The subtle clues that you’re living a Rich Life

The first time I gave a talk at Google, they put me in the hallway — literally, there were people walking by on their way to lunch. 

The second time was more official. I had a stage, even though it’s hard to see me on the video they shot.

But for the third time — my latest Talk at Google — they pulled out all the stops. A real A/V crew, serious prep, and a completely sold-out room with standing room only. My coordinator told me he’s never seen the room so full. That’s a huge sign of the IWT community we’ve built here.

Sometimes you get a HUGE clue that you’re succeeding at the things you love. With the Google talk, it was obvious: 12 years ago — hallway. Today — big room, sold-out crowd.

But sometimes the clues are more subtle.

Years ago, my trainer used to ask me a question when I’d go in to work out: 

He’d ask: “Did you get in?”

What he meant was, “Did you work out on your own since the last time we saw each other?”

Sometimes my answer was yes (more often, it was some excuse why I didn’t get in). But after a while — when I started taking fitness more seriously — my answers started being Yes, Yes, and Yes.

Finally, he stopped asking me.

BAM. That’s a clue. A few months later, I finally noticed he didn’t have to ask me about training on my own anymore. It had become a habit, something I did on my own, for myself.

How about this subtle clue?

It’s the tagline from this TV show — do you know it?

“Sometimes you want to go…where everybody knows your name”  

We ALL want to go where everybody knows our name. Walking into our homes, to be greeted by a smiling partner, and maybe a dog wagging its tail (for me — no dogs).

In just a single moment, it shows so much: That you’re a “regular”…that your friends are welcoming you…and that you’re home.

What are the other subtle clues that you’re living a Rich Life?

Share them in the comments below. I’ll share some of the best ones on my Instagram feed.

And Google just posted my entire talk, which you can watch here. Check out some new stories you haven’t heard here…plus some amazing responses from the crowd.

The subtle clues that you’re living a Rich Life is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from I Will Teach You To Be Rich https://ift.tt/2NxaTZ7
#money #finance #investing #becomerich

Scared of money? (Why & how to overcome your fear today)

The more I see people talk about money, the more I see how SCARED we are of it.

How we let others poison our views of money.

And how easily we use negative words to describe it.

Here’s an email I got from someone who read my book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. What do you notice?

“Frick it, I guess I’ll write the email…

Money stresses me out. My parents didn’t teach me anything about it and I’m very dependent right now. I did a year of nonprofit and made about 10k after taxes and it was miserable, so I figured if I can pull that off for one year then I can make it work. And I did! But I don’t know if I’ll hit it this year (it’s a bit depressing and a big source of anxiety). I think time is the name of the game though, the career is moving forward, hopefully, game sales will kick in passive income.

For the “rich life” I’m a simple person. I want enough money to be able to travel. I want to own a dog. I want a kitchen with an island. I want to have a nice desktop and a nice coffee table. My partner doesn’t want to own a house but I kind of do. Since I don’t have a full-time job outside of my freelancing which is currently in a drought period, I don’t have really ANY money, averaging about $250 a week.”

My response:

“Good stuff. Great to meet you

Now I want you to look at your email and count the number of times you use negative words to describe your life/money. How many do you count?”

His response (notice the skepticism):

“Ha, I can’t tell if this was an automated message or not but you got me there!

Depending on your definition, about 6-10.”

6-10 IN A SHORT-ASS EMAIL. (Well, compared to the kinds I write…like the one you’re reading. LOL.) Finally, my response:

It’s not automated.

Good!

Now, can you rewrite that entire email to be POSITIVE instead of negative? Send it over my way.

This guy didn’t even notice his reflexive negativity with money. It’s become like a dull toothache, something he gets used to. And since negativity is his worldview — the “lens” through which he views everything — I guarantee it’s an invisible “drag” on his entire life.

I asked him to rewrite his email to be POSITIVE instead of negative because sometimes, it takes someone pointing out your pattern to shake you out of it.

When I talk to people about money, here are the most common words they use to describe it:

“Anxious”

“Stressed”

“Is it too late”

(What words come to mind for you?)

But it’s even more revealing when you listen to the ways they talk about money.

What they say: “What’s my Rich Life? Well, I just want to go on vacation with my kids a couple times a year, nothing fancy…”
What they really mean: Notice those last two words — “nothing fancy.” When people talk about their Rich Lives, they almost always minimize their own dreams. When you’ve spent your entire life worrying about what can go wrong with money, it’s almost impossible to dream.

What they say: “How do I KNOW your programs will work?” OR “Will this book work for me if I live in Bolivia and I have a lazy left eye and I only eat mussels on Mondays?”

What they really mean: “I have a finite amount of money. If I spend it here, I need to know it will absolutely work, otherwise, I will have wasted my money…and there’s no way for me to ever earn more”

Are you about to say what I think you’re about to say?

What they say: “Even if I made $250,000/year, I wouldn’t eat out at a nice restaurant like that. What a waste!”

What they really mean: “I have never eaten at a place like that and I don’t want to be the kind of person who “has” to go there to enjoy food. I’m simple.” (One level deeper: “I’m nervous that if I ate there, I might actually like it. I don’t trust myself to avoid going there every single week and spending all of my money”)

What they say: “I shouldn’t get a credit card.”

What they actually mean: “I don’t trust myself to control my spending, therefore I need to restrict myself”

What they say: “I went to [ANY FOREIGN COUNTRY] and they tried to rip me off because I was an American”

What they really mean: “Well, yeah, I could have afforded an extra $5 for those postcards…but I HATE BEING RIPPED OFF. If someone else is winning and I am losing, I HATE IT”

So many of us make day-to-day money decisions, never understanding the “invisible scripts” that actually guide these decisions. And in America, money is driven by FEAR.

FEAR that we’ll never have enough.

FEAR that we can’t make more of it.

And FEAR that someone will judge us for our spending — or even what we want to spend on.

I hate this. That’s why I show you how to identify your Money Dials, the things you LOVE spending on, then I show you how to spend MORE on it.

Talking to a small group about money psychology. On book tour, I hosted private events in NYC event at Thompson Square Studios (NYC) and our Hills Penthouse (West Hollywood). As a reader of IWT, you can get your first month free at either of these locations. Please reach out directly to chelsea@thompsonhousegroup.com

I also show you how to get psychologically comfortable with the idea of changing your identity. People say “Money changes people,” in disgust, as if it’s a bad thing. Money should change you! It should let you dream bigger, it should let you live an easier or more adventurous life, and it should let you bring others with you (learn about the psychology of the wealthy).

But you can’t do that if you’re stuck thinking about money as a source of anxiety and fear.

An interviewer recently asked me what I would change from my 20s. I said, “I would have more FUN. I was too rigid. But the times where I had the most fun and I was the most successful was I just loosened up and tried a bunch of new things”

With money, try these different approaches.

Know that you can trust yourself. Know that you can eat at a really nice restaurant once for the experience — and truly enjoy it — but trust that I’m not going to trip and fall and end up going there every single week. You can also use credit cards without overspending (follow the systems in my book). You can pay off your debt and stay out of debt. You can become Rich and do good. Trust yourself.

