Financial Frugality and Simple Living

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This month, I want to focus on financial frugality and simplicity in living. If you want to build and keep wealth, one of the tried and true ways is through the exercise of frugality. This value–and dare I say virtue–of being frugal ultimately means being a good steward of your resources. Can you still have an enjoyable life if you are frugal? Absolutely! Does frugality mean living on beans and rice and only shopping at thrift stores? Hardly! Read, listen, and watch these resources below for inspiration and encouragement:

  • Read: This brief (I’m talking 134 words here!) blog post highlights Five Questions Worth Asking Before Buying, which are great rules of thumb to consider when making any purchase. 
  • Listen: Mr. and Mrs. Frugalwoods (note: not their real names) made a dramatic decision to leave their white collar 9-5 jobs to homestead on 66 acres in rural Vermont. In this podcast interview with Jesse Mecham of YNAB, learn more about what led this couple to make this move in their early 30s.
  • Watch: This short exchange between David Pakman and Peter Adeney (aka Mr. Money Mustache, who has been highlighted in the newsletter before) begs to answer the question of “Does money buy happiness?” Not only is the answer no, David and Peter discuss ways in which you can adjust your lifestyle to find more meaning in what you have, rather than filling your life with superfluous stuff.

For those interested, we did just complete the second quarter of 2018. Here is the market commentary for how things went.

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You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Financial Organization, Goals, and Planning

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Now that it is finally spring in most parts of the country, I wanted to focus on spring cleaning this month, highlighting some resources to help you organize your finances:

  • Read: Many couples blame their marriage problems on disagreements and an inability to see eye to eye. Marriage counseling is a great option for couples who need to learn how to better communicate, but it might not solve the problem that caused a disagreement in the first place, especially if the problem involves money. So because money is a leading cause of stress in relationships, couples may want to consider money counseling before heading to a marriage counselor. Click here to read more.
  • Listen: In this podcast conversation between Financial Mentor Todd Tresidder and Farnoosh Torabi, they discuss money, relationships, and financial goals. These aspects of life have long-term financial implications, and they’re much easier to accomplish when both spouses/partners are working together.
  • Watch: Are you unsure of all that a financial planner can do for you with regard to an organizational overview of your financial situation, future needs, and risk tolerance? This video outlines the value of having a financial planner, who will help you achieve short and long term financial goals.

Free Services Spotlight:

  • Vertex42: Since 2003, Vertex42 has been creating professionally designed spreadsheet templates for business, personal, home, and educational use. Their collection of financial calculators include some of the most powerful and user-friendly debt reduction and money management tools you can find.
  • Personal Capital: The Personal Capital dashboard gives you everything you need to gauge, monitor and optimize your financial holdings. Link all of your external financial accounts and get immediate access to a comprehensive view of all your accounts.

*Both of these services are free and great for the do-it-yourselfer; clientele of Bona Fide Finance have access to more robust software tools as part of our business practice.

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Investing

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This month, I’d like to highlight the following, with a theme of investing. Firstly, I want to share Bona Fide’s Investment Philosophy, upon which these recommended resources build:

  • Read: Dimensional has a concise recap on Recent Market Volatility. I echo their advice: by adhering to a well-thought-out investment plan, ideally agreed upon in advance of periods of volatility, investors may be better able to remain calm during periods of short-term uncertainty.
  • Listen: In this Money For the Rest of Us podcast by David Stein, he discusses what it takes to be a value investor, educating the listener on what drives the long-term performance of stocks, what the qualities are of skilled value managers, and what risk is. 
  • Watch: Is compound interest the greatest invention the world has ever seen? Watch this brief video to increase your understanding of how compound interest works in the realm of investing, and to garner Albert Einstein’s own thoughts on it!

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Financial Independence and Early Retirement

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This month, I’d like to emphasize the processes one would go through if he or she wants to retire early (and by early I don’t just mean at age 62.5!). Enjoy the following pieces on this topic:

  • Read: Early Retirement Extreme is, well, an extreme look at retiring early. Jacob Lund Fisker wrote a book of the same title and has a plethora of information on his website, including this article on Can I Retire Young? In sum: the main question you should ask yourself is thus not whether you have enough money, but rather whether you can envision yourself living an unconventional life outside the boxes that most others live in. Can you be happy without doing what everybody else is doing?
  • Listen: The Shocking Truth About Life After Financial Independence is a podcast interview between Financial Mentor Todd Tresidder and Tess Vigeland, former host of NPR’s Marketplace Money. They discuss what stands on the other side of your career and how to embrace the risk and uncertainty, living life as an adventure. 
  • Watch: This 26-minute video of Peter Adeney (from Mr. Money Mustache, who retired at the age of 30) highlights 3 facts about money that helps the viewer understand what best to do with it to be able to retire early.

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Lifestyle Design & Financial Planning

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This month, I’d like to highlight the theme of lifestyle design, a concept that weighs heavily on ordering your financial situation accordingly:

  • Read: This article from Seeking Alpha focuses on the work of Tim Ferriss, author of such books as “The Four Hour Work Week” and “Tools of Titans”. Ferriss encourages folks to move from an annual thinking and total costs to monthly cash-flow. What is your ideal lifestyle in exact detail, and how much does it cost per month?
  • Listen: Joshua Sheats interviewed Jake Desyllas, author of “Job Free” in this podcast, which focuses on distilling all the plans and strategies you can use to design your ideal financial freedom plan into a clear, simple framework.
  • Watch: A double-dip on Tim Ferriss this month: check out this 30 minute interview between Mark Frauenfelder of the 2014 Bay Area Maker Faire and Tim on his own experiments in lifestyle design, including dancing, learning languages, working out, and stoicism.

