Category: Money Management

We’re working towards financial freedom. How we save, invest, and spend is a big part of that. Read about what we do to save more, invest better, and spend wisely in alignment with our values (family, travel, and FI).

Bank Your Raise

Most of us, when we hear we’re getting a 3, 4, or 5% raise, go out to dinner to celebrate and then, without even realizing it, slightly adjust our spending to the “new” income level.

One of the most powerful tools you have, though, especially if you find it hard to save, is your yearly raise. For the last six years, Mr. ThreeYear and I have used every cent of his annual raise to increase our savings and investing.

Why? Because we live a very good life at our current level of spending, and we don’t need to spend more. If we want to go out and celebrate, take a trip, or spend the money some other way, it will be waiting for us in the savings account. If we didn’t squirrel the money away where we didn’t see it, we’d spend it without even realizing it, and then all the effort behind earning that raise would be for nothing.

We’ve frittered away money over the years in exactly this way, and it always made me feel powerless over our spending. “But where did that raise go? How do we spend more now? Where is that money?” Now, as I watch our savings grow, I realize that we’re the ones in control of the money, and we’re holding on to it until we’re ready to use it in a thoughtful way (or invest it, which is my favorite thing to do with our money besides travel!).

Continue reading “Bank Your Raise”

Your Money Or Your Life: Chapter 6 (Traveling Book Review)

Today I’m taking part in a “traveling book review” written by Rockstar Finance bloggers. Each day, a different blogger will review one chapter of one of the best money books I’ve ever read, Your Money or Your Life. Written by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, Vicki’s original coauthor who’s since died, the updated version  contains timeless wisdom and current, practical tips for anyone working to make sense of their finances, their work/life balance, and life in general.

If you’d like to read reviews for each chapter, I recommend reading Rockstar Finance’s introduction post with links to reviews of each chapter.

The American Dream–on a Shoestring

Chapter 6 is perhaps the most relevant chapter to my life of the entire book. “Laurie,” it seemed to be saying to me the whole time, “read these words and internalize this message: if you want to achieve true freedom, you must learn to control your spending.”

A few years ago, I would have scoffed at this notion. “As if,” I can hear old me saying,”I’m going to earn more and buy whatever I want.”

This would be a terrific strategy if it worked–if it allowed me to increase my net worth, say, or even my happiness. Then we could get all the stuff we wanted just by working harder, and that would make us happier, and we’d all live happily ever after. All the millionaires and multi-millionaires would never declare bankruptcy or feel sad. Hollywood stars, paid millions per film, would never divorce or go through public scandals.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. As Robin wisely and gently explains, more stuff doesn’t necessarily bring more happiness. Especially once you’ve got your basic needs met. Continue reading “Your Money Or Your Life: Chapter 6 (Traveling Book Review)”

March Net Worth Update

It’s raining right now, which is a small hint that Spring is making its way, slowly, to New England. The start of April signifies that we’ve entered the fourth month of the year and our experiment continues.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending (gulp!). Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before! This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Given the wild ride the market’s likely to take us on this year, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try.

March is always my least-favorite month of the year. The rest of the country is enjoying the first signs of Spring, and we’re still covered under snow. This year, March lived up to the adage, and came in like a lion, with storm after storm that buffeted us with snow and left the skies gray and damp. It went out like a lamb, with a few days at the tail end full of blue skies and (slightly warmer) temps. But April has brought wind storms, more cold weather, and a reminder that here in New England, there is no such thing as Spring.

Continue reading “March Net Worth Update”

Building Wealth for Freedom

I’ve written a lot about getting out of debt. That was the first step for Mr. ThreeYear and me on our journey to financial and location independence.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

When I was in college, my dad started reading a lot about stocks. I was curious, and began reading a bit myself about investing.