Know that you can create more money. You can negotiate your salary — or find an entirely new job. You can start a business, even if you don’t have an idea. You can build your network to sidestep people with 10 years’ more experience than you — and get perks you’ve never dreamed of. All of those things can dramatically increase your income. Above all, your money is not a fixed pie that you have to exhaustively guard and protect. You can also expand the size of your pie.

Stop being afraid of waste. In puritanical America, one of the biggest no-nos is WASTE. Oh no! Ramit, if I start spending more on the things I love, I might “waste” some of my money!

How do I “KNOW” that your book will solve my exact, highly specific problem that I worry about every fucking day of my life? If it doesn’t, I’ve wasted $10!!!! Scammer!!!

Oh no! Ramit, what if I hire someone and they don’t handle my SEO, my WordPress uploads, design all my graphics, triple my conversion rates, write my entire email funnel, and create a new webinar system? I might have WaSTed the $13/hour I tried to pay them!!

Oh no, there’s so much government waste! We should ONLY focus on cutting government waste. Especially that one thing I really hate. What? It only represents 0.03% of total spend? No, that can’t be right. Anyway, we need to handle WaSTe. Also, don’t talk about raising my historically low taxes, you socialist.

If you spend your entire life worrying about waste, you miss a simple fact of life: In any system of sufficient complexity, there will always be waste. Yes, you should take measures to control it, but you should also accept that there will be a certain amount of waste — and move on!

I know that I’m going to buy courses and attend conferences that won’t be perfect for me. I know I’m going to eat at a restaurant that’s unmemorable. I know I’m going to make bad hires.

SO WHAT?

I’d rather try new experiences and learn with each one…than to sit back and let the bogeyman of “waste” scare me from doing anything at all.

So much of personal finance advice take your latent fears and heightens them.

NO! Don’t use a credit card, you might overspend a little!

NO! Don’t eat out at that restaurant, what a waste!

NO! Don’t try to negotiate your salary, you should just be happy you have a job!

If you spent the last ten years worrying about your waste and all the bad things you might do, you’ve accepted the message that you should be SCARED. That you’re an organism that simply reacts to whatever’s around you — that you have no agency or control.

Meanwhile, the people who have gone on offense have taken control of their own finances, their own psychology, started to earn more, and happily spend on the things they love. No anxiety. Just confidence and the systems to back it up.

You listen to these fears and end up frightened and anxious, sitting around worrying about all the things that can go wrong with money.

Or you can go on offense. You can take control of your money.

You can build a plan to spend extravagantly on the things you love.

You can EMBRACE making mistakes, knowing you’ll waste a little money, but it’s fine, because over the long term, those mistakes are minor, and you can create more wealth for yourselves.

You choose.

In my book, I wrote this:

Play offense, not defense. Too many of us play defense with our finances. We wait until the end of the month, then look at our spending and shrug: “I guess I spent that much.” We accept onerous fees. We don’t question complicated advice because it’s given to us in a language we don’t understand. In this book, I’ll teach you to go on offense with your credit cards, your banks, your investments, and even your own money psychology. My goal is for you to craft your own Rich Life by the end of Chapter 9. Get aggressive! No one’s going to do it for you.

My dream is for you to remove the shackles of negativity around money. To decide what you LOVE spending on, and spend more on it, so money goes from a source of anxiety and doubts to a source of joy and possibility and purpose.

Get my book here

And write me back if this resonates with you. I want to hear from you. Yes, I read every email you send me — really.

Scared of money? (Why & how to overcome your fear today) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from I Will Teach You To Be Rich https://ift.tt/36pBHCX
#money #finance #investing #becomerich

How we raised $10,000+ for a charity (actual metrics)

What happens when you try to raise money for a cause you care about?

Recently, my wife and I held a fundraiser in NYC. We both come from families of immigrants and we wanted to raise money for families being separated at the border. What we’ve seen has made us feel helpless, outraged, and sad. But we also know that we’re in the enviable position of being able to do something about it.

This was the first time we’ve ever raised money for a fundraiser together and I want to share what we learned (plus all the numbers).

VIDEO: My wife and me explaining why we launched this fundraiser

It turns out I LOVE fundraising. I think it’s because…

1. It’s a cause I care about
2. I have friends and readers I can share this with
3. Thanks to having 40,000 customers, I have no fear of asking for money. Especially from IWT readers who asked for a free ticket to my event, and (1) one had spent $10,000 on my products, (2) another worked at Amazon, and (3) a third was an engineer at VISA. I showed no mercy.

MRW when someone asks for a free ticket to my charity event, but they’ve spent $10,000 on my products

Our fundraising metrics

• We raised $12,975, beating our goal of $5,000!! (We donated 100% of that money.)
• To raise money, we first asked a few friends in the nonprofit space for their advice. They pointed us to groups we started researching, then we settled on Families Belong Together to donate our funds to.
• Our next step was to email friends. We emailed about 50 friends and family, raising $2,450. Some people donated to come to the NYC event we held, while others just donated funds.
• Then Cass and I recorded a video explaining why we were raising money and why this is important to us, which I posted on my Instagram feed/stories, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The video got watched about 50,000 times.
• That video linked back to our Eventbrite page, which got ~2,000 views and raised ~$9,000.
• We held an event in NYC, where we hosted about 35 people in a space donated by https://energi.life/welcome/. Paola from Families Belong Together shared stories about what she’s seen along the border, along with drinks served by Andrew from Crafttender (big thanks to everyone for making this possible!!).

Overall, for our first fundraiser, this was a big success!!

Paola shared her experiences working with Families Belong Together. Some of my friends cried during the presentation.

LESSON #1: Get comfortable with small numbers

Initially, Cass and I set a goal of $50,000. When we went to a few fundraising friends and asked for advice, one of them smiled. “Why don’t you start small?” he gently asked us. Even though it was hard to hear, he was right.

I learned that I had to get comfortable with smaller numbers.

This wasn’t some massive fundraiser where we could leverage crazy press or the entire IWT business (e.g., when IWT raised $300,000 for Pencils of Promise).

After running IWT, where I oversee a team that manages complex lead acquisition, funnels, conversion, and products, I’ve gotten used to big numbers. To give you an example, during the week my wife and I raised $12,975 for this fundraiser, one individual IWT student bought 3 courses equaling $10,388.

So with this fundraiser, it was humbling to start small and be satisfied with small numbers and modest goals. This was my wife and me setting up our first fundraiser together, trying to find a free event space, and trying to send anything we can to support families at the border.

I had to reframe our new goal of “only” $5,000 as a win. When you’re starting something new, it’s hard to remember that starting small is how EVERYONE starts off. This was a great reminder. Most of all, we were just thrilled to be able to contribute to a cause we care about.

LESSON #2: When a friend asks, show up

You might have seen “Ramit’s 10 Money Rules” that I posted a while back. Look closely at #4:

#4: “Never question spending money on books, appetizers, health, or donating to a friend’s charity fundraiser.”

Read about Ramit’s Money Rules 

There’s a reason I always donate to friends’ charity events. When your friend emails you for a fundraiser, they really want your help (in general, people HATE asking for money, so when they do, there’s usually a reason for it).

