Do you waste money? Yep, me too. I am just as guilty as anyone else when it comes to buying things I don't really need. Sometimes, you just need to to go out and buy something that you have wanted. It can give you a sense of satisfaction. It can make you proud of your accomplishments in life. It can make you happy for a little while. It can also wreck your financial future. Below are the Top 3 Ways To Waste Money:
TIP: If you can't pay cash for the car, do not mortgage your future to own it.
Electronics can be a big money waster if you let them. I promise that my $99 cell phone does all the same cool stuff that your new $700 phone does. Maybe it's not as fast doing it, but we are talking seconds here, not days! You can save $600 per year by not buying a new cell phone.
There is nothing wrong with dressing nicely and having nice things to carry around, but please do not pay for it over the next 12 months by swiping your credit card in the heat of the moment. It is way too easy to get caught up in the world of material "must-haves". Think about what you would like to do with your money first. Putting it away for a rainy day is usually the better option. Besides, you can buy the purse on clearance at the end of the season with your money in the bank!
 Are you looking to build a source of passive income? Below are the Top 7 Sources of Passive Income and how you can get involved in them. 1. Rental Real Estate Rental real estate is number 1 on this list for a reason. Rental real estate can be huge boost to your bottom line and can require little to no time to manage. Property managers can be hired to handle all aspects of real estate including finding tenants and collecting checks. 2. E-Books Wonder why I promote my book all the time? E-books can be a source of revenue for years and years. Writing a book requires time, but no real financial commitment upfront. CreateSpace or Pronoun.com will help you design your e-book and cover, Amazon will let you publish it for free. 3. Advertising Have a website? Put it to work for you. People are willing to pay good money to have a link and another source of traffic from a reputable source. Google and other CPM networks pay well for targeted traffic and clicks on ads as well. 4. Affiliate Links Love something and want to make money promoting it to others? Affiliate links are quick and easy to set up. This can be especially easy for people that have a large group of followers on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. 5. Phone Apps Want a piece of the game? Why not buy it outright? Websites like Flippa make it easy to buy already made apps. A little marketing and promotional prowess could make it a big winner! Don't believe all the hype? Flappy Bird was making more than $50,000 per day at it's peak. 6. Dividends There may be no better feeling than buying a stock and getting paid to watch it go up in value. Dividends can be a big part of your retirement plan. REIT's, or Real Estate Investment Trusts, can pay large dividends due to a legal loophole created by Uncle Sam. By law, they must pay out 90% of profits in the form of dividends each year. 7. Buy an existing business As long as you don't have to physically work the business in order for it to make money, buying an existing business can be a great source of passive income. A great example of this is a coin operated laundry mat. Other examples include a restaurant with a strong management team in place, storage facilities, car washes, and vending machines/ATM's.
30 years. I have at least 30 more years before I can retire. Traditional retirement is not my plan however, and it shouldn't be yours either. CNN just released an article entitled, "Will I ever be able to retire like my Grandma?" You can click here to read the article. In brief, the answer is no. If your plan to retire is to do things exactly like grandma and grandpa did, then you are already WAY behind. It won't work and the numbers prove it. Grandma retired with something most people will not receive, a pension. Additionally, the previous generation will also be entitled to their other half's pension (or a percentage of it) even after significant other passes away. Add on social security (which also has a survivor benefit) and a retirement account. You can see how quickly that adds up to some serious retirement dough. My generation will not receive most of this. Even assuming social security is still solvent when I retire, it will account for about 1/3 of what retirees receive today. Again, this is also assuming inflation stays under control AND the government increases benefits over time to match inflation. I don't like those odds either. If you are not building a retirement that involves passive income, then you are never going to reitre like grandma. Passive income is money that comes in whether you actively work or not. Dividend paying stocks, bonds, and rental properties are examples of passive income. Be sure to follow my blog for more ideas on passive income and how to create it. http://www.donniemasters.com/donnies-blog
I want to tell you I am scared. Hear me out for a minute and you should be too. Activism is taking over America. People have voted, demonstrated, and protested since the election of 2016. And regardless of what political stance you take, you should be more worried than ever about this impact on your finances. Living in a democracy is a beautiful thing. We get the right to vote with our wallet. If a company or service disappoints you, the consumer, then money is no longer exchanged for their services and the company will either change it's methods, get sold and re-organized, or go bankrupt. This is how the consumer gets to dictate whether or not a business is a good member of society and is welcome in their community. We can not, and must not, give in to activism. Activists do not understand the financial impact that they can have on a business and I am not sure they care. Maybe your goal is to take down Ivanka Trump. I can understand if you do not like her family or their politics. Refusing to support her and her brand is an individual choice and I love that we as Americans have the freedom to choose that. But by succumbing to activism, and the mob mentality that comes with it, has a direct impact on our own neighbors. Her company will now be forced to lay off American workers that handled phone orders, customer service, shipping and packaging, returns and exchanges, etc. Having the right to vote with your wallet is a beautiful thing and we should never take it for granted. What scares me the most is that activists can and will take down the US economy without caring about the overall financial impact this has on their immediate family, neghborhood, or city. This is not democracy. It is MOB-ocracy. It frightens me, and it should frighten you as well.
One of my personal favorite blogs, The Penny Hoarder, has written a great article on how to save $1000. This can be accomplished even while living paycheck to paycheck. Check out the article here.
Remember, any small start is better than not starting at all. |
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