The Smartest Advice on Money I Ever Got. What's Yours?

Before I share my own, totally boring, advice from over the years, I wanted to share my fav. quote from an article in this month's Money Magazine (Aug). It comes from their "Smartest Advice I've Ever Got" article which covered 30+ smarty pants, and the one thing that stuck by them over the years.

My awesomest was from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, on her father being the "most frugal human being" she's ever met:

"Borrowing money is like wetting your bed in the middle of the night. At first all you feel is warmth and release. But very, very quickly comes the awful, cold discomfort of reality."

How awesome is that? I seriously WISHED someone had told me that back in the day...i'm not sure if it would have changed anything, but it sure would have stuck :) I think i need to start hanging around some more clever people...

The smartest advice I ever got isn't nearly exciting, but it IS helpful! While my mom and grandma have always been the most frugal of the group - creating my addiction to yard sales, thrift stores, and Ta Ta Ta TJ Maxx - it's my dad who's usually the go-to guy when it comes to the overall picture.

The one thing he's always harped on, along w/ many others, is to "never put anything on a credit card that you can't pay off". Plain and simple, but oh so true! It may not be as sexy as Elizabeth's quote, but it sure is smart. And while I may not pay the purchases off asap, I ALWAYS have some sort of plan and timeline in mind before swiping.

What about you guys? Do you recall any helpful advice over the years?

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Here's another post I wrote on the role money has played growing up.

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Book Review: The Millionaire Next Door

BOOK: The Millionaire Next Door
AUTHOR: Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko
SEXINESS: 4 Thumbs ups! (toes count)

Tied for my all-time favorite financial book! Where as The Automatical Millionaire (the other favorite) shows you HOW to reach your goals, this book helps get your "financial mind" positioned right - and does so brilliantly!

There's one defining concept portrayed throughout:
Always live below your means.

You do this, no matter your age, salary, etc, and your wealth will grow exponentially - and so will your peace of mind :) That's not to say you can't be a millionaire AND have fancy things, of course, but just that these guys choose not to.

Even if you DO earn a crazy high income, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll be rich (aka have a high net worth). The same holds true with the highly educated:

"How can well-educated, high-income people be so naive about money? Because being a well-educated, hight-income earner does not automatically translate into financial independence. It takes planning and sacrificing"

Amen brother. If only they knew about our blogs! haha ... So who are these Pimps?

According to Stanley & Danko, the average millionaire is:

• 57 years old, Male, and married with 3 children. 70% of them earn 80% or more of their household income.
• Self-employed (2/3rds of them). 1 in 5 are retired.
• A homeowner. 97% of them own homes, which are valued around $320,000.
• First-generation affluent (80%) - meaning they are self-made millionaires, not because they inherited all their money.

And, on average, they:

• Invest nearly 20% of their household realized income EACH YEAR.
• Have total annual realized (taxable) incomes of $131,000, with average incomes at $247,000.
• Live well below their means, wear inexpensive suits and drive American-made cars.
• Have wives who are planners and meticulous budgeters. (they know what's up! Sexy all the way baby... i don't care what others say).
• They have a "go-to-hell fund" - basically, enough to quit working for 10+ years if they really wanted.
• And, are mostly tightwads! haha... hence, one of the main reasons they agreed to complete a long questionnaire for a few crispy dollar bills.

This is all broken down throughout the chapters, so if you get bored with one pile of stats, you can easily move on to others. They also categorize high earners into what they call PAWS and UAWS, and then compare the differences between them. PAWS are "Prodigious accumulator of wealth", and UAWS are "Under accumulator of wealth". You want to be a PAW ;)

In all honesty, reading this book has become the financial ying to my yang. It goes right up there with the purchase of our house and living off a budget - I love it! You really do get to know their way of life, and it really sticks.

The ONLY thing i'd like to see is an updated version of this bad boy. While i'm sure this "way of life" hasn't changed much over the years, i bet the stats sure have! A ton of stuff has happenend since this book published in 1996. (You hear that Stanley & Danko? If you do this for me, I promise you 1 (one) sale of this new book)

I totally recommend this book to anyone interested in furthering their financial education. A+ baby, all the way!

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* You can buy the book here: The Millionaire Next Door
* And you can check out other book reviews here: Book Reviews

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Let's dig around in our past.