I knew nothing about the saving side of the equation, but investing extra money had me curious. I opened my first Ameritrade investing account when I was a senior in college. I invested the money I received as a graduation gift into this account, in some stocks that my parents and grandparents recommended (Coca-Cola, MedImmune, and some others I can’t remember). I picked up the occasional book on investing, such as The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need, and The Little Book that Beat the Market.  I left my money to grow and forgot about it. Continue reading “Building Wealth for Freedom”

Ladies, Time to Figure Out Your Worth #WomenRockMoney

It’s International Women’s Day. Go women!
Do you know why women are awesome? Well, here are a couple of facts:
  • More than half a billion women have joined the world’s labor force over the past 30 years, and women now account for more than 40 percent of workers worldwide (IMF, 2012).
  • When a mother has control over her family’s money in the world’s poorest countries, her children are 20% more likely to survive (Melinda Gates).
  • 90% of married women identified themselves as the principle household shopper in their household (Statistic Brain). #mamacontrolsthemoneyhoney
Women have come so far in the last fifty years! It is amazing. However, in the areas of financial literacy and business development, we still have a ways to go.

Continue reading “Ladies, Time to Figure Out Your Worth #WomenRockMoney”

February Net Worth Update

It looks like the stock market is giving us some buying opportunities this month. While our net worth took a dip, we hit our savings and spending goals, so I feel proud of our progress this month.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending (gulp!). Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before! This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65%! from where we started in December 2016. Given the wild ride the market’s likely to take us on this year, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try!

February was a month of full-on winter antics in New Hampshire. Our time in Santiago, just a month before, seemed like a dream, an impossibility! Our lives were cold and snowy this month. We enjoyed a bit of skiing, one week of winter break where we all got sick several times, and of course the Winter Olympics!

This is the second month in our net worth and spending reports for 2018, and although the market had a small “correction” that did negatively affect our net worth, we are still making progress towards our goals.

Continue reading “February Net Worth Update”

The State of Your Economy

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that household debt, including mortgages, car loans, and credit card debt, has risen all over the world. Shockingly, Switzerland leads the pack, with household debt at 127.5% of Gross Domestic Product (that means, for every $100,000 of GDP a household produces, they hold $127,500 in debt!).

The average citizen in Switzerland, which has traditionally been an extremely wealthy country, has substantial assets underpinning this debt, or at least four times more assets than the average American.

Even so, Switzerland, as well as nine other economies including Canada, Finland, and Australia, have debt levels that are high and rising quickly, at a pace that mirrors that of the US right before the housing bubble.  Continue reading “The State of Your Economy”

The Financial Domino Effect

Have you ever made a change in your life–maybe a huge one, like getting out of debt, or maybe a small one, like deciding not to buy takeout coffee–that in turn, caused benefits that you never imagined?

The Financial Domino Effect--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

Maybe getting out of debt made you realize that your house was too big, so you decided to move into something smaller. Maybe not buying takeout coffee helped you realize you could save in other small areas, and after a few months, you ended up with enough to go on a trip to Florida.

This is the financial domino effect, and it happened to me.

Like a chain of dominoes, where one tile makes the whole line fall down, one seemingly small change in your life creates scenarios that make it more likely you’ll create other small changes.

via GIPHY

One action that is, on the surface, completely unrelated to another action, causes the start of a wave of behaviors that can ultimately change your financial life. Continue reading “The Financial Domino Effect”

The Most Romantic Lenten Sacrifice

Happy Valentine’s Day. And Happy Ash Wednesday (aka the first day of Lent). It’s the first time since 1945 that Valentine’s and the start of Lent have fallen on the same day.

The Most Romantic Lenten Sacrifice--www.thethethreeyearexperiment.com

So in honor of such an auspicious occasion, I’m taking on a new challenge. While Valentine’s is usually about eating as many chocolates as you can get your hands on, Lent, at least for those in the Christian tradition, is a 40-day time of inner focus, of taking a look at yourself and seeing if there’s anything that you could improve upon. It’s traditionally a time when practitioners make a sacrifice, give up a vice, or adopt a new, perhaps self-sacrificial habit for 40 days.

Continue reading “The Most Romantic Lenten Sacrifice”