.Six Simple Money Habits That Changed My Life

Six Simple Money Habits That Changed My Life

By  Jim Wang   28 August 2019

Habits play such an important role in every aspect of your life. And those habits, good or bad, are reflected in your finances.

Some of our habits are small, almost insignificant. Over time, though, they have a large effect. There are little things that I've done over many years that have had outsized results. Individually, they don't move the needle. But they're like little course corrections on the cruise ship of life. A little change early on, repeated and compounded over many years, can have a significant impact.

When you add them together, they can help you achieve things you never thought possible.

Six Simple Money Habits

Small Habits Lead to Big Results

A prime example for me was gaining strength. I made a decision to build muscle but I didn't want to be one of those guys who spent hours in the gym. I learned that there are workout regimens that don't require a ton of time, but which still improve strength with just 20-30 minutes a session. These routines target several muscle groups at once. (The deadlift is a good example.)

Because these sessions only took 20-30 minutes, it was easy to make time for them. As a result, I started going to the gym more regularly. And once I was there, something funny happened.

On some days, I did the workout and left. On others, I felt like I could do more. So, I incorporated other exercises that targeted smaller muscle groups. The promise of a short session got me in the habit of going to the gym. That was the hard part. Once I was there, I often did more than I had planned.

At first, I saw my strength increase until I hit a plateau. I talked with some folks and realized I had two non-obvious weaknesses: insufficient protein intake and grip strength.

For the protein, I added a bit of unflavored protein into my coffee each morning.

For grip strength, I started doing more dumbbell exercises in lieu of barbell exercises. The simple act of carrying the heavy weights to a bench helped increase my grip strength.

Both were small changes that became daily habits, which eventually had a big impact on my exercise regimen. Neither was difficult, I just had to discover them. And today, I'm stronger than I've ever been thanks to these seemingly minor changes.

But you're not here for fitness tips from me. You're here for money tips, right? Here are some simple habits I've developed that might not seem like much at first, but which have had a huge impact on my finances. Maybe they'll help you too.

To continue reading, please go to the original article at

https://www.getrichslowly.org/simple-money-habits/#more-237236

.What Are You Willing To Do For Financial Independence?

What Are You Willing To Do For Financial Independence?

By Barry Choi

 I’m honestly getting really tired of all the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) blogs, articles, and people out there. Don’t get me wrong, I think FIRE is amazing, and if you can achieve it, that’s great.

My problem is that in the last little while, FIRE has been making headlines because of people who have unique situations.

It’s easy to achieve FIRE if you have a high income and reside in an area where there’s a low cost of living, but for most people, that may not be the case.If you want to achieve FIRE, you can take a few steps to help you get there. You may not retire in your 30’s or 40’s, but I would say if you can retire a few years early without having to worry about money, you’re probably doing alright.

Full disclosure, I’m looking to retire early myself, but there’s just no way I’m doing what some people did to get there. What are You Willing to do for Financial Independence?

When FIRE Gets Out Of Hand

A couple years back the CBC featured Millennial Revolution, a couple in their early 30’s who retired with a $1,000,000 portfolio. There was so much online hate that they followed up with another story loosely explaining how they managed to achieve FIRE.

Basically, the couple graduated as computer engineers and had high paying jobs while living in an apartment that cost them $800 a month. They saved $500K and invested their money which happened to coincide with one of the biggest market rallies in history.

When their portfolio hit a million dollars, they called it quits and have been travelling since. This is a great story, but that’s some pretty unique circumstances.

Business Insider recently featured Physician on FIRE who is a part-time doctor earning $250,000 a year and plans to retire in a year at the age of 43. When I first read the headline, I was wondering why it took so long for a guy who earns a quarter of a million U.S. dollars working part-time to retire.

 Well, it turns out he was never really formally planning to do so but realized that with his current situation, it made sense to achieve FIRE. It’s clear that Physician on FIRE worked his butt off to get to where he’s at, but how many people make $250K working part-time?

Then there’s Sean Cooper who paid off his mortgage in just three years. Sean gets a lot of hate online since he sacrificed just about everything to achieve his goal.

To continue reading, please go to the original article at

https://www.moneywehave.com/what-are-you-willing-to-do-for-financial-independence/

.7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments

7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments

Golden Rules for Every Investor, or Major Mistakes Newbie Investors Make

The number of those who’re new to our business increases every day. Many of them face a number of typical mistakes (step on a rake) of a young investor.

You need to know everything about mistakes to avoid them. Maybe we should start with a start-up capital.

7 Golden Rules of Successful Investments

Rule #1   Constantly Build up Your Investment Capital

Investing requires money, which total amount must constantly grow; otherwise, it cannot be called investing. The source of growth may include both the funds saved up from base wages and the profit from already invested funds (investments).

The figure of 10% of base wages that should be saved up is common in many information sources, but every case is different. Everyone decides how much money he/she can put aside without negatively affecting the quality of life – read more about that in the next paragraph. 

Rule #2   Don’t Invest the Last of Your Money 

Any kind of investment involves increased risks, so when you invest the last money, you run the risk of ending up with nothing. However, there is something worse than losing the last of your savings (see the next paragraph).

Rule #3   Don’t Invest Other People's Money

There's nothing worse than being in debt to someone, especially when you're a decent person. Investing debt capital is twice the risk, because if you lose it, you’ll have to look for money to repay your debt to the creditor.

 Rule #4   Having an Investment Strategy

An investor having no strategy is not an investor anymore, but a gambler. You must have a plan of action (preferably set down on paper) for any possible situation. At that, you unreservedly must stick to it and make adjustments only when the market is closed. Adjusting your strategy “on the go” or in the course of making investment decisions is often caused by various emotions or gambling excitement of an investor.

To continue reading, please go to the original article at

https://fxssi.com/golden-rules-for-every-investor