In The Goal: Financial Freedom I noted that my personal financial goal is to invest my assets so they generate enough income to more than pay my living expenses. This way I will never have to spend a penny of the assets themselves -- just live on the income they produce. At that point I'll have total financial freedom, be able to retire, or do whatever I want to do. I'm … [Read more...]
The Goal: Financial Freedom
We've been through the basics of this site -- what it's about as well as the details behind earn, save, and invest. We've also covered the key topics of net worth and cash flow. We've also noted that if you put all these together in the right way, you will become wealthy. But what we haven't covered is the underlying question: why do we want to become wealthy? One … [Read more...]
2016 Financial Resolutions
I'm a big believer in New Year's resolutions. Each year I set a host of resolutions in a variety of categories. I then track them throughout the year to make sure I'm accomplishing what I want to with my life. I've been doing this for over 20 years and have had pretty good success throughout the years. I thought it might be fun to share my 2016 financial resolutions with … [Read more...]
Invest Overview: Fueling Your Net Worth
Let's discuss the third step to wealth, the "I" in "ESI Money." As noted in the explanation of the site's meaning , the "I" stands for "Invest." (Just to keep everyone up to speed, earn and save are the other two.) Investing is the step that super-charges your net worth and opens the door to high levels of wealth. It does this by taking the cash flow generated by the … [Read more...]
Save Overview: Just as Important as Earning
Let's talk about the "S" in "ESI Money." As noted in the explanation of the site's meaning, the "S" stands for "Save." Saving is the second part of the key financial guideline "spend less than you earn" (the first is to earn as much as possible) and is just as important as its brother. Two Parts of "S" As it relates to its use in this site, "save" actually has two … [Read more...]
Earn Overview: How to Grow Your Income
Now that we've covered the basics of this site, let's spend the next few posts getting into ESI Money's three focus areas -- AKA the "three simple steps to wealth." Today we'll talk about the "E" in "ESI Money." As noted in the explanation of the site's meaning, the "E" stands for "Earn." Why It All Starts with "E" You've probably heard it said that the key to personal … [Read more...]
The Importance of Tracking and Managing Cash Flow
Now that we've covered the importance of measuring and tracking your net worth, let's move on to a financial measure that's almost as important. It's important because it's a major driver of net worth. It's called cash flow. What is Cash Flow? Cash flow is simply income minus expenses. It's what you make/earn less what you spend. Income less expenses. The difference … [Read more...]
How to Measure and Track Your Wealth
One key to building wealth is to measure it and track progress regularly. Just like there's no way to tell what's happening in a sporting event without a scoreboard, you can't determine your success in growing wealth without some sort of tracking. As a scoreboard is to a sporting event, your net worth is to your financial status. It tells you how much you really … [Read more...]
About the Logo
Developing a logo is a very tough process (but a vital one if you want to create a great website). It forces you to think hard about what you want your brand to stand for and (conversely) what you don't want it to stand for. Then you have to take those thoughts and put them into a creative process where much of what's "good" is highly subjective. Brutal … [Read more...]
What Does ESI Money Mean?
"ESI Money" doesn't really roll off the tongue. It sounds like it could be a bank, a financial services company, or (much worse) a payday loan website. Yikes! In this post I'll tell you how I came up with the name and what it means. Searching for a Name As you might imagine, naming a website is a tough proposition. But it's a vital part of creating a great website, so some … [Read more...]