As we roll into the New Year, it is time to get started with some great money-saving hacks to help you retire rich.

While smart investing is part of the journey to early retirement, saving money daily will light a fire beneath the power of compounding within your investment portfolio.

Put together, these savings tips could help save you upwards of $5,000 each year!

Buy Refurbished Computers & Cell Phones

Some of the most expensive and continuous purchases we make in life are the electronic devices that we use on a daily basis; namely our prized computers and cell phones. Not only can these electronics cost upwards of $1,000, but they often break, get lost, and slowly become obsolete.

The good news is that if you can put aside the desire to have the latest tech, there is a huge market of second-hand refurbished gadgets that can be purchased from tech-hungry consumers who are always upgrading to the latest generation.

When I say refurbished, I am not talking about buying sketchy electronics off Craigslist, but am referring to designated refurbished products from accredited vendors on Best Buy or Amazon. Refurbished products from quality retailers will often even come with warranties!

When it comes to building wealth, there’s an endless supply of advice and ideas to get there. If we really boil it down to the best wisdom, that which actually works, we can see recurring themes which have been passed down from many wealthy people through the millennia.

To sum it up, I’ve identified three timeless principles of wealth creation to remember (got these from one of the richest men of all-time, his name was Solomon):

1. Desire
2. Patience
3. Discipline

These principles will lay the foundation of your path to wealth for the rest of your life.

You might not hear them discussed much, since they might not seem to have practical and immediate solutions to building wealth, but your adherence to their rules will make the difference between creating wealth or not over the long term.

There is nothing new under the sun—and that remains true for building sustainable wealth.

Do not believe the hype about shiny new objects, “advanced” intelligence, or better technology or innovation making “old rules” inapplicable.

Creating sustainable wealth takes sacrifice, patience, and discipline; in other words, hard work over a long period of time.

Principle #1: Desire

You might think I’m going to say “you gotta want it to get it”.

Wrong!

Have you ever used a saving money chart? Personally, I love them because I feel like I can sit there and look at people in different ages and compare myself to them, but there’s one major issue – they’re all awful!

I mean, a lot of them will have these goals that are just the worst advice of all time.

For instance, checkout both of these charts:

The first one says you should have 10x your salary at age 65 and the second one is saying 8x your salary at age 65.  The thing that I like is that this is a super simple number to calculate.  The issue is that it’s also SUPER WRONG!

Here’s the thing – let’s pretend that both yourself and your spouse were making $100K which is a pretty dang good amount of cash.  That means, you would need $1.4 – $1.6 million to have 7-8X your combined salary of $200K/year, right?

Well, using the 4% rule, that means that you would be able to pull $64K out each year!  Now, $64K sounds like a pretty dang good amount of money to me to be able to consistently pull out without a real fear of ever running out of money, but if you’re used to having $200K in salary each year…you’re NOT going to be happy.

The same thing holds true with lower salaries as well, but I think it’s actually even more damaging.

If your salary was only $50K and you were single, then you’d have saved $400K, meaning you can only pull out $16K each year.

How the heck would you ever be able to make that last?  You can’t.

You see, I love this simplicity, but they’re just so, so, so wrong.  And people look at these charts because they look flash and it’s easy to remember that you only need your salary X 10 or something along those lines, but it’s just awful advice.  But that’s not the only charts that drive me nuts.

You see, this chart makes me mad because it just really doesn’t actually tell you anything.

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Welcome to the Investing for Beginners podcast. In today’s show, we discuss:

• All things investing, life, and philosophy with William Green, author of the fantastic Richer, Wiser, Happier
• William recently gave a wonderful Ted Talk, in which he discussed the ideas of simplicity, subtracting complexity, and avoiding stupidity
• Enjoy this wide ranging discussion with William, who is incredibly well-read, articulate, and funny.

Today’s show is sponsored by:

LinkedIn Jobs

Hubspot

For more insight like this into investing and stock selection for beginners, visit stockmarketpdf.com

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Transcript

I love this podcast because it crushes your dreams and getting rich quick. They actually got me into reading stats for anything you’re tuned in to the Investing for Beginners podcast led by Andrew Sather and Dave Ahern with a step-by-step premium investing guide for beginners. Your path to financial freedom starts now.

DAVE Alright, folks, welcome to Investing for Beginners Podcast. Today we are blessed to be joined by William Green again; he is the author of richer, wiser and happier, a fantastic book. And if you’ve not read this book, you need to go out and buy it now. Now now, it’s a fantastic book, about investing, about life, about philosophy, all kinds of great stuff. And it’s easily one of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time. So William is joining us back in May to talk about the book.

And tonight we’re going to talk a little bit about other things. So we did a fantastic TED talk just recently, and I thought maybe we could explore some of the topics that he talked about in a TED talk because I think they’re kind of appropriate about life. And as we come towards the end of the year, this would be kind of a fantastic discussion.

So William, thank you very much, again, for joining us; we really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to come to join us today.

WILLIAM Thanks so much. I’m delighted to be here with you.

