Not a bad couple of months overall as was indicated in my Income and Expenses, overall a couple of good months for my net worth overall. Now, it is a bit of a pain to do this monthly as some companies only offer quarterly statements and if I don’t look at some of the balances right at the end of the month, it is a bit of a pain. So from here forward, I plan on only doing quarterly updates – so December’s update will be available in January. Continue reading
Author: Kipp
Income and Expense Update: September & October 14
Back to getting my regular financial updates in, starting with income and expenses before updating my net worth. This update contains the past two months separately as I did not do an update in October for September. Overall I feel that the months went well and I am very happy with our overall spending while maintaining a great lifestyle.
The Most Important Personal Finance Concept?
There are many important factors to consider in personal finance. Opportunity cost, rate of return, interest on loans or investments. But if you asked me to select the single most important factor in making decisions, what would my answer be?
My answer would be cash flow.
This is really what all of our efforts boil down to. Generating the largest amount of free cash flow so that we can retire when we want to. Now there are really three ways to increase your cash flow, assuming you have debt. One is to decrease reoccurring expenses, another way is to invest, and lastly pay off your debts. So lets go over some of these areas and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of these things when trying to increase the spread in cash flow. Continue reading
Fail October & Investing Update
As you may have noticed, it has been a bit since I have been active in blogging. Now there is really no good reason, but that time is already gone. Now once I get my regular computer back working I will have all the stuff to update my income and expenses for the past two months, as well as update my net worth. With that said I have updated my Portfolio showing the stocks purchased from the ROTH IRA transfer as well as my automatic Loyal 3 purchases. I hope to continue with my previous schedule with Tuesday and Thursday blog posts, resuming, today!
And I think the theme of last month had me personally a little off. I just can’t seem to post every day and while thinking about living while I am dying, I would rather live a bit more in the moment. Anyways, as of today I have found myself with some extra time in the short term so I hope to get everything up to date shortly as well as some posts set up for the future as well. Continue reading
Live Like You’re Dying Day 16 – Thoughts
Well it has been a awhile since I have updated, and it isn’t because I have actually died, but I have just been busy living life! But that doesn’t mean this topic of living like I am dying hasn’t been on my mind. When choosing to spend time doing something or planning something ahead (even those activities past November) I have wondered to myself “Is this something I would do if I am actually dying?” If that answer is a yes, it is pretty easy to make that decision.
Some examples are a recent euchre tournament I participated in at my Aunt’s. Got to spend some good quality time with family, and some of their friends. Although I was soundly defeated at rank eight of twelve participants, it is a bit easier to forgo my competitiveness and just enjoy the moments. I have also made plans to visit my friend in Ohio in November and to watch the Trans Siberian Orchestra this December with my parents. I have also spent some time just chillin’ playing video games so I am not without an excuse as to not doing an update on this blog. Continue reading
Live Like You’re Dying Day 9 – Automation
Continuing with this month’s theme of living like I were to die at the end of the month, I think it is important to try to setup your significant other for success. And this leads me to think about automation and streamlining processes to help them.
Financially there are many things you can automate. You can have automatic payments, automatic savings, and even automatic investing. But you can use free tools such as mint to help track spending spending and growing their net worth when you are gone. Continue reading
Live Like You’re Dying Day 8 – Outsourcing
Here we are on the eighth day of October already, 23 days remaining in this hypothetical scenario. So back to some deep thoughts as to how to handle these final days. Today I am thinking about outsourcing tasks. You may wonder why I would outsource if I choose to work, but it is all about a return on time. I would get over $400 an hour staying at work just for the group life insurance and I make no where near that amount of money now. Continue reading
Live Like You’re Dying Day 7 – Who Do You Tell
So if you were dying, who would you tell? Do you really want everyone to know that you will be dying or do you just want to spend time with everyone as you normally would? It is not like I would go down the street and just be like, “Hi! I’m dying!”. But where do you draw the line? Would you tell everyone who you know, announce it on facebook, twitter, your blog, or whatever else?
I am not sure who I would tell that I am dying, if I actually was. Of course immediate family would need to know. But what about more distant family and friends? Would you rather just stop by, have a good time like how you are used to, or be burdened with constantly explaining to everyone. Most things that kill you are obvious, but I am kind of going under the assumption that I would just cease to exist at the end of October for the theme. Not that I would disappear, but that I am perfectly capable of doing what I do now throughout this theoretical experience. So therefore, I would not appear to be any different despite the fact that I am dying. So since it is not obvious, back to the question, who do you tell? Continue reading
Live Like You’re Dying Day 6 – The Weekends
Originally I had intended to post every day throughout this month. But I ended up not logging into the blog over the weekend. It was nice just to spend time with my wife and enjoy our town’s festival which was going on that weekend in celebration of… red underwear… Not sure why they ever choose that, but I won’t say what they actually call it or it would be pretty easy to see what town I live in. Continue reading
Live Like You’re Dying: Day 3 – The Moment
Being so busy with work and life in general, when is the last time you stopped to enjoy the moment? I am constantly someone who feels like I must be doing something. If I am waiting for dinner to finish cooking I am on the tablet or computer. If I am eating I feel like I should be playing a card game with the wife or watching something with her. I just feel like I need to be doing something. I am not someone who just sits on a porch enjoying the moment. I know that Jason at Dividend Mantra mentioned before, I don’t recall which post, but he is just happy being present. Perhaps I should spend more time just being focused on what is now and enjoying it to the fullest. Continue reading