THE 3 Principles of Building Wealth

THE 3 Principles of Building Wealth

“These are the habits that brought us to where we are.” – my girlfriend once told me while filling a bottle of water so we don’t have to buy any in an amusement park.

I couldn’t agree more.

Although our principles of building wealth are not exclusively based on saving, any financial endeavor requires starting capital.

That’s why we’ll start there.

Principle #1: Capital

Capital – assets that can enhance one’s power to perform economically useful work.1

The opening sentence of this post might seem like I’m trying to promote aggressive saving or extreme frugality.

That’s actually far from the truth.

So unlike the advice you’d get from the personal finance police, I back to differ:

Don’t cut your own hair

Don’t wait for discounts

Don’t sacrifice quality to save cents

Don’t cook at home if you don’t feel like it, etc., etc., etc.

But would that mean that you’ll go broke?

Nope.

Just don’t spend emotionally.

That’s it.

Congratulations, you’re frugal now. That’s literally everything you needed to do.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://monkwealth.com/the-3-principles-of-building-wealth/#easy-footnote-2-1762

19 Principles That Will Help You Succeed in the “Real World”

19 Principles That Will Help You Succeed in the “Real World”

 by JJ

Okay, so here is a list of 19 principles that I have accumulated over the years. These are things that I wish someone would have shared with me when I was ready to graduate high school and enter the “real world.”

My hope is that you will skim through this list and find a few things that are useful or inspiring! I can’t say that I was ready to accept some of this “guidance” when I was 18 years old and that’s totally okay. In fact, as I read back over this post I can’t believe that I wrote it. It has a self help, motivational vibe that I was definitely not giving off in high school. But, a little over 10 years later (well closer to 15…) and I’m starting to buy into it.

So, if you find some of these points kind of hokey…just give it a few years

19 Principles That Will Help You Succeed in the “Real World”

1. Does it add value?

I think this is the single most important question you can ask yourself when you’re about to make a purchase, start a business or struggling to make any kind of decision.

The way each of us defines value is different. A university education might be valued by some and not by others. Saving up to travel might be more important to you than having a new car or the nicest clothes. When it comes to business, if your idea, content or product does not add value to other peoples lives then it is doomed to fail.

2. Practice, persistence and patience.

Good things come to those who wait….right?  Kind of. Success doesn’t happen over night. Instead it comes to those who practice their craft, those who stick to their goals and those who are in it for the long haul.

Researchers have studied the differences between those who are able, and those who are not able, to delay gratification early on in life (preschool age). Delayed gratification meaning you forgo a prize now so you can receive a bigger one later on.

The best example of this is the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. In the 1960’s a couple of psychologists had young children participate in a study where they were brought into a room and sat directly in front of a treat (a marshmallow).

They were then told that they could eat the marshmallow OR they could wait 15 minutes (literally an eternity for a child) and they would receive TWO marshmallows.

Multiple follow up studies were done over a forty year time period. Results demonstrated that the preschool children who were able to wait for the bigger prize were more competent academically and better equipped to deal with things like frustration and stress at all stages in life (1) (2).

3. Reframe your problems.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

http://thefinancialgraduate.com/19-principles-that-will-help-you-succeed-in-the-real-world/

Suze Orman’s Top 26 Tips That Will Save You From Financial Disaster

Suze Orman’s Top 26 Tips That Will Save You From Financial Disaster

Gabrielle Olya   Sat, July 31, 2021

Suze Orman was working as a waitress and making $400 a month at 29 years old. She then decided to take a chance on a major career change and landed a job as a broker for Merrill Lynch.

Having been on both ends of the financial spectrum, Orman knows what it takes to make the leap from broke to wealthy, and is now one of the most respected voices in personal finance -- as well as a New York Times bestselling author with more than 25 million books in circulation. According to Celebrity Net Worth, she is worth some $75 million, indicating that she’s followed her own financial advice for saving, investing and preparing for retirement.

As any self-made millionaire will tell you, going from rags to riches takes hard work. It also calls for tons of tried and true personal finance strategies to maintain and build financial success.

Live Within Your Needs but Below Your Means

Living within your needs but below your means is the golden rule of the Suze Orman budget. Although food and shelter are needs, you might be spending too much on these essentials.

"How much you choose to spend on your basic needs is a squishy number dependent on the choices you make," Orman wrote in a blog post on her website. "For example, a mortgage lender may tell you that you will qualify for a $250,000 mortgage. But if you can find a great home that meets your family’s needs and it costs $195,000 you will save a lot of money that can be used for other important goals. The $195,000 home fits your needs."