DAVE So, I guess let’s talk about the TED Talk a little bit. So I guess a couple of questions, maybe some super easy ones to get out of the way. So as someone who’s never done one of these, you know, you talk for 1520 minutes. So is that something you have to prepare for? Or were these things that you just were so familiar with? It was easy because it came across as very natural and very easy.

WILLIAM As you asked me that I felt my legs tightening under my desk here of pain and stress. On top, buddy, I have to say that was one of the most stressful experiences of my entire life. Yeah, I prepared quite a lot for it. And I mean, look, I thought I’ll just be honest. So I’ve done a ton of podcast interviews and fireside chats and stuff. And I kind of love doing it. Because you can be very natural, you don’t really watch what you say. And it’s just a really nice conversation, this total delight to chat with you guys. But to do a speech where you actually have to prepare, and you have to go stand on a stage and talk for 18 minutes without notes is pretty terrifying.

And this was in the middle of COVID, sort of at a point where I can’t guess we’re always in the middle of COVID. But this was a permanent state of being in the middle of COVID. It was at a point where I hadn’t really been anywhere public very much. So I hadn’t been to a theater or a cinema or restaurant. And, and so I go speak in a theater in the bushes. And it’s a beautiful place. It’s, I think, was a Shakespeare and CO theatre. And so it’s the first time I’ve been in a really public place. But it was only allowed to be a third full because of the COVID regulations, and everyone’s got to wear a mask.

As a young teenager, all you can think about is moving out of your parent’s house. Then as you hit your early twenties it turns to finding a spouse and maybe starting a family. Then by the time you hit 30, your focus turns on your career and how you can make as much money as possible. Last, but certainly not least, your attention starts to turn to retirement.

Retirement is the next big step of freedom, however, that freedom certainly doesn’t come free. To truly enjoy retirement, it takes years/decades of planning and contributing to making sure you have enough money to survive. It sounds crazy, but your retirement planning starts on the first day of work.

This brings me to the rule of 25. What exactly is the rule of 25 you might ask? The rule of 25 is a strategy to help you estimate the amount of money you need to be saved to be able to retire with enough money to last you the rest of your life.

To calculate your own rule of 25, you would just take the amount of money per year you expect to spend in retirement and calculate it by 25. An easy example would be that you expect to spend $60,000 per year once retired. That means your rule of 25 would be $1.5 million in your retirement accounts.

That is a very simple explanation and there are a ton of other items to think about when planning for retirement. Keep reading for more things to think about when using the rule of 25.

• Calculating your target income
• Using the 4% rule with the rule of 25
• Other factors to consider when using the rule of 25
• What the rule of 25 doesn’t account for

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Welcome to the Investing for Beginners podcast. In today’s show, we discuss:

• Diving deeper into ETF construction, and how they match the markets they mimic
• Does the movement of individual stocks affect the overall ETF?
• How spinoffs work, and some thoughts on the upcoming spinoff of AT&T and Warner Media.

Today’s show is sponsored by:

Charles Schwab

For more insight like this into investing and stock selection for beginners, visit stockmarketpdf.com

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I love this podcast because it crushes your dreams and getting rich quick. They actually got me into reading stats for anything you’re tuned in to the Investing for Beginners podcast led by Andrew Sather and Dave Ahern with a step-by-step premium investing guide for beginners. Your path to financial freedom starts now.

Dave All right, folks, welcome to Investing for Beginner’s podcast. Tonight. We have episode 215, and tonight we’re gonna answer two great listener questions we got recently. So without any further due, I will go ahead and dive in, and Andrew and I will do our usual give and take. So here we go. So I have, hi Dave and Andrew. Your resources are continuously rewarding so far. I’ve been following IFB for a few months now, much praise. I have two questions. I’m six months into my journey of learning about investing in money management, albeit a bit weight in life, and trying to get my friends that are all in their forties to start thinking about investing and their retirement. Thank you.

Some, unlike me, are not made out for learning how to pick an individual and are far more suited to play it safe. And along with investing in the S and P 500 in retirement accounts, for those who have some ethical hurdles in investing in certain companies in the S and P 500, does invest in ETFs that track the S and P 500 companies actually affect the stock price and the businesses of the underlying companies themselves.

I know that when investing in VOO, for example, I’m not buying actual stocks of these companies, but investing in a fund that just tracks these 500 companies when people buy and sell VO or S P Y do their investing actions actually affect the underlying companies positively or negatively. So, Andrew, what are your thoughts on this great question?

Many people can intuitively grasp the obvious disadvantages of cryptocurrency—it’s risky, volatile, unregulated, and (currently) unwieldy. However, there’s additional disadvantages of using cryptocurrency you’ll only come across as a user.

This post will cover some of those hidden disadvantages.

That’s not to say that cryptocurrency can’t improve, and that many of these problems won’t eventually be fixed.

But the reality today, in 2021/2022, is that crypto is pretty complex and confusing. And especially disorganized. People should know that buying and using cryptocurrency is NOT as easy as opening a Robinhood account and investing in the stock market.

