![](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/DSC06119-Pano.jpg\")
At my former company (before retirement), employees could take as much vacation as they want. It's virtually limitless, within reason. Vacation time isn't \"accrued\". You take it when you need it, as much as you want.
At first blush, this seems pretty damn sweet. As much vacation as you want? Score!
Here is the rub: My company also tracked your utilization time, which is time spent directly in support of a billable contract to a client. The greater your utilization, the larger your quarterly bonus.
Bonuses at my company easily amount to 20% or more of your salary in a given year.
Aaaaand, boom! Instantly, the company with that \"generous\" vacation package has instantly forced a huge decision for you to make: Either work your tail off and almost never take a vacation, or take as much as you want and potentially earn much, much less.
The company also provided additional bonuses for those with an especially high utilization rate, effectively requiring no vacation time during the quarter - or working unpaid overtime to make up for hours spent away from the office...enjoying life.
Not only that, but each employee was given the opportunity to do even more work on internal company projects, known as \"Management By Objectives\", or MBOs. These hours further expand the lucrative bonus potential.
The opportunity to make crazy money is seeded deep within each of us, and this company cleverly knew that and exploited it very well. It consumes our work and influences our decisions whether we realize it or not.
\"Yo dude, did you get your high utilization bonus this quarter?\"
\"Yeah, and I probably need to take the wife out to dinner to make up for ignoring her over the past couple months.\"
\"Sweet, I got mine, too. Damn, money at this place is off the hook!\"
To the untrained eye, this is a pretty sweet deal. Unlimited vacation and huge bonuses. What's not to like?
There is plenty not to like about the way my former company runs their vacation policy - for example, the way our human nature is exploited to maximize billable hours.
When vacation hours are limited and tracked - like they are at other companies - employees are encouraged to take time off to avoid losing that vacation time. \"Use 'em or lose 'em\".
But when they're not and money is on the line, we feel compelled to work.
Work a lot.
At another employer where vacations were limited, I remember working with a guy who had a couple weeks of unused vacation left during the holiday season and, refusing to let those hours go to waste, decided to take a two-week \"staycation\", using that time to catch up on much-needed sleep and spend more time with his family.
It was time well spent. And, it didn't affect his salary a bit.
Further, some companies allow a certain number of unused vacation hours from the previous year to transfer over to the next. In addition, if an employee leaves the company, any remaining vacation hours are paid out to the now ex-employee. A bonus for moving on!
In the end, what seems like a more stringent vacation policy works out in the employee's favor. When vacation hours are virtually unlimited, we take less of them. When vacations are limited, we naturally want to get the most out of those hours and avoid letting them go to waste.
It's a clever ploy, and it works.
When companies like mine provide \"unlimited\" vacation hours, incentives keep the staff working. At the company I worked for, that incentive was money - and lots of it.
Just piles of cash.
A 20% yearly bonus spread out quarterly demands attention. It kept many of my co-workers slaving away at the office for many hours, focused entirely on sacrificing freedom for the sake of the almighty greenback.
We work instead of relax. Rather than spend time with our families, we travel for business.
Most of us can work from anywhere. Company-issued laptops are the norm, and the expectation that we work from our homes is always there. In fact, my company \"encouraged\" staff to check their email periodically while on vacation, \"just in case\".
Perhaps my company didn't understand what \"vacation\" actually is. They do, however, keenly understand the psychology of humans.
And based on our vacation policy, they successfully encouraged their staff to ignore the need for rest and relaxation in exchange for money...money that can be used to buy stuff like big cars, large homes, televisions and cell phones, requiring us to keep that source of income in place, endlessly working in a wicked cycle of freedom-killing decay.
\"How important is your vacation to you?\" they would implicitly ask with a policy like this. \"You can take as much time off as you want, but if you work until you literally can't move, there's money in it for you.\"
Over the first 12 years working in corporate America, I rarely took a vacation. Instead, I worked. At companies that would buy back unused PTO every year, I'd pocket the monetary equivalent of those hours.
An additional half paycheck!
That taste of freedom changed that for me. My former employer had one of the most relaxed vacation policies that I've ever seen, but I took more vacay than ever. I didn't get my high utilization bonus the last year I worked a full-time job with them, but I honestly didn't care.
I've come to realize that the money just isn't worth it. My health and happiness come before bonuses, high salaries and cleverly deceptive PTO policies at work.
Check out this infographic from TeamViewer about how the vacation / work life balance has been skewed. It's relatively old data, but things definitely haven't gotten any better.
![](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/working-vacation-infographic.jpg\")
How generous is your company with PTO time? Are your vacay hours limited?
This post was originally published August 2016 but has been updated and revised using the Revise and Republish strategy.
","tags":[{"name":"Vacation","slug":"vacation"},{"name":"work","slug":"work"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Travel and Lifestyle","slug":"travel-and-lifestyle"},{"name":"Leave Corporate America","slug":"leave-corporate-america"},{"name":"Generating Income","slug":"generating-income"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"magic-stock-market-revealed-year","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Screen-Shot-2016-04-21-at-6.11.09-AM.png","title":"Magic of the stock market revealed in a year","published_at":"2016-05-18T10:00:00.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"But as of today, all our losses over the past year have been regained - and then some.
![\"Portfolio](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Screen-Shot-2016-04-21-at-6.11.09-AM.png\")
Looking back over our investment portfolio's recent history, I realized something amazingly powerful. To anyone who doesn't quite understand the stock market and how it generates passive income, the market just finished showing us exactly how it works. How many will learn from the lesson?
![\"Pinterest:](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/pinterest-stock-market.jpg\")
The screen shot from Personal Capital above depicts a nearly $80,000 difference in value and represents our portfolio balances thus far for 2016. Mid-February was our low point, and it seems like each and every day now sets new highs for us. At the moment, the market is doing well.
But that wasn't the case just a few months ago.
Over the past year, investors have witnessed incredible market fluctuations. 2016 started with the worst 10-day stretch in history. Everybody was losing money left and right (93% according to CNN Money). The reasons are immaterial. Some claim the market was generally overvalued. Others believe oil was the main culprit. Whatever. Stock brokers are irrational by nature. ;)
Twitter and other social outlets lit up. Folks were frustrated, questioning the whole concept of relying on the stock market for passive income.
The causes - whatever they are, don't matter. What is amazing is how well the last year represents the core workings of the market over the long term. It's almost as if the market reached out and bitch-slapped the American people across the face, exclaiming \"Watch this, you might learn something!\"
There are few \"sure things\" in this world, but the stock market, historically over the course of history, has proven to be a money maker. The key is to understand that short-term investing is incredibly risky and volatile. Looking at investment returns over a 6-month (or 6-week) period in a market designed to generate consistent long-term gains is dangerous and confusing.
Understand that just like people, the stock market is very emotional. Emotional people tend to exhibit wild swings, acting completely bat-shit nutty at times for no apparently reason. As an investor, you can't control these swings; they just happen. Like your crazy uncle who won't shut the hell up about a looming communist invasion, you just gotta go with the flow and let him do his thing. Take the bad with the good. After all, he is your uncle. And he's always been a bit off.
Again, what the market does in the short term is immaterial; every once in a while, the market will go crazy. An economy controlled by people almost requires a dose of insanity every now and again.
Whether you are investing through an established brokerage company, like Glanmore Investments, or are going it alone - we all feel the same weirdness (craziness?).
Make no mistake about it: the frustration we experienced as of late is nothing compared to market craziness in our nation's history. Think about the Great Depression when the market lost a ridiculous 11% of its value at the opening bell on \"Black Thursday\" - October 24th, 1929. Or the years of \"stagnation\" during the 1970s. Or the housing market collapse in 2009. These were serious blows to our market and virtually every investor.
But look around you. We recovered.
The idea is to make money over the course of years, which turn into decades. Market growth is exponential. Money makes money, and more money makes even more! Thus, frustrations and market criticisms of short-term market losses are generally unfounded and ignore the entire point of investing. The market isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. That is the lesson it just tried to teach us.
If Joe had invested a ton of money in the market last December, but didn't understand how the market works, Joe probably would have cried into his beer some time in mid-February. I'll shed a tear for him too, but only due to my sadness over Joe's inability to understand the plain and simple workings of the stock market.
For example, since its inception in 1928, the S&P has realized an average rate of return of 10% - or 7% after adjusting for inflation (the buying power of money). If dividends were reinvested over the course of this 90-year period, gains would be quite a bit higher. Not bad.
However, this doesn't mean investors are guaranteed a 10% return on their money virtually any time they invest. Thus far in 2016, the S&P's rate of return is right around 1.1%, but it bottomed out February 11th at NEGATIVE 10%. We all lost money - temporarily.
It happens, and it's primarily dumb luck how well you do over the short-term. But as the market has shown over the course of its history - and even over the course of the last year, clamoring over ebbs and flows is a fool's game because the market will always ebb and flow. It's what it does.
And now, the great majority of us are making cash again because the market now flow-eth. That is also what it does.
