What’s up, fiscal friends! Been answering a lot of $$$ questions lately in emails, and thought I’d pass some of them along here in case anyone else is wondering about ’em too…
Most of it’s on investing, but there’s also some questions on paying off debt, buying a first home, taking on school loans, tax refunds, and then a smattering on blogging as well.
Always fun to answer these, and always available to answer *your* questions too whenever you have any… I might not have all the answers, but I can promise you I will always have an opinion, haha…
Here we go!
(And shout out to the Financial and Technology Literacy class over at C. Milton Wright High School for some of these questions – y’all’s class seems cool! As does your teacher, so try not to give him too much $hit, okay? ;) Also – all the gifs here are for you.)
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Have you ever went on a spending binge?
Hell yeah!! ALLL the time back in the day… and still go a bit too far sometimes these days when I’m super excited about something (reading books, collecting coins, etc). But I guess it’s all subjective as “spending binge” to me is spending a couple hundred dollars on the spot, whereas for others it could be thousands :) Which I’ve never done, unless you count buying a house or a car? (And $$$ is $$$$ so I guess it should count!)
How do you stay patient with investing?
I think it’s easy because all of my $$$ is in retirement accounts that I know I can’t touch for X # of decades. So since there’s no temptation to pull from it on the daily, I really don’t have much of an option not to be patient :)
I’ve tried dabbling in stocks here and there over the years in a separate non-retirement brokerage account, but it seems every time I do that I freak out or don’t enjoy it and I end up just going back to my safe tax-advantaged retirement accounts again. Also, it helps that I’m surrounded by smart $$$ people all day long for “my job” so all my peers are doing the same thing!
What do you look for in a company to invest in?
That it’s an index fund, and that it’s with Vanguard :) I really don’t deviate much at all from that anymore as I’ve been an indexer convert going on 4 years now. I don’t enjoy, nor have the patience, to research individual stocks, and everything you read points to indexes beating out a majority of other strategies long-term anyways, so I just ignore the rest and keep on pouring in as much as I can into my retirement accounts… Even Warren Buffett recommends index funds to people!
(Shout out to Ramit Sethi for this one, haha…)
How do you start off investing with little or no money? Do you like Acorns?
Oh yeah – big fan of Acorns and Digit and the like – whatever gets the ball rolling! Same with the robo-advisors out there like Wealthfront or Betterment or WealthSimple. You may have to pay some fees to use them, but fees on investing SOMETHING vs NOTHING is a bet you should take all day every day…
And honestly, the best place to really start is again with your retirement accounts and in particular your 401(k). If you’re working at a company that gives you FREE MONEY to do something you should be doing anyways (investing), then why not take advantage of that and contribute at least to what your company’s matching? That alone gives you a 100% return on your money right away, and there’s *nothing* out there that can beat that.
So for me it’s 401(k) first, then a Roth IRA, and then to the Acorns and Digits out there to help stash whatever extra money is laying around you’re not using. (Or if you’re a baller, going back to maxing out that 401(k) and then moving to Acorns and the like…) Really can’t go wrong with that plan.
Do you have any information on helping with using Turbo Tax? I can not seem to understand why all these people get money back during tax season and my family does not :( It makes me resentful and I am afraid I am doing something wrong and missing out on some money?
I’m sorry to hear that :( You can’t compare to others though, as everyone has different situations. And really, if you’re breaking even every year it means you’re probably doing everything the correct way because you’re not giving the gov’t a loan! You can adjust your withholdings so they take out more and you’ll get “free” money at the end if you wanted to, but honestly it’s probably best to stay as-is.
Another option is asking around for a reference from friends/colleagues to see if anyone has a good accountant they know, and then running it by them as well. I gladly pay $300/year for mine, and she not only helps me find stuff, but I can also ask her questions anytime I want directly too :)
Of course, if you don’t have a business or side income or anything like that, there’s not much room to find these “hidden” savings, but you can always start dumping more into tax-advantaged retirement accounts too to protect your money from taxes more. I’d focus on ways to do that, or to earn more in general, than what people are getting back on taxes as that doesn’t mean anything.
How did you pay down your debt so quick?
