.How Do I Teach My Teenager About Money?

One of the most important jobs we have as parents is to teach our children how to navigate the adult world. An important skill they’ll need to master is managing their money.

Starting while they’re young is a good plan but if you’ve missed that boat it’s not too late.

So how can we successfully teach our kids to manage money when they’re teenagers, still living at home, and dependent upon us for most of their monetary needs?

Some school districts, realizing the importance of educating young people about money, have begun offering personal finance classes in high school.

North Carolina recently became the twentieth state to require high schoolers to complete a course in economics and personal finance to graduate. Topics taught to teens include paying for college, using credit cards, and taking out a home mortgage.

.Good Enough Is Pretty Great

January 8, 2020 By Machinist

Have you ever noticed how much contradiction and disagreement there is in the advice being offered about personal finances? Suze Orman claims that buying coffee is like flushing a fortune down the toilet. Others assure us that we can tolerate a vice or two and still be responsible personal financiers.

Some people are convinced that owning a home is a waste of investable capital, while others are convinced that real estate, with its easy leverage is the best, most reliable passive income stream. Still others make the choice to pay off their mortgages early.

Some people wouldn’t stoop to driving someone else’s hand-me-down car, while others will gladly accept years of additional retirement as a trade for doing just that. Which advice is best? More importantly, which is good enough?

The reason for this disagreement is simple. People are unique and so are their finances. We all operate within the same economic system, so there are universal principles that apply to everyone, but beyond these foundational principles, we all get to decide how to make the most of our limited resources.

.Your Advisor-Free Financial Plan

By Machinist

Last week I explained that you are better off without a financial advisor, because advisors cost more than the value they provide. The purpose of this article is to provide a financial plan that you can follow to financial independence and a plentiful retirement. The plan is intended to be simple enough that anyone can understand and follow it without professional support. It is also intended to leave you with a higher net worth than if you hired an advisor.

Our financial plan will focus on your own personal macro-economics, not your day-to-day expenses. Financial advisors may offer support with how you spend and save your money, but let’s face it, the best they can really do is give you a pep talk and hand you a pamphlet on budgeting.

You are the one that will have to decide whether you are willing to pack your own lunch, drive used cars, or send your kids to public schools. Only you can decide what you value most.

In other words, a financial advisor will focus their advice on where and how to invest, not how to save the money in the first place. We’ll skip over the details of your saving too and get right into the financial plan.

.7 Smartest Financial Decisions I Made

October 7, 2019 MonkWealth Personal Finance

The road to financial independence is conceptually pretty simple. There are proven vehicles to facilitate our road to success, we just need to put in the time. Now, there are people who got lucky and there are people who worked hard. What I’ll cover in this post is parallel to that spectrum.

These are a few things that helped me budget better, save more, and put me years ahead compared to where I could have been without them. More importantly, they are a strong base for both creating opportunities to get lucky, and also to support working hard towards our goals.

Sometimes it even feels like a real-life cheat code.

And lastly, I said that these things helped me, but they can also help anyone who adopts them. No matter how you earn your money, certain decisions and habits can put you way ahead in life.

Don’t Stress About Things You Have No Control Over

Posted by TEBI on February 28, 2020

By Jonathan Clements

Here’s the least surprising thing you’ll read this week: you can’t control the financial markets. They’re driven by news — and we simply don’t know what news we’ll get in the weeks and months ahead, whether it’s about the spread of the coronavirus, its impact on the global economy or something else entirely.

But don’t despair. There’s also much that we can control, including how much we save and spend, the amount of investment risk we take, how much we pay in investment costs, our portfolio’s tax efficiency and — most critically at a time like this — our own emotional reaction to market ups and downs.

Indeed, if you were going to design a laboratory experiment to test investors’ mettle, this past week would provide a nearly perfect template. Think about it. We have a virus without a vaccine that’s spreading rapidly — but nobody knows how rapidly — which is damaging the global economy — but nobody knows how badly — at a time when many U.S. stock investors were already anxious after an extraordinarily long bull market that has pushed valuations to worrisome levels.

Stop Overspending With This Simple Budgeting Trick

December 2, 2019

Do you find yourself falling short of your savings goals or taking on debt because you can’t stop overspending? Have you tried budgeting but still struggle to control your spending?

Changing our spending habits is extremely difficult. When you are used to a certain level of spending, it’s hard to teach yourself to spend less. This was me a few years ago when I found myself on the overspending struggle bus. I had established new savings goals but was struggling to adjust my spending accordingly. This resulted in me not being able to both meet my savings goals and pay my bills. And it was frustrating as heck.

Budgeting did help me get to know my spending a bit better, but I still needed something more to really reel in my spending. I needed a way to learn what it feels like to live within my means and meet my savings goals. I needed to tighten the reins. So I hacked my budget and created a trick to rein in my spending which allowed me to align my money with my all of my priorities.

Does Money Bring You Joy?

November 27, 2019 By Machinist

Pure Joy

You trade you time and energy for money, but what do you trade your money for? After you provide the necessities of life, you probably spend most of the rest of your money in the pursuit of joy. But, do the things that you spend your money on actually bring you joy?

At a time when almost everyone already has the necessities of life and so much more, you might think that there would be plenty of joy to go around. As it turns out, joy is probably more of an individual choice than a matter of money.