investing Archives - the frugal millionaire

How to Spend Your Tax Refund

It’s tax time! Hopefully, you are getting some money back from Uncle Sam. I am happy to report that we are getting a nice chunk of change back. However, this coming year we will be in a different tax bracket and most likely will owe, so this is probably one of the last refunds we will see in a while.

According to the IRS, the average tax refund is $3,120. While it may sound fun to go on a tropical vacation or upgrade your furniture, it’s a better idea to invest that money back into yourself, save or pay off debt.

Here are four ideas on how to spend your tax refund.

Our Four-Step Plan on How to Become a Millionaire

Today I’m getting back to the roots of this blog: Our journey on becoming millionaires.

John and I are just your average couple. We both work full-time with average salaries. We have our own side businesses. John works in construction and gets roughly one job per month. I am a freelance writer and blogger, making between $500-$3,000 extra per month (you can read my income reports here). We’re not unlike any other couple or family that I’ve met. We have kids, we have bills, and we work hard.

However, John and I have a big goal to become millionaires at some point in our lives (the sooner, the better). Here is our four-step plan on how to become a millionaire. As a disclaimer, this would be a “perfect” scenario. I know life can, and most likely will, throw us curveballs that will set us back. One of us might get laid off, we might have a medical emergency. You can’t predict the future; but I think it’s always good to have a plan and goals in mind 😉

Where Do Millionaires Invest Their Money?

There are some distinct characteristics that set millionaires apart from the everyday person. While the majority of millionaires are actually self-made, meaning they didn’t receive it through an inheritance, a whopping two-thirds of them are entrepreneurs, according to the Economist. Millionaires also tend to live below their means, they’re natural leaders, and they focus on investing their money rather than spending it.

Today, we’re focusing on that last point and figuring out just where millionaires invest their money.

How to prepare for retirement in your 20s

With my 30th birthday approaching next month, I thought I’d reflect back on my 20s and share what I did to prepare for retirement and what I wish I did.

A quick recap: I graduated college with a degree in finance at age 21. My first job was working for a mortgage company, but I was unfortunately laid off after only just a few months there (the company went under). My next job was working for Careerbuilder.com for 8 months followed by a 3-year stint in waitressing (can I just say that this what my favorite job ever, other than freelancing). I then went on to work for a university as a financial counselor before becoming a mom and breaking into freelancing.

As you can see, my employment was pretty random during my 20s. During this next decade of life, I fully intend on sticking with freelancing and growing my blog. My husband and I are also getting our real estate licenses this year and will both work on that as a side business together.

Stock progress

I recently did a post on what stocks we bought. Quick recap – we purchased Verifone Systems, Deck Outdoor, Walmart, Realty Income and Starbucks. John and I set goals as to when we would sell and watched the market closely.

Two days ago, we sold Walmart and Deck Outdoor. Continue reading for our profits…

The secret to getting rich

While we all know there are many ways to get rich (including inheriting the money, winning the lottery, earning a high income and saving saving saving, living way below your means, etc.), there really is only ONE, SUREFIRE way to actually accumulate wealth. This is something everyone can do, everyone can learn and everyone can benefit from. While you may lose money in the process, you can’t get rich by playing it safe.

I’m a believer in being either all-in or all-out. I don’t really do things “half way.” This includes everything from working to being a mom to saving money to making decisions (I’ve said before I make decisions very fast). I’m on a quest to become a millionaire and while I know I could play it safe by working hard and saving my money, the reality is if I go that route, I won’t be a millionaire until I’m retired (at no earlier than age 65, of course). I would much rather be a millionaire while I’m young. I want to take risks, see my money grow, make my money start working for me, be able to enjoy traveling with my girls while I’m still young, be able to donate, etc.

So how am I planning on doing this?!

What stocks to buy now

I mentioned earlier how we are getting involved with investing. So far, we have a Synchrony high yield savings account, two mutual funds ($5000 total), my husband’s rollover IRA account and we just invested $7,500 in stocks. Since we’re newbies, it was hard coming up with what stocks to buy now that would make us a profit.

How to start investing

Investing is something that both John and I are rather new to. Other than our company 401K plans, we’ve never invested any of our money. We’ve always saved and set goals, but when it comes to taking risks with our money? Nope. Not gonna happen. Recently, our mentality has completely changed. We want to take risks, we want to learn about stocks, mutual funds, REITs and dividends, we want to generate passive income streams, we want to see our money grow, we want our money to start making us money. We want to start investing. In other words, we want to be rich 🙂