Enjoy the ride!
How many of you lost a bunch of money last February, but are now enjoying an overall increase in your year-to-date investment portfolio?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Think","slug":"how-to-think"},{"name":"DOW","slug":"dow"},{"name":"Financial independence","slug":"financial-independence"},{"name":"S&P","slug":"sp"},{"name":"Stock Market","slug":"stock-market"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Retire by 40","slug":"retire-by-40"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Generating Income","slug":"generating-income"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"why-most-people-will-never-get-rich","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/coin-1080535_1280.jpg","title":"Why most people will never get rich","published_at":"2016-02-10T12:00:08.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"I think a lot when I'm pulling weeds, and I got a lot of thinking done over the past few days. This week, I spent several hours pulling those small green devil stalks in our backyard, and I got to thinking about a subject that I've pondered off and on for YEARS - why won't most people ever become rich?
Or, build some serious wealth?
At one point in time, I simplistically chalked this up to income. Most people are not pulling down seven figures a year, and who could possibly get rich without such a large paycheck? Of course, becoming a part of the personal finance community and taking control of my own money situation taught me that income has very little to do with getting rich. It makes it easier, but high salaries very often don't relate to high wealth (Hat tip to The Millionaire Next Door).
If it's not about income, then what prevents most people from getting rich? Over the week, I mentally built a small list of causes that I believe keep people from basking in the glory of riches. Let's take a look at what I came up with.
Remember, achieving amazing goals like financial freedom doesn't have a color. Most of us can achieve it. That doesn't mean it's easy, though.
1: They prioritize other things - The phrase \"actions speak louder than words\" gets to the heart of this cause. Almost everyone wants riches, but until we prioritize getting rich over spending money on stuff that we don't need, most of us will never truly accomplish that goal. Most people do not want to get rich bad enough to make it happen, bad enough to cancel expensive cable television services or cell phone plans, or bad enough to drive around in a 10-year old Corolla instead of a brand new Mercedes, or bad enough to say no to expensive dinner or vacation invitations. These are uncomfortable decisions that need to be made to help accomplish financial goals.
2: They don't believe that they can - In some cases, people simply refuse to believe that anything GOOD could possibly happen to them. A poor attitude is a devastatingly destructive state of mind for people who want wealth. If we believe that nothing good will ever happen to us, that will ultimately become our reality.
3: They want to keep up with the Jonses - When status matters, keeping up with the Jonses is how that status gets maintained. If Jim next door rolls in with a new BMW, guess who wants one too? Most of us see items that we don't have with at least some degree of jealousy, and this habit is a huge factor in preventing significant wealth accumulation.
4: They don't accept that \"it takes time\" - Our inability to delay gratification keeps money flowing out of our wallets faster than we could possibly blink. For most of us, getting rich takes time. It means sacrificing a little discretionary spending for the sake of your future self, and the word \"future\" scares a lot of people. Life is short, spend money now. What if I die next week in a car accident? I don't want to wait 10 years before I can enjoy the nicer things in life. These are the excuses that keep us working towards a goal of wealth that never seems to get any closer.
They built very few passive income streams - Salary is great, but getting rich (and staying rich) becomes much easier when passive income streams are developed as a channel for continuous income. Stock market and real estate investments are passive while commuting into an office and working a full-time job is very, very active. Generating income outside of the office (where your money works for you) is a big factor in getting rich.
They live on credit - While the use of credit cards is not necessarily a bad thing, using credit to make a purchase before acquiring the funds to pay those purchases off is a huge mitigating factor to getting rich. Arguably, credit card debt is the very worst type of debt in existence. Why? Interest rates are generally through the roof, and running a month-to-month credit card balance may also indicate a tendency to live beyond our means.
What else? Can you think of other causes why most people will never become rich?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Save","slug":"how-to-save"},{"name":"Live Differently","slug":"live-differently"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"How Life-Changing Things Happen","slug":"how-life-changing-things-happen"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Retire Sooner","slug":"retire-sooner"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"budget-january-2016-stock-market-craziness-and-home-rents","feature_image":null,"title":"Budget January 2016 ~ Stock market craziness and home renovations","published_at":"2016-02-01T11:59:05.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Here is our first report on our 2016 budget. Ever since we decided that the path for us is out of the rat race and into an early retirement of our choosing, the Mr. and I have been keeping an eye on our finances and scaling down our spending. Neither one of us were complete clowns, but we certainly weren't looking out for our future selves at anywhere near the level we want/need to be.
So in comes the budget. Budgets don't work for everyone and in the future, it may not be necessary for us but, for now, it is the way we are buckling down and meeting the tough goals we've set for ourselves. Read more about how we budget here.
We are labeling January the month of stock market craziness and home renovations.
Why? The first one should be obvious. There was a little upswing on the last day of the month which helped our net worth a bit but boy-o-boy January was rough. We kept on business as usual though and are continuing to max out our 401ks. Stocks are on sale right?
As for the home renovations - Steve mentioned in an article last month we are moving up our move date (not our retirement dates, though Steve dreams about it). We are planning to sell our primary residence and move into our Airstream sometime in April rather than in the fall as originally planned. So now is the time when we do all sorts of small renovations on our home, things we like but never got around to doing, for the expressed purpose of selling it. Tough to swallow the extra cost and time associated with the upgrades, but if it helps our bottom line, in the end, it's worth it!
On to the numbers!
Another great month on the books.
Now, let's take a look at the money-shot numbers.
Total January 2016 income: $10,616
Total January 2016 expenses: $7,535
This means our total January 2016 Take Home Savings Rate came in at 29%. OUCH! Up front expenses suck.
And our January 2016 Total Savings Rate: 50% (includes maxing out our 401ks).
Our net worth: $692,620. Let's see this number grow!
![](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Screen-Shot-2016-01-31-at-7.51.05-AM.png\")
We're doing great! Just gotta keep on keeping on.
Another adventure awaits!
Fruits and Veggies: $257.59
Canned Goods: $33.19
Vegan 'Meat': $12.01
Meat, Seafood and Dairy: $35.66
Dry Goods: $72.37
Minus 60 cents from our bag credits. Gotta love a little extra savings ;)
","tags":[{"name":"budget","slug":"budget"},{"name":"Monthly budget","slug":"monthly-budget"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Get out of Debt","slug":"get-out-of-debt"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"},{"name":"Money-Saving Habits","slug":"money-saving-habits"},{"name":"Getting Out of Debt","slug":"getting-out-of-debt"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"making-retirement-work-even-though-market-weirdness","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/stock-exchange-738671_1280.jpg","title":"Making retirement work even though market weirdness","published_at":"2016-01-27T13:00:39.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"![\"We](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/pinterest-stubborn-retiring-early.jpg\")
But, we are also facing the cold hard facts: we probably won't have as much money going into retirement that we had initially thought. We made our cash projections in early 2015 when the market was doing fairly well. Our estimates were conservative, but certainly not THIS conservative!
Then, the latter half of 2015 hit and put a stop to the delicious gravy train that investors giddily ate up for several years. Okay, so things were returning back to \"normal\" - or correcting, if you will. No big deal. And that continued through the end of the year.
And thus far into 2016, things have become even worse. We had the worst 4-day stretch to begin a calendar year in history. And plummeting oil prices are continuing to send stocks straight down.
And to all this, I only have two words: Who Cares!
![\"From](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/24.jpg\")
We don't give a flying whip about the market downturn. In fact, going into retirement in a down market will make its eventual (and historically \"guaranteed\") upswing that much sweeter. We might have accidentally timed this whole thing incredibly well. Better for the market to go through its weirdness this year - when we are still working - than next - when we aren't.
Still, we will not have as much money as we had planned on quittin' day. What now? For the record, I've detailed our post-retirement goals in case you missed it. The tl;dr version: We are selling everything, buying an Airstream RV and traveling the country full time with our dogs in tow.
Essentially, there are three things that we could do in response to the market's bearish growls. It all comes down to the same principles that any early retiree thinks about most - increasing income and reducing expenses. Same stuff, different day.
1. Work longer - Though we wholeheartedly reject the idea of working longer, it is an option and falls squarely in the increasing income category. Working longer at steady, well-paying jobs could definitely add lots of additional green to our stash.
2. Find odd-jobs - After retirement, there is always the option of finding things to do while on the road, or even finding remote work that we can do with an internet connection, another increasing income strategy. We're talking part-time work, here - nothing full time. After all, the goal is to escape full time jobs, not simply replace a full time job with another.
3. Work camp more - Work camping is ingenious. It's a deal where campers work 15 to 20 hours a week for the campground in exchange for a free campsite that usually includes electric, water and sewer - hello reducing expenses! Essentially, this means that campers live rent-free while work camping. If you are camping on a budget, it's a great deal, and work camping gigs are available all around the country. Some even pay you a small hourly wage in addition to a free camp site.
