They say that just looking at and touching money makes you happier, so here are a bunch of moneys for you to look at…

Be sure to touch the screen to get the full effect!

******

*******

Did it work? ;)

It always brings a smile to my face when I see it, not gonna lie… And I’m not really even chasing it anymore?!

Those are all real U.S. notes up there btw. Some were meant just for xferring money between banks and not used as legal tender (like the $100,000 note – illegal to even own one!), but the others still exist in some peoples’ collections. Though much more valuable now than face value.

Except for those $2.00 notes. Those have, and forever will be, worth only $2.00 despite them feeling like they should be worth more!!  They do make for fantastic tips and other gift ideas though :)

Have a fantastically fiscal week!

[This post, Look at all this money!, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Hello friends!!

Happy New Year!! It’s nice to see so many of you at the gyms and yoga studios and veggie aisles these days :) Everyone’s so energized and motivated – be sure to do whatever it takes to KEEP UP WITH IT!

Remember – even if you fail one day or two (or two hundred days), it doesn’t matter – it’s literally in the past. All that matters is what you do TODAY! So get back out there and try again!! A record of “1” in a row is better than a record of “none” in a row. #TRUTHBOMB

** Awkward transition **

Did I tell you my best friend and I created a new project recently? And by recently, I mean almost a year ago but I keep forgetting to tell you about it because I just poured over my archives here and can’t find a mention of it anywhere?? ;)

Yup, my boy Nate St. Pierre and I devised it* late one night on a rare visit together (we’ve been internet besties for around 14 years now but only see each other in real life maybe once every few years!) and the very next morning we built it and put it out into the world.

Though for once it’s a project not actually meant for the *world*, but for a specific *person* who made our day.

It’s called, I Met You Today, and the concept is simple:

1. Whenever one of us meets someone who blows us away with their kindness, genuineness, or brilliance, we hand them a card that says “I met you today. Check this site in 24 hours: IMetYouToday.com”
2. We then post up a note letting them know how much they impacted us!
3. They then (hopefully) remember to come back and visit the site to see what a difference they made to us :)

Now some of us are better at remembering to pass out these cards than others**, but at the end of the day we show them some love and hopefully it brings them as much joy as they brought us. If nothing else, it gives us the chance to think through these encounters and put ’em down on paper, that way when we’re feeling depressed about the state of the world we can look back at the archive of people who are actually cool! Lol…

We’ve done about 10 of these so far, and you can find them here if any in particular pique your interest. Some are short, some are long, some are random, but every single one is from our heart:

• A Real Life Friend Request
• Old Paperbacks, With a Side of Ranch
• Back in the Game
• Namaste
• Free Cupcake
• Lunch at the Pier
• A Real Life Actual Phone Call
• Serotonin, Inked
• Let’s Give Hugs
• Unexpected Space Force

(Can you guess which ones *I* wrote vs those from Nate? ;))

It’s been a fun project and reminds me there’s still so much goodness in people if you pay attention enough. Anyone can hate on others (and we’re often quick to do so!), but it’s a lot harder to focus on the opposite. Maybe it’s time we change that this year? Feel free to steal this idea if you like it! You don’t need a website to do it – just open your heart and show them you care.

See you back here again sometime soon! I’m continuing The Year of The Flow so who knows what will be occurring next ;) From homeless shelters, to board games, to juicing, to yoga – it’s been a helluva unexpected year! And that’s just the way I like it!

You friend today, and always,

——————–

*Okay, so Nate actually came up with the main idea, but if it never gets fleshed out and put into the world does it really ever count?! ;)

**Hi, I’m the problem, it’s me… Nate is GREAT about handing out these cards the second he realizes he’s in the middle of a beautiful experience, but for me it usually takes a couple of days as I’m slow. It usually dawns on me when I catch myself telling loads of people about the experience later, and then I quickly hop onto the computer and write it up! Which of course is then way too late, lol, but often times I run into the person again so it’s more of a “I Met You A Few Weeks Ago Actually, But Still – Check Out This Nice Letter I Wrote To You on This Website – KTHXBYE!”

[This post, A New Project To Say “Thank You.”, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Good morning!

So when I last left you, I had an epiphany that I should be giving back more (time-wise) but instead of doing it online like I tend to do, I wanted to test it out in Real Life and make better use of my mornings. You know, now that I don’t have a job ;)

But the question was – would it work out in the same way? Simply walking into places and asking if I can help them out for an hour or so? Or would they look at me like a total weirdo and reject me right back into the coffee shop?

Well, I tested it out and learned a TON in the process. Below are the results… (I still can’t believe I actually went through with this, haha…)

Attempt #1: The Community Nonprofit

As I left the coffee shop that morning, completely nervous to the bone, I crossed the street and serendipitously found a nonprofit that’s literally set up to give back to the community – perfect!!

They were closed for the day (womp womp), but I saw people milling about inside so I knocked anyways until one of them opened the door to see what this “character” wanted (or should I say, they “cracked” the door as they were definitely dubious of me!). I then muttered out my first attempt of my spiel:

“Hi! Uhh…… Do you need help with anything? Like, umm… I have a free hour? And I think I want to give back?”

(Total fail of communication, haha…)

“I am not sure exactly what you’re asking? How can I help you?” the gentleman responded, probably regretting he even came to the door

“Yes, sorry. I’d like to volunteer my time and wondering if your organization needs some extra help?” Much better!

“Oh, great. Hold on one moment, let me get you the card of our volunteer coordinator”. Minutes later he comes back with it and tells me to try again the next morning as maybe they will have something for me then.

“I sure will!” I replied, and off I scurried before I made an even bigger fool of myself.

Win for asking (I was so nervous!!) // Fail at helping… for now.

Attempt #2: The Sporting Goods Store

After striking out with my first try, I was determined to go again especially as the entire attempt above literally only lasted 4 minutes from start to finish. I walked down the street until I found a place that was open this time – a sporting goods store – and walked right in as fast as I could before changing my mind (it really is scary asking this!).

“Hello!” I happily greeted the two ladies at the register who were waiting for customers.

“I have a strange question for you.” I led with, hoping to set the tone better this time, haha… “Would you happen to need any extra help at the moment? I’m trying to give back to the community more and I have a free hour on my hands.” #NailedIt

The two ladies were dumbfounded, and turned to each other hoping that the other might have a good answer for me :) Unfortunately they didn’t, and we stood in awkward silence for a bit until one of them recommended I visit the nearby churches instead as they’re always looking for extra help. They admitted they’d never been asked such a question before (and didn’t need any help either), but loved that I was going around asking which gave me an extra bump of courage I needed to continue on.

“Oooh great idea, thank you!” I chimed back with. “And I love your store, btw.”

I realized I had just been in there weeks before buying a pair of sunglasses, and was glad to be offering my services to a place I actually liked! Not that it would stop me from volunteering there even if I didn’t, but it felt like I was on the right path even if I had now failed TWICE in a row, haha…

Another Win for asking / Another Fail at DOING.

Attempt #3: The Church!

Three times a charm, right? I took the ladies’ recommendation to heart, and walked further down the street until I came across a church. I walked in and found the business part of it and gave my more polished spiel again, throwing in a little flair and hoping to finally get a “yes.”

“Let me get this straight…” the kind church lady replied with her beautiful – stunned – eyes. “You have a free hour from your kids, and rather than spend it at a coffee shop reading and relaxing all morning you’d rather spend it with us helping out?”

“That’s exactly what I’d like to do!” I responded with, laughing a bit to myself realizing how different my goals are now from just a few months ago…

“I can think of 3 things we can use your help with” she came back with.

“1) You can help answer our phones (perfect – I used to be a customer service manager!), 2) you can help prepare and move all the food we give out every week to our less fortunate friends (also my speed! I can help while giving my muscles a work out at the same time!), and 3) if you’re willing to hop in your car, we always need help picking up the food that local restaurants donate to us (not a problem at all – I can listen to music while I drive!).”

“Is any of this something you’d be interested in?” she wraps up with, still rather cautiously.

“YES!!! To all three! Let’s do it!” I excitedly shout back, can’t believing it’s working now!

“Great! Let me take down your info and will have a coordinator get back with you to get the ball rolling….”

D’oh…

Another Win for asking, but another Fail yet again at the actual doing… at least for now.

Takeaways So Far…

Okay, so up to this point I’ve come to realize a few things:

1) It’s MUCH harder to do stuff *on the spot* than I originally hoped for. Looks like I’ll have to tone down my expectations a bit and account for some “intro/organization” time, at least for those organizations like churches that have their own systems in place.

2) While time will still tell, I think I was more successful with future volunteering because 2 of the 3 places I stopped by were charity-related where it’s more “normal” to volunteer at. It’s going to be a much bigger challenge if I want to help out at regular stores and such like the sporting goods one, just ‘cuz it’s so out of the ordinary. But I’m not giving up on it yet!

3) You can always guess at what will happen with your projects/ideas, but you really don’t know how the world will respond until you actually put yourself out there. I could never have guessed those 3 things the church needs help with, nor that they’d all be up my alley!

4) It’s MUCH more exciting testing stuff in real life than in your mind :) You can do all the thinking you want, but none of it actually matters until you DO SOMETHING about it. This very much applies to your finances and career too.

5) Lastly, getting your money straight allows you to have such freedoms to experiment in this world! As soon as I came back from testing this, I immediately opened up my notepad app on my phone and furiously took notes. Here’s the first thing I wrote and probably the most impactful:

This is the epitome of what money affords you – TIME. Time to spend time with your loved ones, time to work on your passions, time to work on yourself, or time to do whatever it is your heart is requesting of you in that moment.

This day it happened to be around giving back and experimenting, but other times it’s been all about the leisure or spending time with the fam or even being consumed by puzzles ;) But it’s all a result of getting your MONEY down first!

******

So all the above occurred during the *first* day of experimenting, and in the days since I have tried a number of more times with somewhat better results. If you’ll allow it, I’d like to highlight two more attempts that have both solidified my hope with this project :)

Attempt #4: Back to the Community Nonprofit!

I wasn’t really feeling it the next morning (the doubt started creeping in) but I pushed myself anyways and as always I was proud of doing so in the end. Again, because half the battle is just showing up!

I went right back to that original organization when they opened the next day per the gentleman’s advice, and was quickly immersed into such a new experience it was like an out of body experience… Below are my notes from it which I’ll just copy/paste here since it expresses it pretty well.

******

– Went back to [redacted] as previous day’s guy advised, and a gaggle of homeless(?) people were hanging around the front door, as well as a group who stopped by to drop off backpacks of goodies for them.