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Happiness and Budgeting

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As we enter into the holiday season this month, I thought it prudent to touch on giving versus getting, experiences versus things, and why sticking to a budget always makes sense:

  • Read: This article from Todd Curtis of YNAB  highlights how the thoughtful pursuit of things you want in life can turn into the mindless pursuit of simply getting. *The referenced Verizon video can be found here
  • Listen: Elizabeth Dunn, author of the book “Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending”, discusses her research on the increase of happiness when our money is spent on experiences rather than things. Meb Faber conducts this interview here.
  • Watch: For a touch of humor, please enjoy this brief SNL skit featuring Steve Martin and Amy Poehler: “Don’t Buy Stuff You Can’t Afford”

Services spotlight: Bona Fide Finance utilizes Right Capital, a software piece designed to give you the full spectrum of your finances and its projections into the future. My favorite features are the account aggregation and client portal; I offer this to all of my clients who contract ongoing services.

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Radical Personal Finance

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September’s theme is de-risking your life:

  • Read: There is a plethora of resources and additional information based on the podcast interview recommended below, in this show notes page from Radical Personal Finance. I recommend bookmarking this article and utilizing the recommended resources.
  • Listen: In this interview from Radical Personal Finance’s Joshua Sheets and Justin Carroll (from the Complete Privacy and Security Podcast), talk about real, actionable ways in which you can become more secure and protect your privacy.
  • Watch: “When you are aware, you will make better decisions.” Continuing this month’s theme, Jesse Mecham from YNAB briefly discusses the habits of transformation that can assist you with making the best decisions for your finances.

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Transitioning Children to Adulthood and Considering the Option of Paying for College

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Changing up my format slightly this month, I’m offering three podcasts on the topic of transitioning children to adulthood and considering the option of paying for college. With high school graduation season upon us, this topic is timely as ever. Therefore, I’d like to highlight the following:

  • Listen #1: Joshua Sheats is known for being radical (hence the name of his show, Radical Personal Finance). In this podcast, he discusses why he–as a financial advisor–refuses to save money for his kids’ college. His direct advice to an inquirer is this: “Don’t set up a college plan for your young child. It’s a bad idea and a poor use of money in light of all the other things you can do with money that are better.” Listen to find out why!
  • Listen #2: In this podcast interview between Meb Faber and Ric Edelman, the topic is broached of what the future will look like in respect to work and technology for the next generations. In essence, it is going to look far different than what we’ve known. The tendency is to believe that the future will be similar to what our parents and grandparents experienced as they aged. A linear progression – school, work, retirement, death. Ric believes this is going to change: the linear lifeline is going away. It will more resemble school, work, back to school, a new, different career, then a sabbatical, more school, and so on…a lifeline that’s more cyclical.
  • Listen #3: J.D. Stein from Money For the Rest of Us discusses the changing nature of employment and what humans can do about it. In this episode you’ll learn why job skills will be most in demand in the coming years, how the level of academic knowledge needed to complete jobs peaked in 2000 and has been declining since, and how robots and other information technology are substituting for labor.

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for listening!!

Economics and Trade

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This month, I’d like to highlight the following, with an emphasis placed on economy and trade:

  • Read: This article from Vanguard focuses on free trade, its contribution to the global economy, and how it involves a compromise between growth and jobs.
  • Listen: For a seesaw to work properly, you need at least two people–one on each side. When looking at the economy, we should always be asking, “Who is on the other side of the seesaw?” In this podcast by David Stein, he applies the seesaw analogy to federal budget deficits, the national debt, and trade.
  • Watch: How does the economy really work? This simple but not simplistic video by Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater Associates), shows the basic driving forces behind the economy, and explains why economic cycles occur by breaking down concepts such as credit, interest rates, leveraging and deleveraging. 
    For the heartiest of hearty, if you’d like to read a fuller treatment of the video, check out Dalio’s 300-page essay here.

If you find the information provided valuable, please pass this email along to your family and friends! Better yet, recommend them to subscribe to this monthly newsletter by signing up on our website!

You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!

Tips On Financial Investing, Vehicles, and Your Paycheck

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This month, I’d like to highlight the following resources on investing, vehicles, and your paycheck cycle:

  • Read: Have you ever wondered what the benefit is of having a financial advisor for your investments, especially if you’re a do-it-yourselfer? This Vanguard client brief explains how financial advisors create value for investors.
  • Listen: Car leasing is the most expensive way to operate a vehicle. Car leasing is the cheapest way to operate a new vehicle. Both of those statements are true. In this podcast, Joshua Sheats explains why, and he explains how to get out of a lease if you have one.
  • Watch: Did you know that 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck? In this short video, Jesse Mecham provides several litmus tests for gauging which side of that percentage you fall into.

If you’re interested in meeting with me about any of these or other financial questions, let’s set up a time to talk!