Don't Lease a Car — Buy Instead

"Leasing is a horrible financial move," Orman wrote in a blog post. "It is the auto industry’s way to get you to buy a car you can’t really afford. (...) The big problem is that when you lease there’s the temptation to keep leasing forever. So every three years — the standard lease length — you turn in your car and lease another. That means you are signing on for never-ending monthly car payments."

Orman explained that buying is better because once you pay off your loan, you have that extra monthly payment to build your emergency fund, contribute to a retirement account, save for a home down payment or meet another financial goal.

Stop Paying Extra for Minor Conveniences

The difference in the cost of paying for food delivery instead of cooking or hopping in an Uber instead of taking the bus might seem small, but the expense of always taking the convenient option will add up over time.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/suze-orman-top-26-tips-120054435.html

It Takes More Than Money to Retire Early: Lazyman

It Takes More Than Money to Retire Early: Lazyman

When we think about early retirement, we tend to focus on the money. That’s natural because we need money to retire early. Building a portfolio is a crucial step to early retirement. When I was trying to retire early, it was all about how much we spend and how much passive income we need. However, it takes more than money to retire early.

We have done well over the years and saved up a good amount. That’s true for lots of people. There are over 11 million millionaire households in the US now. Most of these millionaires are still working hard. Clearly, money isn’t the only requirement for early retirement. Some people just aren’t a good fit for early retirement. Finance is a big part of the equation, but there is more to it than that. I thought it’d be interesting to see what that elusive something is. That’s why I’m doing this interview series.

Today, we have Brian from Lazy Man and Money, my east coast doppelganger. I met Brian in 2014 and found that we are very similar. We both retired from an engineering career, became a stay-at-home dad, and our wives kept working. Also, he’s one of the few bloggers that started before me! I’m a big fan of his blog.

Can you give us a brief background about yourself? What career did you retire from?

Answer>   I was a software engineer.  I started programming when I was 8 or 9 back in the mid-1980s.  In 2008 (age 32), I transitioned from full-time software engineering to blogging.

At that time, my military wife was working in Silicon Valley, which sounds like a perfect situation for me as a software engineer.  However, Silicon Valley demands 12-15 hours of engineers’ time (hence the Google/Facebook/Apple campuses).  That doesn’t work for a military spouse, because the military commitment has to be the main priority.  The competing priorities wouldn’t work if we were to start a family.  Now we have two boys ages 7 and 8.

Early retirement means different things to different people. Many people don’t think I’m “retired” because I blog a few hours per day and I’m a stay-at-home dad. That’s perfectly fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. What does early retirement mean to you? Do you work at all?

I’m not retired, but self-employed.  I blog, run customer service for a small Silicon Valley company, and sit dogs while their owners are away.  It sounds like a lot and it can be, but I can mostly choose when, where, and how much I work.  It has those elements of retirement, but it keeps me busy.

Like many FIRE bloggers, I prefer to focus on the Financial Independence (FI) rather than the Retire Early (RE) of FIRE.

What were your financial goals and how long did it take you to achieve them?

My main financial goal was to be able to “retire” with my wife when her military pension vested at age 44.  We’re 45 now and I think we reached the goal of financial independence.

FI is a difficult calculation for us because we have three rental properties and our primary residence with mortgages.  The kids go to an expensive (but great) private school.  We get a very good military discount making it a reasonable investment.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://retireby40.org/it-takes-more-than-money-to-retire-early-lazyman/

Advice That Can Help You Survive a Crisis

Advice From Mark Cuban, Warren Buffett and Other Experts That Can Help You Survive a Crisis

Nicole Spector  Thu, July 29, 2021

Amid a calamitous year (and then some) marked with historic civil unrest, a full-blown pandemic and a whiplashed economy, we could all use some words of encouragement. And to whom shall we turn for those prized pearls of wisdom? Might we suggest financial advisors.

These money-minded folks are able to see the state of the economy in a way that the average American doesn’t always get to see — unless they’re hiring them or their services. They bring a detached, big-picture perspective to financial affairs, understanding situations not only according to how they feel in the short term, but what they mean in the long term.

Just as people lean on mentors in their respective fields, financial advisors look to successful people in their industry for guidance and perseverance. GOBankingRates consulted 11 different money experts to learn: What quotes spoken by great financial thinkers do they turn to in these times of trouble? How can these words of wisdom help out the average American right now, no matter their money situation?

Suze Orman

“The only way you will ever permanently take control of your financial life is to dig deep and fix the root problem. If you're not staying on top of your money, you are putting your financial well-being at risk.”

Ebony J. Howard, CPA, a financial expert for RetireGuide.com, loves how this quote “establishes how to maintain financial security.” She added that this bit of Suze Orman's wisdom is essential to help folks become adequately prepared for any crisis that may arise during COVID-19. “Ensuring that you have built an emergency savings fund to cover at least six months’ worth of expenses is the key to stay afloat — while focusing on keeping spending habits under control, lowering debts and only the necessities."

