Swagbucks.

Swagbucks is an online survey website that gives you points for every survey you take. They aren’t just surveys as you can also watch videos or get cashback on purchases at popular stores. Tara and I both set up separateaccounts and did surveys for about half hour a day each. We ended up with enough points to get amazon gift cards for about $25 and I got a $10 visa gift card. We used this to help with some of our renovations on our house and bought a gift for our son. Taking the surveys can be a little time-consuming, but if you are able to take a good amount of surveys a day, you can earn quite a bit of points for gift cards

Microsoft Rewards.

This one I just recently started and haven’t been able to redeem my points for anything yet. It’s similar to swagbucks in that you can redeem your points for gift cards or enter contests, but it’s more related to bing searches and short questionnaires. You rack up points if you come back every day and complete one of the tasks they have, which are really simple to complete.  In just a few weeks of using microsoft rewards, I have 3k points. For a $5 gift card, you will need about 6,500 points, depending on which card you are going for. If you invest just 15 minutes a day, you could easily get 6,500 points in a couple weeks. For not a whole lot of time, it’s a pretty good deal.

Sell old clothes.

I didn’t do this one, but Tara did with some of her clothes and some old baby clothes. She goes into secondhand clothing stores that will buy clothes in good condition. Just by selling some of Rhett’s old clothes, she was able to make around $50. If you have extra clothes lying around, this would be a good option for you. This isn’t really something you can rely on regularly, unless you have a lot of clothes or buy clothes regularly.

Become a referral partner.

This is another one that we are currently working on, but have seen success with others around us. Companies will often have a reward for referring business to them. For example, a local insurance company will give you a gift card for referring a friend to them. Others, like P2 Worldwide, will offer you a portion of the revenue they make. If you can find the right niche to do this in, you can make a lot of money. I’ve heard of people making $2,000 extra a month being a referral partner.

Cashback credit cards and apps.

This is SUCH an easy one and something you should be doing on all of your purchases. These money saving apps help you earn cash back on everyday items from stores you are already shopping at. Some of these apps will scan your receipts and if they find it somewhere else for cheaper, they will refund you the difference! Other apps give you a percentage of what you spent, which is pretty awesome if you ask me! My personal favorites are Ibotta, Paribus and EBATES.

What are your favorite ways to earn extra money? Comment below

FEES

The number one reason why we invest with Vanguard is because of their low fees. They don’t charge commissions for trading, which separates them from the rest of the pack.

The only thing you pay for when buying and trading Vanguard funds is their expense ratio.

For the index fund that I buy, VTI, I only pay .04%. Some funds have an expense ratio of .1% for comparison. I’m sure it comes to no surprise that the less fees you pay, the more money you get to keep. Having the low fees from Vanguard seems like a no-brainer when it comes down to making more money.

You are in control

With Vanguard funds, I am in charge of where my money goes. I have always believed that I am the sole person who will take care of my money the best. I don’t want to trust anyone else with my money because they won’t treat it as carefully as I will.  Sure, there is more responsibility on my shoulders to make the most of my investments, but that’s something I’m comfortable with. Many people use financial planners to invest for them, but Vanguard easily takes out the middleman and allows you to do it on your own, which saves you lots of money.

Free education

Vanguard provides plenty of resources to learn about what you are investing in. They breakdown most everything to make it simple and easy to understand. I don’t have a degree in finance, nor do I spend copious amounts of time studying things related to finance, but Vanguard makes it easy to understand.

Returns

The Index fund that I have most of my investment in, VTI, has performed well for me. This index fund covers the entire stock market in the US, which allows me to not worry about things like timing the market or researching companies in depth. If you are like me, we don’t have the time to do that.

These are the main reasons why we invest with Vanguard. If you would like help setting up a Vanguard account, or if you have any general questions about investing, feel free to ask below in the comments, or send us an email at thefundfamly@gmail.com and we will walk you through it all.

About two years ago I was working a job that wasn’t ideal. I wasn’t treated very fairly and was expected to do things that would cut in to my normal life. My pay was only $12 an hour and the promises made to me of a raise never came true. I knew I would need to find a better job and fast.

Finding a better job is how Tara and I were able to grow our net worth, travel and get out of debt. Here’s what I did to get the job that I currently have:

Look at your options

The first thing I did was look at my options. I have a bachelor’s degree in psychology and have worked a bunch of different jobs within that field. Working in psychology is tough to make money, especially if you only have bachelor’s degree. It seemed like I didn’t have any other options.

