What’s Shakin’,

This is the Master Money Newsletter. The money newsletter that brings more fire than Game of Thrones.

Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) that is.

Here’s what we have on deck today:

Learn The Beginners Guide to FI
Watch The Order to Invest Your Money

The Beginners Guide to FIRE - Step By Step

Without having to eat rice and beans.

1/ Develop Your Why

It all starts with a little exercise called find your why. Don’t know what your why is? Here is the easiest way to figure it out.

Sit down with and craft your dream life. You can do this with your partner or if you are single with yourself.

Write down everything you want in life. Including small details. This is very important.

Financial independence is the pursuit of what you want in life.

2/ Get That Savings Rate Up

We have to look at your savings rate. Most people in the FI community know that your savings rate is the catalyst to building wealth. It is the fuel to the fire. If you want to retire early you want to get that number up as high as possible.

The goal is to start with a 20% savings rate, at a minimum. This is your net income.

If you want to retire super fast, you want to save 50% or more so you don’t have to work forever. We don’t want to work at a job we don’t love for 40 years. The FI community thinks differently. We are striving to reach FI as quickly as possible!

3/ Growth Of Income

The next thing we want to do is grow that income. Then we take our income and use it to buy freedom!

Start by negotiating our salary at our job. It is where you spend most of your time. We have a very specific system on how to do this and you can check it out here.

The second way to do this is with side hustles.

Now there is a key that most people miss as their income increases. If you can avoid this one thing, it is the golden ticket to building wealth.

The key here is to watch out for lifestyle inflation. Meaning, as your income increases - your lifestyle increases with it. This is a financial red flag. 🚩

To an extend, everyone will experience this. Life is going to happen, your family dynamics will change, and unexpected situations will smack you in the face. The key is to control it. Guide it towards your priorities, not frivolous purchases you don't care about.

What we don’t want to happen is you buying new cars you can’t afford, fancy over-the-top vacations outside of your budget, or signing up more for a mortgage that will make you house-poor.

That will rob you of your freedom.

4/ Pay down High-Interest Debt

While the FIRE community may not be as anti-debt as the Dave Ramsey Community (leverage through real estate is common.) We prioritize paying down consumer debt like credit card balances and student loans.

The sooner you pay off your high-interest debt the sooner your financial freedom clock begins.

5/ Invest

You can’t retire unless you invest your money.

Most people in the FI community invest 1 of 2 ways.

Index Funds and ETF’s: This is the most passive way to invest. You can do this in your 401(k), IRA, or standard brokerage account. If you want to learn how to invest in index funds and ETFs check out our course that lays it all out for you, Index Fund Pro!
Real Estate: Rental properties are loved by the FI community because for a small down payment, there is the potential to immediately generate cash flow. Once you have enough cash flow to cover your expenses, you don’t have to work anymore.

6/ Know Your Number

If you want to know how much you need to retire, the formula is simple.

Take how much you want to spend yearly in retirement and multiply that number by 25.

For every $40K you need, you’ll need $1 million.

Are you pursuing FIRE?

Announcement 📣

Index Fund Pro members, we have added breakdowns of Vanguard Index Funds and ETFs! Expect more of these breakdowns throughout the year for Vanguard, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, iShares, and more!

If you want to get lifetime access to Index Fund Pro, where you will get our complete investing system + access to Index Fund and ETF breakdowns, you can sign up here!

High-Performance Book Club 📚

I get a ton of questions from listeners and readers as to what I am reading. So we decided to let you know via the newsletter. The High-Performance Book Club will be a way to share this. If you want to be Elite in your career, business, or with your wealth, then welcome to the club. If you would like to see our previous picks, you can find them here.

The Personal Finance Podcast 🎙️

The Complete Beginners Guide to Financial Independence (and Quitting Your Job Early!)

Youtube

We are really working hard to improve your Youtube production. Let me know what you think and please subscribe if you find value!