If you respond and donate quickly, they’ll appreciate it.

And if you donate more than they asked for, they will never forget it.

For example, Sam Gavis-Hughson is a Zero To Launch graduate who helps job candidates prepare for their coding interviews at companies like Google and Facebook. He used our Zero To Launch program to recently run a $50,000 launch. When we posted about our fundraiser, he was one of our first donors and came in big with a $500 donation — that’s more than our requested $100 donation. I will never forget it.

Other friends never donated. Maybe they were busy or missed the email. But I’ll never forget that, either.

Showing up doesn’t just mean spending money. It also means physically showing up when it’s important to your friend.

Over the last couple of weeks, two of my friends have launched books. I went to Nir Eyal’s launch of his book. A few days later, Cass and I went to support Paula Rizzo’s launch of her book. Yes, I’m busy. Yes, it was out of the way. Yes, we showed up.

Showing up for Paula Rizzo’s book launch of Listful Living

When an author launches their book, they’re nervous, they’re excited, and most of all, THEY DESPERATELY WANT YOUR SUPPORT.

SHOW UP!! Show up for birthdays parties, weddings, book launches, and charity events. ALWAYS.

Those are moments in someone’s life that mean so much to them.

Cass and I learned the importance of showing up when we were planning our wedding. After we were married, we made a set of joint rules for attending other people’s weddings:

1. Always be first on the dance floor
2. Be the couple that you can seat anywhere because you know we’ll get the table having fun (AKA, don’t be a dud)
3. Make sure your gifts arrive before the wedding

After going through our first fundraiser, our new rules are:

1. Always donate to our friends’ fundraisers
2. Always donate MORE than they ask for (an extra $100 or $200 will always be remembered)

LESSON #3: Deal with critics

Invariably, I had some people who didn’t agree with the cause we were raising money for. I think this stops a lot of people from ever getting started with something like this (or starting a business). What will people think? What will they say? Will my friends get annoyed by me asking them for money?

Whenever you try something new, you’re going to encounter critics. It happened with this fundraiser.

LOL at the critics who decided that instead of donating, they’d leave angry comments on a fundraiser for a good cause.

I typically find that they use 3 strategies:

• Telling me they disagree with my cause
• Hateful comment: “Send everyone the fuck back” (screenshots below)
• Confuse the issue by asking seemingly innocent question (concern trolling): “What about X? Have you considered Y? Are you concerned about Z?”

Here’s how I dealt with them.

First, when they disagree with your cause: I had a woman DM me on Instagram and politely tell me that she doesn’t agree with me politically, but she appreciates that I’m using my platform to support a cause I care about. I totally respect that.

Then there were the #MAGA morons who decided to lob potshots from their anonymous accounts with hateful comments.

Unfortunately for them, this New York Times bestselling author is considerably smarter than the usual empty-headed cretins they deal with at the local parking lot where they spend their Saturday nights.

You can safely ignore twitter commenters whose feeds are filled with hateful posts, whose headshots are cartoon characters wearing a birthday hat, and who seem to share one thing in common: the intellectual aptitude of a gnat. Just move on — they already live in a prison in their own mind.

But beyond anonymous critics, there were the more insidious critics who try to confuse the issue by concern trolling, or asking question after question after question.

Here’s what you must understand: These people will never support your cause, whether it’s a fundraiser or a business or your plan to lose weight. They have no interest in a genuine discussion (if they did, they would engage privately). They’re asking questions because getting others riled up is their entertainment. And, to put it delicately, my successful friends never leave comments like this.

“If it was X, MAYBE I would donate” = “I will never donate”

You can delete or ignore these comments. I intentionally responded to a couple so my followers could see my responses.

If you decide to try something new, remember this: Opinions are cheap. You’ll ALWAYS get people saying, “What about this? What about that? How do where every cent of this $100 is going? If you did X, maybe I would donate.”

Oh, ok. Suddenly, some anonymous guy with an icon of a banana has developed a 14-page quiz on Kantian ethics that you must answer before they donate $100. In reality, they have the moral compass of a cupholder.

Guess what? They’re not your audience.

Actual supporters didn’t demand that I jump through their gauntlet of requirements for one hundred dollars. They wanted to get involved, they clicked DONATE, and they showed up.

It’s fine if not everyone supports your cause (whether it’s a business, a new hobby, or a fundraiser). But I wanted to show you some of the worst critics of all — the ones who try to derail you by questioning you, by concern trolling you, by trying to make you second-guess yourself — so you can see that these people are everywhere.

You want to raise money for your own cause? Great! Do it. My wife and I saw something we wanted to support and we raised over $12,000 to help these families. If you’re more comfortable lobbing hateful comments on social media, then sit down and get the fuck out of my way. I have work to do.

LESSON #4: Use your time and money to live a Rich Life

THIS is a Rich Life — where you use your time and money to help other people.

When something outrages you or inspires you…when something makes you MAD or SAD or THRILLED, that’s an opportunity to lean into it and use your time and money to improve it.

It’s not about needing to have $1,000,000. A tiny amount can change someone’s life.

IWT isn’t simply about earning more money. I show you how to do that in my book, my business courses, and my career courses.

But to be able to use your time and money to help other people…that’s another level.

NAME, I want you to see how that you can use money to support the things you care about. Your family, your health, and yes — giving back.

I want to show you that raising money for something you believe in comes in lots of shapes and colors and sizes. It doesn’t mean you have to attend a black-tie gala in Manhattan. I never wrote fundraising checks as a child — but I did do “sewa” (volunteer service) at my local Sikh temple.

I want to show you how to pick a goal, then go after it without anyone or anything getting in your way. Critics? GTFO. What about the perfect financial structu–forget all that! Raise the money and send it.

More than anything, I want you to know that you can define your Rich Life. This is ours. I hope you find yours and lean into it.

If you need an idea for a Christmas present then think about the Rubik’s Cube which is the best selling puzzle toy in the World.

How we raised $10,000+ for a charity (actual metrics) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from I Will Teach You To Be Rich https://ift.tt/2C131cM
#money #finance #investing #becomerich

Should you wear shoes indoors? (No, and here’s why)

The New York Times wrote an entire piece called Should You Take Your Shoes Off at Home?

They consulted several experts to discuss this great philosophical question.

There’s just one problem. They forgot to ask one person: Ramit Sethi.

Like all Indian people, I can give you the correct answer to the question.

YES, YOU TAKE YOUR DISGUSTING SHOES OFF. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Who leaves their shoes on? Your sweaty feet remain constricted for hours and hours. You track disgusting dirt into your house and onto your floors. You ruin your floors and rugs faster, requiring more frequent vacuuming. (Oh, wait, let me guess — you don’t use a vacuum, do you? You use a fucking swiffer and spend your Sunday brunches telling friends, “It’s awesome! It’s just like vacuuming!”) No, it is not.

But if you’ve grown up walking into your house with shoes, the entire concept of taking them off can seem totally foreign to you. As the saying goes, “If you want to know what water is, don’t ask the fish.”

I call these assumptions “invisible scripts,” or beliefs so deeply embedded, we don’t even realize they affect our attitudes and behaviors.

