In case it's not completely obvious, I am on an extended leave from this site.
I currently do not plan on posting new content here, nor am I doing any of the following:
If you email me about any of these you will not get a response since I assume that 1) I've answered your question here and 2) you don't take your time to read/do research on who you are contacting, and who would want to work with someone like that?
If you'd like to read what I'm writing now, check out ESI Money.
And if you have any questions about partnerships with that site, I suggest you read the contact page in detail before you send me a note. ;)
Just want to wish you all a very happy New Year!
May 2018 be your best year yet!
I'll be back next week. As of now I'm in college football heaven. ;)
Just wanted to wish all FMF readers a very Merry Christmas!!!! I'll be taking the next couple weeks off to enjoy the season.
Hope you all have a great holiday!!
Just want to wish you and your family a blessed and very happy Thanksgiving.
May we all take a break from talking about money and focus on the things that really make us thankful (like football!). ;)
Have a great, relaxing, joyful, thankful day!
This is the time of year when I've had enough of winter and begin thinking of getting away.
We had originally planned to take a cruise last month, but both of our kids got new jobs and couldn't afford the time off.
So instead, we're staying home.
We do live in Colorado and hope to hit the ski slopes sometime this month, but other than that, we have no winter vacation plans.
Somewhat on the radar for trips this year include:
We're also thinking of renting a place on a beach in the Caribbean in January of 2018, but that's pretty far away to lock in at this point.
We live in a tourist area so there's always a lot to do in between "official" vacations.
One great thing about retirement is that time (when to go) is mostly taken out of the equation. This freedom allows us to go places at off-peak times which usually means lower prices and fewer crowds.
How about you? What are your vacation plans this year?
Hey, gang! I hope this message finds you having a great weekend!
Last time I posted about my new site I still received several requests for it, though far fewer than in the past. As promised, I'll keep posting now and then as long as people ask for the new site, but this might be the final call for it.
If you want an email sent to you with my new site listed, you have two options:
And if you're wondering why you need to do that instead of me just posting it here, you can read this.
Have a happy New Year!
Here's a topic for discussion: do you make New Year's resolutions each year or do you think they are a waste of time?
I'll be interested to hear your responses.
Personally, I'm a big resolution maker. I break my resolutions down by subject (like "family", "finances", etc.) and make commitments that are both daily (i.e. "workout") as well as bigger-picture (i.e. "take three trips with family this year").
I then track them all via a spreadsheet each day and hold myself accountable to accomplish a vast majority of them (I actually have a point system that scores my efforts and I need to be above a certain goal to be "successful" for the year. Yes, I'm a resolution geek/nerd.)
I credit setting resolutions with helping me achieve financial independence. It's those day-by-day goals I've worked on for years and years (decades really) that have added up and created a large enough net worth for me to retire in my early 50's. Without them, there's no way I would be as far along as I am today.
How about you? Resolutions or not?
Just wanted to wish all FMF readers a very Merry Christmas!!!! I'll be taking the next few days off but will be back on Monday.
Hope you all have a great holiday!!
Just want to wish you and your family a blessed and very happy Thanksgiving. May we all take a break from talking about money and focus on the things that really make us thankful.
Have a great, relaxing, joyful, thankful day!
Hey, gang! I hope this message finds you having a great weekend!
Last time I posted about my new site I received several requests for it, though far fewer than in the past. I'll keep posting now and then as long as people ask for the new site, but this might be the last call for it.
If you want an email sent to you with my new site listed, you have two options:
And if you're wondering why you need to do that instead of me just posting it here, you can read this.
Have a GREAT day!
As many of you have noticed, I have been posting more frequently here on FMF.
I plan to continue that trend and begin posting here three times a week. The posts will be more "commentary-like", just like I used to post back in the day.
Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.
It's been almost a year since I announced I was starting a new blog. And believe it or not, I'm still getting requests for links to the new site.
So I'm posting here again until no one asks for the site's address.
If you want an email sent to you with my new site listed, simply leave a comment below like "please send me the URL to your new site". Include your email address in the email box when you leave your comment. I will get both the message and the email address, but no one else will be able to see the email address (no one wants their email to be public, right?)
As a reminder why I'm sending emails instead of simply announcing the new site, you can see my reasons here.