4. Curtail our \"local consumption\" spending - As we travel, we would like to visit local coffee shops and breweries every now and again to experience a little bit of the culture as well as support local businesses. While we probably will do this some, we may not choose to kick back a beer at a local brewery or cup of Joe at a local coffee shop quite as often - further reducing expenses.
We anticipate taking a little from columns 2, 3 and 4 from above. While we had planned to work camp anyway, we may look for more opportunities fairly soon after we start into our new lifestyle to help keep our costs down. In addition, I may look for some remote blogging work as I travel and maybe even before we officially retire. This will help generate some additional cash on a monthly basis and keep us from withdrawing too much from our portfolio, at least in the first couple of years after we call it quits from full time work.
Remember, the formative early retirement years are the first few right after retirement. If we can keep our stash well maintained and relatively level through this period, we significantly increase our chances of living out the rest of our lives on the investments that we have built today.
There are any number of options to bump up our income a bit more or reduce expenses, but there are two primary elements of our retirement that we won't sacrifice on:
Our Airstream - This will be our full time home and there is no way that we'd sacrifice on this cost by getting a lower quality model. We want a used, well-maintained Airstream that's move-in ready with a clean interior and exterior, working appliances and functional plumbing. If things are outdated a bit on the inside, that part is fine - we can fine-tune the aesthetics to make it our own as we go and as finances allow.
Our truck - This sucker will pull our home across the country for years to come, so we naturally want the best that money can buy. We definitely aren't looking for a brand new truck, which could set us back $40 or $50k for a well-equipped diesel towing machine. We are thinking more in the $30k price range and 2008 to 2010 model years. A Dodge Ram 2500 would do the trick.
What say you? Has the downturn in the market forced your hand into making changes to your anticipated post-retirement lifestyle? Have you considered pushing your date back?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Retire","slug":"how-to-retire"},{"name":"Financial independence","slug":"financial-independence"},{"name":"Retirement","slug":"retirement"},{"name":"Stock Market","slug":"stock-market"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Retire Sooner","slug":"retire-sooner"},{"name":"Retire by 40","slug":"retire-by-40"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Generating Income","slug":"generating-income"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"you-dont-need-to-follow-a-simple-guide-to-get-rich","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/guidebook.jpg","title":"You don't need to follow a \"simple guide\" to get rich","published_at":"2016-01-18T12:00:38.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Do you think that you need to follow some simple guide written by a \"self-made millionaire\" in order to get rich?
Think again - or better yet, turn that question around and ask it this way: How many of those self-made millionaires do you think got rich by reading some other dude's \"simple guide\"?
How many people who read guides about bodybuilding become professional, 260-pound chiseled to the bone sponsored IFBB professionals or fitness models?
How many successful business owners turned their idea into a [multi]million dollar company by blindly following the steps outlined in a free guide on how to start a business?
Yeah, not many.
Our world tends to reward those who want to succeed the most. Very often, this means trying and failing (a lot), making friends and building a network of smart and dedicated people, engaging in uncomfortable conversations and getting out of our comfort zones.
Getting rich, like any endeavor in life, takes time for most of us. Time to realize the situation that our past spending has put us in, and time to correct the problem by making better decisions with our money. Making these decisions, consistently, are critical to building wealth.
But, guides don't make decisions for you. More importantly, guides can't make you WANT IT, and want it bad. You gotta want it bad enough to try, and guides won't get your butt up from off of the couch to start making things happen. That responsibility falls on us.
Let's say that you stumbled upon a free guide to building a $10,000 a month business by selling on eBay. Clever titles draw us in and tickle our interests - even if we weren't specifically looking for this material, who doesn't want to earn another $10k by selling stuff on eBay?
And so we download (or buy) it, thinking that if we follow the steps outlined in the book, we'll build our own $10k/month business. It might not all be easy, but at least we have the instructions.
The problem? If it were that easy to make $10k a month on eBay, everybody would be doing it. And if the information were so invaluable that somebody put it in a free guide, why wouldn't this business idea be taking our country by storm? Earn $120k a year by following a simple guide? Wow!
Human nature forbids us from giving away lucrative formulas for pennies on the dollar. In other words, let's say you had a REAL formula for generating $10 grand a month. Like, it's a real thing. It works every time.
Would you give that secret up in a simple guide for $9.95 a pop?
Let's get real. The information might be spot on accurate. The insights may also be truly profound. The knowledge contained within the covers of the guide could be so useful that $10,000 a month may only scratch the surface of what is possible. The book may truly be a valuable resource.
But in life, blindly following steps outlined in a book only works in a purely academic setting - and even then, following steps may not produce the desired result.
Building a successful business takes motivation and desire to achieve, big time. To make $10,000 a month on eBay, we must WANT an eBay business, not $10,000 a month.
Our minds need to be focused on building the business, not swimming in piles of cash.
Many times, it takes sacrifice. It means saying no to guy's night, or passing on that dinner invitation and spending your weekends maintaining and growing your business instead of nights on the town.
In other words, stuff that no guide can ever teach.
That said, free guides are not all bad. The best guidebooks provide us with \"actionable motivation\", or enough information and/or enthusiasm to make us want to start moving, get excited or otherwise more knowledgeable about a subject that you're currently pursuing - something that you can apply to your life, today.
I would be a damn fool if I didn't recognize the good that these free money-making guides can provide. While many are pure advertisements disguised as legitimate content, others do contain valuable information.
For example:
Guides can help you to get started - If you truly want a better financial life for you and your family, but you have no idea where to start, a guide can point you in the right direction.
Guides can build a foundation - Though these guides often contain fairly generic \"beginner\"-level information, that is often all we need to set the wheels turning in our heads for further effort.
Specific guides can be a great value - For example, \"How to start investing in index funds\" will certainly offer more detailed information on building true wealth than, say, \"How to make $50 a week by selling yarn\", or \"How to make an easy $1m in a year\".
Like I said above, many guides do contain valuable information while others don't. How can we properly evaluate whether a guide is worth our time?
Look through the web site - If the site reads like nothing but a cheap \"get rich quick\" advertisement to you, then it may not be worth your time reading.
Check out the author - Use Google to research the author a bit. Forum posts are often a great source for helpful feedback about the writer of the guide. The more positive the feedback, the greater the likelihood that you will take something useful from the guide.
Is the guidebook on Amazon? If so, browse through the reviews for a quick and dirty determination of whether or not the material is worth the effort.
Or, just read through the first chapter, then decide. This will take a little time, and you might have to cough up your email address and get spammed incessantly because of it, but giving the guide's first chapter a quick read is another way to determine its usefulness for you.
Remember, anybody can write a guidebook, and Amazon's publishing system makes it incredibly easy to publish books with very little effort or, quite frankly, knowledge on the guide's subject.
It will never matter how much material that we read - if we don't want something bad enough, then no guidebook on the face of the planet is going to change that. They can get us started. They might even motivate us initially. But unless we make the decision to GO FOR IT, we won't reach our goals.
I would like to hear from you. Are there any free financial guidebooks that you have read and found to be useful? I remember reading the Motley Fool's guidebook when I was a kid (note this guide was not free, but cheap). It was high level, but still very approachable and easy to understand.
Are you currently reading a guidebook (of any subject)? Has the book provided you with actionable motivation?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Think","slug":"how-to-think"},{"name":"rich","slug":"rich"},{"name":"Simple guide","slug":"simple-guide"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"},{"name":"Generate Income","slug":"generate-income"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"market-losses-up-150k-2015","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/tsr-net-worth-update.jpg","title":"Despite market losses, we're up over $150k in 2015","published_at":"2016-01-13T12:00:46.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"![\"How](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/pinterest-saved-150000-economy.jpg\")
We were set to retire by the end of 2016, thinking that we'd have more than enough invested green if everything continued as it has been.
Then, September happened.
The mini-crash of September, 2015 ushered in the start of what some expected to be a \"recession\". Most believed the market to be overvalued and due for a correction. Oil is tanking. Stocks are volatile, at best. All in all, market conditions are looking, well, interesting.
We lost $10s of thousands of dollars in earning potential over the last 5 months of 2015. Checking my Vanguard account, our capital gains had all been wiped clean. Instead, Vanguard showed a -1.2% rate of return for 2015. Boo!
![\"Vanguard](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Screen-Shot-2016-01-04-at-8.04.43-AM.png\")
But we still ended up over $150,000 richer in 2015 ($154,132 to be exact). With such a poor market in the latter half of 2015, how did we throw another $150Gs into our investments?
We dumped as much money as we possibly could into our investments over the year, averaging around 70% savings rate from month to month. Both my wife and I work full time and make respectable salaries. We have no kids. We have lots of room to save.
And save we did. In fact, we save 100% of my wife's salary and a portion of mine beyond our living expenses.
Even though our market returns over the year were slightly negative, we still managed to pack a solid wad of cash on to our net worth through meticulous (and automatic) contributions into our retirement accounts. We don't have to think about it - through automated systems, the money gets saved where we want it.
And that's the key - make saving automatic! That means we never see the money that we intend to save, and therefore, we are never tempted to spend it.
