Rapids Financial LLC, Owner and Financial Advisor

Let's say all things equal, which would you rather do? Pay off a 30 year mortgage in ten years, or instead of extra mortgage payments having a lump sum of cash ten years down the road? Which one makes you happier? Imagine yourself in that situation, which one makes you feel better?

Inflation swindles almost everyone. Whether you are investing in equities, bonds and cash. Especially, if you keep your cash under your mattress. Even if you are just “saving” your money, not investing that money into some sort of investment only guarantees you that the value will go down over time.

Burndown update: priced out my Auto insurance and found a cheaper carrier. I’m going to save a little over $500 per year. The Savings from full coverage to PLPD is over $1,800 per year. I have PLPD insurance since my car (2013 Ford Fusion) is worth about $4K on KBB trade in value. I have re-assigned those dollars that were previously going to insurance to buying a vehicle in the future when the current one dies on me. In about two years I estimate I will be able to afford to buy the equivalent car. In the meantime I am taking on a bit more risk if I were to total my car.

on a Saturday

Heard this on a podcast the other day: Stop thinking of your bank account as a savings account. It’s not a savings account, it's a spending account. For example, until you say and assign certain money inside of your account as this is my vacation money for 2024, it’s just savings. It’s meaningless. Saying, savings is meaningless. Give your money purpose, it will go further.

The end of the year is a great time to "burndown" all of your assumptions. Do you want to live off grid in a van? What would it take? Do you want to rent or do you want to own? Look structurally, should we look at better insurance coverage? do we need three cars or three snowmobiles? Can we live off of one Tv app at a time? You need to figure this out on your own. What are your assumptions? Take out a blank sheet of paper and write down every monthly expense and question everything about each of them. I am going to do this myself and let you know what changes I have made, if any, in the next few weeks.

The great debate people like to have is if you spend more when you use credit cards? in short, yes. Banks use incentives for you to use these cards. Forget about interest and fees, every time you swipe banks make money off of interchange fees. They are making 1 - 3% off the merchant on every transaction and the merchant in turn pushes that expense on to you by raising the cost of the good or service you are buying. Banks promote you to use these cards by using these rewards. Even if everyone was gaming the system and was only using the cards for the rewards and never had a late payment. Banks would still more than likely make money.

The best score or metric for building wealth is Net worth. Meaning the assets you own minus your liabilities, the money you owe. I am not talking about what you are worth as a person either (big difference). You have inflows and outflows but your net worth is the overall metric and the leading indicator is how much money you are sending there to increase that metric. This could be in the form of money going into a retirement account or making a debt payment.

Here it is! Anyone looking for an application for student loan forgiveness take a look at the link below.

Federal Student Aid