For example, when you think of an outdoor market with thousands of people, smells assaulting your senses, yelling and noises…what’s the first word that goes through your mind?

Was it…

• “Ugh”
• “No thanks”
• “Too crowded”

To BILLIONS of people, that’s completely normal.

To you and me — shopping in our air-conditioned stores (and more likely, Amazon) — it seems overwhelming.

The more and more I experience different parts of the world, the more I see how many cultural assumptions we take for granted. And I see an opportunity to pick and choose from the best to create OUR Rich Lives. (I’ve been sharing my travel experiences on my Instagram account. Follow me there.)

Not the Rich Life that society tells us, or our parents or friends. The one WE want.

Do we really want to get a mortgage, buy a suburban house, and move away from our friends and family because “we need more space?” Maybe. Maybe not.

Do we really want to work all day, check email on weekends, and take 7 days of vacation a year to “get away”…and then tell our friends that we “need a vacation from our vacation?”

I feel fortunate to have grown up in two cultures — born in America, yet raised by immigrant parents — so I’ve had the opportunity to see how completely different people think.

I’ve seen the amazing parts of American culture…but also the beliefs we unknowingly pursue, not realizing they directly lead to us being unhappy.

Recently, I talked to a couple friends about this. Two friends at the gym were talking about arranged marriages when I walked up. One of them joked, “Hey man, you guys have a lot of weird customs in India.” I said, “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like arranged marriages…and the caste system. What the fuck, man?”

(These are my friends. They meant it in good fun.)

I loved it.

Because I then got to say, “Yeah, I can see how you would think those are pretty weird. Kind of like the weird stuff people do in this country.”

They looked at me blankly. What? Americans do weird stuff? How can that be?

Oh, how about complaining about having no friends, yet the minute we have kids, we move away to suburbia, distancing themselves by literally miles from the nearest person, then we complain about their commute and being placed in an old folks’ home?

Or how about normalizing our gargantuan food portions, seeing the predictable results, and then saying, “No — it can’t be food portions. It’s genetics!”

Or, finally, feet. Our puritanical hatred of feet (“eww, you touched my foot, gross”) is matched only by how this country sexualizes feet (I don’t get it, but you do you). This inexplicable puritanical/sexual mix might be the perfect description for America.

Back to my friends at the gym. My favorite part of this story is the completely blank looks on their faces — BOTH of them. They literally could not comprehend how Americans do anything weird. To them, all of this is completely normal.

Imagine growing up in America, watching American movies, thinking everything we do is normal. To us, it is. But there are a whole set of invisible cultural scripts we assume are universal…and they’re not.

• Moving out at 18
• Distrusting our government
• That you should be able to buy a perfect basket of strawberries 365 days/year
• That you must be “evil” to be rich
• Having lawns
• Asking for the check and getting it immediately
• That being busy means we’re important
• That life should have a “happy ending”
• That it’s better to let 10 guilty people go free than to imprison one innocent person
• That our goal should be to be “happy” (and to teach our kids the same)
• Believing our role as parents is to teach our kids “independence”
• Dating multiple people before getting married

(More invisible scripts here.)

I agree with some of those — but disagree with others.

What are the assumptions you make? (How would you even discover them?) And if you decide to change one to create YOUR Rich Life, what would it be?

Please reply here. I read every response.

Should you wear shoes indoors? (No, and here’s why) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from I Will Teach You To Be Rich https://ift.tt/34nq261
#money #finance #investing #becomerich

Five short anecdotes about money

What a long, strange couple of months it's been for me. On the blog, things have been quiet. Behind the scenes, I've been as busy as I've ever been.

The good news is that this busy-ness will (eventually) lead to a number of interesting articles. I've been reading Cal Newport's Deep Work, for instance, and have some thoughts on it. I've been thinking about the concept of “no speed limits”. Shocking but true: I'm going to write an article about my primary credit card. And I've been reading and writing a lot about “doing nothing”.

Today, though, I want to clear my head (and my inbox) by sharing five short financial anecdotes.

In the past month, I've had probably twenty deep discussions about personal finance and personal values. While some of these conversations lead to bigger things (like the three articles I mentioned above), most don't. But they still produce intertesting concepts and ideas. They sometimes lead me to make changes.

Here are a five money-related topics that don't (yet) warrant articles of their own, but which I still find interesting (and worth sharing).

Going with Google

During my ten days in Portugal for the FI chautauqua, cell phone service was a common topic of conversation. Some folks didn't have any. Others were paying a small fortune just to get a tiny bit of data from their provider.

There were two types of people who didn't have any trouble with their cell service in Portugal: those who use T-Mobile and those who use Google FI.

“What's Google FI?” I asked. I'd never heard of it.

“It's Google's cell service,” Owen said. “It's cheap and has lots of features, but you can't use it with Apple phones.”

“Actually, you can,” Bill said.

“But the website says it doesn't work with iPhones,” said Owen.

“The website is wrong,” said Bill. “I've been using it with my iPhone for months with no problems — even here in Portugal.” He showed us his phone and explained how much he liked Google FI.

“I'll look into,” I said. And I did. Here's what I learned:

• Kim and I currently spend $117 (plus taxes and fees) for our shared T-Mobile plan. This gives us a limited amount of high-speed data (although plenty for normal needs), plus service for my Apple Watch. (When the watch dies, I don't plan to replace it, so eventually that'll save us ten bucks per month.)
• If we were to move to Google FI, it'd cost us $120 per month (plus taxes and fees). That's roughly the same price, obviously, with no real advantages. (We'd have access to more high-speed data, although we rarely need that. Plus, we'd get Google One, whatever that is.) And it doesn't include service for my watch.

My conclusion? For T-Mobile customers like us, moving to Google FI doesn't make much sense. But I suspect many people ought to consider their service.

Meanwhile, we've been struggling with our wireless network here at home. Although Apple no longer makes wireless networking equipment, our network is built with routers from when they did sell the stuff. Some of these routers are now a decade old (or possibly older). We have four of them.

For whatever reason, our network is constantly going down. It's frustrating. It's quite common that three of the routers will be up while a fourth will arbitrarily decide to stop working for a few days. (And when we changed the network name last spring? Nightmare!)

While visiting MMM HQ last weekend, I noticed that Pete uses the Google Mesh system to provide service in his co-working space. “Do you like it?” I asked. “I've heard other people rave about Google Mesh, but I don't know anything about it.”

“It's awesome,” he said. “Totally trouble-free.” So, I've ordered a starter set of Google Mesh devices. They'll arrive tomorrow. I have high hopes that this will cure our wifi headaches.

Taming the Email Beast

After returning from my nineteen-day trip to Portugal, Wisconsin, and southern California, my email inboxes were swamped. (I have five separate gmail accounts. Crazy, right?)

Naturally, I complained about the situation on Facebook. My friend Charlotte sent me a private message: “Do you have time to hop on a video call?” she asked. “I'll show you a way to tame your email.”

Charlotte spent twenty minutes walking me through an email system she recently adopted. It effectively divides your gmail inbox — and yes, you have to be using gmail — into five different inboxes, each of which is themed. Once a day, you tackle your main inbox, routing messages to sub-inboxes. Then, when you have time, you work through the other inboxes.

