I’ve made a number of dumb, bad, financial decisions over my 50+ years of life. But the single, dumbest, financial mistake EVER… was buying a set of encyclopedias. I know what you’re thinking. Oh, that’s not that bad. At least encyclopedias are educational and you can get a lot of use of them! Yes. Yes, but…

But… Except…

Except for the fact that I was in my early 20’s, newly married, we had NO other furniture except for a bed, and the rest of the apartment was 100% empty. Why did I buy them? Because it came with a “free” TV, and I didn’t have one. And I bought these from a door-to-door salesman at an apartment complex. I spent around $1000-$1500 for them.

First and foremost, I want you to remember this one thing from this article, even if you don’t remember anything else… YOU need to know and understand YOUR money and investments.

• Never stop reading and studying about money and investing.
• Do not depend on others to handle your money.
• No one will put your interests first like you.

With that said, here’s a few basic terms and things to understand about investing and the stock market…

Raise your hand if you’ve heard the following: “Cars depreciate 20% when you drive off the lot.”

I had heard that many times in my life, but it never really sunk in until later in life when I started analyzing common expenses and building wealth. My goal with this post is for that saying (and MUCH more) to sink in, regarding what buying cars (especially new cars) does to your wealth building.

A $30,000 car financed over 5 years is about $500 per month. Most people look at a $500 car payment these days as no big deal. If you’re saving at least 3 x’s that amount per month AND you’re going to keep the car for 10 years, MAYBE you can justify doing 5 years of payments on a 30k car. Maybe. I still don’t advise it, but at least you’re using the car a long time AND you’re saving $1500/month to build wealth. For the rest of you, if you do this your entire life, and have little-to-no wealth built in 30-40 years, you have basically driven multi-million dollars cars your whole life. I hope you really enjoyed them! Because if you had spent less and saved the difference, you would have added millions in wealth. Don’t believe me? Check out these numbers…

FIRE (“Financial Independence Retire Early) — “retiring early” is a strange goal. But the ability to “Work On (your) Own Terms — WOOT!… that’s a worthy goal.

WOOT! or Retirement?

The idea of saving for retirement can be boring. If you’re 50 or older and haven’t saved, saving for retirement can feel like life-or-death, but when you’re in your 20’s, 30’s, and early 40’s, retirement is the last thing on your mind. I’m hoping to help change your mind by not making saving about retirement, but about building wealth.