The fast answer is: I never had tons of debt to begin with. I was never *great* with money, but fortunately I wasn’t ever *bad* with money too, so my only debt when starting out my financial journey was maybe a couple thousand in credit cards. We did own a house once w/ a large mortgage, but I got out of all that debt by cheating and selling the place :)
Anytime I did have debt though, like with car loans, I’d just pay extra towards the principal every month (at a minimum I rounded up to the nearest $100th, and at maximum I’d send in double the payments), and for me focusing on the smaller balances a la Debt Snowball method helped motivate me a lot more than focusing on the %’s. (But only because my %s were super low – if they were ridiculously high I would have knocked those out first and then moved to the smaller balances again…)
And did you invest while you paid off your debt?
YES – the only thing that got me to where I am today is that I invested no matter what was going on around me! And I still do. My 401(k)-equivalent first, and then maxing out my Roth IRA. Usually I don’t have anything left after maxing out those two, but if I did it would all go back into investing more.
Everyone has their opinion on whether you should invest while paying off debt or saving for a house etc/etc, and the only answer I ever give is to go with the one that EXCITES YOU the most. We all do much better when we’re motivated and enthusiastic about an approach, so for me that trumps everything. And there’s no shame in changing your mind or testing diff. avenues over time either. Life – and our own goals – change constantly. You have to stay open to adapting along with them or you’ll just drive yourself mad…
I have $12,000 in student loans and $10,000 in credit card debt
I don’t know what your interest rates are, but my guess is that the $10k in c/c is pretty damn high, right? Like over 10%? If so, I’d concentrate ALL your effort on those until you wipe them away completely. You can invest on the side a little too if you’d like (def. still contribute to your 401k), but those rates will KILL your finances and it’s an immediate return of your investment w/ each payment you make.
I’m thinking about going back to school to finish my bachelor’s degree with grant money and sadly more loans so I can get a better job that pays more. The thought of more loans makes me sick though.
That does suck, I agree, but unless you’re going to become an entrepreneur and make your own $$$ on the side, that degree is going to go REALLLLL far in life, as well as help make you a ton more over time too (they say those w/ a degree vs those w/out will make an average of $1 Million more over the course of their lifetime – that’s pretty worth it!).
So I’m all for more education, but again it comes down to preferences and passions/etc. Plenty of people become successful w/out graduating from anywhere, but they also get there by having crazy drive and hustle (and smarts). Only you know which bucket you fall into the most, so you gotta roll with that.
What are your thoughts on purchasing a house? I’m getting married next month and we will be looking. We already got pre-approved, but it’s a tough bullet to bite knowing I’ll have a 200,000 loan… Our rate is 4.5%.
I have STRONG feelings on houses and don’t think they’re right for everyone, so I might not be the best person to ask on that one, haha… I proudly rent!
However, if you ARE going to go down that path, then I would just make sure you have a butt ton of cash saved up for maintenance and that you REALLY WANT IT at the end of the day. And also that you don’t buy something at the highest amount you’re approved for either. Banks will always approve you for more than you can afford, and the last thing you want is to be stuck with a major money pit and not being able to enjoy your new lives together… If you’ve ever heard of that saying, “house rich and cash poor”, this is what it means.
That said, home ownership *is* great for a lot of people and can def. make sense financially, but please just don’t rush into it like I did and then regret it later. Take your time and research and save up $$$, and then keep your eyes open on both the market as well as your goals… Nothing wrong with renting for a while either, despite what others say!
I’m seeking your advice on how to get more traffic to my new blog. What are the most effective ways you have found?
First, if you haven’t done this already, submit your blog over to our Directory so others can find it faster. Then, if you have the time and enjoy community stuff, jump into the forums and start engaging with others – the more bloggers who know who you are the more chances of traffic and collaboration and just having fun!
Outside of that, the #1 thing you can do for traffic right now is to *guest post* on as many other $$$ blogs as you can. You gotta get your blog out there in front of others, and guest posting gives you new audiences to talk to, as well as *links* back to your blog which are gold online. This tells Google and search engines that your site is growing and becoming popular, and thus they push you closer to the top for organic traffic (this is SEO stuff, if you’ve heard of that term yet). There are lots of other SEO tricks you can do too, but I wouldn’t mess with any of that right now. Too much of it can water down your site and make you sound like a robot.
But really, the most important is just writing GOOD CONTENT and then sharing it as best you can. As well as engaging with the blogging community – you do those two things and there’s no way for your traffic not to grow :)
Any advice on monetizing stuff?
I wouldn’t think about monetization at all right now – wait 5-6 months until you know you’re enjoying it and going to stick around, and then you can worry about that type of stuff. You’re not going to make any $$$ until you get some decent traffic coming in anyways, so you won’t miss any.
Any other general advice you can share?