– Super nervous and eyes watering (worst timing ever – why does it only happen when I’m nervous?!), but mustered up the courage and waited in line in front of a makeshift booth to offer my services.

– Whole place smelled and looked funny, but also filled somehow with so much joy and love too? I immediately felt part of a community. Also had no idea how much they do there! Overheard conversations about taking showers and saw someone getting help with job-related stuff with a volunteer behind a computer. I get the sense they do FULL help all around and not just food or donations – so cool.

– A look of confusion as usual when I said I have an hour to assist, which is weird since its run by volunteers?, but the lady went back to talk with someone and said I could help fit all the incoming backpacks into storage if I’d like. Great!!! My first task!! And my first problem(s) too, haha…

– There was a line of people blocking the hallway waiting to get into the storage, and when we walked in it was completely dark and none of us could find the light switch. Eventually the leader of the group did, who was a homeless volunteer I’d guess*, and then we were ready to stack. Only the said leader started doing it for everyone so I basically just stood there like a big idiot doing nothing waiting for everyone to be done. When the dust settled and everyone was out, I reorganized everything though which I thoroughly enjoyed!, but also knocked some stuff over in the midst of it all so had to re-organize that too, haha… But first mission complete no less!

(*The leader of the group asked if he could have one of the backpacks on his way out, and I told him I wasn’t sure as I’m a new volunteer, but he said he’s taking it anyways and I replied, “go for it dude” as it seemed he needed it!)

– Went back to ask what else I can do now that I beautifully arranged their storage cubby, haha, but that was all they had for me :( Said some days are overwhelming and need all the help they can get, and others not so much.

– Was in and out within 8 minutes- wild!

– I asked what “things” they need more of before I left, like food or clothing or something, and she rattled off a list: clothes, shoes, toiletries, razors, and especially underwear. Of all sizes and sexes. Particularly boxers for the men.

– A homeless(?) guy in the corner chimed in with “except for me! I prefer thongs!” and all of us erupted in laughter. Couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. I kinda feel like he was ;) Also found it ironic as I’m on day #7 of wearing NO underwear right now!! (an experiment for another day)

– I finished up chatting with the volunteers, and on the way out the jovial, round, toothless, thong guy yelled out, “don’t forget my thongs! I like them pink!” and I died laughing again.

– I think this experiment is going to do me a lot of good :)

********

So I finally DID something!!! YAY!!! It wasn’t at all what I was expecting (not that I was expecting anything in particular?), but it got the ball rolling and I’ve since been back a number of times donating whatever I can find for them.

Which turns out I’m really good at! I’m always finding deals on stuff and running into people with boxes of overflowing things from their overstuffed houses/etc. Now I just funnel it all to one main place there which distributes it to those who can most benefit from it! (And they are fast, sometimes they turn around and give the items out while I’m still standing there!)

But the biggest takeaway of all this is that there are *opportunities* to help allllll around us if we’re brave enough to keep our eyes open for them. Not necessarily by just walking up to places and randomly asking them to help like the dummy I am, haha, but by *noticing* the people around us too who might not be as blessed in life as we are.

I’ll give you one last experience I just had that completely made my day, and reminded me once again that I can do more if I just make more of an effort.

Opportunity #5: “Lizzy”

I met Lizzy (not her real name) 4 days ago on the streets, with no home and nowhere to go. Rounding 60 years old she came up to me asking for a few bucks like many in her position do to keep surviving, and of course I obliged per my rules of “always having to say yes” and “give the biggest bill in your pocket so it stings!”

I happily gave her a $20 and tears immediately started welling up in her eyes. “Gosh” I thought…”This $20 means nothing to me but is everything to her!!”

I then went about my day as normal…

Two days later I ran into her again, and it was just starting to rain/sleet and I had to consciously choose whether to stay put and chat with her or to run to my warm cozy car which I wanted to do SO BAD!!! But something forced me to stay right there and strike up a conversation as if it was something we both needed, but for different reasons.

And then we chatted… and chatted….. and chatted.

We stood there in the rain for a good hour laughing and learning all about each other and it completely made my morning. I learned she had some kids of her own, once owned a nice house and car/etc, and just genuinely seemed like an overall beautiful person. Of course I WANTED to find out what happened to leave her in such a miserable position, but I didn’t pry and chose to listen instead.

The whole time I just stood there and did my best to let it all sink in and really “feel it” instead of blocking it out and moving on with life as many of us tend to do. I stopped thinking of my damn warm car and how wet I was getting and just sucked it up for an hour as this poor lady will be drenched the entire day so who the hell am I to complain?!

My heart went out to her so much. Maybe because it was her, maybe because I was in a time of my life where I could pay attention more, or maybe it was just something else totally unrelated. All I know is that it hit me hard and I felt like we were genuinely going to be friends from that point forward.

I also learned she had just had most of her stuff stolen and had been wearing 3-day old clothes as the remaining items of hers were completely soaked from past days of rain! She was literally down to her only pair of underwear and hasn’t taken a shower in almost a week!  SO DIFFERENT THAN THE LIVES WE LIVE!!!

But I think it hit me most when she said she just wanted to brush her hair but the same asshat stole that too, as well as her purse which held all her IDs (annoying enough to replace even when you have a home and money!). I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and all I thought was to just give her the biggest hug I could which I did. Twice.

We then parted ways and I made it my mission that day to fill up a bag full of warm goodies specifically for her.

I jumped in my car and went straight to Walmart, Goodwill, and the grocery store and picked up everything I thought she could mostly use like new clothes, underwear, and of course a hairbrush.

And even going through these stores with my new knowledge was completely eye opening to me. There was so much superfluous stuff at these places – particularly at Walmart!! – with half the stuff being worthless on the streets. I love me some fashion, but damn – half the clothes were midriffs or super thin or had a million holes in it! And other amenities we’re so accustomed to having requires electricity which of course does you absolutely no good in their daily lives…

It was like I was in the twilight zone and I actually started feeling a bit nauseous thinking about it all. Eventually I snapped to, and continued on with my plan…

Here’s what I came up with!

[Notice the muted colors of the backpack to easier hide from thieves! She literally has to stash her belongings in bushes around town, ugh…]

[I took the first picture, and then realized I had forgotten a few things so went back to collect some more… The fanny pack I thought was a brilliant idea from my wife so she can keep the most important stuff on her!]

Then the next day I patrolled the streets, found where she was hanging out, and gave her the bag as well as another big hug.

I didn’t stay long enough this time to see how helpful they all were (I also included some snacks, a notebook and pens, and other little goodies) but I could tell she was touched. And so was I.

It was the first time in my life I ever did something like this and it felt amazing. And personal, and direct, and *took effort* rather than just opening up my wallet again! (Which of course is still helpful, but it was nice to have an *arsenal* of ways to help now going forward). She was the best thing to happen to me all week.

Win for paying attention to the opportunity // Win for executing on the opportunity!!!

*******

So yeah, what a whirlwind! All within a week that would have otherwise just been so terribly normal!

And to think this all happened because I took out a pen and paper and just let my brain flow out… That quote was legit:

“When you’re stuck, just sit down with a notepad and start writing… your brain has things it wants to say even if you don’t know what they are.”

Indeed it does…

I hope you found something helpful here, and remember – you can NEVER go wrong taking action on your ideas. You might not get the response you’re looking for, but it’s an automatic Win the second you stop thinking and start *doing*. It might change your life in more ways than you think.

XOXO,

PS: Here’s part I of the story that instigated all this: When you’re stuck, just write…

UPDATE: I’ve now finally found my place in the volunteer world! Check it out. (Scroll down to the middle)

(Shout out to Impersonal Finances for reminding me that this quote came from the new Jonah Hill documentary, Stutz! A beautiful movie on it’s own!)

[This post, Operation Give Back IRL: The Results!, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

I read a quote recently that said something like,

“When you’re stuck, just sit down with a notepad and start writing… your brain has things it wants to say even if you don’t know what they are.”

If I had read it last week I probably would have laughed as it sounds so ridiculous, haha, but interestingly I experienced exactly this the other day and it completely changed my trajectory :)

I had arrived at the coffee shop as I always do in the morning, but rather than crack open another book or laptop or any other number of ways to occupy myself, this day I wasn’t feeling any of it. Instead, I sat there with coffee in my hands, bored, wondering what to do with myself. Then, randomly, something inside me said to just take out a pad of paper and start writing… anything at all. I opened up my bag to pull out an old pad of paper, and scrawled up at the top was:

“CHANGE IT UP.”

I must have written it over a year ago based on the notes around it, but I immediately started nodding my head and giving my past self some mad credit…

“Yes!! You said it, J$!”

“That’s exactly what I need to do right now: change it up! You are The Man!!” lol…

I flipped to a fresh new page and began writing whatever flowed out of my head not knowing where it would lead… (remember that quote above??)

Here’s what I ended up with:

The first chunk of ideas my brain pushed out centers around “learning” more and jobs I’ve always thought were cool, then moves to more fun/hobbyesque/mission-centered ideas, and then eventually to the essence of what I believe my heart was *truly* telling me to do more of in that instant: put more GOOD into the world.

Interestingly I had just spent an hour helping people online the day before, and it seems my brain was trying to bring it back up yet again despite me not being smart enough to catch it on my own ;)

I then tried to focus on my main superpowers, to help narrow it down more. This resulted in the following:

Time. Curiosity. People. Wow… I had never described myself like that before! And the more I reflected on it, the more true it felt in this current season of my life. I do have a lot of free time on my hands right now for the first time in, well, ever. And I AM super curious no matter what we’re taking about! And then of course I just love people… even the haters, bless their hearts.

It also made more sense then as to why I like to tweet out when I have a free hour and ask if anyone needs help with anything. Something about the immediate impact of helping people, coupled with never knowing *exactly* what I’ll be working on is so oddly alluring. And let me tell you, randomly throwing out these questions brings out some fascinating requests, haha…

Here are a few of them from last week:

• “Do I drive the old car or the new car for normal use? Old car is on its last legs but gas is cheaper for it (grade and mpg).”
• “I haven’t had a job interview in 10 years, but I have one today at 5:15 p.m. Any advice from experience on interviewing? Specifically, is there a weird question that you have been asked in an interview?”
• “Any tips on connecting with other people who are enthusiastic on making money online/sidehustles? I’m in a group with bunch of entrepreneurs but the owner is always “too busy with my business” to post content for us and I don’t have anyone in real life who isn’t content with a 9-5.”
• “Tips for my website? Still learning but having fun with it :)”

I’ve also been asked to help cheer people up in the past, offer guidance with their investments, or even give movie recommendations (my two faves currently are “The Swimmers” on Netflix and “The Pez Outlaw“). Of course, I’m far from being an expert on any of these, but I do make it my mission to fulfill these requests the best I can and it’s always so fun and rewarding.

