You already have everything you need to sort out your finances. Much as we enjoy daydreaming about a future where some event or person changes our finances, the money we earn and spend every month holds the key to a stress-free financial future.
Long-term savings goals
Whether your goal is financial independence by retirement or before, long term savings are how you get there. Long-term savings differ from short term, because the amount you need is so much larger. When it comes to long-term financial goals, the money you’ve saved must also work.
Reaching your short-term savings goal
When we live to our last cent, saving seems impossible. We share some strategies for reaching short-term financial goals, the most common reasons people fail to reach these goals and what to do about it.
Getting rich takes time, not money
We tend to assume investing is something rich people do. If you’re not earning much, it can be tempting to put your goals on hold until you’re more liquid. But compounding is not about money. It’s about time.
Types of savings
Thanks to the money-making twins you know that savings protect your money while investments grow your money. Money that you’ll need in the next few months or the next five years, goes to Savings. But you can make find ways to make Savings work a little harder.
What you get when you save
The reason saving and investing are so different has to do with what the money does when you’re not looking. Money in a savings account keeps being money. Money you invest, however, becomes an asset.
Choosing between saving and investing
You want to keep some of your money safe in case you need it, but you want to put some of your money to work so you can stop working. Deciding how much money should go to investing, and how much to savings, depends on one question: When do you need your money back?
Saving and investing are not the same
Saving and investing are similar, but do different things. Pretend they’re twins – one an entirely forgettable accountant, the other an adventurer who met Madonna
What’s in the way of financial independence?
There are only four things that can prevent you from achieving financial independence. Luckily they can all be overcome if you understand them, and they are all really easy to understand.
Four roads to discipline
Financial change happens one pay cheque at a time, but there are many things we can do between pay cheques to ensure we are better at our finances from one payday to the next. Consider this your how-to guide for financial discipline.