Tag Archives: spending

Reflections From The Early Days of Spending In Retirement, Part 2

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By Patricia Gass,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

sunset-landing

As we return to reality from our 3-week vacation “high,” I’m hoping to make the happy feelings last as long as possible.

After all, that’s what a great vacation is all about!

So, better late than never, I’m diving in to review the state of our spending for 2014. Scary task (especially given our recent travels) but someone’s got to do it.

Yes, we really did have a “spending plan” last year and will do so again religiously this year. How else do you think one achieves financial independence? Do you know that few people realize what they’ve spent in their first year (or even few years) of retirement?

Beware overspending in the early days

Nothing can derail a happy retirement more quickly than overspending in the early days. While looking ahead is certainly important (tough to fix what you’ve already spent!), you can really learn a lot by sizing up what happened each year. To supplement my “quick and dirty” monthly reviews, an annual review will give me a better perspective of our overall, longer term habits. Continue Reading…

Six spending personalities that can wreak havoc on your finances

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What is your spending personality
Image Credit: Shutterstock

By Avraham Byers,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Overspending is a common problem for many people; it creates debt, anxiety and relationship problems, even among high income earners. All too often, people’s spending habits seem to rise to meet – and exceed – their incomes.

So why does this happen? What compels people to overspend when they already have the items they truly need? The answer lies deep within each person’s spending personality. Recently, I read Dr. April Benson’s book I Shop Therefore I Am, and was fascinated by what shoppingbookthe contributing authors uncover about the emotional and psychological factors influencing our buying habits.

I thought it would interesting, and beneficial, to touch on the six key spending personalities they explore: image spenders, bargain hunters, collectors, compulsive shoppers, co-dependent spenders (a.k.a. gift-givers) and bulimic spenders. Continue Reading…

The one-page guide to Findependence

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grs_titleConsidering that I once put an entire financial plan into a single tweet, it shouldn’t be too surprising that there exists a one-page guide to Financial Independence.

This one-page guide to Financial Independence is from J.D. Roth’s Get Rich Slowly site. (naturally, I would call it the one-page guide to Findependence!) Naturally, the strategy revolves around that most basic premise of personal finance: live below your means and spend less than you earn: much much less. So that you can save much much more. Not just the modest 10 to 20% that most people shoot for in their IRAs or RRSPs: Roth suggests saving at least 50% of your income, and preferably up to 70%.

Extreme? Indeed, Roth calls it Extreme Saving but that’s also the kind of savings levels that     Extreme Early Retirement gurus like Mr. Money Moustache and Jacob Lund Fisker advocate. The latter’s book can be found here.

As per the philosophy of this site, I would call this Extreme Early Findependence, not Extreme Early Retirement, which is why we call one of our soon-to-launch discussion forums Extreme Early Findependence.