Tackling the Big Three: Saving on Housing

Housing is generally one of the largest expenses we have some influence over (alongside food and transportation). As usual, I find that most people don’t believe they have any control over this part of their lives and spending or believe their options are extremely limited. What if you had more control over this part of your life than you thought? Let’s descend into a hypothetical dream world together where you have control over your housing decisions and can make an impact on how much you spend…

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Tackling the Big Three: Saving Dough on Food

When thinking about how to tackle anything, I like to use the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. The important takeaway from this principle is that the majority of any given result (such as spending too much money) is usually driven by a small minority of inputs or causes. The same is true of spending.

For most people, the majority of their spending comes from The Big Three: housing, transportation, and food. Because the word food is in the name of this blog, let’s start there!

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House Dreams

pool on roof of house

Mrs. Wallet and I recently bought a house. We live busy lives as I’ve described previously. The property is going to require quite a bit of work on our part and is going to divert funds that we would otherwise invest to accelerate our path to financial independence.

How did this happen? Having once thought we would be renters for life, why would we take on this huge commitment? Let’s take a look at what convinced us to make the leap to buying our home.

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My First Dog Boarding

Earlier this month I had the pleasure to board my first pup, Bailey! I’ve written about dog boarding in the past (via Rover and Wag), but up until now I’d only ever managed to walk dogs or get paid to do nothing.

I was eager to start building my dog boarding business and excited to play with a new pup, so I accepted Bailey’s booking even though she wasn’t a perfect match (she was about 40 lbs, which was larger than ideal; my dog is maybe 10 lbs at most).

My first boarding didn’t go perfectly, but it wasn’t all bad, either. Let’s look at what went right and what could have gone better.

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Side Hustles – November 2018

side hustle picture

It’s easy to underestimate the power of side hustles, so I think it makes sense for us to spend some time on them. In this post, I’m going to review side hustles I’ve taken advantage of recently or am in the process of trying out. Some of these may seem like they wouldn’t be worth your time, but just like compound interest, the impact of making consistent, small changes over time can grow into a wave which propels you forward into a far brighter future than you could have imagined.

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