Category Archives: Money

The Wide Spectrum of Saving Money

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If you choose to be less dependent on a job, having a big debt to pay off or have a specific goal you have to save money for, you want to put some money away every week, month or year. Saving money is and has always been a wide spectrum of all kinds of opinions and methods. Especially in the FIRE community.

And we all know, money can make a difference in your life. Even a huge one if you let it. We are all searching for ways to invest, pay off more debt or build up wealth. It can make life easier, it can give us the rest we desperately need, or it can speed up the process to fulfill our dreams.

The focus lays foremost on the money part, but what happens when that focus shifts from working on your money goals, towards working on your life goals…?

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Keeping a Critical Mind when Financial Advice is Given

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Since we have been starting looking into real estate, we’ve been eager to get as much knowledge on it as we could. So when the opportunity presented itself to go to a seminar on real estate investing by Kevin Green, we knew we had to go. And oh yes, they were VIP tickets. Free of charge… We definitely couldn’t say no to that.

This seminar was last weekend, and we had high expectations of it. Although Green is an authority in his field, he didn’t quite live up to those expectations. Still, we had learned a few things along the way and met with some interesting people again. I hoped to get out a detailed post about all the nice gems we had acquired last Saturday. But it turned out to be a little different. Instead, it got me thinking about why it’s so important not to just believe everything you hear, but keep a mindset of asking a question and try to understand it.

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Do what you love – even if it costs you money

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In the past few months I investing many euros and hours towards getting something I’ve wanted for a very long time: a motor license. I couldn’t be happier right now because last Friday I successfully passed my last exam 🙂

Motorcycles are often considered as a hobby, and a very expensive one, that might not fit with a frugal lifestyle. However, it all depends on what your view on a frugal lifestyle entails.

For us, it means that we are able to maintain a certain lifestyle where we can be happy, do the things we love and having the right balance between saving and spending. So even if something could cost a lot of money, we still pursue it if it’s something we really love and think is worth it.

But what better thing to do to than to list up all the expenses I’ve made to come this far!

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Why we are not paying off our debt early

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Want to know something funny? We’re not only having 1, but actually 3 different forms of debt. And it even get’s worse: we choose to hold of payments on our student loans, so we can keep the money in our pockets.

But then again, we’re still money nerds and we have a good reason to do this. Paying of your debt early can be very liberating in the sense of lower expenditures and higher savings rates (or having a good night’s sleep). But in our financial journey to freedom, we try to hack for growth and the best possible return in every decision. So this one is no exception.

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Do we NEED a budget? Nah, but we still want to and this is why…

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When I started this blog, goals had to be made. Not all of them were achieved, but one in particular really stood out. Our savings ratio. We crushed our target goal of 30% by the ending 2016 with an average savings rate of 41%! It was the first year we fully tracked this, and boy was I wrong about what we actually managed to save already. And than I started thinking… How can we ever improve this awesome result?

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The psychology behind why we buy luxury products

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Approaching the holiday season, it’s all about family, food, sharing happiness and presents of course. Nowadays, looking at advertisements and stores, Christmas is all about the gifts. Originated from the gifts of the three wise men, now all over the world people are giving presents to each other.

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Tips & tricks on how to negotiate a lower price when buying a home

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Dealing with finding a house is one thing, buying it for the right price is another. If you fall in love with something, you might end up making some pretty bad financial decisions. 

If you want to buy a certain property, it’s best to be well prepared. Of course you check up on your own financial status and possibilities. But once you found something, you might want to use these tips and tricks to negotiate on a much lower price then is listed.

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We traded in our car – update

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Several weeks back I announced that we wanted to sell our car to increase our success rate or retiring early. By doing so we would gain some profit and were able to save more money each and every month. And as the guys from Dividend Diplomats would say: Every dollar counts.

In the past weeks we’ve made some progress on this, so I figured it was time to share an update with you guys. And let you all know how much money we would save by doing this. Continue reading →