BTW, I am posting here on FMF at least once a week for the time being. I'm doing shorter posts here (mostly commentary on interesting pieces I find around the web -- what this blog is known for) and longer posts on the new site. I hope you enjoy both!
I'm still getting emails requesting access to the new blog.
So, as promised, I'm posting here again until no one asks for the site's address.
If you want an email sent to you with my new site listed, simply leave a comment below like "please send me the URL to your new site". Include your email address in the email box when you leave your comment. I will get both the message and the email address, but no one else will be able to see the email address (no one wants their email to be public, right?)
As a reminder why I'm sending emails instead of simply announcing the new site, you can see my reasons here.
Here's my weekly dose of interesting articles from around the web:
That's it for this week! Enjoy!
Here's my weekly dose of interesting articles from around the web:
That's it for this week! Enjoy!
Here's something that FMF fans might be interested in...
As many of you know, I have started a new website. On that site, I post more in-depth articles. They are longer than what was usually posted on FMF and generally much more detailed. I like the format as it makes the pieces more thoughtful IMO.
That said, I do miss a few things about the "here's a quick quote and my top three thoughts" sort of posts that were the majority of what was on FMF. And as I'm looking at posts and ideas for the new site, I'm finding more and more articles that I simply want to make a quick comment on -- not write an entire piece about. I'm also seeing other articles that I'd just like to point to and say "check this out -- I liked it." But neither of these sorts of posts will work on the new site.
So...I'm going to start posting the short stuff on FMF. They will be concise, more opinion pieces or even simply links to great articles I've found elsewhere. For now I'll just do it once a week on Mondays and we'll see how it goes from there.
So with that said, here are a few posts I found interesting:
That's it for now. Hope you enjoy!
It's been almost two months since I posted here last and I'm still getting emails requesting access to the new blog.
So, as promised, I'm posting here again until no one asks for the site's address.
If you want an email sent to you with my new site listed, simply leave a comment below like "please send me the URL to your new site". Include your email address in the email box when you leave your comment. I will get both the message and the email address, but no one else will be able to see the email address (no one wants their email to be public, right?)
As a reminder why I'm sending emails instead of simply announcing the new site, you can see my reasons here.
It seems that every time I think I've reached everyone who wants to be notified of my new site, another 100 people or so seem to show up asking for access.
So my plan is to keep posting here every couple of weeks or so until no one asks for the site's address.
If you want an email sent to you with my new site listed, simply leave a comment below like "please send me the URL to your new site". Include your email address in the email box when you leave your comment. I will get both the message and the email address, but no one else will be able to see the email address (no one wants their email to be public, right?)
As a reminder why I'm sending emails instead of simply announcing the new site, you can see my reasons here.
I'm still getting quite a few people saying they requested and didn't receive an update to my new blog. So I'll post here a few more times just to make sure whoever wants to be included gets a notice.
If you want an email sent to you with my new site listed, simply leave a comment below like "please send me the URL to your new site". Include your email address in the email box when you leave your comment. I will get both the message and the email address, but no one else will be able to see the email address (no one wants their email to be public, right?)
In case you're wondering why I'm sending emails instead of simply announcing the new site, you can see my reasons here.
Just wanted to let you know that I have launched my new site and have sent out emails to all those who requested them.
If you did not receive an email but wanted one, please drop me a note and I'll try again. You may want to check your spam folder too.
Note, there were a couple that had spam protection levels where I needed to verify myself to send an email to a particular address. I'm not going to do that.
Hope you all are having a great New Year!
Hello! I hope this message finds you all having a wonderful holiday season.
Just wanted to share a quick post to give you all an update on the new site:
That's all I have for now.
I wish you all a very merry Christmas and all the best for a great 2016!
Just wanted to give you all an update on the new site.
Things are progressing at a good pace. I have selected a designer and given her my guidelines, logo design has started, and I've written the first few articles. They will be pretty standard "launch" posts and very familiar to FMF readers.
My plan is to soft launch the site in late November, fill it with a post a week or so through the end of 2015, and then officially launch in the new year. This is when I would send emails to those of you requesting notification of the new site. So look for those in late December/early January.
If anyone else would like to be added to the announcement list, just email me.
Hope you all are doing well!
Hello, all. I hope this message finds you doing well.
