My Financial Independence Journey » Archive
How to achieve your goals in only 4 steps – it’s easier than you think
Generally, people regard the New Year as a time to set new goals. Poppycock! There is no reason why you should wait all the way until January 1st to set a new goal for yourself. And what happens if you don’t think of your goal until February? Are you supposed to wait 11 months before working at it? There are plenty of other entirely reasonable times to set goals for yourself. For instance your birthday, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reflections
Is Home Buying Right for Me?
One of my goals for 2013 was to educate myself on home ownership and decide if buying a house was a good idea or not. To that end, I read some books and spent a lot of time reading about home ownership online. After all my research, I have come to the conclusion that home ownership may not be the best thing for me at this point. Below, I’ll work through my thought process. Hopefully, … Read entire article »
Filed under: Investing, Reflections
Memorial Day
Normally I publish stock analyses every Monday. But with this being Memorial Day I would expect that most of you aren’t sitting around your computer reading blogs. So MFIJ is taking a break from posting today to remember fallen veterans. You know, the actual point of Memorial Day. Just in case you thought it was National Bar-B-Que Day. The blog will be back on Wednesday with the regular posting schedule. Stock Analyses will return next Monday. I hope everyone had a great weekend. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blog Update
Weekend Link Love: Rainy Weekend Edition
This weekend link love is brought to you by the upcoming rainy Memorial Day weekend. Well at least in my area the rain should go away sometime tomorrow. In other news, I’m back from my mini-vacation. So this weekend it’s back to trying to write up more great blog posts for all you awesome readers out there. Here’s what I’ve got for you this Saturday in the world of links. It’s not as comprehensive as I would like, but I’ve been out of town for a while and actually having fun (something I don’t do very often). … Read entire article »
Filed under: Link Love
The 7 Incarnations of Money
Have you ever thought about money? Not about your finances or your investments. About money. I mean really sat down and thought about it and all the things that it can do. I spent some time recently thinking about all of the different forms, or incarnations, that money could take and has taken over history. I thought I’d share the results of my pondering with you today, so please allow me to wax philosophical for a bit during this post. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reflections
A Brief Primer on REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) Part 2: The basics of evaluating a REIT
In part 1 of the REIT series, we discussed what REITs are, why we should be interested in investing in them, and compared them to being a more traditional landlord. Here, we’re going to review some of the basics of evaluating REITs. While REITs can be great dividend producing investments, they can’t be evaluated in exactly the same way as traditional stocks. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Investing
Chevron (CVX) Dividend Stock Analysis
Chevron (CVX) is the second largest US oil company and the fifth largest oil company in the world. Chevron is involved in the extraction, refinement and marketing of oil and natural gas. The company is divided into two main business units. The first is upstream production, which consists of exploration and production of oil and natural gash and accounts for approximately 27% of 2012 revenue. The second is downstream production, which consists of refining, marketing … Read entire article »
Filed under: Stock Analysis
11 Paths to Passive Income
Passive income, or income for which no or minimal work is required, is the key to securing a comfortable retirement or just financial independence. Passive income on a smaller scale can be a great way to boost your annual income, or supply some extra spending money. In this post I want to explore 11 different sources of passive income that can bring in a few dollars per year all the way up to millions. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reflections
Weekend One Off: Machikado Keiki
I’ve been less active commenting in the blogosphere recently because I’m swamped with work and taking a bit of a quasi-vacation – both from work and blogging. Don’t worry, the content will keep coming. But this weekend there shall be no link love, because I haven’t been here to compile the links. Instead I’m going to keep with my trend of bringing you financial and economics related videos that you probably haven’t seen. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Weekend one off
A Brief Primer on REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) Part 1: What are REITs, why should you invest in them, and how do they compare to being a landlord.
Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are companies that specialize in investing in real estate by owning and renting commercial properties or by collecting mortgage interest. Investing in REITs is a great way to get your feet wet in real estate without becoming a landlord. You simply buy and sell shares of a REIT on a stock exchange like you would any other stock. Because REITs usually pay out almost all (>90%) of their taxable earnings you can earn substantially higher dividend yields through REITs than you could with traditional stocks. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Investing