It also got me thinking…

What would happen if I did this in real life?? Like, what if I just rolled up into places and told them I have an hour to spare and would like to help them with whatever they need right now? Would it work? Would I be similarly fulfilled? Would they laugh and point and think I’m a psycho?

My online friends of course trust and know me well, but to the rest of the world I’m a total stranger… and one with a mohawk at that, which does me no favors at all here, lol…

But the second I got this in my head I became enthralled with it and came up with all the reasons I should try it. It looked like this (I’ll spare you the chicken scratch this time):

• Easy way to volunteer fast
• No pressure for anyone!
• No clue what I’ll be working on, which is exciting
• Get to meet a ton of new people!
• 100% flexible (I can offer my free help anytime I want, 24/7 – or not!)
• If it sucks, I’ve only committed one hour (and if I’m enjoying myself I can keep going!)
• Great way to give back to my community I love so much
• Don’t think it’s ever been done before? I can start something new?
• I get to learn a lot!
• It’ll give me more courage (I’m social, but also SUPER shy)
• It’ll forever be a “story” I can tell
• It’s a fun experiment!

Then of course, it could very much fail:

• People probably won’t trust me or even believe me?
• They’ll think I’m weird or up to something, haha…
• They’ll probably give me $hit work to do!
• Also maybe a liability issue on their side?
• I’ll probably have to go through proper training or paperwork or something first?
• Maybe an hour won’t be long enough to help…
• They’ll just say no and it will be a huge waste of time…

(I quickly crossed out that last one because I don’t think you can EVER go wrong acting out of love, even if you’re rejected… Just asking to help makes it a WIN right out the gate no matter what the answer is! Which is another reason to try it out!)

I stared at these notes for around 20 seconds and immediately had two thoughts:

1. THIS is what I was called to do right now in my life… It all makes so much sense!!
2. No more *thinking* and writing down lists. Go out right now and TAKE ACTION.

I was so moved that I packed up my bag, walked out the front door of the coffee shop, and headed straight to the first place I saw before I had a chance to change my mind… And holy $hit was I scared!!!!

I’ll tell you all about what happened next…

Tomorrow ;)

UPDATE: Tomorrow is here: Operation Give Back IRL: The Results!

XOXO,

PS: Here were some of the “pitches” I drafted up during my brainstorming session…which completely went out the window once I opened up my mouth

“Hello! Y’all need help with anything? I’m working on volunteering more and have a free hour.”

“Hi! Question for you – I’m on a mission to volunteer and give back more to the community and I love your shop. Is there anything I can help you with? I have a free hour.”

“Hi! Question for you – I’m trying to give back to the community more and I have a free hour. Is there anything I can help y’all with?”

[This post, When you’re stuck, just write…, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

“Why did you buy a plot so young?”

“Doesn’t it freak you out knowing where you’re going to be buried??”

“Will you send me a quote I can use in a upcoming article? I recently bought a plot too, but it upset me too much to know exactly where I’ll be so I had my yard worker pick it out for me!”

*******

These were questions (an older) journalist friend recently asked me, after finding out I bought a lot last year at the ripe age of 41 :)

As hard as I tried to fulfill her wish of condensing all my reasons into a tidy paragraph though, I just couldn’t do it… Within seconds I had over 5 reasons, and then a few more later I had over 10! So instead I shot her the below set of bullet points which I’m turning into a blog post here in case it inspires some of you to take action too.

Here are all the reasons I bought a lot at such a young age… Let’s make it a trend!! ;)

Emotional reasons:

• I love cemeteries!
• I 100% want to be buried in one so people can always come and say hi to me whenever they miss me (and they better miss me!!)
• I 100% know *where* I want to be buried, and it’s incredibly difficult to get a plot there (people are just dying to get in!!! (sorry, had to))
• I like knowing others in my family will also probably be buried there (I’ve decided to make it a “family” plot so anyone in my immediate family can be buried there if they so choose – the only caveat is that you have to be cremated (unlimited space that route!))
• It’s an interesting *experience* to go through. Nothing makes you face death more than picking out your own cemetery plot – it really put things in perspective!
• It reminds me to be GRATEFUL for the time I have left. Everyone around my plot has been long gone, and reminds me that I’m still very much alive and should CHERISH EVERY DAMN MINUTE OF IT as best as I can. Which sometimes I fail at, but is quickly fixed the next time I take a stroll to my final resting spot…
• It brings me so much peace knowing where I’ll be resting for the rest of my life… A sort of “closure”, if you will, but getting it ahead of time.

Financial/estate planning reasons:

• It’ll be MUCH cheaper to buy a plot now than in 80 years when I’ll actually need one! 
• Because I’ve turned it into a family plot, it’ll be less expensive for *everyone else* too who chooses to live with me (the plan is to get some sort of monument on it where everyone’s names are etched as time goes on vs multiple headstones)
• It’ll be a lot less hassle/work/guessing for loved ones to have to deal with later. They not only don’t have to decide what to do with me now (cremate me), or figure out where I want to be buried (already have the lot!), but they also don’t have to deal with the paperwork and money and all other annoying things that come with the process. They’ll still have to do some stuff that comes with burying someone, but those should be 10x easier/faster in comparison. And the odds are I won’t be the first to go anyways as my father has expressed an interest in being buried there as well, so in theory we’ll have already gone through the process and can easily relay it over to the next person in line who will have to deal with it…
• And finally, it’s technically an asset! It’s only a few feet by a few feet, but it’s still very much “real estate”, lol… And again, in a prime location too as mentioned above so if you ever did want to re-sell it you probably could at a nice profit (but no – I don’t include it in my net worth as someone once asked me )

[Me answering the cemetery/net worth question,
as well as other random ones passed over to me last year]

The cost of all these wonderful benefits? Roughly $2,500. Which doesn’t include any burial fees or cremation fees or headstones/monuments/everything else that goes into it (though I did recently hear I can prepay for a lot of it now which I’ll have to look into), but still – it’s one less major thing that will need to be handled later.

And I gotta say, it feels real good having this done! It’s been about a year and a half now and I’m completely at peace with it all. I’m not ready yet to literally BE at peace, but I love knowing where I’ll be and I’m constantly telling everyone who will listen where to come find me later ;)

And don’t worry, I’ve left it in my wishes to tell everyone HERE where I’ll be too so you can come visit and drop some coins out on your homie!!

Highly recommend getting the process started if you haven’t already. Even if you don’t know exactly where you want to be or any of the other details, it’s a great exercise to start thinking about and eventually you’ll have your answers. Then be sure to *write down* these wishes at the very least so your family members can find them later – that’s half the decision process right there!

And if you’d like, feel free to pass ME your final resting address too… If I’m around still by then, I’ll be happy to come pay my respects and will even sign your headstone for you ;) We can be death-pals, fun!!

,

[This post, 11 Reasons I Bought a Cemetery Plot Even Though I’m Still Very Much Alive, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

So here’s something pretty nerdy I just did:

I read our city’s ordinance codes from the 1940s cover to cover – all 200+ pages

Don’t be jealous!!

Picked it up to see how different life and times were back in the day, but once I got going I couldn’t put it down… Did you know that it was once illegal in our city to dance from 2am-8am during the week? Or you weren’t allowed to work on Sundays?! Or you’d get fined for spitting on the sidewalk or placing carcasses of dead animals in the street?! I mean – COME ON! If you can’t place a good carcass here and there, where’s the joy in living???!

I’m honestly a bit sad it’s all over… Between the antiquated passages and that beautiful “old book” smell, I was entertained pretty well for a hot minute. Though I did find out there’s an even *earlier* version of the code from the late 1800s, so I may have to focus my energy on tracking that down to continue the party… I bet times were even wilder back then! ;)

For now though, here are some of the more interesting snippets from the 1940s… Along with what happens if you dare mess with the law ;)

We’ll start off with something you may or may not be acquainted with lately – quarantining! Followed by venereal diseases, which hopefully you’re not as acquainted with but if you are, at least you’re not treated as a pariah anymore!

Let’s get to the fun…

For reference, $1.00 in 1940 is worth about $21.16 in today’s dollars, and $100 is worth around $2,116.26.

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Quarantine of Contagious and Infectious Diseases — “Immediately upon receipt of the information that any case of smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet fever, scarlatina, measles or other contagious or infectious disease exists in the city, or within one mile thereof, it shall be the duty of the health officer to visit the case and in his discretion establish a strict quarantine or isolation of any or all persons on the premises, or to remove the case to a detention hospital or camp, and quarantine persons remaining for such time, as in his discretion, may be necessary.

He shall report to the superintendent of police the names of all persons violating quarantine and the superintendent shall thereupon cause the arrest and removal to a detention camp of any person disobeying quarantine orders, and upon the discharge of such person from the detention camp, he shall be fined by the police justice not less than $5.00 or more than $25.00.”

(Imagine being arrested or fined for disobeying PUBLIC HEALTH ORDERS?? Covid would have looked a lot differently if measures like these were in play during the first parts of the pandemic, hoo-boy… Could have had our entire national debt paid off from people refusing to wear masks alone!)

Bringing Contagion Into the City — “Any person or persons who, without a permit from the health officer, shall knowingly, bring into the limits of the city any person known or suspected to have smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, or any other severe contagious diseases, or who shall, without such permit, knowingly bring into the city the body of any person having died of smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, or any severe contagious disease, shall be fined not less than $25.00 nor more than $450.00.”

(That’s $500-$9,500 in today’s dollars! Hefty!)

Venereal Diseases — “Syphilis, gonorrhea and chancroid are hereby designated as venereal diseases, and are hereby recognized and declared to be contagious, communicable, infectious and dangerous to the public health. The city health officer is hereby given the power, for the purpose of protecting the public health, to quarantine and isolate all cases of venereal diseases prescribed in section 1 of this chapter, when in his opinion they are a menace to the public health and of the citizens of the city.”

(Yikes)

Report of Attending Physicians — “All physicians in attendance at any hospital or institution, or who are prescribing for or attending any private patient afflicted with any of said venereal diseases, or any physician having knowledge that any person is suffering from any of said diseases, shall within three days after obtaining such knowledge, report all such cases, giving name, address and occupation of the person to the city health officer.”