Warren Buffett

“Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.”

Warren Buffett wrote these prescient words in The New York Times op-ed in 2008 during the Great Recession. Now, in the bellows of the COVID-19 recession, these words ring true again to Asher Rogovy, chief investment officer at Magnifina.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/advice-mark-cuban-warren-buffett-120047426.html

Getting a Mortgage When You Have Assets But No Income

 Getting a Mortgage When You Have Assets But No Income

Posted by Darrow Kirkpatrick | Aug 28, 2017 | Real Estate, Retiring

Most early retirees have no pension, annuity, or Social Security income. Even if you’re a traditional retiree, you might have only one of those income streams. But what if your lifestyle plans require a home purchase? Even if you have the savings to afford a house, you might not necessarily be able to liquidate enough of those assets quickly in a tax efficient manner. So you’ll need a mortgage. But most conventional mortgage loans are based on income. If you can’t show income, how do you go about getting a mortgage?

When we retired, downsized, and moved west I swore I’d never own another house. My post about our move across the country spells out the high quality of life we’ve achieved as renters — without the obligations of home ownership.

My article about renting vs. buying — one of the most popular on this site — lays out a procedure for analyzing the rent vs. buy decision. It’s a financial analysis that, in today’s world, is by no means guaranteed to support buying as the superior option….

But I have never denied the emotional benefits of home ownership. There is an element of control and security in owning the property where you live. I’m not immune to that feeling. We owned our home for the 17 years we were raising our son in Tennessee, and were content. But, for the past four years, other factors have clearly made renting the better choice for us.

Now, the scales may be tipping as we get visibility into later stages of retirement. The prospect of home ownership has again dawned. Up to now, we have loved our vagabond lifestyle, traveling the west from our home base in Santa Fe. Buying a home now would be a tacit acknowledgment that we were “settling down” in one place for our retirement. But this would be no snap decision for us. Our financial independence hinges on keeping our nest egg working hard. We can’t afford a six-digit mistake.

And, if we were to buy a home, another problem presents itself: We can well afford it, on paper, but where would we get the cash? Yes, we do keep a few years of living expenses on hand. But we don’t have any more than that lying around. The proceeds from our previous home sale in Tennessee have long since been folded into our growing portfolio. And, our other investment positions go back many years. So we can’t sell assets without incurring large capital gains taxes. This all means we would need a mortgage….

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.caniretireyet.com/getting-a-mortgage-when-you-have-assets-but-no-income/

It's OK To Say "NO"

Reposted for our newest members:

(Note: This Article can apply to Lotto-Winners, A Big Inheritance and Dinarians!)

A good read about saying "No"

This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's Dec. 8 Big Money Issue. S

HERE'S A CHALLENGE: Imagine what it feels like to be 21 years old, extremely successful, famously wealthy, wildly stressed and unbearably miserable. How, you might wonder, can all those conditions exist simultaneously?

Start here, with Cowboys All-Pro offensive tackle Tyron Smith, talking to his mother on the phone one day in 2012, his second year in the NFL, during a time of growing tension between him

"We've found a house," Frankie Pinkney told her son.

By this stage, wariness had become as intrinsic to Smith's identity as his brown eyes and bookcase shoulders. Silently, he awaited details. He had agreed to purchase a home in Southern California for his mother and stepfather. They would live in it; he would own it as an investment.

The agreed-upon budget was roughly $300,000, but over the course of the conversation, Frankie dropped the bomb. List price: more like $800,000.

Smith, now 23, is sitting at a polished wood table in the conference room of his lawyer's Dallas office. Surrounded by his girlfriend, accountant and lawyer, he fixes his eyes on a spot somewhere high on the floor-to-ceiling window. "Yeah, my parents wanted a house," Smith says. "But it was way bigger than mine and cost way more than mine."

It's not an easy topic for Smith to discuss -- recounting the conversation appears to be nearly as hard as being on the phone in the first place. He long ago gave up trying to pinpoint when it all went wrong, when the combination of family and money turned corrosive, when one ceased to exist without the other. He recites facts, stripped of emotion, as if determined to turn a painful time in his life into an after-action report.

"That call," he says. "That was the point where I said, 'That's enough.'"

At that precise moment, as he hung up the phone without giving his mother assent or encouragement, something hardened inside him. Reclaiming his finances, that was the easy part. Demystifying his new life -- being something other than a conduit for the wishes of those around him -- that was more complicated.

