Red Pill Finances

I was listening to one my favorite podcasts recently, Afford Anythin g, and this episode about building incredible habits. It went into way more detail about starting new habits than I will here, so be sure to give it a listen, got it?  Here's the link again for the Afford Anything Podcast.  One thing that stood out for me is that it's harder to create a new habit of NOT doing something, versus a new habit of doing something. Sounds weird, right?  Well what do you call a "habit"of saving the money buy not going out to dinner and dining in instead? Or not spending it on that daily latte? ('because the cost of one latte a day, invested over 30 years with an 8%  compound interest is approximately ten millions dollars..slight exaggeration.) Is it a "non-habit"? I don't know.  Years ago, before I ever listened to this podcast, I looked into my spending and found out what I call little "Money-suck habits".  On their own, they're...

Last year at this time, I made my last debt payment to my credit card.  You want to know how bad it was?  Fine. In August 2016 I had racked up over $33k in credit card debt. Whereas before I rarely carried a credit card balance over one pay cycle.  Since then, I have saved a 3 month emergency fund, started saving towards a down payment for a rental property  (48% of target as of this date).  There's a lot more to be said about this process. The most important thing in my mind is being intentional about your damn money. You earned it. Quit fucking around and get a hold of it.  Do you know where your money is going every month?  Do you even know the total of your fixed monthly expenses?  Do you even know the per month breakdown of your irregular expenses? Do you even plan for the irregular expenses?  How much disposable cash do you have every month? If you can't answer these questions, there's a good chance you're f'in up...

LIfestyle inflation is simply increasing your spending every time you earn more money.  Investopedia describes it really well, and has some great advice:  Lifestyle inflation refers to increasing one's spending when income goes up. Lifestyle inflation tends to continue each time someone gets a raise, making it perpetually difficult to get out of debt, save for retirement or meet other big-picture financial goals. Lifestyle inflation is what causes people to get stuck in the rat race of working just to pay the bills. Screw that. I'm going to avoid this typical scenario. That shit's for the normies.  I just received a 18% increase in pay at work, and have a few goals centered around making it work for me, rather than letting it disappear into the mist....  Few things, just to be certain, I'm not going to live like a miser, or be a annoyingly cheap stiff.  I'm going to invest MOST of my pay increase, not all of it. Life is to be enjoyed, and I'm...

I’ll be focusing on beating lifestyle inflation so I, and hopefully you, learn not to waste money every time you get a pay increase