All in Financial Education
Australia is popularly known as “the lucky country.” It holds the OECD record for economic growth at 26 years and counting. While there are some definite advantages of living in Australia over the United States in terms of reaching financial independence (like free universal health care) there are still many reasons why Australian women need to think about financial independence differently than their male compatriots.
Here’s the kicker when it comes to the waste we produce: this is also money.
We may not realize it right away, but each item we buy not only costs us money, but costs us time. We have to start thinking about the consequences of our consumption. It is actually our consumption that is depleting our natural resources. There is an excess demand for extra stuff. This results in more being made and manufactured. The outcome is not only waste byproducts, but also wasted materials. The lifestyle of product is so short nowadays that it essentially goes from the store to our hands to the trash in a matter of days or even minutes.
The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down.
A few weeks I came across this chart on Marketwatch. The original creator is Mark Perry, economics professor at the University of Michigan using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Perry's original blog post can be found here. It’s a startling graph and there’s a lot that we can interpret from it (I recommend you read the comments on the blog post), but of course, since I write from the perspective of Financial Independence, I want to put the FI spin on it.
50 years. That’s how long it took to get rid of the “marriage penalty” in our federal tax system. What’s even worst is that some people never even knew it existed. The marriage penalty arose if two married individuals, both earning income, paid more in taxes if they file with under “married filing jointly” than if they filed taxes separately under the “single” tax status. How is this possible? It’s because the income tax brackets from single status did not rise in proportion to the marriage filing jointly tax bracket.
Venmo me tomorrow.
Based on certain sources, I am considered a millennial, although I'm at the end of the older spectrum. My sister on the other hand is at the opposite side of the spectrum so it's interesting to see her take on certain things: Venmo is one of them. I actually use Venmo and find value in it, but perhaps not to the extent that the younger generation does so I asked her to provide some best practices for using Venmo. Here are some tips on how to use Venmo safely and securely.
If you are not familiar, Venmo is a mobile payment service owned by Paypal. It allows a quick and easy way to transfer money via a mobile app or desktop.
Money helps you Be.
Money helps you Do.
Money helps you Have.
Alright, so I just finished binge watching David Bach's class Start Late, Finish Rich on CreativeLive. I believe this class if for everyone. That's a lot to say. I have been a David Bach fan since I've read his books, The Automatic Millionaire and Go Green, Live Rich, seeing him talk and visually explain all of the concepts from his books is amazing. This is a class I would recommend binge watching with your partner. Instead of watching the next Netflix show, watch this instead. Sit down, takes notes and take action.