It works like this: We lack the linguistic dexterity to explain the myriad paths of young men who emerge from poverty -- or a simple lack of privilege -- and achieve riches by playing a game. When words fail us, a creation myth must fill the void, and so the modern professional athlete becomes our Sedna, a massive woman of Inuit legend who lives at the bottom of the ocean, controlling the underworld by providing fish to keep her people from going hungry. Our version of Sedna frees himself from the streets -- the temptations, the poverty, the turbulent flow of every Bad Part of Town -- through a ceaseless, unquenchable devotion to his sport. Visions of The Escape accompany every rep on the bench press, every free throw in an empty gym. In short, his life is a series of made-in-Akron, Beats by Dre moments.

Yes, he will rise up to leave it all behind, but here's where the mythological sleight of hand appears: He'll bring it all with him too. He can't forget where he came from. The myth mandates loyalty and strikes down the ingrate.

And all those people who toiled alongside, those who believed in him and sheltered him and sacrificed for him? They'll also come along, for he's the sin-eater, absorbing all debts -- moral and financial -- so others can be absolved. And his people will never go hungry again.

Jeff Wilson His family's demands for money isn't an easy topic for Smith to discuss. 

 IT LONG AGO became easier for an athlete to subscribe to this myth than to defy it with his personal story. Easier to nod and smile and tacitly agree to be a benign receptacle for our society's need to bundle its fairy tales into color-coded boxes. Why else would newly minted professional athletes -- and let's cut the pretense: It's nearly always young black athletes -- invariably be asked whether they've bought their mother a new house? Or a new car? Or both? Does anyone know whether Aaron Rodgers moved his stay-at-home mother and chiropractor father out of their Chico, California, home and into a beach mansion? Has anyone ever thought to ask?

But could it be possible, ever so slightly possible, that athletes who come from similar backgrounds can have wildly dissimilar stories?

Smith's story is best told chronologically. And it begins, as so many do, in a van filled with cleaning supplies rattling down a desolate highway somewhere in the Mojave Desert.

Smith spent much of his elementary school years working for the family business. Pinkney's Cleaning Service specialized in cleaning new buildings after construction was complete but before tenants moved in. Family members would often climb into that van, drive from their home in Moreno Valley, California, to Phoenix or Sacramento or anywhere in between, clean a building and then pile back into the van for a return drive that could last seven hours. They'd pull into the driveway at 4 or 5 a.m., and Tyron and his five siblings -- a mixture of half brothers, half sisters, stepbrothers and step­sisters -- would be at school by 8.

Introspective and shy, bigger than his peers, Tyron felt detached, like an asset rather than a son, someone valued primarily for his ability to clean tall windows. The detachment might have been rooted in a moment he was too young to remember: the death of his father, Jerry Lee Smith, when Tyron was a year old. Tyron was told that Jerry Lee was murdered and that someone is in prison for the crime, assertions he's been unable to substantiate.

"Growing up, it's hard to feel separated," he says. "You don't know which direction to go. ... It got really complicated. I was the one who always asked, 'Can I get my own job? Can I do my own thing?' I didn't want to work in the janitorial business my whole life."

​Smith doesn't remember watching football as a kid; he had neither the time nor the inclination. He was too big for Pop Warner, and besides, there were van rides to take and windows to reach. But he began to play in high school, and his size and natural ability immediately meshed with his work ethic. He didn't so much find football as it found him. He was huge and nimble, eventually reaching 6-foot-5 and 310 pounds, and by his junior year everyone had a pretty good idea where this was headed.

He was excused from janitorial work if he had a weekend camp to attend, and he remembers thinking, "It was a little weird they let me do my own thing." When he's asked if that created friction between him and his siblings, he says, "It probably did, but I never knew about it." It sounds like the first time this possibility has occurred to him.

Was this the beginning of Tyron's embrace of the myth? When he climbed into the van after Friday night games, heading for another empty building, did he close his eyes and dream of The Escape, when he could direct schools of fish to the surface and rid everyone of this burden?

"When I was out there, I was just enjoying playing," Smith says. "For me, playing a sport was my own space, away from reality. You don't have to worry about anything because you're out there, and you can just play freely."

He did it well enough to earn a scholarship to USC, and in his junior season, something shifted in the family dynamic. NFL decision makers began seeing Smith, with his 85-inch wingspan and sub-5.0 speed in the 40, as a potential first-round pick in the 2011 draft. The conversation at home took on a sharper edge. Family members wondered how much he might get and what percentage of that they might get. There was talk of cars and houses and jewelry. "All of a sudden, people's perception of me started to change," Smith says.

As Leigh Costa, Smith's girlfriend, puts it, "He's always told me he felt like nobody ever really cared about him until coaches started saying, 'You could be really good.'"

