“Negotiation is not an act of battle, but a process of discovery.”

This month’s book is all about negotiations. It’s called “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it” by Chris Voss. Chris Voss is a former FBI kidnapping negotiator. He shares nine key strategies hat he and his colleagues learned and use to help people in very risky situations. Here are the chapters in the book which correspond to the nine tested strategies.

A No-Spend Challenge is self induced commitment or challenge to one’s self to not spend money in a certain period of time. No-Spend challenges can range from one week to a month, or whatever you heart desires.

I actually did this last year, but I basically gave up online spending for 40ish days. This year, I wanted to do the same as a way to challenge myself and practice self-restraint, but also give my wallet a break.

Here are some of my observations from my no-spend challenge.

Let’s talk free money.

More importantly, is there such a thing?

In this post, I break down some potential areas for you to get free money and what the catch is. Some will be worth doing.

It’s important to realize that our kids need parents who are physically, emotionally and financially stable so by extension, we need to take care of ourselves first and that means investing in our well-being. Here are 7 financial moves that will benefit your children.

HOSPITALITY, n. The virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.

This month’s financial book is a bit different than past books. The book is titled: Tales of Horror and Happiness in Hospitality by Dr. Kiona and Maria Gangat. You can find it on Amazon (linked) or check out her Instagram story highlights for more info.

This book covers two prevailing concepts that’s heavily discussed in the financial independence, retire early (FI/RE) community: house hacking and geoarbitrage so it fits in nicely here.

“Make a specific birthday wishes and write it down. You will be amazed about the power of pen and inner strength to accomplish the wishes.”

By the time I had finished my masters degree last year (2019), I had accumulated over $33,000 in debt just from student loans. After reviewing the payoff schedule, it estimated that I would pay off my debt by the time I was 43. That’s when I decided I hated that plan. Instead, here’s my plan to pay off by debt by the time I’m 30, which is 5 years away.

“It turns out you can give your money to a project positively impacting the world with the goal of earning a financial return.

Can you grow your money while investing in positive change for people and the planet? I believe that we can and this book The Do Gooder’s Guide to Investing by Adrian Reif provides a roadmap on how we can do all that.

The word “investing” can sometimes get a bad rap because it’s associated with Wall Street, but it’s absolutely possible to invest in affordable housing, renewable energy and local communities and still grow your money. The Do-Gooder’s Guide to Investing provides a comprehensive list of these investing options. Even if you are not ready to invest yet in these organizations, I highly recommend reviewing and learning more about the organizations that Adrian lists as it will give you some hope about the future.

A money journal can be a diary of sort that tracks your daily spending habits. It may be a list of expenses. It may be a list of money goals and your progress. It may be a list of debts. For many, a money journal can just be a ledger of money coming in and out. Instead of relying on an app, Excel or monthly statements from a bank or credit card, a money journal can be a record of accounts. A money journal can be started on any plain notebook. The most important thing with a money journal is to do it consistently. This is where you will learn to see patterns on spending or doing deeper, patterns on emotional spending. It’s imperative that you review your journal often and write down your thoughts and feelings about recent money moves. This will inform you of where you money mindset is at this point in time.

Put a value on what you do and do not let anyone to undervalue you."

The last book of the year in the Book of the Month Series is Suze Orman’s Women and Money: Be Strong, Be Smart, Be Secure. I’m a fan of Suze Orman. It was her book Young, Fabulous and Broke that actually started my FI journey many years before FI was even a term for the mainstream.

The first version of this book was published back in 2007. I remember reading it, but at that point in time, I was in a completely different mindset and I glossed over most of the topics. Fast forward to 2019 and I now see many of the topics having some relevance in my life.

This month’s book is The Dumb Things Smart People Do With Their Money by Jill Schlesinger. Each chapter of the book is a topic on the dumb things smart people do with their topic. I appreciate the book for the straightforward way the author described the Dumb Things. The topics are all worth reviewing and revisiting. It’s especially important if you are busy building wealth or hitting that FI number that there’s other things we all need to look at to protect our wealth and the security of our loved ones.