This is a minor change to the way I do things (and admittedly it mostly delays messages to later), but it's effective.

I send myself email twenty times each week. It's my note-taking system. It's how I offload things from my brain. This is great…except that my inboxes tend to get flooded with book recommendations, article ideas, and reminders of upcoming events. It's a mess. Using this system, I can still send myself messages, but I'm now able to flag these messages so they're routed to the appropriate sub-inbox.

I've been following Charlotte's advice for two weeks now, and I like it. It hasn't solved my email woe, but it's mitigated the problem substantially.

Dozens of Credit Cards

Last weekend, Kim and I flew to Colorado to celebrate the birthday of a certain mustachioed friend. While there, I had several memorable conversations.

For instance, I chatted with Amy from Go With Less about how she and her husband play the credit-card game. They have an insane number of cards — 34? 43? I can't remember the exact count — and over three million credit-card points.

While our conversation touched on topics like manufactured spending (a concept that blows my mind and angers card issuers), I was more interested in how and why Tim and Amy juggle dozens of credit cards. Doesn't this hurt their credit score? Turns out: No. Because they pay bills on time and never cancel cards, they have nearly perfect credit.

Here's a video in which they address this topic:

I wanted to ask Tim and Amy more about their crazy credit-card fueled lifestyle, but I didn't have the chance. I look forward to picking their brains more in the future, though.

Health Shares for the Non-Religious

Last weekend, I also had a conversation with Ben, who famously gets his cars for free. Ben is super smart and doesn't accept the status quo. He's always looking for ways to challenge the system in order to make the most of his money.

Lately, he's been doing this with healthcare.

For many people who have retired early, health insurance is thorny issue. It's expensive. Take my case, for example. I pay $403 per month for shitty coverage. This year, I've met my $7900 out-of-pocket max, which means I'll have spent $12,736 (plus co-pays and prescriptions) when the dust settles. I hate the U.S. healthcare system. It's insane.

Well, Ben too thinks it's insane. Rather than complain about it, though, he's been seeking creating solutions.

“Have you looked at health-sharing ministries?” Ben asked me on Sunday morning. “They can be a great way to cut costs.”

“I have,” I said. “But they all require a statement of faith, which I'm not able to give.”

“I had the same problem,” Ben said, “so I searched for alternatives. I found Sedera. It's basically the same as a health-share ministry. You still have to agree to abide by certain principles, but they're not based on a religion.”

“Is it affordable?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I'm paying $200 per month per person for my wife, my daughter, and myself.”

“That's not bad,” I said.

“But here's the thing,” Ben said. “Sedera is designed to work with a direct primary care physician.”

“A what?” I said.

“A direct primary care physician is just what it sounds like. It's a doctor that you work with directly without a third-party intermediary. That means the doctor bills you directly, not an insurance company. When you combine this with a health-sharing program like Sedera, it's a cost-effective alternative to traditional insurance.”

“Kim and I have an appointment to talk with an insurance broker next week,” I said. “I'll have to look into this as an alternative.”

“Do it,” Ben said. “You won't regret it.”

Downgrading My Motorcycle

Lastly, here's a topic that comes from several different conversations and a lot of soul-searching on my part.

When Kim and I started dating, I was surprised to learn that she was a motorcycle enthusiast. After she bought her father's bike from him, I decided to learn to ride myself.

I started with a low-power Honda Rebel, which was perfect for my needs. Then, a couple of years ago, I made an impulse purchase: I upgraded to a Harley-Davidson Street 750. The new bike gave me the power to keep up with Kim on long trips. (The little Rebel was always falling behind on the highway.)

Turns out, though, that for day-to-day riding, I wish I had my Rebel. Kim and I don't make many long trips — about one per year. And when we do, I'm fine falling behind. I'd rather have a quick and easy bike for running errands or zipping downtown. My Street 750 is not the right bike for this. It takes a long time to gear up and get the Harley ready to go.

I've spent the past year trying to figure out my best move. I've talked with a lot of friends and considered several options. Do I just stick it out with the motorcycle I have? Do I buy a new Rebel? Do I do something else?

After much thought and contemplation, I've decided that my best plan for the motorcycle situation is three-fold:

• Sell the Street 750. Use the proceeds to purchase two replacements.
• Buy a (used?) scooter to use for errands and running downtown. Kim plans to sell her motorcycle, so long trips are no longer an issue. I want something quick and easy to ride. I want to be able to get on the bike and go.
• Buy an electric bike for use around home. I already own a bike, but as I've mentioned before, I don't ride it. For one, I am fat. For another, we are surrounded by hills. MMM has urged me to look into Rad Power electric bikes.

Making this move — which likely won't happen until the spring, when people are looking for motorcycles — is much more aligned with my values and lifestyle. Currently, my motorcycle mostly gathers dust. I ride it maybe 1000 miles per year. I'd ride the scooter more often, and the electric bike would get me out slicing through these hills for exercise!

What about you? What financial conversations have you been having with your friends? What minor money moves are you making in your life?

The post Five short anecdotes about money appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Get Rich Slowly https://ift.tt/320x9PZ

How to Budget on an Unpredictable Income

With the rise of the gig-economy, side-hustles, and part-time freelancers, there are more and more people living month-to-month on a wildly unpredictable income. Those of us who can’t predict how much money we will bring in each month are at a higher risk when it comes to unexpected expenses. It’s dangerous for us to blindly [...]

The post How to Budget on an Unpredictable Income appeared first on Money After Graduation.

from Money After Graduation https://ift.tt/2WnMR6O
#money #finance #investments

What is the stock market?

While the stock market might seem intimidating at first glance, it’s surprisingly easy once you get started. In fact, if you’re not a day-trader, investing in the stock market can be downright boring. An introduction to the stock market for dummies You can think of the stock market just like any other market: a place [...]

The post What is the stock market? appeared first on Money After Graduation.

from Money After Graduation https://ift.tt/2Jtpgfs
#money #finance #investments

Real numbers from a real Instagram influencer (with 100K+ followers)

Well, well, well. I’ve suddenly discovered the secrets of being an Instagram influencer.

Follow me on Twitter

These “influencer” pitches I’m getting now make me laugh and laugh.

I can see the conference room conversation:

Boss: “OK Johnson, we gotta sell these yellow braided leather belts…hey what about that guy Ramit?”

Johnson: “Um, I think he talks about money and business.”

Boss: “Does he wear leather belts?”

Johnson: “Um, I’ve actually never seen him wearing a bel—“

Boss: “WHO WOULD TURN DOWN A FREE BELT?? ONCE HE SEES IT AND POSTS ABOUT US AND TAGS US 3 TIMES AND WRITES ABOUT IT ON HIS NEWSLETTER, WE’LL BE RICH! HE IS THE MAKE-YOU-RICH GUY, RIGHT???”

Now, with 140K followers on Instagram, I’m not that big. But I guess I crossed some mysterious D-list “influencer” level where companies now offer me free stuff (that I do not want). BTW, where were these free things when I had no money and would have actually worn a yellow belt??

Being on the receiving end of these pitches has been great. I get to see, firsthand, the underworld of influencers and deals.

