At 13 years old I asked my parents if I could start investing money in the stock market through a mutual fund. I’d saved about $1500 from starting my own hog selling business, and through working in the fields during the summer. My small nest egg was the result of 4-5 years of hard work,
From time to time, we interview folks who are financially independent (FI) and owning their money. Today is an interview I did with my brother, who retired at 50 and is financially independent. A 60-something retired conservation officer, Mark lives with his wife in a quaint Wisconsin town surrounded by lakes, wildlife and forest. He
This month I had on my list of monthly goals to rollover my 401k from an employer I left in 2011 to Vanguard. Last Friday I pulled the trigger after running into a number of hurdles that were preventing me from getting my 401k. These hurdles were: Spousal Consent Form – notarized letter with my
I came across this interesting piece that originally appeared on fellow personal finance blogger, Financial Samurai’s website, about a couple (both lawyers) who earn $500k a year and still don’t have a lot of “leftover” at the end of the year – relatively speaking. The couple was open enough to share their income / expenses
In 2008 I read Robert G Allen’s “Multiple Streams of Income“, and it laid out a pretty descriptive picture of living paycheck to paycheck. Are you one of those people? Are you struggling just to make the minimum payments on your credit card? Are creditors calling you every day? Have you looked at creating a
Earlier this week I heard on the radio that 50% of people will have given up on their New Years Resolution in 3 weeks. It’s hard to believe that we start out the fresh New Year with great intentions, but fail to follow through. A lot of times we really need to follow through on some
Every Christmas season my wife and I have series of movies that we pull out and watch between Thanksgiving and Christmas time. This past weekend we pulled out one of our classics, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation! If it isn’t part of your regular Christmas movie set, then it needs to be! I love almost every
You ever had anyone tell you that you can’t-do something? Like they were laughing in your face, and tell you there isn’t any way in “H-E- Double-Hockey-Sticks” that you could do it in your lifetime? Doesn’t that tick you off? Call them your #HTTRs!! When I was a senior in High School, a classmate and I
Next weekend I’ll be running my sixth half marathon and my first one since hitting 40 years old. As I get older the miles feel harder and harder, but I continue to push on. I push on, because I know that if I stop and become sedentary, then it’ll be harder to gain back my
These past few weeks I’ve been having a lot of pressure with my job! So much so, that I’ve been having to work extra hours and get my projects done ahead of schedule. I normally put a lot of pressure on myself to perform at a higher level, but just in the last few months