A lot has happened to me since I went on hiatus, very interesting stuff indeed (many twists and turns). One major change is that my time has freed up and I'm going to be starting a new blog.
You may wonder why I'd start a new one and not just keep this one. There are a couple reasons for that:
1. The main reason is that too many people I know personally know that I write this blog. That limits what I can say, how much personal info I can share (and I like to give details/specifics), and so forth. It cramps my style and doesn't allow me to write the in-depth, personal content I like to.
2. FMF is on Typepad and I'd like a Wordpress-based blog. Yes, I could convert FMF, but it's earning a decent monthly income without me doing anything and I don't want to screw that up (links can be lost during conversion, so why risk it?)
Based on #1 above, I won't be announcing the new site on FMF. If you were a regular FMF reader and would like me to let you know when the new site is available, you can email me to put your name on the announcement list. Be sure to give me the name you used here to post (or your real name if you prefer) as well as your preferred email address. I will not be accepting email addresses only since I can't verify who they are coming from (and I'm trying to be anonymous.)
When the site comes up (likely early 2016) I will send you an email letting you know the URL. From there you can decide whether or not you'd like to keep reading.
Hope you all are well and blessed.
Well, as they say, all good things must end. Or at least take a break.
I started this blog over nine years ago simply to chronicle my financial thoughts and progress. Now, nearly a decade later, it's time to put down my keyboard. Whether that's for a moment or forever is yet to be determined. But as of now, it's clear that I need to take a break.
The simple reason for this is that maintaining the blog is much more time and effort than I have at the moment. Even to write one post a week. Even to manage guest posts. It's just too much. Because running a functioning blog is not just posting. It's also managing comments, answering emails (and I get 30-40 a day!), keeping up with trends, looking for story ideas, and on and on.
At this point I just have other things in my life that are more pressing/important. Namely:
This doesn't mean I'll never blog again, but it does likely mean FMF will never be what it once was. Perhaps I'll post now and then, but the truth is most readers will move on (and who can blame them?).
So as I bow out, I thought I'd give you all a list of where I intend to go from here financially. Consider this the best guess at the next financial chapter of my life:
As I go, I want to thank all the readers and commenters here over the years. It's been you who have made this site so great. I've learned so much from you and appreciate you being part of FMF.
I can't connect with everyone, but if you're a regular reader here and want to connect, send me an email with your FMF commenter name (so I know you) and we can link up via LinkedIn.
As for now, I'm signing off, and wishing you all God's best blessings.
Just wanted to say "Happy Labor Day" to my readers in the U.S. I hope you are enjoying a day off.
I'm not blogging today -- plan to spend time with the family today. I'll be back on Wednesday with more money news, commentary, tips, and thoughts.
I received a couple emails this morning from FMF readers saying that they are getting emails from me trying to sell all sorts of things. I am not sending these out.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly where the emails are coming from (neither of my email addresses have been hacked as far as I can tell). But at this point I wanted to get the word out: I am not sending these out.
If you receive an unwanted email claiming to be from me, plese send me as many details as you can about it -- what email address did it come from, what did it say, when did you get it, etc. I'll figure it out from there.
But in case anyone comes here wondering, I am not sending out any emails selling any products.
On my post about what we've learned from millionaires there was a bit of discussion about what it means to be "self made". One commenter suggested the following:
If you started off middle-class or inherited anything from your parents, you're not "self-made." Which is fine. There's no shame in your parents' having been able to give you advantages. But it's not the same experience as having come up out of a housing project.
Another responded:
The comment above: "If you started off middle-class or inherited anything from your parents, you're not 'self-made.' " irks me.
First, being middle class means what? You didn't have to dodge gangs to get through high school? You didn't have to work after school to help feed the family or deal with a drug addict parent? What, exactly do you believe middle class implies, that they had no worries and just because the parents aren't struggling they shower wealth on their kids?
Wow, tell that to my middle class friend who had the step mom from hell who convinced his dad to kick his butt out his senior year of high school or my buddy whose dad was an alcoholic who liked to whip the belt out after a six pack. How about my pal's wife whose father not only refused to pay for college but because of his income she couldn't qualify for any financial aid to include loans the first year because he refused to share his financial information with FAFSA. She got to move out, work full time, and then after a year go back and prove she was independent. As a matter of fact, most of my friends were hardly coddled; we all worked through college even those whose parents appeared they could have afforded it.
