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Monday Night Finance- Volume 29

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Monday, 31 August 2020 / Published in Monday Night Finance

Monday Night Finance- Volume 29

15 Smart Tips to Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster

Housing is often the largest monthly expense people have each month. Typically, finance advice states that housing costs should be less than or equal to 30% of your monthly expenses. However, research shows that people spend closer to 40% of their monthly income on housing. For renters, these monthly costs are unavoidable. However, for homeowners, it’s possible to pay off your mortgage and greatly reduce your housing expenses.

For most of us, being mortgage-free seems like the stuff dreams are made of. However, it is possible. Thanks to these top mortgage payoff tips, it’s not only possible, but you may be able to pay off your mortgage faster than you ever imagined. ~Andy Hill, Marriage, Kids, & Money

If you think paying off your mortgage seems impossible, you’re not alone. Nearly 2/3rds of Americans never pay off their mortgage. If you have dreams of becoming mortgage free but aren’t sure how to make it happen, then this article is for you. Andy Hill, of Marriage, Kids, & Money shares an interview with Deacon Hayes where they discuss strategies for paying off your mortgage. Many of the tips involve earning extra money, whether through a side hustle or overtime at your current job. Earmarking this extra money directly for your mortgage can help you accelerate your payments and shrink your balance. Another great tip is trying to live a minimalist lifestyle; not only will you need to spend less money on your home, but you can sell items you no longer need for extra money. Finally, developing a budget and sticking to it is super important (CountAbout is a great tool to help you do that).

How to Evaluate the Best Investments Based On Returns

We all want to find that “home run” investment that nobody else knows about. Can we buy the next Apple or Amazon at the IPO? Or maybe we know a guy who knows a guy who has a guaranteed way to make money with collector coins, stamps, or baseball cards. Remember when the beanie baby bubble popped? While we’re all chasing the best investments, how can we evaluate if we’re doing a good job or not?

The average inflation rate is 3% per year, so any investment you make needs to beat that 3% minimum. Consider 3% like a C grade: it’s the lowest passing grade you can get. You’ll still squeak by with that, you’re just not going to be in the upper echelons of school (or socioeconomic class). ~Darcy of WeWantGuac

In this article, Darcy of WeWantGuac.com, shares some metrics we can use to evaluate the return on various investments. Instead of starting the article with exotic investments, Darcy begins with quite possibly the most boring investment of all time, Series EE US Savings Bonds. She looked up the interest rate on bonds that her grandmother had given her and found that many of them were earning less than the rate of inflation. That means that each year, her bonds are able to buy a bit less than they were the year before. She then compares these returns to that of an index fund that returned 10% per year on average. In both cases the investments were set-it-and-forget-it, but one had a lot higher return than the others. Finally, she explores more hands-on investments like startup companies and real estate. The article provides lots of great ideas about how to measure risk, return, and effort to help you find just the right investment.

FIRE Vs FIAR – Which One Makes Sense For You?

If you’ve been reading these round-up articles, you’re probably well aware of the FIRE movement. FIRE is an acronym that stands for Financial Independence & Retire Early. People within the FIRE movement aggressively save their income early in their life so that they can retire “early”. While there is a stereotype of that the movement is made of of single male Silicon Valley coders who burn out at 30, there are many different FIRE voices. Early retirement could mean anything from ceasing work at age 30 with $500,000 to retiring in your 50s. In this article, Shelley from Beyond Pennies talks about a different flavor of FIRE where one takes a career intermission.

FIAR is an acronym I created that stands for Financial Independence / Abbreviated Retirement. The concept of FIAR is that instead of saving up to retire forever, you save up to retire for a short period of time ~Shelley of Beyond Pennies

Shelley has created the acronym FIAR for this mini-retirement scenario (Financial Independence & Abbreviated Retirement). Shelly is saving up money so that she can take 1-2 years off of work and circumnavigate the world in a sailboat with her family. In contrast to a complete early retirement, where you need to build an endowment to sustain yourself for the remainder of your life, with FIAR, you only need to save enough to fund your abbreviated retirement. In addition to needing less money to achieve FIAR, this concept can also be motivating because you’re saving for a very specific goal rather than an abstract lifestyle change. Finally, FIAR makes the FIRE community more accessible by allowing people who may never be able to achieve FIRE the opportunity to enjoy many of the benefits of FIRE during their mini-retirement.

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What you can read next

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Monday Night Finance- Volume 24
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Monday Night Finance- Volume 25
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Monday Night Finance- Volume 23

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Barbara Ann Feeney
16-05-2016

I switched from pencil and paper on grid accounting paper, then to a Google spreadsheet, then to CountAbout. Really happy with how this app makes it easy to track how I doing, staying (or not) on budget.