Both my wife and I maxed out our 401ks. We dumped anything extra into a Vanguard brokerage account. We also have an Ally savings account where we keep our emergency fund as well as money that will eventually go towards the purchase of our truck and Airstream.
We also made uncomfortable decisions that prioritized our future retirement over our current selves, like:
In the end, although it was a rough negative growth year, saving as much cash as possible remains to be the most effective way to increase your net worth. We are proof of that!
How did you do in 2015? Did you manage to squeak out some capitals gains growth in the volatile latter half of 2015?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Save","slug":"how-to-save"},{"name":"Financial independence","slug":"financial-independence"},{"name":"spending","slug":"spending"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Psychology of Spending","slug":"psychology-of-spending"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"2015-monthly-budget-update","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2015-budget-update.jpg","title":"Our 2015 budget update - how did we do?","published_at":"2016-01-06T12:00:08.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"![\"Our](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/pinterest-2015-budget.jpg\")
We love keeping a budget, but we approach budgeting in a slightly different way than most.
Instead of a straight monthly calculation of anticipated 30-day expenses, we calculate our anticipated spending numbers for the year and then break down those numbers into their respective amounts per month. We focus on yearly expenses because we have a number of expenditures that do not apply on a neat monthly basis, making a straight monthly-calculation a poor indicator of frugal spending.
Ultimately, this means that if we go over budget on a particular month, it's not a big deal so long as our yearly expenditures are on target.
This also means we have to be disciplined enough throughout the year to not blow through our discretionary funds too early because if we have a few months of over-spending, we may find ourselves in the position of having very little cash left at the end of the year to use for holiday spending.
Luckily, we don’t tend to have that problem because the budget helps keep our spending to a reasonably consistent level all year long.
We don't say, for example, \"Hmm, I don’t really want to cook tonight, let’s check the budget to see if we can eat out.\" Instead, we plan special lunches out a couple of weeks in advance and make sure we’re doing okay budget-wise before we actually go.
We also adjust our budget categories as we go. For instance, we managed to shave off some of Steve’s cellphone payment about half way through the year, so our yearly budget for cellphones went down as a result. An example in the wrong direction this year was our grocery budget. We started the year with a monthly budget amount of $300 and we stuck to that pretty well. However, due to food sensitivities, I completely changed my diet (and for support at home so did Steve) midyear. Let me tell you that cauliflower is expensive! We’re still trying to get our grocery budget back down to $300, but when it kept falling at $350 no matter what I tried I upped the budget amount for the year. We stay flexible and realistic.
This is the first full year that we’ve tracked our spending as a couple and the first year we tried to stick to a budget. How did we do?
In the Fixed Costs category we did well at 102% spent. We are over a bit on the year for what I anticipated but that is due to our home refinance.
One more month and we would have broken even on that deal.
This category is staying the same to start 2016. However, it is going to change DRASTICALLY once we start selling the houses. Thus, this category will have to be extremely flexible in 2016. You can check out my upcoming article on what we anticipate our budget to be once we hit the road full-time. I will also be writing a budget update for the months we are living in the Airstream and still working full-time.
In the Utilities and Other Necessities category we are under budget for the year at 94% spent! There are a couple of subcategories where we went over (Insurance and Car Repairs) but multiple where we stayed under, so it evened out. Again, this whole section will have to change drastically some time next year when we move into the Airstream but I plan to keep the same dollar amounts to start 2016. Except maybe Insurance. I need to figure out why that was higher than we anticipated.
I’ve already mentioned that we needed to increase our budget for Groceries this year. We are just about perfect for our yearly adjusted budget, so yay! (100% spent) This is one of the categories we need to stay on top of the most. I have great plans on how to shrink this number down even more and still maintain our gluten-free, dairy-free and mostly vegan lifestyle full of fresh veggies and fruits. My plans involve creating a capsule pantry/kitchen and I’m excited! Maybe that will have to be a future post if people are interested (*wink*).
Lastly, the Fun category. We are under for the year here too, though not by much. (98% spent) Again there are some subcategories here where we went over (Health being the main one due to the unfortunate knife incident). I’m definitely upping the Health Budget for next year. It was a total guess since I had never tracked that before. I’d rather budget on the high side so if an accident does happen we’re prepared. We’re thinking about shrinking our lumped Fun subcategory a bit more next year. This is the one place we sometimes will buy something because we have the budget for it and lowering the amount would put a stop to that. We shall see.
Overall we were under-budget for the year and I’d like to keep it that way! Since we do budget for emergencies most years we should be under budget and that’s what needs to happen, especially once we’re on the road full time. Once on the road we’ll be pulling a certain amount out of our investments to cover our living expenses. If we don’t budget for emergencies we will have to scramble if something happens to get the funds. If we do budget for emergencies then the money will slowly accumulate in our account so that when something happens we are ready. But this only works if we stay on budget everywhere else.
2015 was a great learning experience. 2016 will bring with it a HUGE amount of change. Our budget will change with it but what we’ve learned this year will help us make the best choices when we need to.
","tags":[{"name":"budget","slug":"budget"},{"name":"Monthly budget","slug":"monthly-budget"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Get out of Debt","slug":"get-out-of-debt"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"},{"name":"Money-Saving Habits","slug":"money-saving-habits"},{"name":"Getting Out of Debt","slug":"getting-out-of-debt"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"budget-december-2015-year-end-numbers","feature_image":null,"title":"Budget December 2015 ~ Rental Woes + Year-End Numbers","published_at":"2016-01-02T00:22:57.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Ever since we decided that the path for us is out of the rat race and into an early retirement of our choosing, the Mr. and I have been keeping an eye on our finances and scaling down our spending. Neither one of us were complete clowns, but we certainly weren't looking out for our future selves at anywhere near the level we want/need to be.
So in comes the budget. Budgets don't work for everyone and in the future it may not be necessary for us but for now it is the way we are buckling down and meeting the tough goals we've set for ourselves. Read more about how we budget here.
We are labeling December the month of rental woes.
Why? While we love our renters (they are the best) we don't love everything that goes wrong. This month leaky faucets and the microwave going caput right before Christmas. We were out of town so out comes the cell-phone and credit card to buy a new one and schedule an install... and it still hasn't happened yet. Can't find good help these days.... O well.
On to the numbers!
Another great month on the books.
Now, let's take a look at the money-shot numbers.
Total December 2015 income: $12,827
Total December 2015 expenses: $4,979
This means our total December 2015 Take Home Savings Rate came in at: 61%. This is a lot lower then its been but for December not bad.
And our December 2015 Total Savings Rate: 69% (includes maxing out our 401ks).
Our net worth: $718,647. Let's see this number grow!
We're doing great! Just gotta keep on keeping on.
Another adventure awaits!
Fruits and Veggies: $190.57
Canned Goods: $56.73
Vegan 'Meat': $6.45
Meat, Seafood and Dairy: $17.76
Dry Goods: $22.96
Minus 15 cents from our bag credits. Gotta love a little extra savings ;)
Ever since we decided that the path for us is out of the rat race and into an early retirement of our choosing, the Mr. and I have been keeping an eye on our finances and scaling down our spending. Neither one of us were complete clowns, but we certainly weren't looking out for our future selves at anywhere near the level we want/need to be.
So in comes the budget. Budgets don't work for everyone and in the future it may not be necessary for us but for now it is the way we are buckling down and meeting the tough goals we've set for ourselves. Read more about how we budget here.
We are labeling November the month of too many gifts.
Why? Because not only do we have 4 family members birthdays in November we also bought the majority of our Christmas presents! Yay! Luckily we planned for this month of gifts and we stayed right on budget in our Fun Money category (even with our yearly Pie Party this month as well).
On to the numbers!
Another great month on the books.
Now, let's take a look at the money-shot numbers.
Total November 2015 income: $14,742 (Steve's quarterly bonus)
Total November 2015 expenses: $4,347
This means our total November 2015 Take Home Savings Rate came in at: 70.5%.
And our November 2015 Total Savings Rate: 73% (includes maxing out our 401ks).
Our net worth: $724,436. Let's see this number grow!
![\"November](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-12-01-at-6.00.04-AM.png\")
Note: That huge spike in the graph above was due to a retirement account that Steve lost track of when we combined our finances into Personal Capital.
We're doing great! Just gotta keep on keeping on.
Another adventure awaits!
Fruits and Veggies: $190.57
Canned Goods: $113.71 (some Pie Party here)
Vegan 'Meat': $9.03
Meat, Seafood and Dairy: $30.96 (mostly for pie party)
Dry Goods: $67.62 (more pie party)
Minus 65 cents from our bag credits. Gotta love a little extra savings ;)
Also subtract $100 (which we put into our fun money expenses since Pie Party is not normal grocery spending).
