by The Investor on February 15, 2008
Welcome to my site about making more of your money. You may like to subscribe to the RSS feed for the latest articles. Thanks for visiting!
Most of us get into investing because we want freedom, whether from office bores, traffic jams or the drudgery of a mortgage. We want to be free from having to work for a living.
Why then are most money-motivated books called things like The Millionaire Next Door
or Secrets of the Millionaire Mind? A million isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still more than most of us need for financial freedom.
What we’re really looking for is a replacement for our salary. The number on your pay check is the number you need to beat to retire early. If your monthly wage turned up in your bank account no matter what you did, wouldn’t you feel pretty financially free? You could quit work the next day if you wanted, although there’s no reason to take to the golf course – you could get a fun job, work for charity, or do all sorts of other exciting things instead.
Why you should consider targeting income instead of capital
[click to continue...]
by The Investor on September 4, 2007
“I am not obliged to do any more. No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.”
Samuel Johnson
I assume the famous 18th Century Londoner and pioneer of the dictionary Samuel Johnson would include women if he were still issuing pithy soundbytes today. Men and women alike are now working longer hours than ever, albeit for better salaries than ever before.
Our combined efforts are keeping Britain and the US among the richest economies in the world (fourth and first, respectively). But to what end?
The British public has shopped its way into over a trillion pounds in debt. We’ve bid up house prices to crazy levels, with desperate first time buyers borrowing historically huge multiples of their salaries just to buy a starter flat, and often giving little thought to the long years ahead of repaying the mortgage.
The British work the longest hours in Europe, and what do we have to show for it: Multi billion pound shortfalls in pension contributions, and calls for the retirement age to rise to 75.
[click to continue...]
by The Investor on September 3, 2007
The inspiration behind Monevator.com is a family member close to my heart. He retired a few years ago at 64 years of age.
He’d managed to retire a year early. He’d wanted out for a decade beforehand, but he couldn’t afford to leave.
If money was tight, why did he cut and run at 64, instead of sticking it out until 65? I’d love to say that at 64 he suddenly discovered his inner hippy, or better yet a winning lottery ticket down the back of the sofa.
Alas, he had been diagnosed with cancer. He realised that he didn’t want to spend another day working in a job he was sick of, to contribute to a pension he might never see.
[click to continue...]
by The Investor on September 2, 2007
Most of us grow up being taught that work is a healthy, natural thing. And to an extent it is – especially if you’re on the receiving end of someone else’s labour.
It’s also undeniable that periods of high unemployment have blighted generations, leaving entire communities such as Britain’s former industrial heartlands in Wales and the North drifting for generations when the work went away.
So if work is so important, why give it up?
[click to continue...]
