we get a loan. We carry student loans for decades. We get sucked in Read more

  • Emergency Funds

    The average American Household doesn’t prioritize saving, let alone have money set aside for emergencies. Typically, most people do not have enough to cover an emergency that costs $500, let alone a more expensive one. In most households, dealing with an emergency involves going into debt. We’ll talk about this in the next post, but Read more