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I recently received a question that boils down to this: How do you know when you have enough money? And once you do, when is it time to shift from chasing excess returns to simply maintaining what you have? There are…

When most people think about real estate, they picture a home or maybe that dream beach house. However, from an investment perspective, real estate can serve a different purpose in helping to diversify your portfolio and potentially smooth out the ride…

Feeling burned out and underappreciated? Tired of managing people and just want to focus on your craft? Thinking about going back to school to do something more meaningful? If any of this resonates, don’t quit your job. Instead, it might be…

I’ve been focused on building passive income since 1999, back when I had to be in the office by 5:30 a.m. and often worked past 7 p.m. every night. Weekends were another eight hours or so. I knew I couldn’t sustain…

Do you want your quarterly commentary to shine? Polish it using the process that I describe in “5 steps for rewriting your investment commentary.” This is how I edit my clients’ work.The main idea is to start editing at the big…

Have you heard of the no-spend chalenge? It’s a popular concept among budget-minded and minimalist bloggers who encourage us to save more and declutter our lives. The idea is simple: stop spending on non-essentials for a set period and see how…

Private credit has been gaining traction among investors looking to broaden their portfolios beyond traditional stocks and bonds. Once reserved for institutional investors and ultra-high-net-worth individuals, this asset class is now more accessible to a broader audience, thanks to evolving fund…

If you are a parent, your mission is clear: develop into a rich Bank of Mom & Dad to save your children. If you don’t have wealthy parents yourself, then unfortunately, life might stay on hard mode forever. It’s up to…

As the summer heats up, many of us start to cool on the goals we set for the year. By this point of the year, it’s common to start falling back on old habits instead of taking intentional action.  But if…

There is more wealth out there than you think. But the government and media sometimes likes to trick us into believing there is not. Government data says the median net worth in America is around $200,000. Meanwhile, the media keeps highlighting…

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment. Want a clue to this week’s big mistake? Read my post on “Bloggers’ top two punctuation mistakes.” It doesn’t discuss this exact mistake, but it’ll…

After publishing Why We Keep Spending Even Though We Know We Shouldn't, I realized something important: the real reason I wasn’t willing to spend on a vacation rental this summer is because we no longer have financial freedom. I didn't think about…

Derivatives sound like Wall Street jargon, but they’re really just simple agreements that help businesses and investors manage uncertainty. At their core, a derivative is a promise: two parties agree today on terms to buy or sell something at a set…

Spending money is an American pastime. With a national saving rate hovering around 5%, it's clear we collectively love to spend. And honestly, being able to enjoy our wealth is a beautiful thing. It’s something more personal finance enthusiasts like me—and…

When you decide to sell a house, you might encounter a preemptive offer—a bid that arrives before you list publicly on the open market or reach your set offer due date. This scenario often unfolds in a robust market or when…

About once a month, I get an email or comment from a reader criticizing adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) as a poor financial choice. Since I’ve been a proponent of ARMs since starting Financial Samurai in 2009, I understand the pushback. However, I…

Believing you deserve to be rich is one of the most powerful psychological tricks to boost your wealth. With trillions of dollars circulating in the world, you have to ask yourself: Why not me too? Think about the knuckleheads you grew…

I'm bullish on real estate. Yet I recently sold another rental property. This type of incongruence between thought and action can feel unsettling and even counterproductive to wealth creation. But it doesn’t have to be. Because while maximizing returns is a…

During the recent stock market correction, I decided to buy the dip. But this time, I didn’t just buy my usual dip-buying amount of $25,000 to $100,000. I went much bigger. All told, I spent over $1 million buying the S&P…

Before I retired from finance in 2012, I struggled with chronic back pain, sciatica, and TMJ. The stress was so overwhelming, I even paid a dentist $700 to drill divots into several teeth just so I could close my jaw more…

To celebrate the launch of Millionaire Milestones: Simple Steps To Seven Figures, I want to share how you might feel and what you might do as you hit various levels of wealth. Perhaps by sharing, I'll motivate you to take greater action.…

After three years of writing, rewriting, and refining, I’m thrilled to officially celebrate the launch of Millionaire Milestones: Simple Steps To Seven Figures! This book has been a true labor of love, not just for me, but for my family as…

There comes a moment when your child might look up and say, with wide-eyed innocence: “I want to go to the office and type on a laptop all day like Mommy.” “I want to travel abroad for work for two weeks…

If we're not already in a recession, we may soon enter one due to aggressive trade policies that are fueling tremendous uncertainty. As companies and consumers pull back on spending, millions of jobs could be lost, trillions in stock market wealth…

If you’re a personal finance enthusiast with kids, you’ve probably wondered: at what household income level will colleges stop offering scholarships and grants (i.e., free money) to help your child attend? What is that income cutoff? Given that the cost of…

Photo credit: jb You’ve likely heard the conventional wisdom – “when you leave your job, you should roll over your retirement account”. You may know that it makes sense (or at least you assume it makes sense), but do you know…

Photo credit: jb We’re here in the midst of tax season, and some of you may be wondering about tax credits. Some tax credits are more valuable than others, something a lot of folks don’t realize. Most tax credits are not…

Many of us are covered by one or more types of defined contribution retirement plans, such as a 401(k), 403(b), 457, or any of a number of other plans. What many of these plans have in common is that they are…

Photo credit: jb Employers have been giving us lots of opportunities to make this decision of late: when leaving an employer, whether voluntarily or otherwise, we have the opportunity to rollover the qualified retirement plan (QRP) such as a 401(k) from…