My new obsession these days is Money Magazine, and the only thing holding me back from reading it every day is the fact that it only comes out once a month. Unlike some other $ mags out there, Money conjures up some fascinating (and pretty easy to read) articles that even us newbies can quickly pick up. I'm not saying i'm slow or suck at reading, but i'll be the first to admit those financial terms lose me every now and then.

One of my favorite articles this month (April, pg 79) goes into some psychology and "life" questions that poke around a bit, and get you to figure out exactly what you want out of your money. It's titled, "What do you really want from your money?" :)

Although there are a few familiar questions like "if you were to die tomorrow, would you feel like you missed anything? would you do anything different?", they had a pretty cool side box that helps you to dive into your past and figure out your money habits. It's titled "Digging In" (pg 82), and it pulls excerpts from a questionnaire used by Barbara Kirby, a Minn. financial adviser.

Since one of my fav. things is to answer those random lists of questions people forward around, i figured i'd post and answer a handful of them myself. Here's what we got (questions quoted from Money):

1. When you were a kid, did your family use money mainly to reward, punish, survive, impress, control, help others, have fun, buy love, reach goals, or ____? oh man, i hardly understood money back then...but i'd probably go with "paying the bills" and "making sure we didn't have to worry about money".
2. When you were young, did you consider your family to be rich, poor or ___? I'd say smack down in the middle. i never thought we were rich, but i did wonder why we couldn't get Nike's every year like all the cool kids ;)
3. As an adult, what has been the most important lesson you have learned about money? To save it! not that i always followed it, but that was the 1 and only thing ever mentioned about $ in our household.
4. In your current financial life, are you more of an avoider or a worrier? Prob. a healthy mix of both. I usually try to avoid worrying!
5. Has money been an "issue" or source of conflict in your important relationships? Never.
6. What money habits have been obstacles to your reaching your life goals? probably just spending more as i brought in more. since i'm still in my 20's (barely.....tear) it's not like i've had any major goals to strive for, but now that i'm putting them in place i'll def. need to keep my eyes on the money flowing out of my pockets.
7. What experience do you feel has most directly shaped your current level of financial satisfaction? Buying our house last year. That's really the turning point of my budgeting and financial planning. Although i am extremely more knowledgeable now than when we bought sadly, it's def. opened my eyes and forced me to wake up and smell the greenbacks.

That is all my friends. If you're interested, or just plain bored, i challenge you to give it a shot yourself! I've asked myself many a questions before, but none like these. Maybe you'll have one of those "Ohhh, so THAT's why i ____"?

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Mrs. Budgetsaresexy got accepted to Grad School!

This is a HUGE day for us, Hooray!!! She's been working like crazy on all her applications, and killing the GRE's, and it's now coming to fruition :) Without going into it too much (she's not as carefree w/ the open details as myself) she now has 2 acceptances and 4 no's out of the 9 total applied to. This is very good as the odds of getting into just 1 well respected school in her field is extremely hard.

Of course, with every positive comes it's negatives, and as you can imagine this will have a major impact on our finances. The steady $50k she brings in not only allows us to save more, but also allows us to live a financially comfortable life. In a good 6 months though, this hefty sum will quickly dissipate as school begins. Sure it'll more than even out over the years, but YIKES!

There are a couple variables here that will totally make things easier or harder for us in this adventure. Here's what we got:

1) Full Scholarship: A lot of PhD programs offer a majority of their accepted students full tuition. This is HOTTTT! Can you imagine scratching off that $150k loan + interest that you'd otherwise have to get? This is a dream come true for all PF'ers :) And anyone else too of course! ha ha...

2) Stipend: From what i understand, this would be IN ADDITION TO the whole scholarship stuff. So not only would the tuition be totally paid from the start, but then you'd receive an additional stream of $ while studying! Granted it wouldn't even be close to the $50k we're used to getting, but that's still incredible. Talk about having less stress while you're immersed in hardcore education for 4+ years.

So, which possibilities are in the air for us at this moment? As it stands, both. The first school, which is at the bottom of her list, has granted her a full scholarship so far (AWESOME!), but no word yet on the stipend situation. The second school, currently her top choice, has just recently notified her of her acceptance with no additional details as yet.

Either way, i totally support her decision 100%. Getting a Masters or PhD is a dream for many and has consistently shown higher results down the road, so I'm proud of anyone going after it. Receiving both a scholarship and stipend will obviously make things much more easier money-wise, but i have total faith we'll be able to navigate the financial waters just fine :) Congrats again baby!

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