2 years ago, I was hesitant to upgrade to a smart phone because I thought it was too expensive. I liked my cheap old flip phone. I just used it to call and text, what else did I need? I also didn’t want to pay $60+ per month just for the privilege of checking email […]
Republic Wireless New Moto E and New Plans Review

Do you ever contemplate leaving it all behind and calling it quits? If you’re like me, you don’t like office politics, traffic jams, endless meetings, and all the BS from management. However, I didn’t consider quitting my job until 2010 when I discovered personal finance and found that I probably could swing it and retire […]
[…] Read more:  5 signs you’re not ready to retire early

I must confess – I have a tendency to procrastinate. If something is minimally working, I am very reluctant to replace it. Our HVAC system died a few years ago and I still haven’t gotten a new one. Luckily, we live in a moderate part of the country and we can make do with our kotatsu […]
DIY weekend – New 1.28 gpf American Standard VorMax Toilet

Q1 2015 is over and it’s time for a dividend income update. One of my goals for 2015 is to generate $10,000 in dividend income. Let’s see how we did so far this year and go over a few highlights and lowlights. Dividend Income Q1 For the first quarter of 2015, our dividend income was […]
Q1 2015 Dividend Income Update

Isn’t it a great time to be an investor in the stock market? The stock market has been on a tear for over five years and every investor has made a lot of money during that period. It’s great to see our net worth increase on paper, but this can’t last forever. Historically, the stock […]
Are You Prepared For The Next Stock Market Crash?

I started Retire By 40 in 2010 to share my journey to early retirement. I knew you could make a few dollars blogging, but I really wasn’t sure it would be significant. I didn’t count on the online income to help me quit my job or anything. Fortunately, I was wrong on that account. Retire […]
Make Money Blogging

Last week, I read a blog post about someone’s dream home and I thought it’d be fun to share my dream home here. I’m also really worn out from wrestling with our taxes this weekend so I need an easy topic to write about. Current home Our current home is a 2 bed/2 bath condo […]
What’s your dream home like?

Last week, Melanie mentioned some money skills to teach your kids and I thought it’d be good to examine what we’re doing. Our kid is only 4 years old so it’s a bit too early to teach him about investing or something complicated like that. At this age, he knows money is a good thing. […]
What we’re teaching our kid about money

By Melanie Lockert (our staff writer) Ever since I started on my financial journey to get out of debt, one thing has become apparent to me: most people don’t know anything about money management. Financial education is grossly lacking in school, and by the time we do finally learn about money, it’s usually because of […]
[…] Read more:  How Will Your Kids Learn About Money?

Everyone wants to be rich, right? Even if you can’t be rich, at least you can try to look like you’re rich. Well, I don’t consider us wealthy, but I think we are much more financially successful than the average American family. Our retirement account is in much better shape than the median household. We […]
How to Appear Richer Than You Are