Tag Archives: financial fitness

Habits of the Wealthy – Part 3

The Wealthy prioritize Passive Income

It’s simple—the wealthy prioritize passive income because it saves time.

That’s because passive income streams don’t require constant time and effort to maintain. Once they’re up and running, they require minimal maintenance to keep earning.

Let’s consider a hypothetical example…

Sarah and Jim are coworkers and friends. Jim is content to work from 9 to 5, five days a week, in exchange for his paycheck. He trades about half of his waking hours for his income.

Sarah, however, is more ambitious. She wants a more effective way to create additional cash flow.

So, she starts a business selling crafts online. At first, it’s a lot of extra work—she creates the products, makes the listings, runs ad campaigns, and even ships the items herself. But she’s creative and motivated, and her business grows.

It doesn’t take long before she earns enough from her business to hire an employee to help with the marketing and shipping. She can focus on what she loves—making the crafts!

But that extra pair of hands increases her productivity even further. Now, she can hire another employee to actually make her crafts.

Suddenly, Sarah is almost totally uninvolved in her business beyond high level decision making. In addition to her day job, it’s become a source of income that requires minimum upkeep. And she still has time every evening for her family and opening up new passive income streams!

The takeaway? The sooner you can create viable sources of passive income, the better! It comes down to matching your effort to your reward. It’s a chance to create impressive returns over the long-term for an upfront investment of time, money, and energy.

If you’re interested in opportunities to create additional income streams, check out some of our past posts on the topic.

  • Side Hustle expansion

  • Passive Income: How It Works

  • Start that side hustle like a pro!

For a one-on one discussion about potential ways for you to create passive income, contact us!

What we’ve been doing on our hiatus – pt 2

How the new office started Yes we've been on hiatus & you haven't been getting your 3 weekly posts in March, but here's why

The same images but with the word descriptions that were supposed to be displayed in part 1.

And now for part 2 photos…

How the new bedroom started... did you want the director of content sleeping on the floor?

Millennials, want to catch a 🆓 version of the personal finance class your Boomer parents should have made sure was available to you when you were a kid? Click here to register for the class happening Thursday, July 1sy at 8 PM EST.

Millennials only!!! (born between 1980 and 1995)

Why Everyone Wants Your Money NOW

Instant Gratification Has Overtaken Your Financial Power.

“Waiting sucks!” How many times have you thought that? While it may not feel great at the moment, waiting when it comes to spending is key to reclaiming your financial power. Remembering that old adage that “patience is a virtue” can be extremely tough in this age of instant gratification.

In today’s world you can buy now, one click order, get no interest down, and enjoy same day shipping—but have you asked why? Why is it so ridiculously easy for you to spend your money? Is it…

  1. Because they’re committed to your convenience? (You can’t be that naive.)
  2. Because you’ll buy from their competitor if they don’t? (#Facts but..)
  3. Because they want your money, they want it all, and they want it now?
Seriously still find it hard to believe I didn’t realize Queen was behind most of my childhood favs until that movie – Ms. ME

DING, DING, DING!!! We’ve found our answer at #3. Understand that your need for instant gratification is a conditioned response. When you’re first born into the world, you want everything ASAP. And as a baby that’s mostly ok because what you want is essential, food, love, to not be lying in your own 💩. But as you get older, good parents teach their children to wait which is why we get the terrible twos. That’s the period where we fuss and complain and generally are a nightmare to be around until we learn that you can’t always get what you want.

Unfortunately retailers have spent decades undoing the hard work your parents put in to recondition you to expect instant gratification. Why? Because they want your money—all of it! Picture a tiny stopwatch inside every dollar you own. When the start button is pressed, the dollar starts earning interest. Each dollar is ticking away, earning money for someone. Is it you, or is it the institution that has your savings account, car loan, mortgage, student loan, paycheck, or your next pumpkin spice latte? Every dollar that passes through your hands will earn money for either you or someone else. Every time you put your hard earned cash in the hands of someone else, you’re handing out little money stopwatches that never stop ticking.

It’s time to reclaim the earning power stolen by your need for instant gratification.

Money you put to work today has the potential to earn more interest than money you put to work tomorrow. Why? Because it has more time to grow. Those who know how money works never want to waste a single day of earning potential.

Did you think it’s a coincidence that taxes are taken out of paychecks now but tax refunds are not paid until the next year? Ever wondered why financial companies hold funds for a few days rather than release them to you immediately? They pay it out only after they’ve squeezed out every possible day of earning.

They’re not doing anything wrong. They’re just taking full advantage of the Time Value of Money. It’s time you did too.

It’s good if this makes you mad. You should be—you’ve been treated like a sucker. Your logical mind and personal finances are covered with the weeds of instant gratification. This threatens ALL your goals for the future. Start ripping the weeds out by reading HowMoneyWorks: Stop Being a Sucker today. Click here to request a copy.