And as far as inheritance, if your parents are living until their 70's or beyond, you pretty much cannot count on getting an inheritance since you're in your 40's or 50's by the time they pass and someone who has worked hard and become a millionaire by that time should definitely be considered to have made it on their own.
Another took a more "what's it mean" approach:
Self-made - what does that mean, and what should it mean? I've typically seen it applied to anyone who ended up becoming far wealthier than their parents. I don't have a problem with that definition, though it likely means I will never be "self-made" as my wife's family is quite wealthy. However, our own wealth is our own - the result of our work, our investment risks, and our saving. We've had great examples, mentoring, and opportunities that many don't have, but does that count against what we have achieved?
Personally I try hard not to worry, care, or compare. There are always people smarter, harder-working, more accomplished, and wealthier in any case.
Then another replied to the original commenter:
I found your comment a bit insulting and sad to an extent. Just because my family was considered lower middle-class ($38000 for a family of 4), I had nothing handed to me. My parents knew nothing about college, nothing about what I should study, spent all their money, provided little to no guidance, and left me to deal with everything. They agreed to help with a loan, but then defaulted on it leaving me to deal with a $14,000 bill. The school told me I was not going to be allowed to finish my degree until I paid. I could have whined and complained but in the end I had to work 3 jobs and negotiate with the college to get loans. When the money the school loaned me was not enough to pay for everything, I ate food from a local Christian food bank and lived in a single room in a basement. Worked through college delivering boxes, lowered my rent by cleaning the basement area and helping out the owner. In the end, I made it through just to not find a job due to a downturn in the market. I owed $40,000 and $12,000 in credit cards and was working for or at near minimum wage or not working at all. When I finally got my first job in my field, everything I made went out the door to pay loans and the normal costs of living.
I think everything is about your attitude. The old saying that God helps those who help themselves is true. I didn't give up, but kept fighting. In the end, people noticed this and I was very blessed to have had people in my life that helped me when I needed it the most. When professors told me I wouldn't succeed I proved them wrong. When jobs dried up, I found something else to keep income coming in.
Fast forward 20 plus years and my lovely bride and I have been very blessed. This year is our 20th anniversary. We roughly live on 25% of our income; pay 25% in taxes and save the rest. It is again our attitude, our choices and great blessings from above that have led to our success. We chose to pursue the careers we are in and sacrificed in the beginning to reap the rewards we now get. Nothing has been handed to us. It was the choices we made and our attitude to stick to it that made us able to contribute to the millionaires series.
And finally, there was this:
My interpretation of self-made is that your station in life is a function of the combined effort of you and your wife. These days I would tend to exclude help given towards a child's college tuition since with the large increases in tuition it has become such a common occurrence.
Our 3 children ages, 50, 53, & 55 have each received help from us on a few occasions but they are good savers and although I manage their investments for them the contributions are all their own. I have also given them loans at various times which they have always repaid.
Interesting conversation, huh?
Shortly after that, I stumbled upon this article from Dr. Thomas Stanley. He didn't define self made, but made some clear statements as follows:
In my thirty plus years of surveying and studying millionaires, I have consistently found that 80 to 86% are self made. That also applies to decamillionaires. In 1982 according to Forbes about 38% of America's wealthiest people were self made. In 2012, the percentage jumped to 70%.
He rambled on about the politics in Washington for a bit, then made this comment that I loved:
Economic opportunities abound in this country. Yet most Americans are not wealthy. It is easy to blame the so-called inequities in our economy. But it is more about the fact that Americans spend all or most of their income on things that have little or no lasting value! They lack the discipline required to accumulate wealth. Most households are on a treadmill of working and consuming. The typical American household has a median annual realized income within the $50,000 to under $75,000 bracket. Only 6.3% of these people have any realized capital gains income. Thus an update is in order. Remember what I wrote in The Millionaire Next Door: big hat, no cattle. And now the update: no capital, no capital gains.
Very true. Americans do have a tendency to spend, spend, spend.
But that doesn't get us any closer to defining what it means to be self-made. So I'll take a shot at what it means and let the rest of you make changes or offer other options from there.
I would say someone is self made if they:
What I don't think is important:
So, what is your definition of self made?
