Comment on Easy To Spend, Makes It Hard To Save by Dividendsdownunder.
We have a budget which we try to stick to as much as possible. We also only have certain categories that we even allow ourselves to spend money in. Supermarkets, rent, household bills etc are all fine. Alcohol, ‘going out money’, travel, holidays etc do not exist for us. When we earn a LOT more in the future, perhaps a little bit. But whilst our earnings aren’t high, we won’t spend much. We have no debt (no credit cards etc), we plan to keep it that way.
The debt total is staggering and scary. An asset can decrease in price, but the debt remains. You’d think with all this debt & consumption that wages/earnings would be rising quicker than they are. People spending is fine, it is doing so with debt that is causing and will cause huge problems.
Tristan
Recent Comments by Dividendsdownunder
Labor Day Activities that Don’t Cost Much
Sounds like a very nice and relaxing time FS. I didn’t really know much about Labor day until your description, so thank you for that. You’re right, the way to fix things in this current social environment is not to blame or point fingers – that usually just heightens the disconnect. I have no idea how to fix things, but what’s being done at the moment isn’t the way to go.
Tristan
The Best Retirement Plans Include Flexibility
FS, good on your for having so many different income sources that you can take a huge setback like that in your stride. It sounds like you know what you’re going to do, so you can get right ahead and do it without hesitation.
We are still at the start of our FIRE journey, so there’s a long way to go. Our biggest setback so far is that we’ll have to do IVF to have children. This is a huge set back for our investing plans and how we can get our money compounding for us (it’s not doing much sitting in our bank account). But luckily, we have it, and we’ve started investing early so it should be okay in the end.
Tristan
David Eagleman – Simplifying the Complex
Hey FS, David sounds like a cool guy. There’s an Australian called Scott Pape at the Barefoot investor who is great at simplifying things for Aussies. It’s good to have a few people you can rely on telling you how it is.
Tristan
5 Quick Ways to Improve Productivity
These are all really important, it is extremely easy to be distracted when we have so many entertaining distractions at our finger tips. I make sure my phone is on silent at work so it can’t taunt me as a distraction.
It’s quite sad when we go out to dinner and we see a couple just looking at their phones – maybe a bad first date?
I completely agree with you about being deliberate. It’s extremely easy to just let the time go by, looking through news websites, or finance websites, or Reddit, or YouTube etc. etc. Unless I actively do what I want to do, it’s easy for the time to fly by.
I find listening music helps me concentrate on what I’m doing, ever since I was learning at school.
Tristan
Rio Olympics Opening Ceremony
We recorded the opening ceremony and watched it today – we quite enjoyed it, was interesting to hear about their views on climate change and had some very moving elements to it (loved the Olympic rings as trees)
What did you think of the opening ceremony?
I’m really not sure if we’ll be watching many events, the timezones will probably make it pretty difficult.
Jasmin