I looked into graduate programs to see if I could further my education in something else. I didn’t really want to go back to school, but I was willing to if I felt like it was necessary. Finally, I came across a cybersecurity program at a local university.

Do some research on the job you want

After looking into the cybersecurity program, I realized that I might actually like a career in it. I looked at what the program would take and how long. I didn’t like the idea of going back to school for another year or having to pay all that money for graduate school, but it seemed like the average pay was decent enough to justify it.

Talk to people in that field

After I had decided that I wanted to work in the IT field, I found people in that field that I could talk to. Even people I knew weren’t in that field, I mentioned what I had wanted to do. To my surprise, my dad had recently started to teach himself how to code and suggested that I teach myself how to code as well. So, I went out to freecodecamp.org and started to learn.

Learn everything you can about what you want to do

Once I started to code, I realized that I could teach myself how to do that without having to go to school. I spent as much time as I could learning more and more about coding. I found ways to learn for free. For example, I used freecodecamp.org, codecademy.com, took free courses on udemy.com and even found YouTube videos that I could learn from. With the hope that I could quit my job earlier, I did this all while I still worked there. Fortunately, I was let go from my crappy job before I could quit. This gave me ample time to code and look for other jobs in the IT field.

Don’t be afraid to apply to jobs you may not be qualified for

Once I had lost my job, I knew I needed to find a new job quick. I didn’t feel like I was really qualified for any coding job, but I was desperate enough that I just went for it. I probably applied for around 50 jobs and only heard back from about 5 of them. Some were jobs that I wouldn’t be coding, but I could potentially go into a role like that. I was honest and upfront about my shortcomings, but tried to be clear that I could pick it up and be good at whatever I was assigned to.

Network, network, network

One of the best things I did while jobless was talk to people who were currently working in the IT field. I asked about what they did and if they had job openings at their current company. I told them what I was working on and what I hoped I could do. My current job I got almost solely because I was able to network with the right people. One of the guys I networked with was impressed with what I was doing. This guy (who I currently sit right next to) talked to the managers at my current job and put in a good word for me. My managers were impressed and asked for an interview. I was vastly under qualified for my job, but they took a chance on me because I was willing to learn and grow quickly.

Never stop learning.

My job is one that is always changing. Luckily, this allows me to continue to learn and be marketable in many different ways. If my job were to let me go, I would be able to quickly find another job. This takes the pressure off of being reliable on one job and even gets me raises at my current job.

Are you currently looking for a new job? If you have a good job now, what helped you get this job? I would love to hear about what worked for you to find a better job!

Today’s interview is with Ben.   

Personal

Name: Ben D.

Age: 27

Your home location: Provo

Career/Source of regular income: Business owner and college teacher

What do you do for fun? Play with my kids, play sports, geek out over personal finance  

Success Tips

What has led to your success?

I think the biggest thing has been learning as much as I can. I read books, blogs, articles, etc. and try to soak up as much as possible. That’s actually how I started with the concept of FI, by stumbling on a blog. But it’s not just reading, it’s actually applying what I read.

Advice to people trying to achieve success?

Don’t look at it as a sprint, view it as a marathon. It takes time and patience to get to where you want to be. Set goals with measurable actions and track your progress. I have spreadsheets with three years of tracking our money. It’s fun to look back and see how far we’ve gotten the past three years, and it motivates us to keep going.

Read. A lot. The more I read, the more I learn and become successful. Even if you don’t want to read, listen to audiobooks or podcasts. There’s so much information out there.

Don’t do it alone. Get a support system and help each other reach your goals.

How do you measure success?

For me, success is when I accomplish a goal. It may be a small goal like to read one article daily, or a huge goal like buying an investment property. I like to focus on the small daily “wins” and allow those to accumulate to one big accomplishment. It’s the little things that add up.

What are your success habits?

In terms of personal finance, I’ve found my best habit to be to check and keep track of our personal finance on a regular basis. It helps us succeed when we know where our money is going.

Financial Independence/Retirement Plans

What does financial independence (FI) mean to you?

The common definition is when your passive income exceeds your monthly income. To me, that is the ultimate goal because it means I am free to explore life the way I want to. I’m the type of person that gets bored easily with just one thing and it would drive me insane to have the same job day in and day out for 40 years. To be financial independent means I am able to shift gears when I want to try something new without any implications on providing for my family.

