If you’re like most people, your annual household spending was down significantly in 2020 because of the pandemic. Saving money must have been on everyone’s mind, because the U.S. savings rate saw massive increases in 2020. By January of 2021, the U.S. savings rate had increased to 20.5%.
That’s certainly a lot of cash being saved! Bank deposits are now at record highs…
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Another month another dollar. That’s how I like to think about these regular monthly reports anyway. Every month we turn the crank one more time on the Wealth Machine. While our net worth actually increases a whole lot more than $1 in a single month, I like to think in simple terms — Dollars at a time.
It’s the KISS principle applied to wealth building!
Turning the crank means saving, investing those extra dollars, and then compounding any additional value…
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“Making sense of market volatility.” This was the subject of an email I found in my Inbox on Friday afternoon. “What’s all this?” I wondered. Schwab was sending out emails to investors in order to soothe fears stoked by the madness and volatility in heavily shorted stocks last week.
Last week was crazy-town. A few select stocks rose or fell by over 100% in a single day! The volatility was extreme, and trading volumes were through the roof. Blood was in the water…
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Living off passive income is a bit like spotting a snow leopard in the wild. Snow leopards are (of course) one of the most rare and elusive creatures on the planet. They live in the Himalayas at significant altitude (9,800 to 14,800 ft), and it’s estimated there’s less than 10,000 of these extremely rare cats alive today.
Seeing a snow leopard in the wild is exceedingly difficult. Hardly anyone ever sees them. Naturalists can spend months in the Himalayas looking, and never actually see one. Despite this fabled difficulty, it is actually possible to see a snow leopard in the wild…
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Yes, it’s that time once again! Every year I make one of these “net worth” blog posts in January to add-up all the different accounts, and calculate my net worth. I do this only once per year, so it’s a complete surprise to me when I see the final numbers!
Honestly, I have no clue what my net worth is the other 364.25 days of the year…
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Happy New Year! It’s no secret that I’ve had this blog on ‘pause’ for the past few weeks. I took some time off from writing to enjoy the Christmas and New Year’s holidays with the family. It’s been fun. I’ve spent a lot of time with the kids, playing board games, and ‘helping’ them test out their new toys. There’s also been plenty of socializing (virtually) with friends and family over Zoom.
It’s certainly been a very different Holiday season (to say the least), but we still managed to have a good one!
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If I’m being perfectly honest, November is really NOT my favorite month. Where we live in the Pacific Northwest, November tends to be extremely wet, cold and dark. This is usually not very conducive to a positive mental attitude. With only the Thanksgiving holiday, there aren’t even many holiday’s to look forward to in November.
This November was especially difficult, because like many other people we mostly stayed home due to the pandemic. I was feeling a little down to be quite frank…
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It’s hard to believe that I’m already back here writing a monthly financial update for the blog so soon! It seemed like only yesterday that I was wrapping-up September, and now I’m doing it again for October.
Time flies when you’re stuck at home during a pandemic, with two kids! I do my best, but I think both kids would rather being going to school and seeing their friends instead of being stuck at home…
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August is normally a month for travel… but 2020 is anything but a “normal” year. Despite the crazy pandemic situation, the Tako family did manage to do a little traveling this August.
With hot temperatures blanketing most of the Pacific Northwest, we first decided to escape the summer heat by heading out to the coast…
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