Thanks to The Sun’s Financial Diary for posting this at this week’s carnival of personal finance.
Thomas Stanley’s “Millionaire Next Door” approach to building wealth is sane, simple, and basically foolproof if you’re consistent: Save, invest, and wait.
There’s another path that, as a self-employed person, I find more provocative.
Earlier this year, authors Russ Alan Prince and [...]
Entries from October 31st, 2008
Do You Want What It Takes to be a Millionaire Today: Career First
October 31st, 2008 4 Comments
Tags: career · financial independence · hobbies · Lewis Schiff · Russ Alan Prince · The Middle-Class Millionaire
Choosing Debt
October 30th, 2008 2 Comments
Cash Husband here:
While talking to my brother recently about the financial double-whammy of having kids (higher expenses, lower income), he politely reminded me: “You chose to have kids, you know.” Which raises a legitimate and important question: If kids are so expensive, why didn’t we have a better plan in place before we had them?
In [...]
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Gratitude Post: Thank You, In-Laws
October 29th, 2008 1 Comment
In which I try to enumerate, over the course of a one-week visit, the generosity of my in-laws:
9 bottles of wine
36 beers
1 bottle of vodka
1 bottle of whiskey
1.5 pies
2 dozen cookies
one quart ice cream
two bags of jelly beans
various bags of chips
crackers and cheese
12 rolls of paper towels
20 rolls of toilet paper
4-odd grocery store trips, always [...]
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Thomas Stanley on Creating Your Own Wealth
October 22nd, 2008 2 Comments
So, Mr. Stanely, for the money:
How can I get richer?
Subscribe to the cheap date, hurry up and wait philosophy, Stanley says. That is, spend less, save more, and repeat.
To hear him tell it, millionaires next door are no rocket scientists. They didn’t get rich quickly, and neither will most of us. (Unless you’re about to [...]
Tags: cheap date · hurry up and wait · investing · spending: duh factor
Thomas Stanley on Wealth and the Myth of Upward Mobility
October 21st, 2008 No Comments
If you like nice stuff — and hey, who doesn’t — it follows that more cash equals more. I mean, what’s wrong with buying the luxury dream car if you can afford it, right?
Thomas Stanley says that’s an assumption about upward mobility that leads us astray.
“People want to conform. You get out of college, and [...]
Tags: assumptions · conforming · Planning · priorities
Getting to 60% Part 2: More Details
October 10th, 2008 1 Comment
Husband here, chiming in with a more detailed picture of our progress toward 60%.
We used “creative accounting” to get down to 79% from something crazy like 89%. Nothing fancy, just moving newspaper subscriptions and Netflix into the fun category, and moving the car payment and home equity loan into the debt/savings category.
Grandma (my mother-in-law) graciously [...]
Tags: Cash Husband post
Getting to 60 Percent: Progress So Far
October 10th, 2008 No Comments
Here’s our progress to date on getting our fixed household expenses to equal no more than 60 percent of our budget. Right now our committed monthly expenses — utilities, mortgage, taxes, gas etc. — stand at 73 percent. (I think this might be an accounting adjustment from the previously reported 79 percent. Cash Husband can [...]
Tags: cuts · new habits · pet peeve · progress to 60 percent
Cleaning Service Verdict: Compromise
October 9th, 2008 No Comments
The votes are in:
We had 4 votes to cut the cleaning service, 3 votes to keep it, and 4 to compromise — to reduce the cleaning to once a month if possible.
We decided to go with the compromise, since our cleaner said she’d be willing to do that.
Savings: $55/month.
Now we’ll see if we’re able to [...]
Tags: compromise · polls · votes
Understanding the Bailout: Real Work Just Beginning
October 6th, 2008 1 Comment
How will the bailout actually affect us?
The rationale was to buy up all the bad housing loans that are sinking the balance sheets of major financial institutions. Kind of like if you had bought up a whole bunch of beachfront property to flip right before the housing downturn. Uh-oh, no way you can sell those [...]
Tags: credit · George Soros