(Also applied to druggists, hospitals, sanitariums and other institutions in which patients were being treated for said venereal diseases…)

“Any person, firm or corporation violating any of the provisions of this chapter shall, upon conviction, be fined in a sum not to exceed $300 or imprisoned not exceeding 90 days, or both fined and imprisoned at the discretion of the court.”

Spitting on Sidewalks, on Street Crossings or Public Places — “No person shall expectorate on any sidewalk or street crossing or in any church or public building or on the steps or doorways thereof, or the steps or doorways of any store or office building, or on the floor or pavement of any railroad station, or public hall, or other public places. For any violation of this section the offender shall be fined not less than $1.00 or more than $5.00 for each offense.”

(Expectorate – such a great SAT word!)

Carcasses of Dead Animals and Other Offensive Things — “If any person shall place, or cause to be placed, in or on any street, alley, sidewalk, lot or elsewhere within the city limits, the carcasses of any animal or any other thing or matter offensive to the public or liable to become a nuisance, he shall be fined not less than $5.00.”

Stop and Waste Cocks — Not a very interesting section in the least, I just laughed like a teenage boy when I saw “cocks” in there Though I did have to Google what the heck it was, and found out its basically a form of valve used to control the flow of a liquid or gas. Here’s an example of one:

Driving Over a Fire Hose –“It shall be unlawful to drive any vehicle over any fire hose or chemical hose that may be strung or laid by the fire department of the city, within the police jurisdiction of the city. Anyone violating this section shall be fined not less than $5.00 nor more than $10.00 for each offense.”

Parking Meters — “When any vehicle shall be parked in any parking meter zone the owner or operator of said vehicle shall upon entering the parking space, immediately deposit a one cent coin or a five cent coin of the United States in the parking meter adjacent to such zone and the said zone may then be used by such vehicle for the period of time as shown by the parking meter.”

Fine for overstaying: $1.00 if paid within 48 hours, $2.00-$50.00 if paid after 48 hours.

(Love that they specifically say “United States” coin here too, lol… I guess they had problems with people trying to hack it with pesos or other foreign specimens?! One cent got you 12 mins of parking, btw, and five cents got you 60.)

Driving Under Influence of Intoxicants or Drugs — “It shall be unlawful for any person to drive or operate any automobile or other vehicle, car, truck, engine, or train in this city, while under the influence of alcohol, brandy, rum, whiskey, gin, wine, beer, lager beer, ale, porter, stout, or any other liquid, beverage or article containing alcohol or while under the influence of any narcotic drug, or any other self-administered intoxicant or drug, of whatsoever nature.

Any person who violates any provisions of section one of this chapter shall be guilty of  misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or imprisonment for not less than one month, nor more than six months, either or both in the discretion of the court or jury trying same, for a first offense, and the court may, in its discretion, suspend the sentence during the good behavior of the person convicted.”

Water, Gas and Sewer — The city charged a flat $6.00 a year for water hookup, and then additional fees “per tub and water closet and cooled refrigerating machine with one half horsepower” Haha… They didn’t do metering much back then, except for those suspected of taking advantage of the water supply (though apparently you could manually request to have a meter put in which the city would do on your behalf).

Similar to water hookup, gas was also charged a flat fee per month depending on the cubic feet of your home. For the first 500 cubic feet it costs $0.75, for the next 2,500 – $1.30, and for the next 7,000 – $1.10 (and then continued to go down from there for each additional 1,000 cubic ft). Of interest is that they also charged for “gas operated refrigerators”?! Can’t say I’ve ever known that was a thing!

As for sewer, that service was a flat $2.00 per year per building.

Injuring or Failing to Return Books — “Any person who shall willfully injure any book belonging to such library, or shall willfully fail to return any book belonging to such library, shall be fined not less than one nor more than twenty-five dollars, or shall be committed to jail, in default of payment of said fine, for not less than one, nor more than twenty-five days.”

(You could have gone to jail for not returning your books!!! They did NOT mess around back then!! $1-$25 was $21.00- $525.00 in today’s dollars too, pretty extreme…)

Procedure for Erection — () “In every case in which the owner of an improved lot in the city shall be desirous of having a new fence erected between his said lot and any improved lot adjoining thereto, and the owner of the said adjoining improved lot shall not agree to pay his share of erecting such fence, the major shall, on application of the party wishing to have a new fence put up, appoint three discreet freeholders of the city to view the premises, and under their hands to say whether a new fence to divide the lots of such parties is necessary or not, and the decision of said freeholders, or a majority of them, shall be binding on the parties. And the party desirous of having the new fence put up may proceed to have it erected, and on the completion thereof, shall recover by warrant, from the owner of the adjoining lot, one-half of the cost of such fence, with the cost of such proceeding: Provided, that the cost of said fence be estimated as a fence formed of good posts and rails, with undressed paling, and not exceeding six feet high.”

(So basically, if your neighbor wanted to build a fence you were on the hook for paying half of it! Which I suppose kinda makes sense since you would also benefit from it, but still…)

Street Walkers — “Street walkers shall be fined not less than five dollars no more than twenty-five dollars, or imprisoned in jail not exceeding thirty days, or both in the discretion of the police justice.”

Solicitation for Immoral Purposes — “Whoever shall invite or entice any person or persons upon any avenue, street, road, highway, alley, open space, public square, or enclosure to accompany, go with, or follow him or her to any place for immoral purposes, or who shall invite or entice any person from any door, window, porch, or portico of any house or building, to enter any house or go with, accompany, or follow him or her to any place whatsoever for immoral purpose shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten dollars and not more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.”

(I wish they would have spelled out what other things they meant by “immoral purposes!” The section only specifically called out prostitution…)

Adultery and Fornication — “If any person commit adultery or fornication he shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.”

(There would be quite the number of fines and jail time if this were still around today!)

Indecent or Insulting Language — “Any person convicted of the use of indecent or insulting language to another person, or of making any indecent, insulting, or immoral proposal to any female shall be punished by a fine of not less than five dollars, or imprisonment in the city jail not less than ten days, or by both such fine and imprisonment.”

(Also: rap music wouldn’t exist )

Sunday Labor – “If any person on a Sunday be found laboring at any trade or calling, or employ his agents, apprentices or servants in labor or any other business, except in household, or other work of necessity or charity, or in those businesses enumerated in the next following section hereof, or if any person bring into or carry about this city on a Sunday, any fowls, chickens, eggs, fruit, vegetables, meat, or any other thing whatever, for sale or barter, such person shall pay a fine of not less than two nor more than ten dollars.”

(Pretty wild – no one was allowed to work!)

Opening Places of Business on Sunday — “If any person, not being a druggist or operating a diary, confectionery, inn, restaurant, hotel, news agency, filling station, storage or repair garage, or ice plant shall keep his or her store, shop or place of business open on Sunday, at any time of the day, such person shall forfeit and pay five dollars for every offense.”

(Chick-fil-A is the only company I know of these days that deliberately chooses to be shut down on Sundays… Gotta love the reason behind it too: to let employees rest “and worship” if they choose.)

Furnishing Cigarettes or Weapons to Infants Under 16 Years of Age — “If any person sell, barter, give or furnish, or cause to be sold, bartered, given or furnished to any minor under sixteen years of age, cigarettes or tobacco in any form, or pistols, or dirks, or bowie-knives, said person shall be fined not less than five dollars.”

(Had to look up what a “dirk” was – “a short dagger of a kind formerly carried by Scottish Highlanders.” Also, Dirk Nowitzki’s first name :))

Disturbing Religious Meetings – “Any person who shall willfully disturb any assembly of persons met for the worship of God, whether he be in or outside of said assembly, shall be fined for every such offense not less than five dollars nor more than twenty-five dollars, or confined in jail not less than five nor more than thirty days, or both in the discretion of the police justice.”

Dancing — “It shall not be lawful for any person to promote, assist or engage in dancing in any public or private room or hall in the city between the hours of 2 A.M. and 8 A.M. on weekdays, or between midnight on Saturday to midnight on Sunday. Any person violating this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine of not less than $25.00 no more than $200.00.”

(It’s Footloose up in here before Footloose was even a thing!)

Desecration of Flag — “It shall be a misdemeanor for any person within the said city to willfully desecrate in any manner of the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia or that of the United States of America, or for any person, other than the owner, his agents, servants, and employees, without the consent of said owner, to remove from buildings said flags in said city or from any street or public place in said city where said flags may be placed, or to mutilate or destroy said flags. Any person guilty of violating the provisions of this section or any of them shall be fined not less than $5.00 nor more than $100.00 or confined in jail not less than five nor more than thirty days, or may be both fined and imprisoned.”

Horses Not to Be Driven Over Six Miles an Hour When Attached to Drays and Carts — “No person shall drive any horse or horses, when attached to any dray, cart or wagon, within the limits of this city, faster than six miles an hour. Every person violating this section shall forfeit and pay two dollars for every offense.”

Fruit-skins on Sidewalks and Floors of Public Halls — “It shall be unlawful for any person to throw fruit-skins or peelings on the sidewalks, or floors of public halls. Any violation of this section shall subject the offender to a fine of not less than two nor more than five dollars.”

(Weirdly I’ve seen people do this in the streets in modern days… I’m guessing they feel it’s okay because it’ll naturally disintegrate, but every time I see it I always brace for someone to cartoon-slip and fall on their ass because of it, haha…)

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But there you have it…

Laws of yore to help you for when Jeopardy starts back up again :)

TL;DR: Dancing, fornicating, furnishing cigarettes or weapons to infants, laboring on Sunday, soliciting for immoral purposes, throwing fruit-skins on the floor, injuring or not returning library books, placing carcasses of dead animals in the street, indecent language, driving over a fire hose, expectorating on the sidewalk, and not reporting venereal diseases can all cause you hefty fines and/or jail time.

Different times, different fines!

PS: for more fun time traveling…

• Lessons of Thrift From 1875
• Save Your Dimes, Enjoy Better Times!
• 46 Tips To Save You Time, Money, and Trouble (From The 1950’s)
• How to Get Health, Wealth and Comfort… in 1890

Photo cred: Unseen Histories

[This post, Life and Fines of the 1940s, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

This is going to sound weird or stupid, but isn’t *going into* debt so much fun???! Like, don’t we enjoy spending money on stuff we love – even if it’s only in the moment?

