Month: January 2014

Ramp Up Those Savings!

brownpiggybankWhat would you do if you won the lottery right now and became financially free? Would you work less, travel more, move to another part of the country or an entirely different country? Maybe engage in charity work or educational activities? Become become an excellent suffer (yes, I live in SoCal) or just lounge at the beach?

Assertively pursuing your financial independence allows you to achieve these types of life goals, rather than give them up, and hopefully get to them much more rapidly! So how can you achieve this? Well clearly it is earning more and/or spending less, and maybe somewhat surprisingly, it’s the spending less that really acts as the turbo charge in this equation. Continue Reading

Why Frugality?

dollarOK, so the question of why frugality could easily turn into a very long winded and potentially quite boring essay, which I will try my best not to do!

To keep it relatively short, I see three major reasons for embracing frugality, where each of these are clearly intertwined. The first is financial independence. At a time when many people are worried about how they will get by in retirement, a very sad state of affairs, would you instead like to still be working, but knowing that you are already financially free? Continue Reading

Credit Monitoring for Free! – Credit Karma

credit_cardI have started using Credit Karma, and there are a couple of features that I have found to be really useful, and would like to highlight to you. Perhaps my favorite is the credit report monitoring, notifying me of any changes and for free! Continue Reading

Skip the Car, Ride the Bike

Mountain-bikeIt is quite likely that one of your major expenses is for driving to and from work, thus you can make huge inroads, excuse the pun, to reduce expenses and maximizing your savings here. Take a look at your car loan, your insurance costs, and the (ever increasing) price of gas. These can add up to many hundreds of dollars a month, and that is even excluding any maintenance and potentially costly repairs when your car it’s out of warranty.

What can you do instead? Continue Reading

Did You Invest or Consume in 2013?

bought2013 was a surprising year for the stock market, posting an approximate 30% increase in the stock market! Moreover, house prices also increased at a little over 10% or so for the nation as a whole. These are really significant numbers for gaining wealth!

During raging bull markets it is best not to consume, but rather Continue Reading

Frugal Prof Site has Started!

start arcadeHi, I decided to start writing my first blog, which I am really excited about. I have been studying investing strategies and much about frugality since 2006, and wanted to create a central a place to highlight interesting topics on the subject, which may be of use as learning material.

My immediate goal is to write an average of an article per week, at least until the end of 2014, so wish me luck!