For the past two years, we've taken our "big" vacation each January. We're trying to take fun and exciting trips with our kids while they are still home, before college kicks in and they scatter to one place or another.
For reference, we took a 10-day Caribbean cruise in 2012 and a 12-day one in 2013 (which was preceded by two days in New York City). In January 2014 we did not take a big trip for several reasons:
That said, we're already getting used to the warmth and have even caught ourselves complaining it's "too cold" when it gets down to 50. :)
So with that said, we're thinking of taking a vacation next January and the top candidate so far is...Hawaii!
My parents love Hawaii (they may go with us), I have never been, and now just seems like the right time to go. But I have a gazillion questions! This is where I thought you all might help.
Here are a few questions I have about Hawaii:
I do have a Hawaii travel guide, but I want to hear from those of you who have been there -- the real people with real experiences.
Any advice on a trip to Hawaii?
You may have noticed that my site has been down for the past few days.
Typepad, the service I use to run this blog, was attacked system-wide and most, if not all, of their blogs have been down since the weekend.
Thanks to those of you who emailed or tweeted me. I appreciate your concern and thank you for looking out for me.
Anyway, I hope we're back to normal and things will proceed as usual.
Thanks for reading FMF.
Update: Here's a newly posted piece featuring advice from top personal finance bloggers. Click through to see what I had to say. :)
I love sharing stories from people who are working through financial issues, have made significant financial progress in their lives, or just need a bit of advice. And FMF readers like these as well, as evidenced by the comments I receive on these posts.
If you'd like to tell your story or get some advice, there are many ways to do so including:
If you'd like to participate in any (or several) of these, drop me an email and I'll get you started.
Thanks!
Today is the 9th anniversary of Free Money Finance! Yes, nine short years ago I began this blog with one simple post -- on how to contact me. :) I followed that one up with a short piece noting what the site would be about. I summarized it as follows:
This site is about one simple thing: growing your net worth.
And that's what I've written about for the past nine years.
But it may be time for a change. Let me explain.
Most of you know that I took a new job last summer, moved from Michigan to Oklahoma, and pretty much changed everything in my life over the past eight months. It's been a good move overall, but there is so much to do to transition the lives of four people from once place, where they lived 14 years, to another hundreds of miles away. Initially I thought we'd be "all settled" in six months, but I've revised that to a year now, and it may eventually be longer.
Work is great but much more challenging. The kids are older, approaching college, and need more guidance. We bought a new house (literally new -- no one else has ever lived in it) and none of our furniture matched. So we're decorating the entire place. On top of that, EVERYTHING is new. Where we shop for groceries, where we go to church, where we have our dry-cleaning done -- EVERYTHING.
And we still have so much to do. It's an almost endless list of stuff to do.
Something has to give. It may be this blog.
You've probably noticed that I'm down to three posts per week. This is the maximum I'll have for the near future and probably all of 2014. I may post fewer times some weeks. I might not post at all.
In my last job, in the other state, where all was settled and comfortable, I had lots of time. I don't have lots of time now and it may be that FMF will need to take a break or even go away.
But it may not. I'm not sure yet. But I wanted to let you all know where things stand because this may be my last blog birthday.
I guess we'll find out together. :)
Whatever happens, I want to take this chance to thank all the readers, commenters, guest posters, and everyone else who has helped make Free Money Finance a resource for us all. You all have helped make this site much more than I ever thought it could be and you've been a blessing to me.
Just want to wish you and your family a blessed and very happy Thanksgiving. May we all take a break from talking about money and focus on the things that really make us thankful. Here's my list -- still the same after all these years (except maybe the KFC part.) ;-)
Have a great, relaxing, joyful, thankful day!
Many of you have probably seen that I have a relatively new site sponsor here at Free Money Finance. For those of you who have been here long enough to remember when I posted on the Bible and Money every Sunday, the sponsor shouldn’t surprise you. It’s Mardel Christian and Education stores, a chain of stores that sells a wide variety of Christian, education (teachers), and homeschool products.
Based on the comments I’ve received over the years, I know many of you would be interested in the products that Mardel sells. As such, I’m sharing a link to their Black Friday ad. You can find it here. From what I’m told, it features their best deals of the year, something those of you who like to watch your pennies can appreciate.
In addition, if you want to shop (from home) on Thanksgiving, they have a 20% off sale on their entire website this Thursday.
