All tagged Personal Finance
The fact that I never manage to get to the bottom of my inbox because questions about money just keep rolling in tells me that there is a considerable need in Aotearoa for some decent independent financial education and advice. Financial literacy can only come from consistent education, willingness to learn, and taking action. But finding comprehensive information about money is difficult. If you want to understand the basics, get your head in the right space, and make lasting changes to your finances, I’ve got you covered today.
I’m often asked if I receive many emails from people who read my blog or listen to my podcast. Well, the short answer is yes. I’ve never really thought about how many I receive and send; I just know that it’s a lot and that each of them is interesting to me. Today I am sharing a few email highlights, plus a few conversations, with you so you can get a taste of the money conversations floating around Aotearoa. I won’t share names, gender or location. I instead want to share the sentiment so that others reading this can see what good stuff can happen when you decide to engage with your money.
For many years I’ve published the responses to my Net Worth Millionaire Questionnaire. It continues to be a well-read part of my blog. But there has been another questionnaire I’ve wanted to add for a very long time. I want to create a supportive space where people can come to share that they have successfully paid off a single debt or become completely debt free.
So, this week I thought I would share some of the really positive snippets and lessons that I’ve taken from the emails I’ve received from many of you in the month of May because you say SUCH GOOD STUFF.
We all discover some tips, tricks and shortcuts in life that are real time savers, or they just help us understand our place in the world a bit better, but it takes someone to tell us about them in the first place. I consider the Rule of 72 and Sharesight as two useful personal finance hacks, which of course I’m happy to share.
Each week I get a lot of emails and it takes up a lot of time, but it’s an honour to answer each of them. People just want someone to ask a money question to but in their day to day lives it’s a complete lottery as to whether they can find the right person in their friend group to talk to, so they write to me instead. So, I just wanted to share with you an edited version of an email exchange I’ve been having with someone over the last few months which will give you an insight into what kind of stuff comes up when I chat to people.
My copy of Tales from a Financial Hot Mess has ended up a right hot mess. I read it in fits and starts over a month and each time something took my interest I placed a sticky note to mark the page and as it turned out, quite a bit took my interest.
It was inevitable that one day I would write a blog post about Dave Ramsey, but it has taken me over three years to get around to it. This month I finally read his book The Total Money Makeover. He created a simple plan which he called The 7 Baby Steps to help others change the behaviours that were keeping them poor and to help them get out of debt and stay out of debt, forever.
If you have had an ‘ah ha’ moment, or maybe an ‘oh crap’ moment, then this blog post is definitely for you! This is for all of the people who have contacted me over the last month who have just had their own “moment” with money but are struggling with where to go from here. I’m going to help you find YOUR starting point so read on...