And as I dug deeper, I started to realize a few more things about these offers.

INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER INSIGHT #1: If you win…you lose

If you’re hoping to become an influencer and get paid to post stuff, you need 100K+ followers. (There are lots of bigger celebs, but I’m talking about the goals of an ordinary person starting out.)

And yet, here I am with 140,000 followers…and these influencer offers suck!

Imagine I’d spent 2 years hustling and posting pics of beaches and inspirational quotes like “HUSTLE HARD, FLOW EASY,” knowing that if I just hit my goal of 100K followers, I’d eventually be getting money thrown at me…

…then imagine what it would feel like to watch my follower # tick up from 99,999 followers…

…and suddenly watch my first “influencer” offer come in — to promote Raid, the bug spray?

LOL! Follow me on Twitter

The key lesson here is to know about life goals where if you WIN…you actually LOSE.

If you’ve spent years and years thinking about doing something, find out if winning is really what you want.

• If your DREAM is to buy a house, go ask 10 homeowners how they like it
• If you’re thinking about getting married or having kids, go ask 10 married people/parents the true pros/cons (be sure to ask people you admire)
• If you’ve spent 3 years in college thinking you want to go to law school, ask 10 lawyers if they like their job

For those of you thinking of becoming an IG influencer, allow me: If you somehow get 100,000 followers…you can expect to get bags of popcorn thrown at you. Wow.

INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER INSIGHT #2: Build assets, not random posts

Hey, listen. If you want to make an extra couple hundred bucks a month promoting how much you love some random mattress, be my guest. I think it’s great that more and more people are thinking about how to increase their earnings instead of cutting back on lattes.

But I really want people to think bigger. The opportunity is not just to hustle and make $500. 

The real opportunity here is to build a REAL ASSET.

Allow me to illustrate the 3 levels of knowledge about assets:

Level 1: Ordinary Americans who spend more than they earn.

“Asset? What’s an asset? I just want to buy that car. It’s so cool.” Most Americans never think about earning more at all — they spend more than they earn, and they buy whatever they want because they want it. Then they enter the predictable pattern of trying to cut back on inconsequential spending, feeling puritanically guilty about their poor spending habits, becoming radicalized about taxes and blaming the government, and finally dying.

Level 2: Ordinary Americans who think they know about assets.

A small percentage of people hear the word “asset” and basically take their purchases — a car, a house, etc. — and try to convince themselves they’re assets. “What? That marble countertop is a great investment. It will raise the value of my house, which is an investment.” I’m sorry but you are very wrong. The good news is that your heart is in the right place.

Level 3: Americans who know what an asset actually is (and/or have read I Will Teach You To Be Rich).

Finally, a very small percentage of people realize they can spend on things they love — but also slowly accumulate assets that will pay them far into the future. These assets can be an investment portfolio, a business, real estate. Eventually these assets can provide more than a salary ever could.

Chapter 7 of my New York Times best-selling book:
How to build an investment portfolio that will earn you more than your salary

I love that a lot of the IWT community thinks about earning more (not just cutting back). Some people are doing 1-on-1 coaching, others have created video courses, and lots more. But you can go further and think beyond a random IG post or next month’s earnings. Let me show you what I mean.

NOT AN ASSET: Promoting a new frozen carrot product from Procter & Gamble on your Instagram account with 187 followers
A REAL ASSET: Building a business that generates $500/month or $50,000/month (we’ve helped people do both)

An asset can generate value even when you’re not actively working on it. 

By the way, you don’t need a business to build an asset. If you have a 9-5 job, you can build an asset by setting up automatic investments, even at $50/mo or $200/month (which will generate tens of thousands of dollars). I show you how in my book

If you want to build a product — and turn that into a side business or a full-time business — I show you how to do that in my FREE Ultimate Guide to Business.

Example of an automatic asset: $2,500 from one customer 

Here’s an example: Last week, on a random day, we sold a copy of a product I created about 6 years ago:

That customer went on to buy a second product:

That’s ~$2,500 from one customer.

He went through tons of free blog posts, videos, and emails we spent time creating — and eventually finding it so valuable, happily paid us thousands of dollars. And it all happened automatically.

So, I love seeing behind the curtain of Instagram influencer ads. They’re probably not right for me, but it’s good to know the type of offers that are being thrown around. 

But instead of one-off ads, I focus on a system. Build an asset in life. It takes more work upfront, but it is infinitely more valuable.

Ramit Sethi
CEO, I Will Teach You To Be Rich

P.S. I’ll talk more about creating assets on Instagram and Twitter. Follow me there!

P.P.S. If you want more time to build your assets, check out the course of the week: Delegate and Done. This is my exact playbook to save 20 hours per week and delegate tiny, mundane tasks that never really add to your life. 

Here’s a taste of what I’ve delegated to my assistant, Jill:

Add all this up and my assistant saves me 20 hours every week. Click here to learn more about what an assistant can do for you.

Real numbers from a real Instagram influencer (with 100K+ followers) is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from I Will Teach You To Be Rich https://ift.tt/2NeUGHI
#money #finance #investing #becomerich

Healing Acne On A Budget

Skincare is no easy feat. Finding a routine that is right for you might take a while, and when doing so on a tight budget it might seem difficult. I first developed acne in high school (as one does.) And when I started university, it got much worse. I spent three years trying different products [...]

The post Healing Acne On A Budget appeared first on Money After Graduation.

from Money After Graduation https://ift.tt/2BEWX9U
#money #finance #investments

How the toss of a coin determined my fate

Hello! I have returned from my final big trip of the year, and I've resumed working behind the scenes here at Get Rich Slowly. Soon, new articles will begin to appear on this site.

Oh, wait. Here's a new article now!

On my most recent trip, I happened to tell the same story twice to two different groups. In doing so, I realized that it's a story I've never told here. That's unfortunate. It's about an event that had a profound impact on the course of my life — and my finances.

To bide the time while I work on longer articles, today I'd like to share how my fate was decided by a literal toss of the coin.

Going to College

My parents never pushed higher education on my brothers and me. Both my father and mother had attended church schools briefly — Goshen College for him, Brigham Young University for her — but neither one graduated. My uncle got a math degree from a local junior college, and my cousin Duane got a business degree from yet another church school.

Growing up, I can't remember that college was ever discussed in depth. It came up in conversation now and then, but there was never any expectation that my brothers and I would go.

But: I was a nerd. I hung out with other nerds. I read and I wrote. I entered math contests for fun. My favorite movies were about college and about college professors. I romanticized college life (and still do today).

Mitch and J.D., nerds in 1984, nerds in 2019

Because my parents were poor, I knew there was no way they'd be able to pay for my college education. It never entered my mind. If I wanted to attend school, I'd have to do it on my own. As a matter of fact, I thought that was how college worked for everyone.

I had no money saved of my own, so I took the only path available: Scholarships. I didn't get great grades in high school — I had a 3.29 GPA — but I got great grades where it counted. I did well in advanced classes; my low grades came from electives and physical education. (And, ironically, from my personal-finance class, in which I earned a D!)

I was also very active in clubs and activities. I was in choir. I was in drama. I was in the Future Business Leaders of America. I wrote for the newspaper. I edited the school literary journal. I was a leader in my church youth group.