Do you have plans for financial independence/retirement?

It’s my goal to be financially independent by 40 years old.

Why do you want to achieve retirement/financial independence?

I’ve never been a fan of having someone or something control my life and my everyday schedule. I love the concept of being free to enjoy life doing things I’m passionate about with the people I want to be with. I’ve never had a full-time “9-to-5” job and it’s my plan to keep it that way and instead use that time to .

If you had to start over, what’s the most important thing you would focus on?

I would have started saving and investing earlier at a younger age. My wife grew up in a thrifty family and already had solid personal finance principles when we married and had a strong savings account and no debt. My single days were full of spending every penny I earned and I didn’t have any savings and had some debt. It wasn’t until about a year into our marriage that we really started going beyond just saving money in the bank. We paid off all my debt and opened retirement accounts and started investing in properties. I really think if we had known what we know now back when were single, we would be much more ahead and could be financially independent much earlier than 40.

I would specifically focus on tracking my spending/knowing where my money was going and opening a retirement account earlier.

What tips do you have for others who want to grow their income?

Learn as much as you can and just do it. If it’s side hustling, investing, getting a raise, sales, whatever, become the best you can be and don’t be afraid to fail. I hate failing, but I love learning from my failures and figuring out how to improve.

Do you have any sources of income besides your career? If so, can you list them?

We own three rental properties and I own a business. We also do independent contractor work for various companies whenever we can.

Do you have a budget? If so, how do you implement it?

I used to have a budget with my wife when we first married. After about 3 years of observing our spending habits, we have been able to fall in a groove and no longer stick to a budget. We still meticulously track every penny we spend.

What is your investment philosophy/plan?

Right now, we’re focusing on retirement accounts and property investing. We max out our ROTH IRAs every year. My wife has a 401(k) at her work that we put 10% of her income in every month. We’ve bought three properties in the last three years and are focusing on a “snowball” with our rental income and we hope to be able to build a solid portfolio of cash flowing properties.

Do you give to charity? Why or why not? If you do, what percent of time/money do you give?

We donate at least 11% of our income. We strongly believe in giving back to the community. We’ve been fortunate to be in the situation we are and to be in a position to give back.

Set financial goals and ask yourself Why

With any area of my life, I have found it is very important to set goals. In the case of finances, you want to make sure you have purpose behind your penny pinching. If not, you will find that you fail so much more easily because there is no purpose or reasoning behind it! When we had debt, our reason for frugality was to be able to pay off the debt as quickly as possible. Since we’ve been debt-free, our reasons have become a little more fun, such as saving to buy a home, travel and vacations, and making memories.

Create a budget and check in with it!

Use the envelope system

We have also discussed just how helpful and effective the envelope system is before, but want to reemphasize just how much it will help you to be successful in your finances! It helps you take control of your spending and be more conscious of where your money is going. There was a study done that shows consumers who pay with credit cards focus more on the benefit of their purchase, while those who pay cash concentrate more on its cost. That is because there is an emotional pain associated with handing over physical currency, as opposed to swiping a credit card where that money is out of sight and out of mind. There are so many benefits to using the envelope system and I strongly encourage you to look more into it here!

Look at every purchase as an investment

Identify your spending weaknesses and address them!

By having a budget and tracking your spending you should be able to account for every dollar. Take a look at your expenses and see where you are unnecessarily spending. For some this is picking up unplanned and unnecessary items at the grocery store, online shopping, or buying a soda every day. Whatever your weakness may be, come up with a few ideas on how to combat them. If you find yourself always throwing extra things in the shopping cart at the grocery store, maybe try ordering your food online and picking it up! This way you track your spending while you shop and can resist impulse buys. If online shopping is your downfall, try unsubscribing from the shopping email lists, or following shops on social media that make you want to spend spend spend!

Read books or listen to podcasts that will help educate and motive you financially

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• You can make money. Lots of people make full-time salaries from their blogs and have built lucrative businesses that make 6,7, and sometimes 8 figure salaries a year. With relatively low costs to run and maintain a blog, the return on investment has the potential to be a lot
• It can be a journal for yourself
• It provides a stage to reach lots of people.
• You can write about things you are passionate about. A blog is the perfect way to let people know how you feel about your topic.
• It’s fun.