HE PLAYED ALONG with the myth. Everyone else was, so what choice did he have? When he was chosen No. 9 in the draft, he was 20, the youngest player in the NFL. He signed a four-year, $12.5 million contract, bought his mom a Range Rover and vowed to pay off his parents' mortgage and retire the family's debts. "I didn't think I owed them anything," Smith says. "I just really wanted to help out. I know how hard the struggle is, and growing up we always had to worry about debt. That was my thing: Use this money to pay off your house, pay your debt and be free of all that stuff."

Later, Smith discovered the money he provided wasn't used for those purposes. Asked how it was spent, Smith shrugs, betraying no emotion. "We don't know," he says. A direct line could be drawn connecting that moment to the moment he hung up the phone because it marked the beginning of a gradual erosion of trust and control. His humanity vanished beneath a barrage of requests. He was no longer son or brother or friend. He began to feel like a human Santa list, robbed of his capacity to be generous.

"The things that were asked for as gifts shocked me," he says. "All I could think to say was, 'Hey, that sounds really expensive.'"

He paid for airline tickets so strangers and near strangers could accompany his parents to games in Dallas. He paid for game tickets (players get only two comps), parking and food. He paid for hotel rooms or let the guests stay in his home.

"Tyron deferred to the mom, who deferred to the stepdad, who had his own mindset on what he deserved and what he should get," says a family associate with knowledge of the situation. "Tyron's a great kid. He was young and overwhelmed."

And so he relented. The myth, after all, demanded he remember where he came from, and a sort of achiever's guilt took over. His family was still back in Moreno Valley, still doing the job he had worked so hard to avoid. He started to think: Maybe I don't deserve all this money. When his financial adviser would call for authorization to transfer funds to his family, he'd say, "Yeah, just transfer it over." They wore him down. Inside, it tore him up.

Studies indicate that 78 percent of NFL players are bankrupt within two years of retirement. How many of those bankruptcies can be attributed to the gradual erosion of control, the constant drip of family and friends asking for money and the unwillingness to confront it? John Schorsch, Smith's lawyer, estimates that the family received roughly $1 million from Tyron's accounts over one year.

"I'm not trying to be hurtful, but I'm not making this money so other people can live off it," Smith says. "You have to understand: This game doesn't last long at all."

AFTER HIS ROOKIE year, Smith was moved from right tackle to left, a huge promotion in an offensive lineman's world. When he texted his parents to tell them, the response he received did not convey joy or congratulations. Instead, it referenced his next contract and how it would be bigger now that he was playing a more valuable position. "It was hard to have a straight-up conversation," Smith says. "I love my family -- I do -- but I didn't love what they became."

A financial adviser who works with numerous professional athletes says, "As players get more, their families want to be paid more. People lose their humanity. We call some family members 'backup point guards' because that's how they believe they should be paid."

Smith's issues went beyond money. Costa, four years Smith's senior and a former account executive for a Dallas sports radio station, was caught in a story as old as time: She, the newcomer, brunette and pretty, was blamed for separating him from his family and controlling his life and finances. Members of his family allegedly made death threats against her. "I brought her into the middle of all this stuff," Smith says. "They bashed her any way possible, and she didn't do anything wrong."

After his mother's request for the $800,000 home, Smith made a last-ditch effort. He placed a call to Moreno Valley, saying, "I love you all, and you mean the world to me, but all this money stuff is stressing me out. Can we just have a great relationship?"

But the lines had been drawn. "We kept getting voice mails and emails threatening all kinds of things," Costa says. Smith and Costa enlisted Schorsch to handle the legal affairs. They cut ties with Smith's financial adviser and made the myth-defying move of hiring Bill Saplicki, a Dallas accountant who was recommended to Costa and who works primarily with doctors and dentists and precisely one professional athlete.

In the summer of 2012, Schorsch filed to have a protective order placed against Smith's parents and siblings, prohibiting them from having contact with him. The event that precipitated the protective order occurred on June 16 when Smith's mother and stepfather confronted him publicly while he was working at a youth football camp at his alma mater, Rancho Verde High School in Moreno Valley. "We did as little as possible to accomplish as much as possible," Schorsch says. And yet on the night of Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, with Smith at the team hotel on the eve of a home game against the Giants, two of his sisters arrived unannounced at the home Smith shared with Costa in North Dallas.

The doorbell rang, and Costa looked through the glass in the door and froze.

"You need to let us in this house," one of them said.

"Why?" Costa answered. "You've made threats against my life. I don't know what you have on you right now, and your brother's not here."

Costa said she called the police after the women repeatedly said, "We're not leaving until you let us in." Three days later, on Tuesday afternoon, two of Smith's sisters were among three people who returned to the house. This time, Smith called 911 and police cited the women for disorderly conduct. A Dallas police report noted that Smith's sisters were there to "harass and torment ... in the pursuit of collecting financial gain."

