Articles and Tips January, 2009
The Long-Term Bucket
“How do I fill up my Long-Term Bucket when I can’t even afford to pay my current bills? Shouldn’t I just wait awhile until I’m in better shape?” I know that’s what you’re thinking. And it makes so much sense to wait, right? Logically, you should start paying off your bills and start building up your checking and savings accounts. And then when you have a bunch of money saved up, you ...Your Short-Term Bucket
We’ve talked about dividing up your future financial needs into 3 Buckets: Short-Term, Mid-Range, and Long-Term. Your assignment was to write out a list of expected financial obligations that will occur in the future, and then group these obligations into these 3 Buckets. The goal for this assignment is to attempt to actually prepare for the future instead of constantly reacting to the present. Wouldn’t it be cool if when that car ...How Do You Fill the 3 Buckets?
You’ve written down your needs for your 3 Buckets and divided them up into your Short-Term Bucket, your Mid-Range Bucket, and your Long-Term Bucket. Now it’s time to fill the Buckets with assets – to pay for those future debts as they occur. Again, I don’t care what you put on your lists – they are YOUR needs, not mine. You’ll just need to figure out a way to pay for them from your ...The Future is NOW! A further explanation of Your 3 Financial Buckets
I always thought that saying was stupid. “The Future is Now!” That doesn’t make any sense. The future happens later, and right now you have creditors to pay. So you should take care of your old debt before considering the future, right? Those bills are sitting on your counter NOW! Those collectors are calling NOW! That other investing stuff comes later, right? Absolutely wrong! The problem with ...Your Financial Bucket List
In the page, “How To Build An Investment Portfolio”, we talked about creating a “Bucket List” for your financial goals. Specifically, you should group your financial goals into 3 Buckets, and then you’ll go about using these 3 Buckets to allocate your savings and investments. To review what these 3 Buckets are, here they are again: Divide your list of goals onto 3 lists – or Buckets. You should have a: Short-Term Bucket (things ...Are YOU Spending Wisely, or Emotionally?
In the article, “The Cost of Whistles”, I shared with you a story about how Benjamin Franklin once bought an overpriced whistle from a peddler at a fair, and regretted it all his life. What Franklin was trying to teach us with this story was that purchases based on emotion – desire & want – are almost always bad purchases. Whenever you emotionally pass the point where you can no longer “walk away” from ...The Cost of Whistles – Living Successfully
I love reading old books and stories about early pioneers in business. I came across the following article in a little pocket-sized publication series from the 1940’s, titled “The Art of Living Successfully”. I believe that “There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don’t know”, as Ambrose Bierce once said (click the link for some great quotes ...Latest Articles
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