Buying a home is the biggest purchase most Americans will ever make, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in one chunk. In addition, there are a whole host of associated costs -- insurance, maintenance, taxes, furnishings, and on and on that make this a gigantic financial issue for all but the wealthiest of us. The impact buying a home can have on a family's finances is … [Read more...]
7 Steps to Millions More: Over-Perform
In How to Manage Your Career to Make Millions More I listed seven steps to making the most of your career. Today we will be going into details of the first step: over-perform. This is the first thing that pops into the minds of most people when they think of succeeding at work: performing well. It is an important part of making the most of your career for sure, but it's not … [Read more...]
How to Save a Fortune When Buying a Car
I have purchased three new cars in the past 10 years. Yes, I like buying new cars and driving them forever and sometime in the future we can debate whether that's a better "deal" than buying used. If nothing else, give me some slack and allow that it's one area where I treat myself. :) Anyway, on each of those three car purchases I have saved THOUSANDS of dollars by using … [Read more...]
What to Include in a Disaster File
When I listed my 2016 financial resolutions I noted that one of my resolutions as follows: Complete death file -- I know, it's a morbid name. But it's basically a file that lists where all our finances, records, etc. are located. It's for my wife in case something would happen to me. One reader responded: A better term of death file that I like would be disaster file. If you … [Read more...]
The Best Personal Finance Books of All Time: The Richest Man in Babylon
I have read hundreds of books on all sorts of financial topics -- general money management, investing, retirement, and on and on. Unfortunately the vast majority of them aren't worth the paper they are printed on. They are poorly written and contain little valuable information. That said, there are many books that stand out for one reason or another -- and I mean this in a … [Read more...]
Career Insurance: Protecting Your Most Valuable Asset
For the vast majority of people, their career is their most valuable financial asset. Nothing else they own is likely worth as much (several million dollars over a lifetime). And even if they do have something more valuable (like an investment portfolio), it was probably earned as a result of their career. As with anything valuable, you need to take steps to protect your … [Read more...]
The Day My Most Valuable Asset Took a Hit
Many ESI readers are friends of mine and know about a career move I made a couple years ago from Michigan to Oklahoma. Several have asked me to give an update on that move and how I ended up in my new state of Colorado. It's a story full of twists and turns (and some good learnings), so I thought the rest of you might want to hear it as well. Backstory Just to get … [Read more...]
Six Times It’s Easy to Ask for a Discount
A few years ago when my mom was ill she had to stay in a hospital away from her home. My dad got a hotel room for $89 a night initially, but when it was apparent that his stay would be longer than expected, he asked the manager if he could get a "long-term rate". The manager said he could and agreed to let my dad stay in the same room for $67 a night from that day … [Read more...]
How to Earn Thousands with Credit Card Rewards
As I noted in Earn Overview: How to Grow Your Income one way to pick up some extra funds is to look for small opportunities to make money here and there. Today we are going to talk about one of those opportunities: making money with cash back credit cards. The idea is as simple as using a credit card to make your purchases and earning rewards and signup bonuses for doing … [Read more...]
Do I Need to Add Physical Gold and Silver to My Portfolio?
A few years ago I read a copy of Buy Gold and Silver Safely: The Only Book You Need to Learn How to Buy or Sell Gold and Silver. I was considering buying gold and/or silver at that time, but the rest of the world was as well and prices were sky high. I decided I would not buy at that point but revisit the subject once prices normalized a bit. Fast forward a few years and … [Read more...]