Just do your best to have fun and meet other people! The money and lifestyle stuff that can come out of blogging is great, but if you’re not enjoying it then you’ll burn out way before even reaching that point.
Also, don’t be afraid to take a stance on things! People read blogs to get your opinion on stuff, and the more you can open up and be raw the better. There are tons of sites that share the pros and cons of something, but money is much more than just a list of facts. It’s personal, and the more you can share of yourself, the more you’ll connect. Don’t stick with only the *good* stuff either – talk about all the crap in your life too as ain’t nobody’s life perfect!
Other quickies:
- Write when you’re *in the mood* and passionate about something
- Do your best to keep a schedule, whether it’s once a week or once a month (this not only helps you to stick with it, but also tells your audience when they can expect a new article too)
- Respond to your comments from all your lovely readers!! For some reason bloggers are notorious for not doing this, and I really don’t get it. Your fans are taking the time to share thoughts and ask you questions, and your only response is to ignore them? When it’s because of them you get to do this every day? It takes a lot of time and doesn’t “pay”, I get it, but good Lord – at least pop in there every now and then and let ’em know you’re paying attention! Might as well just turn comments off if you don’t want to engage with anyone…
- Share and link back to other articles/blogs you love. This not only shares other perspectives with your community, but also helps pass around the love to your fellow bloggers as well… And while you’re at it, help me bring back the blogroll please!! “Experts” killed them when they told everyone to just keep everyone on their *own* site only and never send people off, and now because of that no one gets to see all the awesome blogs you follow and love :( And maybe we’d love them too! It’s not like you’re the only blogger we follow anyways – we cheat around!
I can go on and on, but I have a feeling I’ll just get feistier the more I do, haha… Just focus on putting out the best content you can and being YOURSELF, and then love the crap out of everyone and you’ll do just fine :) The rest you can learn as you go…
I see you like to blare hip-hop. I was listening to some Big Baby DRAM today. Who are you into?
Haven’t actually heard Big Baby DRAM before – will have to check out! I’ve been listening to a lot of old school stuff lately – Wu-Tang, Wyclef, then also the new stuff from N.E.R.D., as well as the Hamilton soundtrack (hah). If only all history was rapped…
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Other questions/comments/concerns – hit me! Always happy to flex my brain for you… Which looks mysteriously a lot like this:
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Great Q & A, really sound advice! I think the blogging advice at the end was spot on. It’s great to see so many curious young people.
Thanks man!
You answered every question in a fun way yet they’re all brilliant answers. I couldn’t agree more.
Hey, thanks!
I try :)
Arnold Lat Raising Cats….hahahahaha….Epic!!
I’ve been waiting months to use that one, haha…
Mr. Money,
You nailed it with this one “the only thing that got me to where I am today is that I invested no matter what was going on around me!”
Best advice if the day!!!! Always buy, no matter what. You can’t loose that way in the long run.
#Winning
Yup! Nothing complicated at all, just gotta want it bad enough and then do your best to make it happen!
The Hershey school is awesome! And it’s so cool they have a financial literacy class! Every school should have this. A financial literacy class is probably more useful than any other class I took in high school.
Also, I love all the gifs and smiles :).
Financial and Technology Class?!?!? Where was this when I was youger
Right??? Seems like this school really *gets it*.
Great questions and super helpful answers! I used Turbo tax to do our taxes this past weekend.
Mr. FAF said our refund should be bigger. He wants to hire an accountant, so I will let him do his thing this time. Hopefully, our refund will be more than what we see in TurboTax right now hehe.
Always worth a shot, especially if you have side hustles going on :)
Index investing just makes life soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier. I remember when I first started investing (aimlessly gambling) when I was 22, and I was buying stocks that I “knew” were sure fire bets to go up. Yea….Fitbit didn’t really pan out so well for me.
Ever since then, I have been indexing my way towards wealth:) And it’s so simple. Just fund that Total Stock Market Index Fund every month, and forget about it. It really works just like that!
That’s it! Not many times where being lazy actually pans out so well for you, haha…
My first stock I ever gambled on was Sirius satellite radio and I became obsessed with day trading it until the transaction fees eventually wiped away all my money haha… So glad to be over that phase!
