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4 Tips on How to Beat Inflation. Stock Market Performance Between 2020 and 2024
As of April 2024, the stock market was down 5% and inflation is still up 3.4%. Although the market recovered since, day-to-day life has become unaffordable for most Americans. In 2024, money isn’t cheap anymore; proving that financial illiteracy is expensive. At this rate, your knowledge or financial awareness equals your family’s future purchasing power. If you want to compete in modern times, it’s now mandatory to invest. Investing $100 in the S&P 500 at the beginning of 2020, you would have about $145.67 at the end of 2023, assuming you reinvested all dividends. This is a return on investment of nearly 46% percent, or an annualized average return of 10.8% per year. But that’s…
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How We Made $5k+ in Passive Income for Q2 2024
The second quarter of 2024 was tight. High prices raged on and it's likely that the passive income economy dragged down. With price inflation up, some goals might not materialize this year but we will likely still land in the positive. Nearly $7k in gross passive income is still income.
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How Not To Let Inflation Erode Your Household Wealth
According to an article by Yahoo Finance, inflation will make these seven assets unaffordable in the next 10 years. The future is expensive.
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Tracking Our Million Dollar Investment Portfolio Since 2020
You have to have some investment if you want to excel in a capitalist system. Without capital assets, you are merely falling behind. Here’s every single month of tracking our investment portfolio since 2020. Links are also available for the full net worth breakdown for that month. Although we started to track our net worth in 2012, we didn’t start writing blog posts until June 2020 when the website was created. Things that helped our investment grow? Never been a fan of people sharing their final investment numbers without a full context. It’s only fair to paint a real picture. For one, although my wife and I didn’t come from money,…
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Why Tracking Your Wealth Matters. Our Monthly Net Worth Since 2020
A monthly net worth breakdown can help you understand your finances and how you can increase your net worth. To calculate your net worth, you can subtract your total liabilities from your total assets: Factors affecting our Net Worth? I also wanted to add that we are a dual-income family with no kids (but a dog) living in the DMV. The DMV is a tri-state area comprised of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. It’s one of those areas where the median income is typically higher than the rest of the nation. Although we don’t have high-powered C-suite careers, we were fortunate enough to land jobs with great pay. The…
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The Power of Perspective and its Impact on your Wealth
Let’s talk about learning and understanding perspective. Every time I’m interviewed about how my wife and I became first-generation millionaires, I’m at a loss for words and why. We aren’t super talented, or “exceptionally smart.” Neither of us has a unique skill set, if you don’t count my wife’s streak of hyper-competitiveness with games. Though we lack, what we do have is Perspective, in abundance. Britannica defines “Perspective” as a way of thinking about and understanding. It could be a particular issue, but for me, it’s more about the angle at which you see life. You can take identical twins, place them in a room filled with 10 people, and…
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How Carrying High Debt Costs You $500,000 for a Lifetime
American households are robbing their future by carrying high debt. How much consumer debt are we talking about? As of May 2024, the average household debt rose to $104,215. This includes mortgage balances, auto loans, student loans, personal loans, credit card debt, etc. According to Experian, the US average total debt balance in 2023 was $103,358. This amount is up over 3 percent from 2022. Younger Americans carry nearly $7,500 of revolving credit card debt month-to-month at more than 27.99 percent APY. At this rate, it should be criminal. Making minimum payments would take more than 311 months ( nearly 26 years) and $12,580 in interest to repay. That’s a…
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Real Estate versus Stocks: Which Was the Better Pandemic Investment?
Ever wonder what your best move should have been? Between Real Estate versus Stocks which was the better Pandemic Investment?
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The ‘Millennial Dream’ of a Condo, EV, Farmer’s Market, and Travel Now Costs $6.8 Million
From EVs, expensive homes, farmers' markets, and travel; our 'Millennial Dream' is expensive. We will need nearly $7 million.
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Breaking Down Our Strategy to Achieve a $1,000,000 Investment Portfolio
A breakdown of our household's investments as of March 2024 through 2025. Still, on track with the Net/Max Financial Plan to retire early.
