Happy Friday, happy people! About 6 months ago, I wrote a blog post about plans to downsize my real estate assets. Specifically, the plan was to sell some physical rental properties and move that cash into more passive investments. Well, the mission is now half complete! We’ve sold 2 rental properties so far and have 2 left to go. Woohoo!
Investing
Lowering my emergency fund… to…. $0.00?
For most of my life I’ve had about 6 - 12 months of living expenses sitting in cash in my checking account. This cash is my “emergency fund”. I’ve always felt fine about this because of these old-school popular money beliefs: Cash is king Cash solves problems quickly Holding cash allows me to jump on opportunities if they arise. Financial gurus say it’s
What Is Socially Responsible Investing and How to Start
Hey money friends! Are any of you nerds into socially responsible investing? (A.k.a. sustainable investing, ESG investing, or impact investing?) I got this question from a reader recently… “I want to start investing in more sustainable, equitable and ethical ways. I have it invested in TD's E-series funds and bonds right now (60% stocks/index funds; 40% bonds), but I
5 Ways to Fund Your Sexy Roth IRA
Roth IRAs are the sexiest tax-advantaged account IMO, and I wish I’d discovered them earlier in life. Once money goes into a Roth IRA, it grows tax-free, can be withdrawn tax-free (contributions anytime, and growth anytime after 59½), and you are never required to take mandatory distributions. If I could snap my fingers and move all my after-tax dollars into a Roth IRA, I
Raw Land Investing, Bill Gates, and the Stock Market Scaries
Good morning, wealth builders! How y’all doing today? Ready for a kickass long weekend? I got the following question from a reader and thought it would be good to share with the group... “Is buying raw land a good investment? I heard that Bill Gates is buying up a bunch of rural land and is the biggest farmland owner in the world. Maybe we should be investing in raw land
Your Money and Your Time: How to Master Both
People sometimes make fun of me for getting up at 5am... But I tell them it’s part of my “pay myself first” rule. “Paying yourself first? Isn’t that an old money rule from one of those finance books? What’s that got to do with getting up at 5am?” Well, as you probably know, the pay yourself first rule exists because most people are bad at money management. When
401(k) Rollover to IRA: Why Bother?
Hello friends! How are you this fine morning? Have you ever left an employer and accidentally forgotten about your old 401(k) account? Maybe you intended to roll it over to a new retirement plan, but the paperwork felt daunting so you never got around to it ... (About 30% of you should be nodding your heads right now, according to studies.) Then after years of the
WTF Is an NFT?
Odds are you’ve seen the letters “NFT” floating around in financial and tech news for the past few months. And if you’re like me you’re totally confused about all this NFT and crypto art stuff. So I reached out to my smartest blogger friend, Jesse from Best Interest, who has a gift for breaking down complex topics and explaining them in layman's terms. Jesse explains the NFT
2 Big Differences Between Successful and Unsuccessful Investors
I have a friend who is a cryptocurrency millionaire. Woohoo! ...But another friend has LOST thousands of dollars messing with crypto. ☹️ I know a couple who made more than $1 million dollars on GameStop stock. Crazy! 😳 ...But I also know that many people LOST large chunks of money trading GameStop during the recent wallstreetbets fandango.
Dollar Cost Averaging vs Lump Sum Investing (What to Do With a Pile of Cash)
A friend of mine just admitted to me a big money problem… She has a little over $200,000 in CASH sitting in her checking account! 😳 Hot dang! That’s a lot of moolah!!! Some of you might be thinking, “What’s the problem? That’s awesome! I wish I had that much in savings!”... Well, the problem is, her money isn’t actually invested in anything. It has wicked
