This website aims to provide you with the information needed to shift your financial paradigm to become more conscious of your personal finances and intentional with your spending.

  • Stop ‘Spaving’

    Spaving is a portmanteau of the words spend and save, and it refers to the act of spending to save money. There are many ways that we may be influenced by retailers to spave, and it can cause us to spend more than we intend to. Have you ever noticed…

  • Financial Independence

    Financial independence is achieved when your income from personally established sources, such as investments exceeds the amount needed to sustain your lifestyle. Once your investment income pays for your living expenses, you can theoretically live off of your investment income forever. The lower your expenditures, the smaller your investment portfolio…

  • A Dollar Saved is Two Dollars Earned

    In his book, The Wealthy Barber, author David Chilton famously wrote “a dollar saved is two dollars earned” which is a play on the common phrase “a dollar saved is a dollar earned” (Chilton, 2002). His version corrects the former version because it did not account for taxation – the…

  • Understanding Your Personality

    In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, he introduces the reader to the concept of ‘thin-slicing’ – using a small specific set of information about someone to make an accurate assessment of their personality. He explains psychologist Samuel Gosling’s experiment where individuals were tasked with assessing the personality traits of strangers based…

  • Life Expectancy

    Life expectancy is an important factor when planning for retirement. Although we can all plan for the age we will be at the start of retirement, none of us know for sure at what age our retirement will end.  The length of retirement is important since your retirement savings will…

  • The Rule of 375

    There’s a quick and simple way to determine how much retirement savings you need at the start of a thirty-year retirement starting in your sixties. The Rule of 375 which is based on the well-known 4% rule, uses your monthly spending requirement in retirement and factors in a rough 20%…

  • Would you buy it if no one could see it?

    The first time I realized how much some people pay for status was when my boss purchased himself a Ferrari in 2014. Until then, and with me being a bit of a car enthusiast, I (naively) thought only car buffs purchased high-performance sports cars. But when I saw my boss…

  • What is your ‘Monthly Minimum’?

    Everyone should know their ‘Monthly Minimum’ – this is the minimum amount of money it takes for you to live your life. The amount should include all the expenses you incur simply to survive. It should include expenses like rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, fuel for automobiles, property tax, insurance, health insurance,…

  • Voluntary Taxes

    Many of the taxes we pay are voluntary and can be avoided or minimized. This post is not about sophisticated tax avoidance schemes or offshore banking – it’s about realizing what taxes we pay that are completely within our control and taking action to minimize them. Sales Tax Most states…

  • Status Tiers

    No matter what you achieve, there will be a higher level you want to progress to. This is obvious as you think about your career, education, and everything you buy. You start your career in an entry-level position, and you aspire to become a manager. Once you become a manager,…

  • ‘Net Worth Mindset’

    It is beneficial to maintain a ‘net worth mindset’. What I mean is that you should consider how each purchase and every item you own impacts your net worth. When you purchase an item, think to yourself: at what rate will the item depreciate? What recurring costs will this item have?…

  • Think Backwards 

    Periodically, I review my items and assets and consider what I should keep and what should be sold off. Generally, the older something gets, the more value it loses, so the longer you hold onto things that are not being used, the more it costs you. Around 5 years ago…