Most importantly, I realized that doing well on the PSAT and the SAT were the key to unlocking high-value scholarships. Since I'd always done well on standardized tests, I prepped hard for these entrance exams. I nailed the PSAT. My SAT scores were good enough to back up the first test, so I got a National Merit Scholarship. Bingo! Plus, I applied for a ton of scholarships and won a few.

In the end, I was able to attend Willamette University in Salem for free. (And that's why I cannot write about student loans. I never had them.)

From Religion to Psychology

When I left for college, I was very religious. In fact, I intended to major in religion. My short-term goal — and I'm not joking — was to become a missionary to South America so that I could convert the “heathens”. My long-term goal was to become a youth pastor…and then a pastor.

I took a couple of religion courses during my freshman year. They made me an agnostic. (Something that would have dismayed my professors, if they'd known.) Comparative religion, especially, led me to question the beliefs I'd been so sure of just a year before.

Because I'd always been interested in psychology — and because psychology is somewhat similar to religion — I decided to study that instead. I found it fascinating.

At first, I wanted to focus on child psychology. Or maybe to teach elementary school. (I spent a semester doing an elementary ed “practicum”, meaning I was a teaching assistant in a first-grade classroom.) During my sophomore and junior years, I focused my attention on psychology and teaching. I decided to become a grade-school teacher.

Kris and I had begun dating by this time. She too decided she wanted to teach — but she wanted to teach high-school chemistry. Early in our senior year, we both took the NTE, the National Teacher Exam. I scored higher than she did, which remains one of my proudest achievements. But she followed through with teaching. I didnt.

The Flip of a Coin

In the final semester of my senior year, I took my final psychology course: “Techniques of Counseling”. This class was taught by an actual clinical therapist with a practice in Salem, Oregon. I loved it. This felt like work that I was meant to do.

I loved it so much, in fact, that I did something very, very stupid. Instead of pursuing education, I put that possible career path on hold. While Kris applied to pursue a Master of Arts in teaching, I went “all in” on psychology and counseling. Except that I went “all in” without any idea what I needed to do to pursue the career. And without a backup plan.

I didn't apply to graduate programs. I didn't look for work in Salem. I didn't do anything. Instead, I trusted to the Fates, as I always had. For once, the Fates were not kind.

Toward the end of my counseling course, the professor pulled two of us students aside. “J.D. and Kari”, he said — Kari was an ex-girlfriend who was also taking the class — “you are my two top students. I'd like to offer one of you an internship, but I can't decide which. You would both make excellent counselors, but I only have room for one of you at my practice. What I'd like to do is flip a coin. The winner will get to work with me. Does that sound fair?”

We both said yes. I lost the coin toss. I didn't go into counseling. I didn't go into teaching. I went to work for my father, selling boxes for our family box business.

Chance or Choice?

My destiny was decided by chance. Only it wasn't. Yes, I lost that coin flip, which meant I didn't get the gig as intern for my counseling professor. But what happened after that is wholly on me. I just didn't realize it then…or for another 25 years.

In retrospect — and this is something I've only come to understand in the past five years — that coin toss decided very little. I was the one who decided my fate based on the result of that toss.

Think about it.

• I could have asked my professor if he knew of any other practices in Salem that might be interested in an intern. He'd already told me he thought I did quality work. He would have been willing to help.
• I could have asked him to write a personal recommendation, then used that recommendation to pursue graduate studies. Or other opportunities in the field.
• I could have followed up to see whether or not Kari actually accepted the internship. From my memory, this was the last time I ever saw her. I've checked Facebook over the years, but haven't been able to track her down. Did she do that internship? Is she a counselor today? I have no idea…and I wonder. But there's a chance she didn't take the opportunity, which means it would have been available to me.
• Instead of passively accepting my “fate”, I could have taken action and applied (late, yes) to teaching and/or psychology graduate programs.

In 1991, because of my upbringing, I had an external locus of control.

I believed that outside people and events controlled my future. Today, nearly thirty years later, I have very much the opposite view. I believe that I control my future.

What would my life have been like if I'd taken action when I was 22 instead of remaining passive? I don't know. In some ways, it doesn't matter. I like who I am and what I've become. I wouldn't be the person I am today without losing that coin toss, without selling boxes for seventeen years. I can't regret my decision.

All the same…I wonder.

More to the point, part of my mission in life is to encourage young people to actively determine the course of their lives. Don't be passive. Don't let other people and events determine who you are and who you'll become. To the extent that you are able, be the captain of your destiny.

The post How the toss of a coin determined my fate appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Get Rich Slowly https://ift.tt/33LRhqk

Best No-Fee Banking Options For Canadians

When it comes to banking, Canadians have more options than ever. Why then are so many of us still paying bank fees? Many of us choose our financial institutions based on whatever bank our parents signed us up for as children, and then we never switch. You shouldn’t have to pay fees on your day-to-day [...]

The post Best No-Fee Banking Options For Canadians appeared first on Money After Graduation.

from Money After Graduation https://ift.tt/31w9GWU
#money #finance #investments

How to supplement retirement income with a part-time job

Could you pay your mortgage, groceries, rent, insurance, medical expenses, and other bills on $2000/month? If you could, what kind of lifestyle might you lead?

Millions of retirees across America live it every day.

The Social Security Administration reports that 50% of elderly married beneficiaries and 70% of singles rely on Social Security for more than half of their monthly income. Considering that the average Social Security check is around $1361/month, this is a really tough place to be in for so many of these retirees.

And I’ve met them. Many of them.

Every year at my insurance agency, we meet thousands of baby boomers aging into Medicare at 65. We often see their shock, dismay, and confusion when they realize that the cost of their healthcare in retirement will easily eat up at least 20% to 30% of that Social Security check every month.

No matter how you slice it, even the best of the retiree budgeters out there are likely to have trouble making ends meet on Social Security income alone.

Sometimes when it comes to personal finance, budgeting isn’t the problem.

Sometimes income is the problem.

Fortunately, there's good news on that front, because we live in an age where there are more opportunities to earn extra money than ever before. Our digital world has made this possible, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

When you're on a fixed income and struggling to make ends meet, a side hustle that pays you even a few hundred dollars a month can be a tremendous help.

At Boomer Benefits, we polled our Facebook fans – largely baby boomers and seniors – to ask what kind of side-hustles they are rocking out there in the real world. What we learned is that there's a wide array of ways in which creative retirees are supplementing their Social Security income.

 

Today, I’ll share a few of their stories to give you some ideas for your own possible side-hustle that could potentially help to reduce financial worry and afford you a better lifestyle in retirement.

Teach From Home

Did you know that you can get paid to teach English without leaving your house? That’s right, and this is a perfect example of a retirement side hustle that exists today that would not have been possible ten years ago.

Valerie Heidel shared with us that she uses an online teaching platform called Cambly to teach English to students in Saudi Arabia, China, Japan, and even Brazil. She found this job opportunity by searching online for work from home part-time jobs. This work-from-home part was a must so that she could make her own schedule and work only when she feels like it.