","tags":[{"name":"budget","slug":"budget"},{"name":"Monthly budget","slug":"monthly-budget"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Get out of Debt","slug":"get-out-of-debt"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"},{"name":"Money-Saving Habits","slug":"money-saving-habits"},{"name":"Getting Out of Debt","slug":"getting-out-of-debt"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"charting-my-market-performance-over-the-years","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/graphs.jpg","title":"Charting my stock market performance over the years","published_at":"2015-11-28T11:00:16.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Honestly, I've never liked looking at charts and graphs. Numbers don't scare me, but they also don't give me a warm and fuzzy inside when I look at them - except when those numbers reveal my personal performance in the market over the years.
I decided to login to my Vanguard account to take a look at my market performance over the years. I'm seeing mostly green with a couple areas of red (hello 2015 market correction!).
Quick note: I use Personal Capital to track my complete asset picture.
I thought that I'd burn a post by showing you some of my Vanguard graphs that represent how well my money has been working for me. Please note that Vanguard does not hold 100% of our wealth, so this is only a sub-section of our net worth. However, it does represent trends that are common throughout our entire portfolio.
![\"10-year](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-20-at-8.09.52-AM.png\")
I'll take a 9% rate of return any day of the week. But, my 5-year Retirement-only account performance looks even better.
![\"5-year](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-20-at-8.13.29-AM.png\")
Awesome, more than a 10% return! Here is where things get a little messy. Investors have enjoyed fairly steady growth in recent history, as illustrated on the graphs above. That changed this year. Take a look at my 1-year Retirement-only account performance after this year's \"correction\".
![\"1-year](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-20-at-8.17.59-AM.png\")
Phew! I've put in over $27-grand, but my investment returns over the past year haven't even crested the $1,000 mark. What a difference a year makes in the market.
My wife and I also have a non-retirement brokerage account at Vanguard that we just rolled over last year from another institution, so we only have a year's worth of data. However, it doesn't get much better than the previous 1-year graph.
![\"1-year](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-20-at-8.21.41-AM.png\")
Less than 2% growth over the year. Ugh! And lastly, here's my 10-year graph for both my retirement and non-retirement accounts.
![\"10-year](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-20-at-8.44.10-AM.png\")
What can we learn from these graphs? First, the market has delivered nearly super-human returns in the 2013 through 2015 years. If you were invested headlong in the market during these years, you likely did very well.
But, all good things temporarily come to an end in the market. It happened this year.
My gut is telling me not to expect returns like we experienced in 2013 and 2014 in the future, but rather more consistent and gradual growth as we gingerly recover from the market downturn this year.
Either way, I am in this for the long haul.
","tags":[{"name":"How to Think","slug":"how-to-think"},{"name":"Charts and Graphs","slug":"charts-and-graphs"},{"name":"Financial independence","slug":"financial-independence"},{"name":"Stock Market","slug":"stock-market"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Retire by 40","slug":"retire-by-40"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Generating Income","slug":"generating-income"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"i-have-maxed-out-my-401k-and-roth-ira-so-now-what","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/maxingout401k.jpg","title":"Do these three things after maxing out your 401k and Roth IRA","published_at":"2015-11-09T10:00:22.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"As you probably know by now, I'm a bit of a saver. Though, I definitely wasn't born that way. But, I quickly learned as I approached early retirement that maxing out my 401k made a huge difference
In 2016, in fact, I turned into a turbo-saver by throwing every last dollar that I can into savings in preparation for the ever-sweet departure date at the end of 2016, which I achieved.
In October of that year, I maxed out my 401k and Roth IRA contributions for the year. My paychecks were larger because those automatic deductions no longer happened. Talk about an awesome first world problem to have!
What in the hell do I do with all this extra cash?
For fun, I did quite a bit of research online to find out what the typical advice is, and I'll be honest - it's confusing even to me who has a fairly solid grip on investments and retirement savings.
I can only imagine how confusing it might be to the casual investor looking for help on what to do with the money after maxing out their 401k.
Here, I'm going to make it easy for you and give you my top three strategies for using that extra money wisely. Hint - what I am about to tell you is going to prioritize your future happiness.
If you don't have an easily-accessible emergency savings account with at least 6 months of living expenses, use the extra dough to build this pot of money up as fast as you can. We use Ally for our emergency savings.
While it is true that this money won't grow at nearly the same rate as it would if fully invested, it may also be a life-saver if you need substantial cash down the road.
![\"help-153094_640\"](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/help-153094_640-300x252.png\")
The two critical elements of an emergency fund are safety and accessibility - meaning, your money needs to be both safe as well as accessible at a moment's notice.
This means storing $10,000 under your mattress is a bad idea because while the money is accessible (when you're home), it's definitely not safe.
What happens if your home catches on fire while you're at work, or your dog chews through your mattress (and money stash!) one day because he's pissed that you didn't fill up his food dish before you left for work? This violates the safe rule.
It also doesn't use the power of compound interest to build, either.
Storing your emergency fund in the stock market, while safe (notwithstanding capital losses, of course!), does not offer the accessibility that we need out of our emergency funds.
Stocks can be sold, but the process can take a couple of days before we actually see that cash in our hand. Emergency funds need to provide us with immediate cash, often necessary in an emergency.
My wife and I maintain an easily-accessible Ally high-interest savings account to keep our emergency savings with an annual percentage yield of over 1.00%, which isn't bad for savings accounts.
A money market account is another good option. Emergency funds can be saved anywhere so long as the money is \"liquid\", or in other words, easily withdrawn into spendable cash any time.
Do you really need 6-months of living expenses in your emergency fund?
\"Need\" is such a strong word and there are no established rules in play here, but it comes down to the level of risk that you are comfortable taking on. My wife and I prefer a larger emergency fund to account for job losses or any major expenses due to \"shit happens\". Your level of risk may differ, and that's okay.
We keep four years of living expenses in our emergency fund.
The bottom line: Establish an emergency fund if you do not already have one, and if you do, ensure that you are comfortable with the amount that's in it.
One of the better-known smart guys in this investment business, the \"Mad FIentist\", calls the HSA the \"Ultimate Retirement Account\", and for good reason. An HSA is a tax-advantaged (aka: pre-tax) account available for those who are enrolled in a high deductible health insurance plan.
The idea is since your deductible is so high, the HSA will help provide an incentive to save for those potentially costly deductible payments.
The best part about the HSA is its tax-advantaged status which, like your traditional 401k, reduces your taxable income by the amount contributed. Thus, if you contribute $3,000 in a year into an HSA, your taxable income gets reduced by $3,000 as well.
Even better, an HSA account can provide tax-free contributions, growth, and withdrawals because there are no hard and fast rules that state HSA money needs to be used to pay for deductibles directly.
This means that deductibles can be paid by using a regular credit card (instead of the HSA debit card), allowing us to keep that money within our HSA longer. We can then decide when to pay ourselves back - so long as we keep the deductible payment receipt. Check out the Mad FIentist article (linked above) for more detail on how this might work.
If HSA money is never used, it can be withdrawn from the account at age 65 without penalty, which essentially turns this account into another tax-advantaged 401k. This money will be subject to income tax at the time of withdrawal, but don't forget that this money also enjoyed years of tax-free growth, all the while reducing your taxable income during your working years.
At the present time (2019), individuals can contribute $3,500 and families $7,000 into HSA accounts.
![](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/hsa-advantages.png\")
If your emergency savings is up to snuff and you've looked into an HSA as another pre-tax savings option, consider opening a taxable brokerage account.
Brokerage accounts provide investors with another way to invest money in the stock market similar to a traditional 401k, except you're investing after-tax dollars. Any capital gains are taxed upon withdrawal.
Investors pay a fee to the brokerage house with each transaction.
My wife and I have a brokerage account with Vanguard with holdings in stocks, bonds as well as mutual funds. Less experienced investors who wish to invest their money in something without needing a lot of knowledge might consider the Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth Fund, which is a broadly diversified 80/20 stocks to bonds collection of funds.
A wide variety of companies offer brokerage accounts, like Vanguard, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, T.Rowe Price, Scottrade and many others.
What say you? What would you do with your extra cash after maxing out your 401k and Roth IRA?
Note: This article was originally written in November of 2015 but has been updated in May 2019.
","tags":[{"name":"How to Save","slug":"how-to-save"},{"name":"401k","slug":"401k"},{"name":"Roth IRA","slug":"roth-ira"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Retire Sooner","slug":"retire-sooner"},{"name":"Retiring Early","slug":"retiring-early"},{"name":"Retire by 40","slug":"retire-by-40"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"budget-october-2015-sweet-and-steady-progress","feature_image":null,"title":"Budget October 2015 ~ Sweet and steady progress","published_at":"2015-11-05T10:00:25.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Ever since we decided that the path for us is out of the rat race and into an early retirement of our choosing, the Mr. and I have been keeping an eye on our finances and scaling down our spending. Neither one of us were complete clowns, but we certainly weren't looking out for our future selves at anywhere near the level we want/need to be.
So in comes the budget. Budgets don’t work for everyone, and in the future, it may not be necessary for us but for now it is the way we are buckling down and meeting the tough goals we’ve set for ourselves. We may actually look into a few different budgeting apps in the near future. Read more about how we budget here.