As finance nerds we tend to focus on how terrible debt is and how much we hate it etc etc, but I think we forget just exciting it can be to buy stuff too :)

I mean, why else would people willingly go into debt if they weren’t getting something awesome in return? Do you know anyone who goes out of their way to buy stuff they HATE?

Of course not. That would be ridiculous.

But that’s how we’ve been groomed to think now! That all debt is stupid and we didn’t get anything good out of it!

I was reminded of this when I was chatting with The Debt Free Guys recently and they asked what the most credit card debt people ever had was… Theirs was $51,000 (!!) and I responded that my max was probably around the $2,000 range. They said how they wish they had been “more like me” growing up, and I remarked that they probably had a $hit ton more fun than I did! Lol…

And I guarantee that is at least 95% true. Especially at the $50,000 mark!!

Do you know how much fun trouble you can get into with $50k???! All the while I was watching my pennies and scraping by as a poor college student every day?! 

That’s not to say I didn’t have any fun in those days, or that I wish I could have switched places with them – I wouldn’t – but just that, again, we tend to only think of the *bad* stuff relating to debt and none of the perks we once got from it.

Even my smaller $2,000 debt included tons of great stuff like beers on the town, meals out, road trips and even part of a brand new iBook I got straight out of college! Had I had to pay with cash at the time I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy such sweet luxuries. And that wouldn’t have made life enjoyable, especially at that time in life when you’re just starting out in the working world without a penny to your name…

So while debt is “bad” and most of us hate getting into it, the fact still remains that at one point we did very much enjoy indulging in it or else we wouldn’t have done it in the first place. Emergencies and special circumstances aside, of course. We’re dumb as humans, but not that dumb!

I’m not sure why I chose to argue this point today, haha, but maybe it’ll help any of you feeling down on yourself as if Past You was a big idiot and you wish you could have done things differently :)

Maybe you would have knowing what you know now, but be glad you woke up when you did and try not to be so harsh with yourself. You had a good reason back then to take on the debt, even if you don’t agree with it now!

And how cool that we even have the *option* to go after things we want without needing the money for it?! Sure it gets us into trouble more often than not, but that’s on *US* for misusing it, not the tool itself. Similar to money it’s the user that determines whether good or bad is done with it, which also means WE HAVE ALL THE POWER in the relationship! And that’s pretty bad ass, right?!

So get empowered again and acknowledge the debt for what it is, but also remember that at one time you were a great match for each other and thank it for serving its purpose

You’re smarter now and will eventually say goodbye forever, but for now you’re still in a committed relationship so do your best to co-exist until it’s finally wiped away… Like your exes, you sure had some great times together!

Yours in debt-freedom-but-not-fun-freedom,

PS: I know that all debt isn’t “fun” debt and sometimes you have to pay the bills and there are emergencies and yada yada yada – that’s not the debt I’m talking about here. I’m talking about all the kinds that gave you “stuff” or experiences in return for slapping ’em on the card… It’s not like we got nothing in return for it!

[This post, What about all the FUN debt gave you?, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

Morning!

I hope you’re in search of some eye candy today as I’m serving it up hot! ;)

Stumbled across a bunch of ridiculously silly, yet somewhat helpful!, videos we created for All-Star Money last year, and thought you might enjoy the change from my novels here lately…

These came about from pouring over 200 articles a day in the space, and then plucking out my favorites and doing a little skit around them. Which looks like they may have only taken about 17 minutes to produce, but oh no! These puppies took around 10 hours total EACH by the time we concepted them, wrote out the script, set up the camera (aka phone), did all that glorious (ly bad) acting, and then finally edited and compiled everything together (shout out to Harry and Zach for taking on that role!).

My respect levels to all vloggers went up immensely after doing this, I’ll tell you what… And as you can imagine, it didn’t last long until we cut these from the schedule, haha… But not before we were left with a dozen or so gems to forever appreciate! Along with an insane amount of learning experience!

Here were some of the more nugget-rich skits we put together, each with its own fun spin to it:

• The 3 Budgets You Need to Create Today
• An Investment Tip That Could Get You Half a Million Dollars
• How to Lead an Intentional Life by “Opting Out”
• Saving Money and Space With the 4 Rs
• The Power of Writing Out Your Obituary
• Channeling Your IKIGAI – or Your “Reason For Being”

As silly as some of these are though, I really am pretty proud of them. Especially for this being my first real foray into making videos! I’m certainly under no illusion of becoming a YouTube star anytime soon, haha, but I’d def. give it another go if anyone ever wants to employ me ;)

But you check them out and let me know what you think…. And if you’re a fan, be sure to follow my YouTube channel so you get alerted of any new stuff I create down the line!

Oh, I’ll also drop some fun Q&As at the end too we did earlier this year. Where people from the community shot over questions for me and I answered them via video (which was a LOT faster and easier to do! I think that took me approximately 30 minutes total, lol…)

Some of these questions are also pretty random (like my go-to choice in nail polish, or if I’d rather go into war with one horse-sized Chihuahua or 100 Chihuahua-sized horses?!), but there were were some good life and money pondering Qs too. As well as a clip where I read off the best hate mail I’ve gotten over the years which I DIE laughing at every time cuz they’re so horrible!

Alright, let’s get to them… Bookmark for some good weekend watching if you don’t have the time now! I promise it’ll be worth it… (no I don’t).

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A Visual Representation of Financial Disasters [2020]

[Inspired by Wealthy Retirement: A Lesson From the Sinnemahoning Rattlesnake Hunt]

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The 3 Budgets You Need to Create Today

[Inspired by The Penny Hoarder: Good, Bad and in Between: Why You Should Have 3 Versions of Your Budget]

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An Investment Tip That Could Get You Half a Million Dollars

[Inspired by One Cent at a Time: How to Become Rich by Saving One Hour of Wage Per Day // Money Makers hat and Abundance shirt by Abundance Community.]

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How To Lead an Intentional Life by “Opting Out”

[Inspired by Cait Flanders: Adventures in Opting Out // Shirt by Accidental FIRE: Index And Chill (Amazon affiliate link)]

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A Football Analogy To Help You Manage Rejection

[Inspired by A Lawyer and Her Money: The Easy Hack I Use to Make Failure Fun]

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Save Money (and Space) with the 4Rs. Plus: A new FIRE song!

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A Slightly Morbid Exercise: Write Your Ideal Obituary!

[Inspired by Rich Habits: The Incredible Powers of the Human Mind // Shirt by: MadFientist.com]

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Dividend Investing: A Popular Way to Grow Wealth

[Inspired by Dividend Diplomats: Dividend Income from YOU the Bloggers]

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Find Your IKIGAI by Exploring These Four Quadrants

1. What you love
2. What you’re good at
3. What the world needs
4. What you can be paid for

Check out the video, and then try this method to find your own IKIGAI!

[Inspired by Physician on FIRE: Love Your Job? Why You Should Still Pursue Financial Independence]

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This 8-Year-Old Makes 2 Million a Month on YouTube (!)

[Inspired by: GrooveWallet.com (no longer online)]

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Forrest Fenn’s Treasure + The War Ratio

[Inspired by The Physician Philosopher: Saving Money. How Much is Enough? The 30% Rule // A Purple Life: P.S. I’m Bi]

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And lastly, here are some fun Q&As we did with the community… They’re batched into 3 videos and covers everything from my mohawk budget to creepy hate mail to why I’m called “The Miley Cyrus of Finance” and more. Check ’em out!

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Q&A with J. Money (Batch #1)

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Q&A with J. Money (Batch #2)

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Q&A with J. Money (Batch #3)

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And there you have it! My video producing debut!

Unless you count my famous music video that went viral 8 years ago – “Cash in A Box” – a cover of “D*ck in a Box”, lol… But I wouldn’t advise you watch that unless you have a strong stomach

XOXO,

PS: If you liked these, “follow” me on YouTube so you can catch future nonsense I create over the years ;)

PPS: Mad love to my bff and biz parner, Nate St. Pierre, for helping me with all these crazy skits, as well as to Zack Taylor and Harry Huncken for their fine editing skills. Highly recommend them if you ever need some video work yourself!

[This post, Ridiculous videos I made about money! (And some fun Q&As), was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]

You’ve probably forgotten about this, but when you signed up for this Budgets newsletter, you were asked, “How did you come across this blog?”

All the answers get emailed to me, and I read them to learn how people find the website.

The most common replies are things like, “I was searching for free budget templates” or “I heard about your blog from xyz podcast.” Not surprisingly, most people who subscribe to the Budgets newsletter are interested in learning about money and personal finance.

But … There are sometimes vague responses, too. Things like, “I found your site by accident. I was Googling around and somehow landed here.”

That got me thinking … hmmm… What specifically are these people searching for when they accidentally click on this blog? What words are they typing into the browser’s search bar?

Well, thanks to Google Analytics and my technical team, I was able to find out. I ordered a report of all the search terms that lead people to this blog. And today I’m gonna share some of the funny ones with you.

The No. 1 Search That Leads People to Elite Edge Money

The No. 1 — and most *incorrect* — search term that brings people to our site is:

“Sexy”

I guess this search term isn’t so surprising if you think about what lots of people use the Internet for …

Check out these people — they must have been so eager for their seXXXy viewing that they were slapping commas and extra spaces all over the place:

I feel a little bad for the people who find our blog this way, but I’m also curious if they liked the financial info they found? .

*I think it’s pretty hilarious that more people find us through incorrect sexy searches than by Googling J Money’s name. Haha!

And it’s not just English-speakers … about 20,000 people searched for these terms last year and found the blog.

But I did get an email from a reader a few months ago that said, “I found you from the book ”Getting rich textbook,” In Estonian ”Rikkaks saamise õpik.”” So cool to know this site is helping people all around the world!

“Dirty lullaby songs”

Who actually Googles this stuff!!? And why do they find Budgets from searching this!?  Well, it turns out that a few years ago, J. Money wrote a post called The Worst Lullaby Songs Ever, and now Google thinks we are experts in the dirty lullaby songs arena.

“coffeebot 9000”

I don’t even know what a CoffeeBot 9000 is, but now I kind of want one!

“thank you letter after being fired”

People write thank-you letters after being fired? I never knew this, but it sounds like a nice way to end things and hopefully still get a referral for your next job application. I’ve never been fired. Have any of you ever written a thank-you note after being dismissed?

“how much is a truckload of christmas trees”

I guess it depends on the size of the truck and how many trees fit in there. I’m not an expert, but I reckon you’re looking at about ~$5,000 for a truckload of Christmas trees. Actually we featured a side hustle post many years ago about selling christmas trees that’s still very popular.

“does showering together save water?”