Frankie Pinkney turned down an interview request. She directed questions to her manager, Mark Wayne, who runs an entertainment company with offices in Seattle and New York. Pinkney, according to Wayne's website, is part of a group attempting to sell a reality show called Football Moms. "She's been painted as an extortionist to her own son, which is not true," Wayne says. "There's so much friction between her and her son. She loves her son with all her heart and wants to reunite. I don't think she's had a fair shake."

Wayne refused to elaborate, except to say, "The truth will come out. It's not for me to share; it's for Frankie. She took the heat for a lot of stuff. Her reputation has been damaged."

What is she waiting for? "She needs to heal," Wayne says. "A lot of healing needs to take place."

After a night loss to the Redskins on Oct. 27, Smith exhibits the second-day inertia of an NFL offensive lineman. It's quite a contrast. On game day, he's powerful and punishing, remarkably light on his feet -- like a dancing oak. Two days later, he lowers himself into his chair slowly, as if every vertebra moves independently. "My back -- ooh," he says, wincing. "Really stiff today."

Schorsch has a standard answer when questioned about Smith's financial responsibility to his family. "I am certain none of them ever took a hit for him," the attorney says. "None of them had to get a shot so they could get up and go to work. And they're not entitled to share in this. No matter what they did, they're not taking the risk."

That risk, short- and long-term, is significant. In his fourth year as a pro, Smith has already had a career longer than the NFL average according to the NFL Players Association. He has avoided serious injury but has had periodic ankle issues. Sedna might live forever, but an offensive tackle is not as lucky.

Smith is mellow, with the voice of a late-night DJ on a smooth-jazz station. He is almost allergic to attention; rather than speak to reporters, he sometimes stays in the training room after practice or games while a team employee delivers his clothes. He plays with a composed, almost detached air, like a man at peace with the violence of his profession. (During a game in late October, however, he did trade punches with Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul.) His ability is unquestioned: He is widely considered one of the top three offensive tackles in the game, and for his play against the Seahawks in Week 6, he became the first offensive lineman in 10 years to be named offensive player of the week.

He treats money the way most people treat a gym membership: It's there, and he'll use it if he needs it. In July, he signed an eight-year extension, making his contract now worth a potential $109 million, with $22.1 million of that guaranteed. Many in the business felt the deal was too team-friendly -- Pro Football Talk called it "nuts" -- because it leaves one of the league's brightest young stars with no bargaining power for an entire decade. But the criticism fails to account for Smith's loyalty to Jerry Jones and the Cowboys, whose security team has assisted Smith and Costa and was once called on to remove one of Smith's brothers from the team's training camp in Oxnard, California.

Smith, who drives a Jeep he gets as part of an endorsement deal, values stability 
and craves normalcy. When he goes out to a four-star restaurant for a weekly dinner with Cowboys offensive linemen, they tease him for wearing clothes Leigh has chosen. "I have no style whatsoever," he says, holding his hands out to show off his workout shirt, sweats and shower shoes. "The guys know I don't dress myself. I wish it was like the early '90s, when you could wear jumpsuits."

When Costa asks him if he likes something -- whether it's a couch or a shirt or a toaster -- he answers her question with a question. To demonstrate, Smith holds a coffee cup over the table and says, "It could be something as cheap as this mug, and my first question is, 'How much does it cost?'"

"You're very conservative," Saplicki says.

No," Smith corrects. "Cheap."

"I know the amount of money I make in the NFL could be over any day," Smith says. "It has to be put aside for me later down the line or for when I have a family."

Listen to Smith long enough and you'll pick up a pattern: He repeatedly uses the word "work" to describe what he does. He says it so often, it begins to feel intentional, or maybe it's a reflexive response to the weight of his success. The distance between the word "work" and the word "play" is immense: He plays football for a living, while the nonsports world -- the janitorial world, for one -- goes to work. "I saw the daily struggle," he says. "It taught you to live within your means and know what it means to actually earn a dollar."

The demystified truth is this: He suits up for the Cowboys not because he loves football necessarily; he's playing because he's darn good at it. For the love of the gameis largely an external phenomenon anyway, promoted by those who link generational bonding and the passage of time to a particular uniform. No matter how much it gets sexed up -- and in Dallas, in Jerry's world, they do their best -- there is nothing romantic about slamming your massive body into another massive body as a way of making a living. It's exactly what Smith says it is -- work -- and he speculates that half the players in any NFL locker room would walk away from the game if they were offered the same pay to do something else.

Is that heretical? Or is that how myths die and reality survives?