We are labeling October Sweet and steady progress.
Why? Because we are doing just that. Nothing major from a financial standpoint happened in October, and we're continuing the march down the road to our epic escape date next year.
On to the numbers!
Another great month on the books.
Now, let's take a look at the money-shot numbers.
Total October 2015 income: $14,524 (3 paychecks for the Mrs. and no more 401k withdrawls for the Mr.)
Total October 2015 expenses: $4,855
This means our total October 2015 Take Home Savings Rate came in at: 66.5%.
And our October 2015 Total Savings Rate: 70% (includes maxing out our 401ks).
Our net worth: $669,750.69. Let's see this number grow!
![](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/october-budget-pc.png\")
We're doing great! Just gotta keep on keeping on.
Another adventure awaits!
Fruits and Veggies: $216.23 (cauliflower is expensive!!)
Canned Goods: $93.61 (stocked up on our refried and black beans)
Vegan 'Meat': $13.21
Meat, Seafood and Dairy: $14.98
Dry Goods: $31.92
Minus 50 cents from our bag credits. Gotta love a little extra savings ;)
","tags":[{"name":"budget","slug":"budget"},{"name":"Food budget","slug":"food-budget"},{"name":"Monthly budget","slug":"monthly-budget"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Get out of Debt","slug":"get-out-of-debt"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"},{"name":"Money-Saving Habits","slug":"money-saving-habits"},{"name":"Getting Out of Debt","slug":"getting-out-of-debt"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"six-simple-techniques-i-use-to-work-smarter-not-harder","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/worksmart.jpg","title":"Six simple techniques I use to work smarter, not harder","published_at":"2015-11-02T10:00:14.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Over the course of my working life in an office, I learned something quite profound: hard work plays second fiddle to smart work. If you find that you just don't have enough time during the day to get everything done, then it's possible that you're simply way too busy and may want to slow down. Or, it could indicate that your focus on working hard is sentencing yourself to hours of additional work.
![\"Pinterest:](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/pinterest-work-smart-not-hard.jpg\")
Ditch the idea that you must be ultra-productive, because you don't. That tends to burn people out over time.
I have found that I am most productive when I follow six very simple techniques to work smart. I don't care about working \"hard\", being always busy or doing menial tasks for the sake of \"doing something\". Mindless productivity isn't helpful.
The truth of the matter is I'm either 100% all-in and completing a necessary and measurable work task, or I'm not doing any work at all. I love every minute of it. Here's how I do it.
Over the years, I have mastered these six techniques to keep myself active and productive at work, but not overworked and burned out. The difference has been profound and has fundamentally changed my working career, for the better.
1. I manage expectations
At one point early in my career, I would accept a task and get it done as quickly as possible, no matter the cost. If I did something wrong or incomplete, I'd wait for someone to point it out and I would proceed to complete the task again, and of course, as quickly as possible.
I soon learned something interesting: the more work I completed, the more work that would come my way. I was mindlessly and meticulously creating an expectation that I would blindly accept any and all work thrown in my direction, and that quickly created a situation where I felt fatigued, stressed and burned out.
I realized that I was given so much work because I created the expectation that I would simply do anything. The problem was not in the demands of the job, but in how I managed my perception in the office. To fix the problem, I began to manage expectations of me much better.
Today, I take my time with each work task. It might take me 10x as long to do the same task today as it might have years ago, but my stress level is virtually non-existent, I do better and more dependable work and my ability to breath and relax during the day - without the burden of a long list of tasks - helps keep me focused.
The expectation that I want people to have of me is simple: does not over-burden himself, does awesome work and is dependable to complete tasks the right way, the first time. I now leave the part about getting work done as fast as possible to someone else.
2. I take breaks / naps
Taking breaks throughout the day (and yes, even naps!) has been proven to positively effect productivity. Hell, there are companies like Buffer who are \"pro nap\" and plainly encourage their staff to rest their brains throughout the day, which helps the mind to process through the happenings of the day and, of course, rest a bit. Even better, other studies have suggested that naps help the brain to retain information and may even be good for your heart.
related post: How slowing down can take your life to the next level
![\"Sleeping](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/dog-57528_640.jpg\")
Taking breaks and/or naps throughout the day has helped significantly to keep me alert and mentally \"there\" during the day, especially through the afternoon hours as the work day is drawing to a close. I am more creative and energized after these breaks and generally feel less like asking myself \"is it time to quit, yet?\". To work smart, regular breaks are essential.
3. I am most productive in blocks of time
By far, I do my best work in particular blocks of time throughout the day, starting from the moment that I sit down in front of my computer in the morning. In fact, I plan for this. I like to call these periods of time blocks of productivity.
Usually, my first block of productivity hits me when I begin work in the morning and lasts for a few hours. Like I've written about before, both my wife and I get up at the crack of dawn to get our day started early, so by the time that 10am rolls around, my work day is already half over. I usually get another couple of hours during late morning or early afternoon, and another hour or two in the late afternoon.
I never try to force myself to work in-between blocks of productivity because I work slower, less creative and uninspired. There's nothing smart about that. In fact, I have found that working the traditional 8 to 10-hour days to be one of the most inefficient uses of time possible. It ignores people's natural working rhythms.
What am I doing when I'm not engaged with a work-related task? I'm taking a break. I'm writing. I'm working with my camera. More or less, I am doing things that truly interest me, which helps me to re-engage my work-related tasks much easier. These are the moments when I recharge the batteries inside me. Works every time.
4. I never accept ambiguous tasks
Perhaps the biggest time-saver that I've learned over the years is to never accept a task that I do not completely understand. In an earlier life, I would gladly accept tasks that were unclear to me and attempt to understand them later. Worse, sometimes I would choose to meander my way through confusing requirements (or no requirements at all!) without asking for clarification, opting instead to complete the task knowing full well that I was probably doing it wrong and would require re-work.
We all work smarter by knowing the task in front of us. Today, I insist on completely understanding the task before choosing to begin work, and any and all ambiguous tasks are clarified before I start. I work in a technical field, and a technical specification document (or \"tech spec\", for short) is used to document the requirements of a task - in other words, what the task is about, what needs to be done and what the finished product should look like/do/whatever).
Unless this document exists for each task, I will not work on that task. I do make exceptions in emergency situations, but it must truly be an emergency and not a \"schedule conflict\" caused by incompetent management.
5. I prioritize time away from the computer
I hit on this point earlier in the discussion about breaks and naps, but I actually take my break time a little bit more seriously than simply time spent in-between blocks of productivity. I prioritize time away from my work. I like to go to the gym mid-morning to workout, which allows me to completely focus on what I'm doing and get into a comfortable \"zen state\". It allows me to truly think about how I feel - about fitness, my health and my life in general.
![\"Weight](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/weights-664765_640.jpg\")
I consider this a form of meditation. Every time I lift a weight, I am completely connected with how it is stressing the muscle. Different angles. Different weights. Changing hand positions. Faster. Slower. Eyes open. Eyes closed. It all counts. This is how I get in the moment and zone out by zoning into what I am doing.
When I return to the computer for work, I am completely refreshed. I am ready to re-engage. My mind has been cleared and is anxious to start into my work again, which includes quite a bit of creative problem-solving at times.
6. I don't sweat details
With everything in life, details exist. There is no escaping these little buggers, and you might as well not try. But, I have found that these details have a way of working themselves out, with most things, if you let them. I have learned to let them.
I never worry about things that I cannot control. And even things that I can control, I pick and choose my battles very carefully - and honestly, I don't pick many battles. I believe that the world is a well-oiled machine and possesses the ability to keep on turning with or without any of our involvement, especially in the fine-grained minutia that tends to stress out so many of my fellow Americans. Seriously, it drives some people batty!
Instead, I focus on what really matters in life, like our goal to reach financial independence and retire early. Of living every day as happy and healthy as possible. Of being a loving husband to my wife and \"father\" to our two adopted dogs.
The price ratio of Apple? Whether or not we're gonna have one of those rare white Christmas's in Arizona? The exact schedule of our next vacation? Seriously, I don't give a shit. These things will work themselves out. Worrying about these topics aren't my priority. And honestly, they shouldn't be.
In work and in life, the ability to focus on what is truly important and forget about the details has completely streamlined my life. It accounts for significantly less stress, more work satisfaction and a huge increase in my day-to-day productivity.
And I can't think of anything smarter than that!
What about you? What techniques do you use to work smarter, not harder?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Think","slug":"how-to-think"},{"name":"techiniques","slug":"techiniques"},{"name":"tips","slug":"tips"},{"name":"work smart","slug":"work-smart"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Leave Corporate America","slug":"leave-corporate-america"},{"name":"Generating Income","slug":"generating-income"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"happy-halloween-and-some-dreadfully-scary-statistics","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/halloween-feature.jpg","title":"Happy Halloween and some dreadfully scary statistics","published_at":"2015-10-31T09:00:52.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"![\"Halloween\"](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/halloween-feature.jpg\")
Good day, my spooky little ghosts and goblins. Today, I have nothing of real value to report other than to wish you the scariest Halloween that you've ever had - literally, I hope the snot gets scared right out of you. Helps with congestion, after all.