Yes! Well, maybe. I guess it depends on how long you stay in the shower. Let me do some more research and I’ll get back to you on this one.

“i miss shopping”

Welcome, new friend! You’ve now found a website that’ll help you help kick your shopping habit and put those dollars into investments! Once you reach financial independence, you’ll never miss shopping or type this into Google again.

“is warren buffett related to jimmy buffett?”

Can’t believe I’ve never Googled this myself before. Sadly, I just found out the answer is no. Both Warren and Jimmy took DNA tests a few years ago to see if they were long-lost cousins, but it turns out they are not.

“arigato money technique”

Speaking of Warren Buffet, there’s a Japanese billionaire named Ken Honda. (He’s actually known as the Warren Buffet of Japan.) He says that the secret to building wealth is to “Arigato your Money,” which basically means to appreciate your money. Welcome all money into your life, appreciate it, respect it, and spend every cent wisely. Cool video here if you’re interested in learning more.

“i hate being a bank teller”

Yeah, it’s a thankless job serving others. Must be pretty frustrating watching people mishandle money and accounts all day. Well, now that you’ve found Elite Edge Money, how can we help you find a new job that you’ll enjoy?

“credit scores are stupid”

I can only assume that people searching this phrase currently have low credit scores. They need to take some advice from our buddy Keith, who repaired his credit score and is now on a roaring fast track to FIRE!

“right palm itching”

Congrats to the people who search for this, cause it looks like money is coming your way! There’s an old superstition that when your palms itch, it means money is either coming or going in your life. An itching left palm means money to be paid out, while an itching right palm is money coming in!

“make 6 figures a year wearing a watch”

Helloooooo! How can I get a job like this? Would be pretty fun getting paid to just wear a watch all year.

“i need someone to pay my bills for me”

Don’t we all! Well until that bill-paying fairy magically appears in your life, why don’t you try learning to budget like everyone else. Here are some free budget templates you can use to help!

Well, that’s it for now. Just wanted to share some random “financial” facts this Friday.

Make it a great day!
– Joel

[This post, Sexy for All the Wrong Reasons, was first published by 5am Joel on Elite Edge Money]

Hey guys!!

Tomorrow’s my last day here!!

If there was anything you ever wanted to ask me, now’s your shot! :) Can be about money, biz, love, life, kids, mohawks – whatev!

If I can legally (and consciously) answer you, I will ;)

Drop your questions down below in the comments or via email, and I’ll answer each and every one of them and then update this post here so everyone can see the Q&As… Or if you’d rather ask something in *private*, that’s cool too – just give me the heads up and I’ll keep it on the low

1-2-3 Go!

******

How would you recommend the best ways to learn the stock market thoroughly?

Reading! Lots of it! :)

But starting with these two resources will help speed it up a bit for you (though fyi they’re definitely biased towards indexing, lol..)

• “The Little Book of Common Sense Investing” by Jack Bogle
• JL Collins’ “Stock Series” – https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/

How much do you think you’re going to miss writing these blog posts? Just so you know, I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts. Thank you so much for everything!

Hey thanks!! They’ve been fun to write for a majority of the years, but I’ll be honest and say I don’t think they’re nearly as good as they used to be :) I think I’ve finally said everything I wanted to say so I don’t predict missing them. I WILL miss all the PEOPLE here though!! That’s going to be the hardest to walk away from until my next project!

Are you enjoying home ownership, or do you really prefer renting? (Sorry if you already answered this question since I don’t always read every single email you write )?

I would rent every day of my life if I could :) Home ownership is just not for me, but it is best for my *family* so I suck it up and roll with it and it’s def. not as bad as it was 10 years ago when we first owned. Probably because I have money now to fix everything when it breaks! We just paid $3,000 to cut down a couple of dead trees in our yard a few weeks ago – it never ends.

Are you still writing, and will I still be able to follow you? I know you mentioned your future plans in one of your posts, but I can’t remember the details.

YUP! I’ll still be in the community working on projects relating to $$$! The next one will be a curation-focused site similar to Rockstar Finance back in the day that’ll be launching on Soapbox.com in about a month (July 6th).

Here’s everywhere else you can find me in the meantime (make sure you’re subscribed to my personal newsletter so you get all my updates):

• Twitter: @eliteedgemoney
• Email: j @ jmoney .biz
• Newsletter: jmoney.biz/newsletter

Any chance you’ll host another podcast? Miss hearing from you back in the day on the MONEY show with Paula P. 

NOPE. Haha… I’ll gladly continue going ON other peoples’ podcasts though! :) A lot more fun and a lot less work! Though I will be getting into *video* more so we’ll see how that goes… You’ll get my face AND my voice ;)

[Here’s the backstory on that podcast btw for anyone new: Good Reasons to Quit Something vs Bad Reasons to Quit Something (And Why I’m Retiring from Podcasting)]

What is the value of love?

$38 and a bag of Cheetos

My question is where will you be in 5 years? In otherwise what is the next big target you are going for in life?

Oh man, I couldn’t tell you! I’ve never been one to really set long-term goals as crazy as that sounds, but I DO know whatever I’m working on it’ll fit within my ideal *lifestyle*. Which is waking up and working on whatever I’m passionate about (work-wise) for the first half of the day, and then logging off and doing whatever non-work stuff I want to do the second half of the day :) I’m finding that’s the ideal schedule so far for me where I’m the most productive – and happy! – in both areas of the work/life balance, while still doing *just enough* to earn a decent living, lol…

What I want to know is – are you still keeping up with your early morning schedule (was it a phase thing – or is it for life?)

I AM!! I woke up at 5:02 this morning and still one of the best habits I’ve ever formed! Here’s a post on why I love it so much which sums it up nicely – 3 Years Waking Up Early Like Benjamin Franklin! – but if you want the TL;DR here you go:

• It’s so still and peaceful in the morning!
• It’s nice to wake up and set your *own tone* for the day vs letting others do it for you (like crying babies!)
• It helps *slow down* time more and allows for good reflection
• It’s 100% YOU time!
• It feels great jumping right into life so fast – and without distractions
• It’s much easier working in the mornings for me than the afternoons
• It also helps me *go to bed earlier* and not stay up goofing around!
• I’ve also become much less anxious over the days – knowing I have that time to myself every morning to work out things or get a plan going…
• And lastly, and perhaps most surprisingly?, waking up early has stopped me from snacking and drinking beers throughout the entire night :)
  

So yes – all good things! And I should mention this is *only for Mon-Friday btw… I allow myself to sleep in and recharge during the weekend, made even more impactful by not opening up my laptop anymore as well after Fridays. Another great habit I’ve recently formed!

What’s your next project? Will you still maintain your own Twitter account? Or did you sell that as well?

I still own and have my Twitter –> @eliteedgemoney. It’s my favorite place to hang out in the $$$ community :)

And the next project I’m working on will be a curation-like site launching over at Soapbox.com in approximately a month… So if you liked my monthly roundup here, you’ll like this one!

I’m buying my first car in the next month or so. If you have any tips on banks to go with, getting loan approval, what interest rate I should shoot for with 760+ credit, purchasing a car from another state… Anything really, I would appreciate it. I’m just trying to save an much as I can for as long as I can to pay off this new car and my student debt.

Rock on! Your credit score is lit! I personally use – and love – USAA for both financing and insurance (been a member for over 20 years now!), but unfortunately they’re only open to those connected with the military :(

I will say though that I hope you’re considering a *used* car for your first one vs a new one! Pros and cons to both, but even just getting one a year or two off the lot would save you immensely over the years. Or better yet getting a beater and then “upgrading” later when you’re more secure! :) Fun adventure though!

If you were lucky enough to spend a month this summer in any Canadian province, which one would it be and why? :)

Victoria in British Columbia!! Because HOUSE BOATS! And water! And scenery! And all things cute and romantic!! :) Plus you could take a fun ferry ride right into Seattle and enjoy a little U.S. action too, lol…

What do you think are the best ways to get through the boredom of the mundane to become an expert in your own personal finance? Many people (myself included) struggle after we become semi-competent in a new task.

I guess maybe I’d just ask myself if you really *need* to be an expert in all the areas? Especially if you’re already doing okay? It’s awesome if you can learn the ins and outs of everything, but sometimes it’s also awesome knowing you’re 80% fine and don’t need to be 100% perfect :) Orrrrr – doing what I do and just moving to other fun areas in life to explore, like hobbies or friends/etc, and *then* moving back to a deep dive in a financial topic once it becomes more relevant or exciting… It’s def. hard to force yourself to do something if you’re not ready/motivated.

Hi J, I’ve recently been reading a book on Multiple Streams of income where the author discusses how to protect your assets, by using LLC’s, living trusts, etc. What steps do you think are important to put in place for the average ordinary Joe with a Glass Jaw to protect his (or hers) assets? I mean I can’t keep fighting like this, at some point I’ll get brain damage :D

Haha… Well it all depends on how comfortable you are and what exactly you’re trying to protect, but as someone who just recently finished their will and trust, I can tell you it def. makes a world of difference in the peace department :) But then again I also have 3 kids counting on me and a business and house to worry about, etc… I don’t know if I’d mess with LLCs or a trust if it were just me right now and I was in the early stages of my journey, but there are certainly benefits to it.

Who would win in a fight to the death between all the humans and all the insects in the world, and why are you wrong in your answer?

We’ve got Chuck Norris, so… :)

If the point of FIRE is to pack it in when you have a self sustaining investment portfolio, do you indeed pack it in, or do you shoot for an 8 digit net worth? Or 9? Or the triple comma club? Or some other goal? What will you, J Money, do?

I think if you have to ask yourself that question you haven’t yet found a way to be content ;) There’s financial freedom, and then there’s trying to amass money just to see how much you can have in the end! Would I love to have more? Of course! But I think if you can learn to be happy with what you’ve got then the rest is all “extra” and not so much a *need*.

Does your wife work outside your home, well at least before covid tines? If so, what is her job/occupation? Also, how did you two meet?

My wife works for the government and normally telecommutes half the week and works from home the other half, but with the Covid stuff she’s thankfully able to work at home fully right now. And she loves her job so it’s great! (She’s an editor)

We met at a bar when she asked me where the bathroom was and I asked her to dance instead ;) She said no, and then an hour later she found me on the dance floor! I guess it was my sweet moves!! #NOT

1. The thing you are most proud of with money?
2. The most rewarding way you ever spent money? (can be a gadget, trip, experience, philanthropy)
3. Your craziest hidden talent

I’m most proud of finding a way to do what I want with my career while still managing to keep a household afloat :) Especially throughout all the ups and downs and crazy ideas I’ve had over the years!