There are plenty of other reasons, but these seem to be the most popular. If you can combine these together, your blog can turn into something really special.

Setting up your blog

We set up our blog on bluehost and installed wordpress to the site. We recommend that you do the same.

The first thing you will need to do is to check for a domain name. This will be what you want your website to be called. There are a number of ways to check if a domain name is available. WordPress’ site is simple to use.

Or Google’s

Once you have found a domain name, you’ll want to register that name. Bluehost is the way to go. Bluehost offers web hosting, which is “a service that allows organizations and individuals to post a website or web page onto the Internet“. Click on this link, which will give you a discount with bluehost and a FREE domain and site builders. The best part about bluehost is that they give you a 30 day money back guarantee. They also have 24/7 support if the need ever arises.

The basic plan should cover most of your blogging needs. This plan is only $2.75 a month if you use our link. This includes the free domain as long as you sign up for 12 months or longer.

From there, it will ask you to pick how long you want to host for. Depending on how long you choose to host for, the price will vary. The minimum option is for 12 months ( remember you can always cancel within 30 days). It will ask if you want some security options as well.

The next step would be to install wordpress. This has been made really easy by bluehost. All you need to do is click on the “Start Building” button and it will give you the option to install.

Configure your blog

Your blog is now set up! From the wordpress dashboard, you can configure it to how you like. The default themes that wordpress give you aren’t all that great, so you’ll probably want to go in and pick your own.

Once you have a theme picked out, you’ll want to make your site “live”. You’ll do this by going to the settings tab and general. From there you should see this: You’ll want to have this off.

To wrap up, here’s a quick recap:

1. Find a domain name
2. Set up web hosting through bluehost
3. Install wordpress
4. Configure your blog
5. Start posting!

You are now ready to start posting! If you have any questions about this process, you can always give us an email or go to bluehost support. We are happy to help with anything we can! Happy blogging!

Investing doesn’t have to be complicated and you don’t need any fancy degree or work experience to do it.  Anyone can be successful at it too! But to be successful, you need to understand some core principles behind investing. Below are 6 simple principles that will help anyone succeed when investing! Take a look and let us know if you have any additional principles you follow!

1. Start early 

The earlier you start investing, the more compounding interest will take effect and benefit you big time. Compounding interest, put simply, is interest earning more interest. As your interest earns interest, linear growth becomes exponential and suddenly the dollar you originally invested is worth much, much more.

For example, the graph below shows two different investors. One invested $10,000 (“Investor A”), the other $35,000 (“Investor B”), assuming a 10% annual growth rate. Can you guess which line is which?

If you guessed the blue line is Investor A, then you are absolutely right! How is this possible? By starting early, and letting compounding interest do its thing. In this example, Investor A put aside $1,000/year from age 21-30 and never put aside another dime. Investor B started investing at 31, also putting aside $1,000/year, and invested until he/she was 65. Investor A’s $10,000 investment was able to gain more momentum and capture the positive effects of compounding interest more than Investor B, who ended up investing more over a lifetime. This goes to show, we need to start early! (And really, we should be a mixture of the two investors by not only starting early, but continuing to invest the money throughout our lives, and not just for a few years.)

Ideally, we all should’ve started investing as kids, but if you are anything like me, you had no idea investing was a thing, let alone knew how to do it. But it’s not too late to start now, regardless of how old or young you are. Investor B may not be as well off as Investor A, but Investor B’s $35,000 still turned into almost $300,000! So wherever you are at in life, just start ASAP!

2. Diversify

Let me tell you a tale of two stocks from personal experience.

Stock 1:

I had known that I wanted to invest for a while now, but lack of know-how kept me from doing so. Finally, I had a friend kind of show me the ropes a little bit and I went for it. One of the first things I invested in was a stock of a company that I only knew because I knew and respected one of the VPs. I didn’t really know what the company actually did. At the time, the stock was trading for about $35/share and I bought around 11 shares. In the first month or two, things were great! My investment went up by $20 or so and it felt great. Then the volatility and reality of stocks showed its ugly face and over the next few months, the investment went from trading in the mid-$30s to a whomping low of about $12. I had seen my investment lose roughly 65% of its value in probably less than year. Yikes! It took another year or two just to break even, and at that time I cashed out as fast as I could.