But, since I burned a post by hoping that you forcibly get the snot extracted from your otherwise healthy nasal passages, I might as well bring you something that fits right along with the topic of the day - scary statistics in the United States.
Seriously, some of these are downright bat-shit insane.
Let's start with health and fitness.
Now, let's talk spending.
Stats that make you go \"what the hell?\" or \"wow, that's interesting!\"
Numbers that might make you wanna laugh or cry!
Also, did you know that Halloween was originally celebrated by the Celtic people more than 2,000 years ago, and that the common \"trick-or-treat\" ritual first began in the United Kingdom? Though, they didn't ask for candy. Instead, they asked for small pieces of bread in exchange for prayers.
Oh, how the years have changed us as a people.
Have fun, stay safe, and I'll see ya on the flip side!
","tags":[{"name":"How to Think","slug":"how-to-think"},{"name":"Financial independence","slug":"financial-independence"},{"name":"Halloween","slug":"halloween"},{"name":"Statistics","slug":"statistics"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Retire by 40","slug":"retire-by-40"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Generating Income","slug":"generating-income"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"email-from-a-reader-your-retirement-account-grew-by-120000-in-2015-bull","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/dollars.jpg","title":"Email from a reader: Your retirement account grew by $120,000 in 2015? Bull!","published_at":"2015-10-28T09:00:39.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"I received an email a couple weeks ago from a reader who expressed disbelief that my \"retirement account\" (read: investments) grew by a whopping $120k this year - and the year isn't even over, yet. I love this email. It gives me the opportunity to point out how powerful a high savings rate can be to your net worth.
The exact email:
It is not believable that your retirement account grew by $120,000 so far in 2015.
If you take a look at our net worth numbers over on the right hand side of the page, it's true. We started the year at $514,495.43. At the end of last month, we were at a pleasant $641,177.31, which represents a growth of $126.681.88.
Note: At the beginning of the year, we inadvertently missed one of our financial accounts that had around $10k in it that we found in may, so technically, our beginning balance was probably around $524k, bringing our growth down to $116,000.
Either way, not too bad. Adding around $120k to our portfolio in 10 month's time would set nearly anyone up for early retirement in short order, and believe it or not, it's just not that tough to do.
To address the disbeliever's email, how could anyone increase their \"retirement account\" by that much? Am I just full of shit instead? Well, I certainly don't think so...though possible!
![\"Savings](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/vault-154023_640-300x282.png\")
It works through the magic of saving, my friends. Our net worth did not grow $120k based solely on stock market growth alone. Our net worth grew due to a combination of market growth and an aggressive savings rate. Truthfully, it was more the saving than the growth.
Look back through our published budgets. We save around 70% of our income every month. Both my wife and I work and bring home two salaries. We have no kids. We don't take expensive vacations. We don't eat out a lot, and when we do, we order water to drink!
We sold our Honda Ridgeline a few months ago. I ride a motorcycle that gets 50 MPG. I also completely eliminated my commute by finding a job that allows me to work 100% from home.
We buy new clothes maybe once a year, if that. We don't have expensive television service or unlimited cell phone plans - in fact, I use the most basic Android phone there is (the Android Core Prime). We keep the house warm in the summer and cool in the winter, which keeps our bills low.
We close windows to retain the heat and A/C inside the house. We turn off lights when we're not using them. I mean, pretty basic stuff.
We also have no debt other than our mortgage, and that will be going away next year.
To top it off, we eat better now than we ever have before. We spend a few hundred a month buying some of the freshest vegetables around and make healthy, nutrient-packed dinners every night. We can (and do!) eat until we're completely full and never gain a pound. Our calories are high quality and thoroughly tasty. We buy in bulk to save cash, freeze foods when necessary and keep the fridge stocked with just the foods that we plan to eat in the next couple days.
My wife and I are happier and healthier than ever, and it hasn't taken a huge wad of cash to make all that happen. In fact, it doesn't take all that much at all.
How can anyone increase their investment savings by $120,000 in 10 month's time and still live in the lap of luxury? Believe it or not, it is not hard. It happens by living sensibly and being mindful about the things that truly bring happiness into your life - and then saving the rest. Two incomes help, but it's the saving itself that accounts the most for our ability to grow our net worth.
And this year is not done yet. I hope to flirt with the $140k mark by year's end.
Exploding your net worth is possible through a combination of controlling expenses and saving as much as possible. Neither my wife or I feel like we are depriving ourselves of anything. The fact is we have everything that we could possibly imagine. In truth, we have more than we need, including our home.
And we are just two 30-somethings living in the desert southwest with a goal of early retirement. If we can pull this off, anyone can. Your growth rate might be different, but it doesn't matter. This isn't a race.
Remember, we don't have a money goal for retirement. Instead, my wife and I are fully prepared to design our lifestyle around our financial picture at that point in time by streamlining our expenses to meet our investment portfolio's limits.
We have a date goal - as you can see on the upper right of every page of this blog. December of 2016 is the date that we will begin our journey into our next life. I will be 35. My wife will be 32. And we will both be happier than ever.
Does anyone call B.S. on your position in life?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Save","slug":"how-to-save"},{"name":"Saving money","slug":"saving-money"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Opportunities to Save","slug":"opportunities-to-save"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"how-to-rock-your-next-interview-and-get-the-job","feature_image":"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/jobinterview.jpg","title":"How to rock your next interview and get the job","published_at":"2015-10-07T09:00:20.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"In a previous life, I did quite a bit of hiring. I've seen all kinds of candidates from all walks of life. I've read more resumes than I could possibly remember, and I politely sat in interviews while candidates whistled their way through bullshit answers to questions that I really didn't care much about anyway.
And here is a little secret: interviews are not only a means to judge your qualifications for a particular job. Interviews are also a means to judge YOU, your personality, how you interact with others and your ability to smile under pressure (more on this later).
The thing to keep in mind is your interviewer will remember his or her impression of you more often than specific answers to questions. Like a nationally televised political debate, interviews can be pretty superficial! Interviewers care about the judgement that you possess, not necessarily your cleverly worded answers to the questions that are asked.
Why talk about how to kick your next interview's ass on an early retirement blog? Because jobs are very often the means to achieve early retirement. The money acquisition phase comes first, early retirement comes second. No job means no wealth on which to live and support your post-retirement lifestyle. Jobs are often the easiest way to achieve retirement funds.
Most of these rules of interviews are basic, but it is amazing how many job candidates still make silly, elementary mistakes that completely turn off the interviewers. And these mistakes are very often easy to spot, often right off the bat.
For example, it is wise to understand that before the candidate sits down, many interviewers already have an impression of the candidate, and answers given to all subsequent questions will be clouded by that impression - good or bad. The second that you walk into the office building for an interview, you're on!
Here are five rules that will help you to score that next \"job\" - or as I like to say, the next pre-retirement life drain. These should be easy, but these rules get violated all the time, often to the candidate's detriment.
Tailor your resume to the job - Okay, this one isn't interview-specific, but it is so important that it bears mentioning anyway. I usually threw out resumes longer than about three pages, and any resume over two pages was really, really pushing it. Interviewers don't care about your life story. They don't give a shit about your paper route job that you held 10 years ago if you're applying for a leadership position.
For example, I have erased my very first job out of college off of my resume entirely. It's not there. I was doing fairly low level programming and support work that no longer applies to positions that I would consider today. That experience will not help me to get my next job, and I do not want the interviewer asking me about those positions, either. And that brings up my next rule:
Anything on your resume is fair game - For example, I mainly hired for IT-related positions. In interviews, I would randomly select a programming language listed on the candidate's resume and ask a very simple question, \"Tell me a little bit about your experience with...[insert language here]\". More times than not, the candidate answered the question by essentially side-stepping it. For example, \"Oh, I used that about 4 years ago on a small project I did at home/on the side/for my boss. I'm not an expert\".
In other words, \"I included that skill just to impress you, but actually know very little about it\"
If you don't know it, don't include it. Otherwise, the candidate digs a mighty deep hole for themselves. Many interviewers will assume an equal level of inexperience with other skills and capabilities listed on that resume, and the candidate begins fighting an uphill battle for the remainder of the interview. How many other areas of this resume does the candidate not actually know?
On the flip side, however, the candidates that give detailed and concise answers always stand out from the crowd immediately, and it is not hard to determine which candidates are real and which are feeding us a bunch of crap. If you can talk intelligently about randomly-selected questions about capabilities ON YOUR RESUME, then you're well on your way to getting the job.
Be prepared to talk about everything that is included on your resume. If you can't intelligently talk about it, don't include it.
Dress like first impressions matter - Because, well, they do. For better or worse, the very second that your interviewer lays eyes on you, he or she is developing an impression of you. How you look. How you dress. How you smell. The actual interview begins before the first question is ever asked.