 
‏@davepurcell
15-11-2016

I rarely tweet endorsements, but -- after years of using/hating Quicken, Countabout is awesome for tracking home budget/finances. Thx!

 
David M.
16-07-2016

CountAbout is as easy to use on my mobile as it is on the desktop and it provides me with the same or better information than Quicken.

 
Nate E.
05-02-2016

Fantastic! I finally found a great replacement for Quicken! CountAbout is entirely cloud-based, so you can access it from whatever OS you happen to be using. And the mobile app isn't hamstrung like Quicken's. No looking back for me, this is a great app and a great service!

 
My Bank Tracker
24-11-2016

...you won’t be bombarded with ads when you log in. Mint, for example, uses targeted ads to help keep the platform free. All in all, CountAbout could be a good choice for Quicken and Mint users who want to start fresh with their finances without losing their past transaction history.

 
Mark Goldfarb
20-01-2017

I love the software – nice and clean – the categories was a must have that your competitors are lacking.

 
Widgets to Compare Monthly Spending in Active Categories
17-02-2017

Huzzah! I can add widgets now and already made one to compare my monthly spending in my active categories to my budget. Excellent. That tool is one of my favorite features in a personal finance product.

 
Shirley Hou
CountAbout was Perfect
15-03-2017

I was looking for finance software to use as treasurer of the parent-teacher association at my child's school. CountAbout was perfect - it had all the register features and download capabilities that I was familiar with from desktop Quicken, but it has the advantage of being in the cloud so I can use it from any computer.

 
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Steve P.
22-09-2017

My search for a cloud-based alternative to Quicken is over! Very easy to transfer my Quicken data and customize my account. Thank you CountAbout!

 
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Jim Powell
17-03-2018

Vastly superior to the execrable Quicken, which caused me to have to choose a new bank password every time I used it. CA is fast, simple, and all you need unless you have a complicated investment portfolio. Its almost fun!

 
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Jeffrey Wilk
02-04-2018

Great product and great customer service. Thanks!

 
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Nancy
10-08-2018

I love CountAbout! I have hated Quicken for years, but didn't have an alternative. Now I do! I love that the cost is only $9.99 per year for the basic service (which is all I need). You can upgrade for more features, if you need them. But for personal use, the basic plan is just fine. When I found CountAbout, I gleefully gave Quicken the boot and I haven't looked back or missed it at all. Bye bye Quicken!!!

 
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Dana Linder
29-03-2019

This is an incredibly well thought out program.

It imports QIF files perfectly. I tried a number that failed miserably.

It has a function that emails reminders about scheduled transactions. That is an extremely useful function that I hadn't seen anywhere.

Tech support is second to none. All my questions were answered in detail within hours (sometimes minutes).

The companion phone app is very simple. You can browse, search, enter transactions and see scheduled transaction. That's really all you need on the phone.

It's one failing for me is that I have a transaction that I have a transaction that occurs on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and it's not possible to set that up. It's easy enough for me to change the date of next transaction when I enter the current one.

I am extremely impressed with the company. The trial is free for 15 days. You have nothing to lose.

 
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Keith Hurst
22-05-2020

I've been trying to ditch Quicken for years, finally a worthy replacement, but it's so much more, so clean and intuitively designed. I was really surprised and delighted to find a full featured iphone app that meets all my needs.

 
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Amanda Sherlock
25-08-2020

I started using Quicken in 1987, before I had my own PC. I continued using it for years, frustrated by the frequent breaks in the synchronization. Finally I took the leap and used Mint for a year or two. Free software is worth as much as I pay for. Finally, in 2019 I found Countabout. The synchronization is great and I am happy to have a product that's easy to use and reliable. The customer support is excellent and very responsive to my questions.
There aren't as many bells and whistles as Quicken but the simplicity outweighs the complications.

 
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Richard Luna
03-02-2021

I'm a one-person real estate brokerage and having accurate financial records and being able to easily search transactions and generate reports is crucial. I'd been using Quicken for Mac for 10+ years and wanted to migrate to using a Chromebook instead of a Mac, to do that I had to find a replacement for Quicken.

The replacement had to be online; available from my phone, tablet, etc., and no software installations almost every year. I immediately dismissed any 'free' financial software (Mint, etc.) - I believe that you get what you pay for and there is no such thing as 'free.'

I settled on Tiller and CountAbout and subscribed to both; I quickly decided that a spreadsheet is not what I wanted. I wanted something that worked a lot like Quicken and CountAbout fit the bill. It took me awhile to fully embrace it but once I did I've been very happy and would not go back to Quicken even if they offered a fully online version. The few times I've had a question about using CountAbout I've always gotten a response by the end of the day - and often in an hour or less. If feels like I'm working with a small enterprise that's interested in putting out a superior application, improving it and solving issues and responding to questions. I'm very satisfied!

 

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