I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving and the best of holiday seasons!
The Reader Profiles series has been pretty popular around here. So far we've done over 110 posts and, while I still have a few in the hopper, I wanted to let you all know that I NEED MORE of them to keep the series going.
So if you're willing all you have to do is email me the answers to the following questions (it's all anonymous -- don't worry about your name getting out, I use initials to hide real personalities):
Take as much time/space as you like answering them, but don't be too short or people won't get the "meat" of your situation. If you want to see what others have done, all the posts can be found here.
Thanks!
Just wanted to say "Happy Labor Day" to my readers in the U.S. I hope you are enjoying a day off -- and basking in the glow of some of the last days of summer.
I'm not blogging today -- plan to spend time with the family today. I'll be back tomorrow and the rest of the week with a series of interviews with millionaires. I think you'll like them.
For those of you wanting to be in the know, I've just posted a special Thursday edition on Wealth Lion. It details my new job. ;)
Check it out if interested...
If you have a net worth of $1 million or more, I'd like to interview you for an upcoming post (you would be anonymous, I just need you to answer some questions.)
If interested, drop me a line.
Just a heads up that there's a new post on Wealth Lion today titled Welcome to Wealth Lion. It gives a summary of the few posts already there plus lists upcoming posts for the next couple of weeks (hint: some details on real estate properties will be shared). :)
If you're interested, you can see the post here.
And as noted earlier this week, you can subscribe to Wealth Lion here.
For the first few weeks you may see posts/themes on Wealth Lion that you've already seen on FMF. These are put here for the new reader who comes along, knows nothing about FMF, and wonders where I'm coming from. I want to at least have my general thoughts on wealth building, careers, and the like on both sites.
You can also subscribe to the new site by either email or RSS feed.
I will transition to the three posts on FMF and three posts on Wealth Lion per week set-up starting this week for FMF. Wealth Lion will begin posting the first week in June. For the first month or so (and maybe a bit longer), you will likely see some design changes in Wealth Lion as we finish construction. If I waited until everything was 100% completed and perfect to launch the blog, I probably wouldn't do it until 2014. So please bear with me. (And if you find a glitch, please email me!)
I want to thank FMF readers Old Limey, Apex, Mike Hunt, and Money Wise Pastor for looking over Wealth Lion while it was in development. Their feedback was very helpful and appreciated.
So that's how we'll operate for now -- one writer of two blogs, each with its own personal twist. How will it work? Who knows? We'll play it by ear, see how it goes, and adjust as needed along the way. I hope you decide to join me for the ride.
The original post (below) was made on March 8. Here it is May 2 and we are all dealing with the same issues!!! Typepad is being no help at all!!! I am sorry if any of you are inconvenienced.
We interupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you this public service announcement:
Typepad (the platform that runs this blog) is changing over to a new spam provider and it's messing everything up -- good comments are getting eaten and spam comments are getting posted.
I am handling the latter myself, but I can't do much on the former. I have submitted a ticket to see what they can do, but based on past experience I probably won't get much help.
For now, all I can suggest is that we wait it out. If you are having a problem commenting, give it a week or so. If you try and comment then and can't, shoot me a note and I'll figure out a way to get you on.
Sorry for the problem...
Just a programming note that I will be changing my posting schedule for the summer. Instead of a new post every day, I'll now be posting something new every weekday. Yep, I'm taking the weekends off! I'll be doing this in May through August for sure, and may extend it if I like the pace better. :)
Hope you all have a great summer!
It's been some time since I've opened up a post for general feedback, so I thought I'd do so today.
I generally write about what's going on with me financially, what I'm thinking about, what I'm interested in and so forth. And in many cases, I believe these topics interest you.
But not always, of course. And since there's no other way of really determining what you like/dislike (I can get some feedback through comments and email but it's incomplete), I thought I'd ask you.
I will start the discussion by listing what I believe FMF readers like to see here (by subject area, but not in any specific order) as well as what I like to write about:
Did I get it right? If not, which of the above do you like and which don't you like? Also, what topics would you like to see more/less of here on FMF?
This is your site too, and now's your chance to give me feedback on what you'd like to see. I'm not promising that just because you mention it, I'll write about it (the topic has to appeal to me as well), but I will listen to your suggestions.
Fire away...