Haha, good Q&A. You got better and funnier since you left your rocks behind (pun intended). Hear me you blog starters out there, sticking with it and keeping a schedule are the hardest things in this blogging gig (I am still struggling with it). Oh, the blogroll, that is something I want to do ever since I started just not managed to have the time for it. No SEO mage can convince me that it is a bad thing. Go, Arnold, go…
Glad you’re liking the articles better these days! I feel like all the extra time IS nice to flesh stuff out more, but I’m also finding it’s taking me much longer to get these out the door because now I edit and review them all like 10x more :( I miss the days where I just word vomited everything out without a second glance, haha…
Awesome way to start my day! Thanks for all you share!
That makes me happy – thank you for telling me so :)
Love the pie chart. There are two ways to get rich. The only way you can get rich through a multi-level scheme is to start your own and convince other people to buy their supplies from you (which would fall into starting your own business).
I would think billionaires would be almost all from starting their own business.
It’s interesting to me that becoming a millionaire and becoming a billionaire are completely different.
If you aim to become a millionaire, your odds of success are almost 100%. With risk aversion and steady progress, you’re almost guaranteed to make it. But it would take multiple lifetimes to get to a billion this way.
If you aim to become a billionaire, you have to take gigantic risks, and you’ll probably fail (there are only 1500 of them after all). And if you fail at becoming a billionaire, you don’t usually get a millionaire silver medal. You usually end up broke.
Just interesting to me that a billionaire is not a millionaire who did really well. It’s a completely different methodology.
Haha yup…. All in or nothing, really :) You also have to work you ass off MUCH more going for a billion and odds are your life wouldn’t be as nice as if “just” going for the millions… And I don’t know about you, but I much prefer a relaxing lifestyle than working 24/7 with billions in the bank.
Awesome Q&A. I always enjoy posts where readers write in. :)
Yeap, index fund is the way to go. They make life so much easier. New investors can focus on increasing their saving rates. That’s way more powerful than increasing the returns at the beginning.
Love the Q&A!
I go back and forth everyday between whether I want to do the simple and laid back vanguard index funds method of investing my extra after tax income (after maxing 401k and Roth IRA), or going the dividend growth investing route I’ve seen on several blogs.
I’m a naturally competitive person so the thought of being able to “beat” index funds with dividends and individual stock appreciation is enticing! Though maybe (and probably) not worth it..
Oh well I have a few months before I’ll have the extra cash to have to make that decision :)
Hey, nothing wrong with the dividend route either! Loads of people prefer that method, and there is something nice about tracking those dividends and trying to get it to the point where they cover all your living expenses :) I love seeing bloggers sharing their progress on that…
You do get dividends with indexes too, but it’s not nearly as sexy, haha…
No cats were harmed in the writing of this post.
“But really, the most important is just writing GOOD CONTENT”. Best Advice EVER.
That’s the point of blogs at the end of the day, right? You can only go so far being mediocre :)
Greta tips as always! Invest soon, invest often, invest always!!
Hi J. You mention maxing out your 401k first, then a Roth IRA. My boyfriend is self employed – so his annual max contribution to his retirement is $5,500. That doesn’t seem fair at all! Are there any other ways he can save for his retirement? Thanks!
I’m not an expert by any means, but try looking into the SEP-IRA. It is an IRA specifically for self employed, so the limit is much higher.
Actually, now that I think about it I think it is just nicknamed the “SEP IRA.” It’s real name is just the SEP, Self Employed Pension…
Yup! What Krystal said :) There’s also Solo 401(k)s and other options out there too, but the one I’m most familiar with is the SEP IRA as that’s what I use myself. You don’t get all the free matching unfortunately like with 401(k)s, but at least you get to contribute just the same to retirement. In fact, you can actually contribute much MORE to your retirement while being self-employed, depending on how much your business makes and how you set it up!
if he’s self employed his max solo 401k contribution is $55,000/year + $5500/year for IRA. I know because I am self employed and that’s about how much I contribute. SEP also works, its personal preference really, but the contribution limit is the same. Look at the Vanguard individual 401(k) and compare that to SEP offerings. Make sure you understand the positives and negative of each and make the decision accordingly.
ha! The gif game was on point today! I would recommend all the young whippersnappers invest NOW. I think I speak for all of us when I say we wish we had listened to the old farts in our lives and invested when we were 18. Learn from our mistakes and you will be well on your way to financial independence way sooner than you think!
Pretty much, haha…
Great gifs, so accurate! I really like these Q&As! Hope to see more of them! I second you on the house thing. We need to sell our rental. We’re tempted to sell our house too and just move into a nice condo next to hubby’s work. Enjoy life and not commute 1 hour each way.
That sounds heavenly!
Loved all the advice, especially the guidance for new bloggers. Thank you for sharing!