The most rewarding way of spending my money will always be when it’s directed towards other people… I don’t know why that is as it’s literally THE OPPOSITE of what we work so hard towards, haha, but as Anne Frank once said, “No one has ever become poor by giving.”

Craziest hidden talent?! Does yard saling count?? :) I’m really good at finding them and bargaining people down, haha… Also I tend to work *more creatively* the less sleep I have! At least until I crash!

My question is about the mechanics of setting up a blog for affiliate marketing (write helpful content and link it to resources at Amazon or other vendors). I have a registered domain, hosting account with Bluehost, and purchased Elegant Themes. I also have a list of ideas to write about in a narrow niche. I can’t figure out the mechanics of getting a blog going. I have read a ton of blogs on the subject, but the information is usually vague (start a blog and write about something). What resource would you recommend that teaches about the number of pages one should have, fonts, where to get pictures from, and anything else related to setting up a blog?

Well, I’m probably the wrong person to ask for that as I prefer blogs that *aren’t* set up chiefly to make money as it tends to skew everything (language, intent, “feel”), however in either case it really does come down to writing your heart out and getting those ideas down on paper :)

Sure there are tips on word length (at least 600 for example for SEO) and cool fonts (I like these guys: https://www.1001fonts.com/) as well as places you can grab pics safely and free from (check out https://pixabay.com/ and https://unsplash.com/), but at the end of the day you need those articles pumped out for people – and Google – to start being able to find you. And perhaps even more important than that, you need to see if you actually ENJOY blogging and are good at it! Or the rest of the stuff doesn’t even matter!

So my recommendation is the same as those vague articles you’ve come across and to JUST START while you’re interested and ready to learn… Sure you’ll get things wrong, but the writing is 80% of the game!

What is one thing in your life that you wish you’d done differently and/or one regret you have that you wish you could change?

I don’t have too many regrets in life thankfully, but one I would have 100% done over would be to live a more MINIMAL life SOONER. I know we all get our epiphanies at different times so not sure how I would have *known* to do things differently, but man how much freedom – and joy! – I would have had if I had caught on sooner! All my dreams of tiny house living and getting rid of all my “stuff” would have been much easier to do before starting a family and having a million kids! Haha… Which I know technically you can still do, but we’re talking a way different story there ;) But oh well… there are worse problems to have of course!

If you had a million dollars and also had a 150,000 dollar student loan…what would you do with all that money?

Is it $1,000,000 *extra* dollars? If so I’d wipe away that debt once and for all and then invest the rest into index funds :) If my *net worth* is a flat million dollars, then I’d probably still wipe away the debt just to be rid of it and then make sure the rest is applied towards index funds and cash and perhaps some real estate if that’s your thing. A challenge for me has been *diversifying* more outside of just straight up retirement accounts (which account for the major chunk of our $$!), so the one nice thing about owning a home if I have to say a nice thing, lol, is that it does help spread across our $$$ better. And I’m also trying to focus more on our non-retirement brokerage account too now that the rest is so pumped up. But all fun questions to think about! I hope you just hit the lottery! :)

What is your favorite coin, and why? What are you doing next?

My favorite coin that I *own* is this old Indian head nickel that someone carved into a different face that I inherited from my grandma, and known as a “hobo nickel“:

But my most *favorite* coin that I’ll never be able to afford is the 1915-S Panama Pacific Gold Commemorative coin made up of 2 and 1/2 ozs of gold and shaped in an octagon :) Just look at that owl!!

What I’m doing next? Helping curate the best financial articles in the community for a new project that’ll be launching on Soapbox.com come July 6th. Make sure you’re signed up to my newsletter to get notified of it!

What kind of saving pots do you have? For e.g. do you have sinking funds/savings for travel, house repairs, general?

At the moment I only have a “house fund” for anything that breaks in the place or we want to upgrade (like the floors or bathrooms, kitchen, etc). We now have a new savings account in general under the trust we just set up, but right now that’s just some longer term money sitting there and not really earmarked for anything. I tend to only have one or two specific funds set up at any time due to my minimalism ;)

Best advice for building a successful blog that provides a full time income (let’s say 100K per year). Also, any advice on selling a blog?

HAH! Just going for the kill are we?? :)

You’ll have to see my note up above for my thoughts on starting a blog for money, but obviously it can be done and there are happy mediums of doing it like what we did here on this blog (ie did enough to survive but never made it the #1 priority). I would say your best chance of being successful with blogging is to first ENJOY IT! and then secondly be in it for the *long* haul as it’s not a fast ride ;)

Or better yet, use the blog as a *resume* and make money off the opportunities it brings! Like speaking or freelance writing or even coming up with your own products or books! Lots of ways to make money, but again it comes down to passion and hustle.

As for selling blogs once it’s time, I have a private email list of people interested in buying them and happy to pass along the details to gauge interest (if you wanna get on the list, sign up here – brokering/), but there are also larger brokers out there that will really market it and get a top offer but of course charge a nice commission as well :) Can’t think of their names off my head, but if you email me I can find them and email you back after this AMA is over.

Also FWIW  – most places look at the trailing 12 or 15 months of profit and stats, so always best to ramp it up good before you’re ready to sell for the best shot of maximizing a sales price!

Regarding generating passive income, it seems like the #1 suggestion is always invest in real estate and become a property manager (landlord). I know a lot of people doing this and always heard the horror stories so I’ve been very leery of this. What are your thoughts?

My thoughts are that it makes me want to vomit to even think about it :)

But then again I’m not a real estate lover and it HAS worked for people for hundreds, if not thousands of years! So there’s definitely validity to it, but thankfully there are plenty of other ways to bring passive income in too… Such as investing in the market long term – which is the route I choose to go (but has it’s own set of issues, of course). Really comes down to how comfortable you are with risk and what your personality is like.

Mr. Money, after following you for sometime now I am still asking myself, “why haven’t you started; what’s holding you back from financial freedom,” and being self taught and evolving monthly with stocks I continously find my brain racing to avoid the growth. So let me ask you, how did you go from lack to sack? What really drove you to become higher within yourself?

Hah! I’m not sure I exactly follow the question, but I can tell you I’ve been more motivated by *lifestyle design* than I have money over the past few years.  Since the whole point of money anyways is to craft the life we live! So perhaps focusing on the  *daily* changes you want to see in your life might be more motivating than the larger – harder – “growth” parts of it all? How do you see yourself living in a perfect world?? What would you be doing every day? Can you start doing some of it NOW and then incrementally do more over time? Those are the bigger questions that drive me, anyways :)

What advice do you have for someone who is extremely disorganized and hates tracking things and budgeting, but still wants to achieve FI? (I already pay myself first and max out my and my wife’s 401k and ira, so something beyond that). Thanks again for all the insight and motivation over the years!!!

How about tracking your net worth? A much easier – and quicker! – exercise to do every month? Maybe that’ll keep you motivated seeing how things overall change over time? Also if you’re like me, it’s usually more fun going “all in” on a certain goal too than trying to hit 13 different smaller ones :) Maybe there’s an area of your life/finances you can really turbocharge for a solid month or two and see what comes of it? Or maybe a hobby you can turn into a money maker, even if it’s just a little to add some fuel to the FIRE?

What I need/or am searching for the most is a great budget tracker/or Excel sheet example you might have, as I’m looking for a new, consistent way (and to help me do a better job quite frankly;) to budget out monthly, yearly, etc…..and find that extra $$ to put back into our family operations, savings, etc.

Have you come across this list of budget templates from the site yet? –> https://eliteedgemoney.com/free-budget-templates-sites/

Or these FIRE spreadsheets? –> https://eliteedgemoney.com/early-retirement-fi-spreadsheet/

If someone is about to give up on their FI journey, what would you say to them?

Ooooh good one! I don’t think I ever thought of that before? I suppose I’d want to know the *why* behind it so I could understand more and see if I could offer another perspective, but if I had a gun to my head and had to blurt something out, I guess I would say “Go do you thing and the door is always open for you to come back…”

I’ve never had success trying to convince someone to do something they really don’t want to do deep down (which is why I never jump into politics online! No one is there to be convinced otherwise no matter how many facts you throw their way!), so the best hope is to just let them know you’re always there if they wanna chat about stuff, and then hopefully they have another epiphany and are ready to jump back in :) Def. gonna have to think more on this one though… good one!

I’m curious when you selected a lawyer for your will, how did you go about that process? What did you look for? What questions did you ask?

Great questions! It took us over a YEAR to finally find someone we liked, but then again we weren’t ever really hardcore about it either ;) It basically came down to *asking around* for recommendations from people, and then chatting with each of them to get a better sense of how easy they were to work with as well as the costs of course…

I knew I’d have approximately 837 questions so I needed someone who could hold my hand and not get annoyed with me, haha, but at the same time help guide me to the *right* answers and in a perfect world do it in *person*. Half the people we called never called us back, and a majority of the others had their *assistants* call us back so that was a no go, so when we came across this smaller mom and pop shop who offered to meet over coffee to talk about stuff I was already 80% sold :) A few more chats later and we were all signed up and rolling!

So it’s def. good to know how YOU work, personally, and then try your best to find someone that’ll match up nicely. But getting recommendations def. helps speed up the process and already gives you one more level of trust since a friend or loved one already used them!

What did you learn most about yourself and what is your biggest takeaway that will keep you going for your next chapter?

I learned that I’m a VERY emotional person, and if something doesn’t excite me whether it makes a ton of money or not, the odds I actually do something about it are slim to none :)

I also learned that there really isn’t that many “rules” in life so you can basically do things on your own accord and get away with it just fine! You just have to ASK for what you want or just go for it! So long as you’re not hurting anyone in the process! (At least that’s one of my only rules I have for myself…)

Where do you invest your money, and do you still invest the same way in down turns such as this pandemic and the 2008 recession?

I invest all my money into Vanguard’s Total Stock Market Index Fund – ticker VTSAX. And it’s all still there, as I continue to add to it even in these Covid times!

I used to have my $$ scattered all over the place – and in all kinds of cockamaimy schemes – and then I finally woke up and started paying attention to what all my FIRE friends and bloggers were doing :) A few months of poking around later and I was quickly sold on the indexing strategy!

Here are my two main posts on it if you want to see the backstory and links to the resources that really helped me:

https://eliteedgemoney.com/say-hello-to-vanguards-newest-member/

https://eliteedgemoney.com/lazy-one-fund-investing-strategy/

What advice would you offer to someone who has pretty good income and savings rate, net worth approx $400k, but a very short time horizon (and interest rates are in the basement of course) to build wealth as quickly as possible?