Understand this: Smith wasn't eager to talk. Things are quiet, the way he likes them. The stress is gone. He can go home and hang out with his rescue dogs -- he and Costa have five, including a 110-pound French mastiff named Beast -- and not worry about the next phone call or knock on the door.

But he knows his story is important. When he finishes playing, he's got an idea to travel the country telling it to top college players. He wants them to know that he said no and they can too. He wants them to know it's OK to stand up to the pressures from family and friends. He wants them to take control of their money and understand how long it has to last.

"It's so personal, and nobody really talks about it," Smith says. "'Hey, this sibling or family member is screwing me over.' You won't hear that, but it's a real issue. I'm not trying to bash my family at all, but it's hard to talk about this without doing that. And a lot of people aren't willing to tell their story."

It's getting late. The traffic in the throbbing Metroplex, 13 floors below, is starting to ease. Smith begins the process of standing, his back working like an elevator in a fleabag motel, refusing to be rushed. The men in suits stand at his sides like reverse bodyguards, and Smith says, "It's OK to say no," as if to remind himself one more time.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/hotread141125/dallas-cowboys-tyron-smith-gets-control-battling-family-money

People Who Are Good With Money Avoid These Missteps

People Who Are Good With Money Avoid These Missteps

By Jake Schroeder

While there are hundreds of potential mistakes people might make with money, there are some financial moves that can really set you back. Between bad habits and wishful thinking, poor financial choices can happen all the time.  This round-up can serve as your guide for what not to do when it comes to personal finance. From not saving for retirement to living beyond your means, here are some things that people who are financially stable don’t do.

Lose Track of Money

Money isn’t infinite. That’s why it’s important to keep track of where you’re spending it. If you don’t know where your money is going, it’s easier to waste it. Let’s say you’re paying for subscription services you don’t use. Before long, you’ve spent $1,000 on music streaming, and you had no idea. That $1,000 you didn’t use could’ve paid down a credit card.

Keep track of your spending, expenses, debts and investments. This doesn’t have to consume a lot of your time, but keeping track will ensure you’re going in with your eyes wide open. You should know where your money is and where it’s going.

Buy Houses They Can’t Afford

Being house poor isn’t a good look. This term refers to someone who uses most of their income on a housing payment. If you pay more for a house than you can actually afford, you’re putting yourself at risk financially.

Buying a house that you can’t really afford means you’re holding a lot of debt and making larger mortgage payments. The money you’re earning is all going to your mortgage instead of a savings account or a retirement fund. People who are good with their money understand that it’s better to stay within your means when it comes to housing.

Overspend on Credit Cards

Overspending on credit cards is one of the biggest financial mistakes someone can make. If you have too high of a credit card balance, you may be heading down a slippery slope. If you can’t make your payments, then you’ll also be subject to expensive late fees and interest charges.

Financially savvy people understand the importance of keeping their credit card debt low. You’ll save a ton of money on interest, and you won’t need to pay extra fees or late charges. The lower your credit card debt is, the higher your credit score will be, too.

Invest Money They Can’t Lose

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.smarter.com/so-smart/avoid-money-missteps?utm_content=params%3Aad%3DsemA%26ag%3Dfw10%26an%3Dpub%26o%3D1471878%26qo%3DserpIndex&utm_source=ad-lite

How to Spot Counterfeit Money

How to Spot Counterfeit Money

How can you tell if money is fake? Check the bills in your wallet with these methods.

By Geoff Williams | July 21, 2021 U.S. News & World Report

Checking counterfeit money light. 100 dollars against the window in his hand. Check for watermark on new hundred dollar bill. translucence of the American currency.

If you hold the bill toward the light and there's no watermark or if you can see the watermark even without holding it up toward the light, then the bill you're holding is probably a counterfeit.(GETTY IMAGES)

It would be easy to assume that it's rare to encounter counterfeit money. After all, plenty of people rely on credit and debit cards and even cryptocurrency, and go long stretches of time without touching a dollar bill or quarter.  But cash isn’t exactly dead yet. Every week, it seems, counterfeiters make news throughout the country.

In Casper, Wyoming, the police are investigating phony $100 bills circulating. Counterfeit money recently turned up in Hartville, Ohio. Counterfeit cash was also passed at businesses in Lubbock, Texas. A local band in Richland, Washington, received four fake $100 bills in their tip jar.

So, yes, counterfeit crime is still very much a thing, and if you use cash in your day-to-day life, or even just occasionally, it may pay off to know the signs of counterfeit bills. If you want to know if your U.S. dollars are real or fake, use these methods.

Evaluate the Feel of the Paper

This observation is based on gut instinct.

“Most counterfeits are identified by the feel of the paper,” says L. Burke Files, president of Financial Examinations & Evaluations, a firm that does investigations, risk management and other types of consulting in Tempe, Arizona. Generally, fake money, he says, “does not have the crisp money feel and the raised feeling of the black ink on the front of the bills."