I will say, I’m a HUGE fan of getting tax refunds. I recently wrote about using tax refunds as a great strategy for getting ahead on your financial goals (including a reference to our favorite book). Not sure the proper etiquette for sharing links on others’ blogs, so I won’t link it here, but let me know what you think if you check it out.
Haha oh yeah – I used to love getting tax refunds too and supercharging my goals at the end of the year :) It went away when I started filing quarterly since I was more accurate at knowing what we would owe, but you’re right – for the majority of people who aren’t good at saving or managing money throughout the year, it’s a good way for them to finally have some $$$ to stash. Provided they actually *do it* of course :)
(and you’re always welcome to reference links in the comments here! as long as they’re not spammy and you drop 100 of them (which I know you would never do haha….) it’s totally fine, and helpful :))
Solid advice J$.
What really stood out to me was your last point. That is to have fun! It reminded of the feedback you gave me earlier this week and you’re totally right.
Anyone can talk about personal finance, but only you can share your opinion and stories in a way that can’t be replicated.
Keep being awesome J$ :)
You know it, brother :)
And the beautiful thing is that we ALL have our unique stories too!! Just a matter of pulling them outta ourselves!
Love this article!! Such a good combination of topics – guess I just love Q&As in general! Esp love the advice of doing what excites you most in paying back debt vs investing! Also – GIFs on point man
Haha, thank you $$ Babe. Wanted to make sure I didn’t put those high school kids to sleep ;)
I am retired and Love your blog. My portfolio is in Blue chips and rising.
Nice!! You’ve achieved what we’re all working towards :)
Nice Q&A! I like your points about investing no matter what and staying away from picking stocks and trying to game the market. Those GIFs…hahaha!
Ahhh the good ol blogroll. I miss early 2000s blogging. I should’ve stuck with it. Maybe I would be an !nflu3nc3r by now. Hahaha.
Hah! Love to see you’re rockin’ a blogroll at your current blog at least. Way to represent :)
Really loved the mind road trip! Would like to add a bit to 2 of your stops. #1. To house or not.. most people never consider the “carrying cost” of ownership, only the difference between cost and sales price. It OFTEN turns the deal into a net loss. #2, Great advice to both invest and payoff debt at the same time. I would add save some cash or savings! (it is ok if this cash is sitting in a bank or liquid investment). I had a saying when I worked with small businesses… when you are out of cash, you are out of business. The same pain applies to your personal life. Nothing assuages as many risks, including stupid mistakes, of life as a nice stockpile of cash.
Amen to that brother.
And very true on the home ownership “carrying costs.” Exactly what got me into trouble over a decade ago! (“Oh, you mean I can own a house for only $100 more than if i were paying rent? Sign me up!!!!” “Wait…. how is it that I’m now paying hundreds more every month?? Doesn’t someone just fix all the stuff for free like renting???” haha…. ;))
Wu-Tang and Wyclef is NOT old school.
old(er) school! ;)
Great Q&A !
I loved your general advise. I have now to choose a schedule :P
I wish having a blogroll was still a “thing” too. I had a personal blog before blogging was all about how much traffic you could get, and one of my favorite parts of it was discovering new blogs from the people that I already followed. Sigh. Those were the good days.
Yup, pretty much!!
And ironically enough, sharing blogrolls also happens to help with traffic too! Because while you’re sharing other blogs, their sharing you and the circle of blog love flows throughout :)
Perhaps if enough of us rock them again we can bring them back?
For the person with a student loan of $12,000 and cc. debt of $10,000, Jay is right: pay off that cc debt like it’s the most important thing you could do with your money – because it is! I hope that you never become comfortable with your debts just because it’s “normal” to be in the red. My husband and I had that false comfort for many years, but then when the unexpected happened (in our case, job loss), it wasn’t so comfortable anymore. Make your paradigm shift happen now instead of later, and watch that $10,000 go down!
Preach, sister!
Staying patient with investments through your retirement account is a winning formula J$!! I love individual stocks, but I also love the research and analysis that goes along with it – and I’m certainly hoping it pays off in the long run.
And although I’ve just started this whole blogging thing for fun, and to hopefully share some good ideas with people, I have taken your advice and submitted my blog to the Directory :)
Beautiful – good job :)
Definitely finish that degree unless there is a compelling reason not to. J$ is right. Unless you want to work for yourself, it is hard to find good employment without those credentials. And community college BAs can do the trick for less money. Definitely consider that.