Yikes! I don’t even WANT to answer that question because “making money” and “quick as possible” usually never ends well in the same sentence, haha… That being said, I’ve been pretty pleased with my returns by investing in index funds over the past half a decade or so, but without knowing your risk levels – and how short “very short” actually is? – it’s hard to really advise I’m afraid. If you find the answer though I hope you’ll tell all of us!! :)

So when are you all going to get an RV to travel this wonderful country and show the kiddos all the neat sites? Home – check. Minivan- check. RV??

I’ll check off that one when those first two checks are long gone, haha… I like going “all in” or nothing and don’t want another “thing” to worry about! :) If only I became a minimalist before starting a family!!

How much do you put away each month for each child? Where did you set up their account?

We were setting aside $50/mo/child, but just recently upped it to $100/mo/child so we can grow it faster (and also while things are lower right now!). We have all their money invested in Virginia’s 529 plan (virginia529.com) to milk the tax rewards along with it :) See if your state offers any too as you’re searching around!

This is random, but several years ago I used to have an app for Elite Edge Money but when I changed to a new phone and I tried to download the app it wasn’t there anymore – did you take out the app?

Hah – we never had an app! But if you type in “Elite Edge Money” in your phone’s browser you should be easily able to just add a “bookmark” to it on your home screen once it pops up. That’s how I view it every day!

I’m always curious how people meet their spouses – how did you meet yours? Your wife seems like a lovely wife and you have a beautiful family! And to be fair, since I asked how you met your wife I’ll tell you how I met my husband! We met in college and we started dating after we threw each other into a lake and I have pictures to prove it :P My 6 year old daughter loves it when I pull out the pictures to tell the story.

That is so cute!!! What a story!! My sons recently acted out *our* meeting in a play of theirs, haha, but it was much less fun :) She asked me where the bathroom was late one Friday night at the bar, and after I told her I asked her to dance. To which she politely declined, and then an hour later randomly showed up on the dance floor and we’ve been dancing together ever since! ;)

What are your thoughts on spending money on WEDDINGS? Is it worth it to spend on the (hopefully) one wedding you’ll ever have? Is it not worth the fuss and you should just save your money?

I’ll give you the same answer I give out whether it’s relating to weddings or houses or even Starbucks coffees :) If it’s something you VALUE and is important to you, by all means spend the money! It’s your life and you should be able to do what you want with it provided it’s within reason! Now if you’re also splurging on your home and cars and everything else you don’t care as much for, then you’re def. not doing it right, but on a few selected areas of life by all means convert that money into happiness!

What are your fondest memories from eliteedgemoney? What is your favorite legacy from it (or what do you hope your legacy will be from it)? And have you ever looked at a budget and thought, maybe I should change the name to “onlySOMEeliteedgemoney”? :)

Haha…

No to the changing of the name, but if i had to start a blog all over again it would be called FinancialFreedomIsSexy or NetWorthTrackingIsSexy.com, lol…. I haven’t budgeted in years ;)

As for the legacy and memories, it really has been all about you *readers* for me and just engaging day in and day out and feeling like one happy financial family :) I never set out to make a new career of it or for the blog – and the other projects that spawned from it – to take off as they did, as for me it was just about sharing some thoughts and having fun! And of course improving my *own* finances in the meantime.

So personally the site far exceeded any expectations that I had from month #1, lol, but it’s been a blast seeing where it’s all gone from there and I guess my only real hope for it is that the articles *stay online* for many years so they hopefully continue getting people to pay attention.

Will you leave us with the promise that when you have your first grandchild you will resurrect the “Baby Tracker” idea and convert it to how much a grandparent spends? Or am I the only one of your fans that found that idea both brilliant and extremely funny?

Haha… DEAL.

And it’s only funny because you KNEW there was no way I’d keep it up, right??? ;) Once that 2nd one came along??

I know you’re getting *out of the blog* business. But do you think there’s still room for opportunity and growth *in the blog* business? If you had net worth $0, would you start a blog today?

Totally!!

When I started everyone was saying it was overcrowded then too! Lol…

But guess what?? There are BILLIONS of people on this planet and literally only a few thousand bloggers. So there is *plenty* of room for more to come in – and especially those with interesting stories/ideas to tell :)

Now is it a good *way to make money*? Well, I’ve never been a fan of starting it for that reason since there are wayyy more ways to make it faster than blogging!, but if you’re *passionate* about it and want a better way to hold yourself accountable, starting a blog is 100% a great way to go about it. Plus, as you’ve seen here you never know where it could lead! I never thought I’d be doing it 12 years later and having my entire life and friends and career change from it! It’s been amazing!

Coffee or tea? And favorite flavor? :)

COFFEE. 100%.

Flavor? Hazelnut :) Although recently my sister turned me onto a “dirty chai” (you ever hear of that?) and it was pretty damn glorious, haha.. And gives you a mix of both coffee AND tea! If it weren’t so expensive I’d make it my daily drink :)

What does the “J” of J. Money stand for? And is that even your real first name? :p

It’s totally made up! Lol…

Though once a week someone will call me by a J name because in their head they just assumed it was whatever they thought :) Yesterday I was called Jacob, and the week before I was Jason!

I have 2 questions for you: 1) Would you recommend keeping some of your 3-6 months emergency in stock market (maybe a high dividend low volatile stocks)? And 2) I’ve been trying to increase our saving rates to be able to max out our 401K but it has been hard. Do you have any tips on keeping your household monthly budget down? We probably only eat out once a month.

RE: Emergency fund – nope, I’d never put it into the market or anywhere else with similar volatility as to me the E Fund is meant to be stable and super accessible. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t maybe just cut your fund in half and throw some into the markets and keep the other into savings or a money market or something like that, but I’ve never been a fan of putting it *all* somewhere other than a cash-related vehicle.

RE: Monthly budget – if you’re having a hard time cutting it further, it may very well be that you’ve done the best you can – at least to keep the lifestyle you’re currently enjoying. So in times like that it’s better in my opinion to just let it be and shift your focus towards *earning more* where you have much more flexibility and growth potential. Whether it’s at your current job or taking on hustles on the side… You can try and slash expenses even more if you’re willing to not enjoy life so much, but there’s only so much you can do and you certainly don’t want to hate waking up every morning :)

A question I have is what strategies did you use to grow your blog?

I networked a lot! I did some guest posting. I responded to every last comment and email and tweet. I tried to share the love as often as I could (re-share other peoples great content, cheer others on, etc). And then most importantly, I did my best to put out stuff I hoped people would like :) (And I did it *consistently* too – also important!) I never messed with SEO or any real “building” strategies much – but then again that’s also why I never got to millions of views a month either ;)

Do you and your wife share the same financial mine set?

Yup! And mainly just a coincidence too as it was nothing we really talked about until once we got married :( So SUPER lucky it turned out this way or who knows how this blog would have gone! Lol… (Although she doesn’t care much for the RE part of FIRE – she very much enjoys going to work and will be doing so for many years/decades? to come… all the while I’m retired ;))

What did you do before you became a finance rockstar and what was your monthly income?

I was a project manager, graphic designer, customer service manager, realtor, airline agent, Old Navy associate and approximately 30 other titles before landing here ;) Ranging from $10/hr to $78,000 + bonuses.

Here’s a breakdown of all the gigs whenever you’re bored: https://eliteedgemoney.com/all-30-jobs-ive-ever-done/

Is calculating net worth any different when you rent?

Nope! Net worth basically remains the same no matter how you live:

assets – liabilities.

You won’t have a “mortgage” in the liabilities section of the breakdown, but of course your rent will still affect cash flow which ultimately changes the #’s in the net worth, but you wouldn’t put “rent” in that section or anything…

What’s your 1RM bench press? And more importantly favorite local beer?

Nooo idea what a 1RM bench press is (I even Googled it and still don’t know!), but currently I’ve been really enjoying Boddingtons straight from the can… That little ball that floats around in it is a miracle worker! Haha… Love all the cream it creates up top as you crack it open!

For people starting out in blogging, how would you recommend they keep track of their previous posts so they know, as they’re creating new posts, what topics they can hyperlink to? I’m just beginning down this blogging journey but am realizing that I will need to create a system to track every post I’ve done but honestly I’m not good at being organized.

Oh man, I’ve just kept it all in my noggin and did my best to recall them when needed! But you’re right it’s not the most failproof system! Lol… Luckily wodpress has that little search section when you go to link to words in the article, but I don’t know of any other real ways outside of just manually throwing them in a spreadsheet or something w/ notes…

But really, it’s probably fine even when you do forget things because a) you don’t want to be linking to the same stuff ALL the time, and b) if you don’t remember it probably wasn’t anything too spectacular anyways? Plus most of this stuff just keeps being repeated in different ways only, so it allows you to recreate the thought or idea in fresher words to keep the party going…

There’s been multiple times I’ve written the exact same post over the years without even knowing it :) And that’s fine! People rarely remember it anyways, and every new day there are new people coming to your blog for the very first time. So don’t let it keep you up at night too much. Just keep pumping out those articles!

It seems as though the whole concept of FIRE is about getting your priorities straight. How would you describe your life philosophy/priorities in life?

Basically, yup!

It’s an ongoing process, but every year it seems I get more and more obsessed with improving my work/life balance, with most of the focusing going towards the “life” part :) As evidence of me retiring from this blog, haha..

I don’t know if others think about it as much as I do, but I’m constantly thinking about *death* and what all this life means and what our purpose is here, etc etc, and anytime I go down that rabbit hole “work” is rarely a part of the picture.

Now fortunately for many of us “work” really means “passion” so it’s not exactly a straight up job, but the more I contemplate death – and really NOT knowing when it’ll come! – the more I remind myself to live TODAY as best I can in case there isn’t a tomorrow. Something you can’t do too well if you’re finances aren’t in order and drowning in debt. So yet again more reason to work towards FIRE to be able to craft a more natural lifestyle for yourself! I’m only able to do this so fully because we put in the time and energy to get financially sound!

Can you share your best parenting tip for new parents? (expecting our first in a few months :) )

JUST LOVE THEM AS HARD AS YOU CAN!!!

It’s what the nurse told me when we left the hospital for the first time and I was freaking out :)

Said that no matter what you do you can never love them too much.
Best tip I ever got.

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[This post, Ask Me Anything!, was first published by J. Money on Elite Edge Money]