To start, you should know the benefits about crypto (“web 3.0”) and why IT IS here to stay. Go through these posts first to get a solid understanding:

• Crypto and Blockchain for Beginners – It’s All About Democracy!
• Understanding Cryptocurrency (Pt 2): Token Vs Coin

In a nutshell—what’s exciting about crypto is actually the blockchain, and how the blockchain enables users of social media platforms, websites, apps, and games, to retain their private data instead of having it sold to big corporations…

And how it allows artists, content creators, users, and players to participate in the profits of these apps, platforms, and websites instead of having it all go to the big corporations…

In this post, we will talk about these key aspects:

• The Basics of Using Crypto
• Transferring Crypto Through Blockchains (Basics)
• Transferring Crypto with Lower Fees (Avoiding ETH)
• More Hidden Disadvantages of Cryptoland Tools
• “Hidden” Advantages of Cryptocurrency
• Obvious “Unhidden” Disadvantages of Cryptocurrency to Remember

Let’s get started on some of the hidden and unhidden advantages and disadvantages of using cryptocurrency, first, by mapping out the general landscape of cryptoland today.

I remember being 16-years old and thinking that moving out from my parents’ house was going to be the best day of my life.  While the freedom was great, what I didn’t know at the time was how expensive it would be.  For almost any person nowadays, rent (or mortgage) is the biggest expense per month that you will incur. 

The big question everyone needs to calculate before a major life decision on where to move and how much to spend is, how much can I afford?  This can be figured out by a simple formula if you do a quick internet search.  However, in my opinion, the old school “income to rent ratio” of 30 percent is exactly that, old school and out of date.

You certainly need to budget properly and do your homework to figure out what type of housing you can afford, but I wouldn’t rely on the outdated belief that it should never exceed 30 percent of your monthly gross income.  There are just too many variables that a simple equation can’t account for.

Today I’ll cover a few tips you should follow on figuring out what income to rent ratio works for you, and why the 30 percent rule doesn’t work for everyone. 

Full disclosure, if the 30 percent rule works for you, use it, I only ask you to continue reading to see if you agree with a few of my points.  You should always do your research on financial decisions, but don’t ever let one person’s opinion influence your decisions.

• What the 30 percent rule is missing
• How to calculate what income to rent ratio works for you
• Other tips before making a life-changing decision

Why doesn’t the 30 percent rule work anymore?

There are many reasons why the standard 30 percent rule of income to rent ratio is no longer relevant.  But just to clarify before moving forward, what that means exactly is no more than 30 percent of your gross monthly income should be spent on your monthly rent.

In a scenario where you make $50,000 a year, or $4,166 of gross income per month;  30 percent of that figure is $1,250, which means using the outdated logic, you shouldn’t spend more than that in a month.

The biggest reason I think this model is outdated is that it doesn’t take a deep enough dive into the full financial picture of each individual household.

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Welcome to the Investing for Beginners podcast. In today’s show, we discuss:

• Getting started in the markets with Shamus Madan of MBIT podcast
• We discuss how to learn more about companies and different research tools to help you grow your knowledge
• How to avoid FOMO (fear of missing out) and other psychological tips to help you stay on track
• The importance of consistency and saving for retirement

For more insight like this into investing and stock selection for beginners, visit stockmarketpdf.com

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Transcript

I love this podcast because it crushes your dreams and getting rich quick. They actually got me into reading stats for anything you’re tuned in to the Investing for Beginners podcast led by Andrew Sather and Dave Ahern with a step-by-step premium investing guide for beginners. Your path to financial freedom starts now.

DAVE Alright, folks, welcome to Investing for Beginners Podcast. Today we have a very special guest with us. We have Shamus Medan from the MBIT podcast. He’s the host and founder of this fantastic podcast. And he’s going to share some of his insight into the markets, as well as investing and a lot of other great stuff. So, Shamus, welcome to the podcast. And thanks for joining us today.

SHAMUS Yeah, I appreciate you guys taking the time to let me join your podcast. I know I had Andrew back on the podcast a few months back; it was great. We talked about some beginners tips. And I’m excited to share some insights here on your podcast.

DAVE Yeah, that’s awesome. So, Shamus, for those of the folks out there that are not familiar with you, could you kind of give us a little bit of a backstory real quick?

SHAMUS Yes. So currently, I’m a 16-year-old investor post of the ambit podcast; I started investing when I was 12 years old, started with Apple, not financial advice. But I did that because I wanted to invest in a company that I was very familiar with and enjoyed the products. And me being that young, I just thought it was cool to own a piece of a company and say, Oh, I’m a part-owner of Apple.

So I did that. And that got me hooked on investing. I’ve been long-term stuck with Apple ever since. And then, when I was 15, last year in November of 2020, I had a lot of knowledge; I’ve accumulated over four years of investing, especially with the March 2020 crash; I’m like, I want to share that with people. So I decided, You know what, why not to create a podcast. So I released my first episode around December 7, or December 8 of 2020, mainly discussing some recent news and events and why it’s important and breaking them down into really concise episodes. So I started with that, which was good, but I realized how competitive that industry was. And it’s really important to have some more valuable insights and provide new perspectives.