Stock 2:

Fast forward a year or two from the investment in the first stock. I had learned a bit more about investing and had made better choices since then. One day, I happened to look into Apple’s stock and noticed that it had dropped to about $99 a share, when it had once traded for much more than that. I decided to jump on that and purchased a grand total of 1 share! But hey, I was a poor college student, so I couldn’t do much more. I held that stock for almost two years, and during that time I watched that stock go from $99 to about $176 when I finally sold it. That was awesome! Easiest money I’ve ever made.

So why do I tell these stories? Well, quite simply because I wouldn’t recommend investing in stocks at all. Sure, one experience was positive, but the other one was quite painful. Principle #2 is all about diversifying. What are we diversifying exactly? We aren’t just trying to diversify what we own, we are trying to diversify risk. Owning stock in a single company is by definition, the opposite of diversifying your risk. You are literally putting all your eggs in one basket, hoping that the basket doesn’t fail you. So if you decide you want to invest in stocks, keep this in mind.

In order to diversify risk, you want to own a variety of shares in companies that are in a variety of industries. This means, not investing all of your money in technology alone, but investing in utilities, consumer products, etc. The easiest way to diversify your risk is through mutual funds or ETFs that track indexes such as the S&P 500.  A little research can go a long way when it comes to diversifying risk. We will have future articles outlining how to do this research and try to make it as simple as possible!

Now, keep in mind there will always be some form of risk involved. But without risk, there is no reward. The key is being wise about the risks you take.

3. Seek low-fee investments

The last thing you want for your investments is to see a lot of value lost through high management fees or other expenses. This is why you want to find ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and Mutual Funds that have low management fees and expenses. Anytime you look up a ticker symbol of an ETF or Mutual Fund, it will tell you the fee rate. It doesn’t take a genius to know you want this number as low as possible.

ETFs that track an index (such as “SPY”) generally have very low expense rates that can be less than 0.1%. This is due to the fact that they are not actively managed by fund managers who are trying to outperform the market (and who usually fail to do so). A good rule of thumb is to try to find funds that have net expense ratios of 0.6% or less, but the lower you can get this, the less money you’ll lose on fees with your investment.

4. Avoid investment vehicles you don’t understand

If you read our Steps to Wealth Building article, you know we are fans of K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid), and the same applies here. Complicated investments are rarely worth it. Most of the time people are just taking advantage of others’ ignorance and making a fortune off of fees and commissions. Investing in the market as a whole is a simple way to invest and it’s proven to be a great long-term investment. You don’t need complicated. If you don’t understand the investment, chances are it’s not worth it.

5. Take advantage of employer matches on 401(k).

This is pretty simple: any employer match is an immediate return on investment. So take advantage of this! Our recommendation is to invest just enough in the 401(k) to receive the maximum match. The rest of your investment should target tax-advantaged instruments such as Roth IRAs.

6. Invest for the long-term

Remember, investing isn’t about right now, it isn’t about 5 years from now: it’s about the long-term! So try not to get too caught up in the natural volatility of the overall market. Things happen, prices change. But in the end, the market always goes up. Check out this graph of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the last 40 years.

GDP is a measure of overall economic and market health and the graph shows that is has always trended upward.  The gray bars that occur periodically are recessions and their respective lengths. You’ll notice that recessions seem to happen every 5 or 10 years. This can be scary for a lot of people wanting to invest. But this shouldn’t stop you from investing. Recessions happen, but if you keep your mind-set on the long-term, these recessions shouldn’t phase you. Invest, and let your investments sit. They will assuredly rise and fall, but in the end, the market always goes up.

The other big reason to invest for the long-term, is to take advantage of tax law. Any investment held over 1 year is no longer subject to your ordinary income tax rate, but will now be subject to a much more favorable capital gains tax rate once the investment is sold.

As the table shows, the capital gain rates are much more favorable than ordinary income tax rates. So make sure that when you invest, that you hold it longer than a year if possible! Keep more money in your pocket.

Recap

Let’s do a quick recap of our 6 principles for successful investing:

1. Start early
2. Diversify
3. Seek low-fee investments
4. Avoid investments you don’t understand
5. Take advantage of employer matches on 401(k)
6. Invest for the long-term

These are simple principles that will help you to become a wise investor. Look out for our future articles that will go more into detail about investment strategies, and investment research!

Are there any other principles you abide by when investing? Comment below!