What was also important to Valerie in finding a side hustle was the sense of purpose and productivity. And, because she has quite a few repeat weekly students, the job gives her spending cash. She earns $0.17 per minute that she is online with a student, which comes out to $10.20/hour.

Not bad for a job that doesn’t require her to leave her house. And this part-time gig doesn’t require a degree either. You can be approved for teaching gigs like this one in as little as two days (although for some applicants it can take up to two months).

Another retiree we spoke with shared how she used her part-time teaching income to transition into retirement. Our client Nancy was teaching full-time at one college while also teaching health courses part-time online as an adjunct instructor. When she was laid off from her full-time job unexpectedly, she was able to transition into semi-retirement by keeping the part-time health teaching.

J.D.'s note: When Kim's father retired from teaching high-school English, he too picked up some extra cash by teaching college-level English classes online.

Nancy shared that she has a physical disability which would make it difficult for her to teach in a classroom or report to an office for work. The ability to teach right from her laptop through the school’s Learning Management System has even allowed her to work when she was hospitalized. Once the courses are created, her main duties are to respond to emails and grade assignments.

She loves that it keeps her active and says that she would be bored without this job, so she plans to continue teaching for as long as she possibly can.

Nancy shared that she and her spouse currently use her part-time income to supplement their Social Security income benefits so that they can avoid dipping into their retirement savings for as long as possible.

Takeaway: Nearly everyone has a skill that they could turn into a tutoring, teaching or mentorship position. In addition to Cambly, you can check for opportunities that fit your skills at sites like Tutor, Skooli, and Yup.

Turn Your Passion into Part-Time Income

Jeanine Handley has been a creative artist all her life and worked in graphic design. Now that she's retired, she does remote graphic design work for clients out of her own home.

She’s also managed to turn this passion into a business right in her own neighborhood. Several years ago, when she relocated to Florida, she moved into a 55+ community. Many of the residents there are active seniors who want to learn and explore new things in their own retirement.

Jeanine noticed that many residents didn’t know how to use the camera and editing features on their smartphones. She helped one woman in her eighties with picking out a new smartphone and iPad and began weekly lessons to show her how to use both.

This blossomed into a course there in the community in which Jeanine helps to introduce other folks to smartphones and smartphone photography. She can communicate and teach these skills in a manner that other seniors understand and appreciate.

Jeanine charges a small fee for this and the money she earns helps to supplement her income and be able to afford some of the extra things like travel, entertainment, and dining out.

As an artist at heart, she doesn’t plan to ever retire this side hustle. Think about your own hobbies and passions. Could there be a way for you to turn that into an income-producing side gig?

Another side-hustler who plans to never retire is our client Billy who is a professional Santa Claus.

That’s right. Santa Claus! How cool is that for an income booster?

As a member of three professional Santa Claus organizations, Billy appears everywhere from schools and restaurants to big city events to spread the holiday cheer. He stresses that this side-hustle is one that really comes from your heart and not from the boots and suit that you wear.

He enjoys talking to children of all ages and listening to their needs. Sometimes the job can require emotional fortitude as the requests aren’t always about gifts or toys but sometimes may include a plea that Santa helps a child’s father find a job.

Yet even so, Billy admits that what he enjoys most is visiting homes of children who are either chronically ill or home-bound. These visits fulfill his heart while the side income he earns helps he and his wife to pay some of their expenses in retirement.

Being Santa can be a serious business both emotionally and professionally. Billy must pass a criminal background check each year and has regularly attended schools and seminars to perfect his craft. He's also a member of three professional Santa Claus organizations.

Takeaway: Think about the things in your life that you absolutely love to do. Could your passion benefit someone else? How could you monetize that so that you can earn some income while performing activities that hardly feel like work at all?

Become a Contractor for Your Former Employer

When Roberta Baciak retired from working in a local school lunchroom, she felt so bad about leaving them that she volunteered to be a fill-in worker whenever they are short-staffed. They were quick to take her up on her offer, so now she works one day a week every week and sometimes gets called in on other days.

She also works from home 15 hours a week as an administrative assistance for a coffee shop and roasting company owned by her daughter and son-in-law. She takes care of their invoices, payroll, entering expenses into Quickbooks, sending statements and things like that.

Her side hustles have afforded her the ability to pay off some medical bills and to have some pocket cash to spend on little things her grandsons. She also loves the honor of helping her family with their growing business.

She plans on working as long as she can for her family and probably another year or so at the school lunchroom because she enjoys seeing her co-workers and the kids at school.

Roberta recommends that other retirees looking for side-income check with their local schools because lunchrooms are often looking for people who are willing to fill-in on an on-call basis.

Takeaway: Consider negotiating part-time employment with your last employer before retirement. You never know when they might agree! If that’s not an option, who do you know that has a business? Are there any part-time services that you could offer to them with your skills?

Get Financially Fit with Furballs

I honestly can’t think of a side gig I would enjoy more than getting paid to hang out with some fur kids. Busy working professionals are using pet sitting services more than ever – J.D. tells me he frequently uses Rover to book walks for his dog — and what’s great about this particular job is that you could work contract though a pet sitting service, or you could just post your services in neighborhood sites like Nextdoor.

This side hustle is really flexible because you can work only when you want to, and you can pet site in your own home or in someone else’s home for a little more cash.

I myself am a busy entrepreneur, working long hours at the office and frequently traveling for business. When I’m going to be gone overnight, I pay a friend’s mom, who is retired, to come and spend the night with my fur babies.

It helps me sleep at night to know that someone is caring for them, but I also know love that my pet sitter is a retiree who can really use the money to help her make ends meet. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Not sure about overnights? You could start with some day visits or dog-walking, both of which are other pet services that many working people willingly pay for.

Takeaway: This one is possibly the easiest side gig of all to get started in. Post on your favorite neighborhood app or sign up as a pet sitter or dog walker with sites live Rover or Wag.

What Will Your Next Side Hustle Be?

These are just a few of the fun and creative ways to earn extra retirement income that some of our own social media followers at Boomer Benefits have shared with us. No matter what type of work you used to do, there are endless opportunities for new things that you can do once you are retired to supplement your income from Social Security and investments.

If teaching or pet sitting aren’t your thing, check out our post on 50 Ingenius Ways to Earn Money in Retirement for additional inspiration. You might also check out Ryan Helms’ Hustle to Freedom podcast, which is one that I’ve referred dozens of people to when they’ve shared that they want to work part-time but aren’t quite sure doing what.

The key is understanding that our digital world really does make it easier than ever to put a few extra dollars in your pocket each month and sometimes just that little bit makes all the difference.

Happy Hustling!

The post How to supplement retirement income with a part-time job appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Get Rich Slowly https://ift.tt/2OYAyMr

Exactly How Much You Have To Earn To Pay Off Your Debt

Even for small amounts of debt, you’ll need to earn over six-figures in income to pay it off.  If that sounds preposterous, you only need to do the math. If you’re sticking to a reasonable repayment schedule that makes a dent in your debt without wrecking your life, six-figures of income is required to pay [...]

The post Exactly How Much You Have To Earn To Pay Off Your Debt appeared first on Money After Graduation.

from Money After Graduation https://ift.tt/35DLhBZ
#money #finance #investments