If you're unsure of the dress code, purposely overdress. Wear that suit or vest and tie. I never thought less of a candidate for dressing too nicely, but I certainly have dinged a candidate for coming into the interview dressed like he was going out to dinner with his family.
Under dressing for interviews demonstrates poor judgement.
I remember giving several interviews where I knew the candidate was a poor fit for the job before I even sat down to begin the questioning. I proceeded to conduct the interview purely as a don't-be-a-dick favor to the candidate and maybe...maybe my initial impression was wrong, and the interview might tell a different story. 99% of the time, the story was the same. The candidate sucked. And he or she sucked from the very beginning, and it showed. The corduroy pants tipped me off.
One candidate came into an interview dripping of clove oil. It could be smelled from the other side of our office building. In fact, I could re-trace his exact track through the building even several minutes after the interview was over. Needless to say, this candidate did not get the job. Regarding colognes and perfumes, they are okay in moderation, but there is no need to bathe in them, please.
Don't be late, ever, for any reason - Believe it or not, I've run across a couple candidates who made this mistake. I understand things happen, but interviewers tend to be busy people. When candidates are late, they interpret the tardiness as disrespectful. After all, the candidate wants to get a job at Company X. Company X is willing to take the time to interview that candidate for the position, but the candidate fails to show up on time, making Company X wait.
Not good. Being late means you're fighting an uphill battle, and you've already made your first impression before you even get there.
I always plan to arrive 20 minutes early to interviews. I don't sit in my car and wait, either - I walk into the office and see the receptionist as early as I can. Even if I'm still waiting the 20 minutes, I am doing so from inside the office. It allows me to get into that \"zen\" state and completely focus on the interview and getting the job. It also allows me to observe the people who work there. How do they dress? How stressed do they look? Do they generally seem to enjoy their job?
In other words, I'm mentally interviewing them to determine if this place is a good fit for me.
Check your arrogance at the door and admit weaknesses - One of the questions that I've always asked is one about strengths and weaknesses. Candidates are always eager to answer the strengths question, but also seem to struggle when I ask them about their weaknesses. It's almost as if the question took them by surprise. It shouldn't have - questioning a candidate's weaknesses are common in most interviews, and for a very good reason.
I ask all candidates what they view their biggest weakness to be. One candidate's answer that I can remember, which promptly turned me off, was arrogant and stupid: \"I think that I'm equally strong in all areas\".
Bullshit. It is also bullshit if you think that your biggest weakness is \"caring too much\". Interviewers know the right answer to this question, and the point of asking is to determine if the candidate will give it. It's not a trick question - we all have weaknesses. Admitting to your weakness does not reduce your chances of getting the job. Refusing to admit your weaknesses, however, generally will.
What's my weakness? I spend way too much time trying to solve problems when I should be asking for help earlier on in the process. I like to be able to solve problems myself and I'm naturally resistant to asking others for help. I need to be more okay with asking for help when I cannot figure out how to solve a problem.
The more honest the answer, the better your chances of making a good impression with your interviewer.
And remember:
Your task during an interview is not only to prove your qualifications against the specific job requirements, but also to prove your fitness within the organization. How your presence in the office plays within the company culture is arguably more important than knowing X technology or Y process. Those things can be taught and learned.
But your personality is your personality. It does not tend to change. If you come into an interview and pretend that you're the best thing since sliced bread, your interviewer may interpret that arrogance to be a potential detriment to the company. The interviewer knows that nobody is perfect, and candidates who argue to the contrary are not doing themselves any favors.
I remember one candidate who dressed all in black and never smiled during an interview. His technical chops were fairly strong, but his personality presented potential challenges to the office. He wasn't a good fit, and we therefore did not offer him the job.
I recall another candidate who talked way too fast during the interview. This candidate exuded an extreme level of confidence and superiority, but his answers were also incredibly shallow in substance and demonstrated very little real world experience. He attempted to cover up inexperience with perceived confidence. Sometimes, this works. But, don't count on fooling all interviewers with this technique.
Pro tip: If you've already been through a few telephone interviews and the company invites you into the office for an in-person interview, this is probably a personality interview. They've already judged your technical qualifications to be sound, and now they want to make sure you aren't some devil-worshiping goth with full body tattoos and huge pieces of metal hanging from your ears.
If the company actually flies you out to their office (because you live far enough away), take this as a sign that you are at least one of the finalists for the position. Companies don't tend to take the time or incur the expense of flying candidates out for interviews unless those candidates have a good shot at the job. Continue to dress to impress and let your true personality shine through.
Another pro tip: Follow up \"thank you\" notes to the interviewer(s) are a nice touch, though not strictly required. I once sent a hand-written note through the post office to my interviewer. Needless to say, I was offered the job (though I ultimately chose to take a different opportunity). If you only have an email address, it is fine to send an email. However, only send a single email. DO NOT hound your interviewer for any reason as this will almost always decrease your chances of getting that job.
What say you? Do you have any other tips to rock your next job interview?
","tags":[{"name":"How to Think","slug":"how-to-think"},{"name":"work","slug":"work"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Leave Corporate America","slug":"leave-corporate-america"},{"name":"Generating Income","slug":"generating-income"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"},{"name":"Leaving Corporate America","slug":"leaving-corporate-america"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"budget-september-2015-ny-ny","feature_image":null,"title":"Budget September 2015 ~ NY NY","published_at":"2015-10-06T22:18:56.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Ever since we decided that the path for us is out of the rat race and into an early retirement of our choosing, the Mr. and I have been keeping an eye on our finances and scaling down our spending. Neither one of us were complete clowns, but we certainly weren't looking out for our future selves at anywhere near the level we want/need to be.
So in comes the budget. Budgets don't work for everyone and in the future it may not be necessary for us but for now it is the way we are buckling down and meeting the tough goals we've set for ourselves. Read more about how we budget here.
We are labeling September NY NY.
Why? Because our week in NY was definitely the biggest expense of the month as we anticipated. It was a normal month income wise (which means low in the grand scheme of things) and a high expense month as planned due to our trip. Not to mention the market being what it is.... O well. We're still happy where things stand.
As I mentioned last month we changed our format a bit and might still tweek it in the coming months to get it more in line with what we're hoping to have setup when we go full time. Money amounts changed slightly but really its just a categorization.
Meanwhile while the budget numbers are accurate our net worth number was not taken on 9/30 as we were on vacation for our anniversary. So
On to the numbers!
Another great month on the books.
Now, let's take a look at the money-shot numbers.
Total August 2015 income: $11,751.55 (some overtime)
Total August 2015 expenses: $4,999.42
This means our total August 2015 Take Home Savings Rate came in at: 57%.
And our August 2015 Total Savings Rate: 69% (includes maxing out our 401ks).
Our net worth: $641,177.31 (as of 10/6/2015). Let's see this number grow!
![\"September](\"https://thinksaveretire.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/september-budget-pc.png\")
We're doing great! Just gotta keep on keeping on.
Another adventure awaits!
Fruits and Veggies: $188.27
Canned Goods: $52.55
Vegan 'Meat': $9.43
Meat, Seafood and Dairy: $14.95
Dry Goods: $77.10
Minus 45 cents from our bag credits. Gotta love a little extra savings ;)
","tags":[{"name":"How to Think","slug":"how-to-think"},{"name":"Food budget","slug":"food-budget"},{"name":"Monthly budget","slug":"monthly-budget"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"},{"name":"Save Money","slug":"save-money"},{"name":"Build Wealth","slug":"build-wealth"},{"name":"Money-Saving Habits","slug":"money-saving-habits"},{"name":"Getting Out of Debt","slug":"getting-out-of-debt"}]}}]},"allGhostPage":{"totalCount":0,"edges":[]},"allFeaturedTagColorsJson":{"edges":[{"node":{"color":"#7DE3E2","tag":"side-hustle"}},{"node":{"color":"#FF6B6B","tag":"getting-out-of-debt"}},{"node":{"color":"#8B97FF","tag":"tools"}},{"node":{"color":"#FFDB5B","tag":"investing"}},{"node":{"color":"#6ADBFF","tag":"passive-income"}},{"node":{"color":"#FF90C6","tag":"saving-money"}},{"node":{"color":"#4ACF77","tag":"financial-literacy"}},{"node":{"color":"#FF965A","tag":"digital-nomad-life"}},{"node":{"color":"#CBF25D","tag":"domestic-engineer"}},{"node":{"color":"#F66AB6","tag":"credit"}},{"node":{"color":"#71BBFF","tag":"budget"}},{"node":{"color":"#FFAB99","tag":"retire-early"}}]}},"pageContext":{"slug":"build-wealth","limit":18,"skip":54,"numberOfPages":6,"humanPageNumber":4,"prevPageNumber":3,"nextPageNumber":5,"previousPagePath":"/tag/build-wealth/page/3/","nextPagePath":"/tag/build-wealth/page/5/"}}}