Files, who has been a financial investigator for 30 years, says that counterfeit money – in all countries throughout the world – is a problem. He also says that quite a few business owners unfortunately appear to accept – and pass on – counterfeit dollars knowing they’re fake.

“As one person told me, it only becomes bad when someone fails to take it,” Files says.

It's easy to imagine why a business owner might knowingly pass on a counterfeit bill. Often, when a business owner or consumer turns in counterfeit money to the authorities, they aren't reimbursed for that bill.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2013/04/25/how-to-spot-counterfeit-money

How Much House Can You Really Afford?

How Much House Can You Really Afford?

Posted by Darrow Kirkpatrick  Mar 1, 2021

Google “How much house can I afford?” and you’ll be awash in a sea of mortgage lenders. This is the mindset that younger people and the average consumer must take when it comes to buying a home: How much will a financial institution loan to me? And many, sadly, make their financial decisions based on how much they can borrow. They assume that you would want the maximum allowed.

How much house can I afford image with calculator

But FIRE-oriented folk, potential early retirees, and the financially independent are likely to look at the problem from other, different perspectives. The first might be, how modest a house can I live in, and still be happy? Another perspective might be, how will this impact my budget and savings rate long-term? A final perspective, since many in that group can afford to pay cash, is not how much will my income qualify me to borrow, but rather how much of my net worth can I sink into a house without taking on undue risk or compromising my cash flow?

Is the answer to that question essentially the same as for the borrower, who is qualifying based on income? Or is it somehow different, when you are buying a home outright? When I was faced with the home buying decision late last year, I had to answer this question for myself….

Qualifying for a Mortgage

Let’s take a look at the constraints on housing deals using traditional mortgages. As we’ve said, the lens through which the vast majority of people look at home affordability is simply, how large a mortgage can they qualify for? Not surprisingly, the mortgage industry has a well-tested rule of thumb for making the determination. It’s known as the “28/36” rule.

According to FreddieMac, and many other mortgage resources, you should take on no more than 28% of your monthly gross (pre-tax) income in a mortgage payment — principal, interest, property taxes, home insurance. (Note that maintenance and utilities are not included in that number, whereas HOA dues might be.)

The relation of mortgage payment to gross income is known as the “front-end ratio”. It’s found by dividing your monthly housing expenses by your gross income and multiplying by 100. Some underwriters allow higher percentages, and some require lower. I’ve seen ratios as low as 25% and as high as 30%. But 28% is the most common rule.

For most people, “gross income” would just be wages. For a retiree, it would be the combination of pensions, Social Security benefits, and perhaps investment withdrawals, using a conservative safe withdrawal rate. Individual institutions are likely to have their own rules for getting a mortgage based on assets.

The 36% number is known as the “back-end ratio.” It’s the suggested upper limit once you add in monthly payments on all other debt to your housing expenses and divide by your gross income. This is an attempt by your creditors to keep your overall debt manageable.

The Sweet Spot?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.caniretireyet.com/how-much-house-can-you-really-afford/

What It Means To Be Rich

What It Means To Be Rich

Posted July 25, 2021 by Ben Carlson
My wife and I have a good system of divide and conquer when necessary so the next morning I took the kids for a family bike ride to get them out of the house to give her some peace and quiet after a rough night. On our bike ride we approached an older couple that was walking in the opposite direction. The woman, who looked like she may have had grandchildren based on the way she smiled at my kids, said to me, “You’re a very rich man.”  Here I was feeling sorry about myself because I was tired from the night before and this stranger hits me with a perspective bomb out of nowhere.

I love the way she put this. She didn’t say I was lucky or blessed or had my hands full (I get that a lot with twins). She said I was rich which is not the way I ever looked at this before.

There are many ways to be rich beyond the amount of money you have in your investment portfolio or checking account.    Plenty of people have a lot of money in the bank but terrible personal lives.

Having millions of dollars wouldn’t come close to providing the same feeling I got this past week watching my 7-year old scale a rock wall like a champ or confidently walk up to do a high ropes course with zero signs of trepidation or fear.

Huge gains in the stock market can’t possibly match watching my little guy ride his bike for the first time this summer.

No amount of money can melt my heart the way my youngest daughter does when she says something sweet to me out of the blue.

Being a parent is not always easy. At times there is chaos, yelling, screaming, crying, fighting, pouting and puking. But there’s also laughing. Lots of laughing. And smiling. And joy. For me, having kids is like setting a constant memory factory in motion.

Obviously, there are other ways to be rich that extend beyond family.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/07/what-it-means-to-be-rich/