This book coupled with guidance from your licensed and qualified financial professional can help you increase your financial literacy, stop the counterproductive behaviors of instant gratification, and start thinking—and acting—like the wealthy.

Wine, Women & Wealth seminar – May 2016

This month we have another first time male (gasp!) speaker, physical trainer Colby Ebanks. He spoke about what to look for in a personal trainer before opening it up to the audience members’ questions.

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A Personal Trainer Should:
  1. Focus on your goals more than anything.
  2. Tailor make a fitness program for your specific needs.
  3. Vary your workouts from day to day by how you feel.
Colby mentioned that trainers that he has worked with in the past have their own goals and agenda for their clients and don’t really take into account what the client wants out of their workout plan. If this has been your experience, he suggested to either push your trainer to make the switch or find another trainer.
On the second note, he clarified that you can tell if your trainer ahs made a plan specifically for you based on whether he or she has looked at you analyzing how you are built and what health and physical condition you are in. Lastly, he spoke on how stress and other emotional issues can have a physical effect on how your body responds to your workout on any particular day. Therefore a good personal trainer will be able to vary your workout based on the type of day you’re having.
Here are a few of the audience questions and his responses:
Is there an advantage to vegan/vegetarian diet?
For the average everyday person there is no advantage to being vegan or vegetarian. Those diets are advantageous only for specific physical conditions, like people who have high blood pressure, blood sugar issues, or a hereditary predisposition for certain health concerns.

I have an active job so do I need to work out?
The professional recommendations  are 300 minutes of  light/moderate exercise per week or 150 minutes of high intensity exercise per week.

There were some different types of exercise he mentioned that you may want to add in if your job did meet the 300 minutes of light/moderate exercise recommendation, so check with Mr. Colby Ebanks for the specifics.

The next speaker of the evening was the one and only, the original WWW male speaker, Frank Demeno.

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He began by asking the audience what do you think of when you hear the words ‘financial plan.’ Some of the responses from the audience were

  • Saving money
  • Investing
  • Retirement – IRA/401K
  • And surprisingly, Life Insurance (the topic which Frank was going to speak)

The audience member who mentioned life insurance had a personal story which I found moving. Her family thought they had done the right thing in purchasing term life insurance for her mother. Unfortunately, however, her mother outlived the term &  they only received $1.57 when she died.

People are often sold on term life insurance because of it’s low cost and don’t think about the reality that the majority of these policies expire without paying out (i.e. you don’t die during the term). The common phrase is to ‘buy term & invest the difference’ which is a good idea until you insert people. Americans don’t tend to invest the difference; this is a nation of consumers. That’s why a permanent life insurance like an indexed universal life policy is like a better strategy.

But permanent life insurance is too expensive?
Is it really? Yes it costs more but you can’t outlive your policy as long as you make those monthly contributions and you build cash value. Cash value that you can use tax-free, whereas with the other investment options (savings and retirement plans) you’re paying taxes continually or when you need the cash during retirement. What’s more expensive: sacrificing a little bit now to have a lot later or being in dire need later during your retirement years or during the turmoil of losing a loved one?

Well I’ll just buy term and be very dedicated about investing the difference to build up savings for myself and my family.

Life insurance builds a financial future by saving money, but you get the estate up front. An indexed universal life policy is like buying term and having the insurance company invest the difference for you. But while that investment is growing, if you happen to die your family still gets $250,000.

If you had to spend $70,000 now for a quarter million dollar estate, could you pay it? Most people would answer “No.”  Well, how about if we do it the American way & set up a payment plan $175 a month?

Now if you tried to save $175 each month, how long would it take you to get to $250,000? Frank had the audience calculate it and it would take about 119 years. So let’s say you get the inexpensive $250,000 10 or 15 year term policy and save $175 a month. At the end of the term, 1) you don’t have a $250,000 saved and 2) you no longer have a life insurance policy that pays out $250,000 on the event of your death.  Now you’re 10 or 15 years older making the next term policy a little more expensive and maybe challenging your monthly $175 savings plan. Which do find to be the more sound path to take?

 The last point Frank made this evening was if you take a 1 year old & create a $250K policy, they would be a millionaire by their sixties. So grandparents instead of that trip to Disney World, contribute to your grandchildren’s indexed universal life policy.
Ladies, if you’re in the Jacksonville area be sure not to miss June’s Wine, Women & Wealth seminar with summer travel tips and how to create your own pension. Check back for more details.

How to Divorce Your Job and Keep the House – #2

There are a multitude of different types of side hustles, side gigs, extra revenue streams or whatever you want to call it. As promised, here’s a list of eight: Continue reading How to Divorce Your Job and Keep the House – #2