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Warm weather, combined with recent rain, finally has my lawn green and growing. I’ve dropped my first application of fertilizer, pulled my lawn mower from the shed, and generally gotten ready for another season of lawn care. Soon enough, my lawn will need to be mowed regularly.
I love being outside and mowing the lawn, but I’m a busy guy — and the two hours it takes to cut the grass and trim around the house is sometimes hard to find.
That being said, I have a teenage son who is looking to earn some extra money. He’d like to get a part-time job, but getting one at age 15 is difficult, because most business require applicants to be at least 16.
Mowing the lawn would be a perfect way for me to save some time, and for him to earn some money. But here’s the question:
One of the most important things you can do is to save enough for retirement. Unfortunately, many Americans aren’t saving anything for their future.
According to a survey from GoBankingRates.com, it looks as though about one in three Americans has absolutely nothing in their nest egg. This is a concerning number since it indicates that many people aren’t preparing for their financial future.
Here are the results of the survey, indicating how much money the respondents say they have saved for retirement:
Many times when people ask me what I do, I get mixed responses when I explain that I’m a stay-at-home mom. Some people are a little put off by it (which is totally fine), while others look at me as if I have stumbled upon this lucky coin in life. “I wish I could stay at home with my babies too, but we need my income”, is usually the response I hear.
For some individuals, staying at home is not a choice because they do need the extra income. However, when another mom tells me how lucky I am, I can’t help notice that they have a nice iPhone, new and trendy clothes, as well as a pricey SUV. None of these things are bad, but my point is that staying at home and living on one income does require a bit of sacrifice. That lucky coin is not be attributed to luck after-all.
Here are the two questions I asked myself when I wanted to stay at home with my kids, and still make sure the bills were paid.
When I first became interested in personal finance, I felt as though I was learning a new language. I started learning new terms related to budgeting, saving, paying off debt, and investing.
I learned the difference between the snowball and avalanche methods for debt repayment, I became educated on the various complexities, terms, and abbreviations that come along with investing, and have at least two or three methods of budgeting under my belt (my favorite is the zero-sum budget, which gives every dollar a job).
A few months after I started my unofficial education, I started seeing another foreign term being thrown around: FIRE.
Have you ever wondered about this but don’t know how to go about it? Here is some help that the folks at GoBankingRates help put together. The first chart assumes that you will be withdrawing $100,000 every year in today’s dollars, and that inflation will be 2.5% (that’s why the later you retire, the more you actually need because if you wait till next year to start withdrawing, you will need $102,500 to have the same purchasing power).
Everyone seems strapped for time these days. And a lot of us are also strapped for cash. With so many responsibilities to manage, it can be hard to find time to make budget cuts and save money.
If you’re running low on time and money, you’ll definitely want to check out these tips that you can implement in five minutes or less.
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