Live 4 Financial Freedom

We teach our boys to maintain their cars and home to make them last longer and save money. Without proper care things can break down faster and cost lots of money. This is why this is one of our Financial Freedom rules we teach our boys.

I am far from being a car mechanic or a home repair expert so these numbers come from my experience and the experience of others I have worked with. Year to year cost of repairs can range widely also. We have had some huge things all hit in some years and other years hardly any. That is another reason to keep your Emergency Fund completely funded.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only.

Car Maintenance

Last year our car maintenance and repairs were only $921 for our three cars. We had a really good year. Normally I have heard of repairs running people up to $1,200 a year per car. Last year our car repairs were 1.2% of our home Income and others years it has ran up to over 3%.

We teach our boys to do the following to help maintain their cars to last longer; To get more details listen to the whole Podcast Show.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

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Over the years I have known many people that spent too much on a home they bought or a place they wanted to rent. Then something happens to them like a job loss or going to a new job where they made less money and now, they couldn’t make their payments anymore.

That is a reason that we taught our boys to have their total Home Mortgage plus Property Taxes and Insurance to be less than 25% of their take home pay. Same goes for if they are renting a place to live instead of buying a place.

Of course, our first choice for the boys would be that they would pay cash for a house they decide to buy someday. The second option if they do decide to buy a house before they have enough money saved then they get a 15-year mortgage.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only.

We want the boys to stay debt free their whole lives but if they choose to go into debt for their house then we hope they will follow the Mills Way to Financial Freedom steps that we taught them and pay it off even faster than the 15 year old mortgage they took out. Listen to the whole Podcast show for all the details.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

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Last year when the Navy recruiters came over to our house the one recruiter brought up about how he wished his parents would have taught him the things we are teaching our boys. I told him that is why we are teaching our boys these lessons and why I am sharing it with the world with my Podcast, Blog and my book to be released hopefully before 2021.

The recruiter talked about how he paid his debt off differently than my method and it took him a lot longer to get debt free but he said he got such a good feeling when they reached debt freedom. He was now at the early stage of having some extra money but his wife was wanting to buy a new car.

We teach our boys that when they have any extra money leftover after they are completely debt free and their Emergency Fund is funded completely to Invest the money in their Brokerage Account.

They can also Invest in other Asset forms if they like, it is their choice. The main goal that we keep stressing to them is to work towards 10 times at least of their future expenses. So, if they think their future expenses at retirement will be $75,000 a year then they would need that amount times 10 plus their Emergency Fund of $50,000 for a total of $800,000.

If they want to retire-early we are suggesting they work towards 25 times their future expenses in their Brokerage Account since they won’t have their Retirement fully funded.

They of course can choose to have alternates to any of the rules that we teach them towards their Financial Freedom goals. Let’s say they decide to retire early and work towards 25 times their future expenses in both their Brokerage Account and Retirement funds accounts, plus their Emergency Fund. Nothing wrong with that either.

They just need to have enough in their Brokerage Account or in streams of Passive Income to cover their expenses until they can touch any of their Retirement funds. Darlene and myself hope to never touch our Retirement funds or at least not till I am in my 70’s.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only. Listen to the whole Podcast for more about Passive Income and more.

. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

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During my working years I always paid for Disability Insurance to make sure I was covered. Back in the days I had heard many stories of people who had freak accidents and were out of work for quite a while and needed the Disability Insurance to help maintain their living expenses for their family.

Insurance is a part of protecting yourself and family in case of an accident and can help with your Financial Freedom goals. Think if you were out of work for a long time without a paycheck because you fell off the roof while hanging Christmas Lights than you may have to use your up your savings for money to live on. That could possibly set you back a while from your projected Financial Freedom date or Retirement date.

This is an important lesson to cover with our boys. Even though they may not be in their career for years we want them to know the importance of protecting themselves financially. I know of one family that their lifestyle was really hurt when their main breadwinner had a Heart Attack and didn’t have any Disability Insurance. He was self-employed, I think.

As always, I am not giving you any Insurance or Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Insurance and other Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only. Listen to the Podcast for the whole show.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs.

Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas

Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

#financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes)

1. Investopedia says about Disability Insurance https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disability-insurance.asp

Maximizing your 401K each year after we are Debt Free is one of the rules and action steps that we teach our boys for them to head towards their Financial Freedom goals. It is Action Step 9 in our 10 action steps to Financial Freedom.

Action Step 9 is to maximize their Retirement Savings and Investments up to 25 times their expenses. There have been many examples that if you have 25 times your expenses and take out a 4% withdrawal a year it could last them the rest of their lives. Check with your Professional Advisor on what the maximum is that you can Invest this year in your 401K and IRA.

Investopedia said “if you have both a Roth 401(k) plan and a Roth IRA, your total annual contribution for all accounts in 2020 has a combined limit of $25,500 ($19,500 Roth 401(k) contribution + $6,000 Roth IRA contribution) or $33,000 if you are 50 or older ($19,500 Roth 401(k) contribution + $6,500 catch-up contribution + $6,000 Roth IRA contribution + $1,000 catch-up contribution).” For you fact checkers you can see the link in the below show notes.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only. Listen to my Podcast for the full show.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs.

Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas

Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

#financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes)

1. 2020 401K Limits by https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/what-are-roth-401k-contribution-limits.asp

2. 4% Withdraw Chart “Portfolio Success Rates: Where to Draw the Line” 10/25/19 by Philip L. Cooney, Ph.D.; Carl M Hubbard, Ph.D.; and Daniel T Walz, Ph.D. https://www.onefpa.org/journal/pages/Portfolio%20Success%20Rates%Where%20yo%20Draw%20the%20Line.aspx

Who doesn’t like a party? We do in our house for sure. We work hard working towards our Financial Freedom goals and it is fun to celebrate when we achieve one of our goals along the way.

We have many goals we set each year and we celebrate in many different ways when we achieve one. We normally have our party involve the whole family. That used to be easier when the boys were younger. Now with Logan working four to five days a week and in college now we hardly see him. At least we still have four more years with Seth till he is in college.

I feel it is good to take time in your own ways to celebrate your achievements when you hit a goal, finish a Mills Way to Financial Freedom Action step to your monthly review meetings.

You may be saying why celebrate a monthly review meeting? It’s sound so much like work when you have a meeting scheduled but if you can celebrate a monthly review party it sounds like more fun.

We don’t always make progress each month due to something comes up. We can always find a lot of things that we did hit with our budget, goals, action steps and more each month to celebrate. We don’t have balloons or confetti but maybe we will in the future.

Here are some ways that you could celebrate your successes after each milestone. Even if you are single, I believe you should have a monthly celebration party and be grateful for what you achieved during the month and then make a plan on how to attack things this next month. Here are some ideas; Listen to the full Podcast for details.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs.

Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas

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Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

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There is no law that I know of that says parents have to pay for their kids’ college. As far as I know it is optional. We have told our kids for years that they need to pay for college if they want to go to college.

We believe college is very important and something they may need to get a good job in the future. Some people say that college isn’t needed, those people must not be putting in for jobs. If they were, they would see how many jobs are asking for a BA degree as a requirement.

We do know many successful entrepreneurs that never went to college and are very well off. Some of them went into the family business, some started their own business and some went into the trades by working their way up with a company.

Here are some ways to help your kids with College without paying for their college expenses. Some ways are; Listen to the whole Podcast for all the details.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs.

Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas

Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

#financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #college #studentloans #studentdebt #debt

Some people ask the question if they would be better off investing in their own IRA rather than investing in their companies 401K plan? If your company doesn’t have a matching 401K plan then maybe that is for you. But what I see is that a lot of people lack discipline. What is nice about a company 401K is that it is coming out of their paychecks without any effort from them. They can just get used to seeing what their net check amount is to live on.

Others may not like what options they have available to put their money in their companies 401K plans. In the past some of the companies I worked with had limited options and some pushed company stock. Today it seems like companies are offering more options to pick from within the 401K plans.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only.

Reasons Why

With our boys we taught them to always invest in their companies matching 401k to at least the minimum to qualify for a 100% match. Here are some reasons we like them to do it; Listen to the Podcast for more details.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

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Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

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When I worked for a company year’s back, they required every employee in the corporate office that was on the bonus plan needed to do continuing education to qualify for up to 25% of their Bonus Potential.

For me it was a no brainer but for some people in our office they felt it was a waste of their time and wouldn’t do it. I could not see giving up 25% of my bonus potential for not making myself better.

The company I worked for cared about having employees continue to keep learning new skills and improve. As an employee they paid for my learning and I could get more of a bonus by doing it.

We had to get with our manager and cover our quarterly plan for what three things we were going to do to improve ourselves. You could choose from reading a book, going to a seminar or taking a class. It wasn’t anything hard to do. Still a lot of employees wouldn’t do it. The company also paid for the classes and seminars. They had a huge library of books you could check out or you could go to the library to find one. What ever you choose to do your manager had to sign off on it and then when it was completed you just needed to do a quick recap on what you learned and how it could help you in your job.

Those were really good years I worked for them. I was already a habit of life long learning so I thought it was really cool. I still keep learning new stuff every day. We hope our boys will keep up their learning after they are done with their school years.

We encourage our boys to read at least 30 minutes a day and work on learning programing skills for at least 30 minutes a day. I plan on taking them to seminars and conferences with me in the future if they are not in school or at work.

There are so many reasons why someone should continue to keep learning their whole life and how it would help them towards their Financial Freedom goals. Some of the benefits that we talk with our boys about are; Covered in the Podcast Show

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs.

Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas

Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

#financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

This may not apply to your situation if you are currently debt free. Chances are though you may have someone you know that you could possibly help with this Mills Way to Financial Freedom rule. We taught this to our kids so if something happened and they found themselves in debt during their adult kids they would have the skills to get debt free fast. Of course, depending on how much debt they may fall into.

Choices and Consequences, we stress in our house. Some people have things that happen to them that maybe they couldn’t have prevented that causes debt but most people that have debt spend money they don’t have on normally stupid stuff.

People I have worked with in the past that wanted to get out of debt normally drove nicer cars than I did. They normally had nicer cell phones than I had. They normally go out to eat and events more than I do. They live in a larger house than they can afford. This list can go on and on. Again, they made some poor choices.

As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only.

Action Steps

That is why this Rule is part of Action Step 2, 4 and 7 in getting towards your Financial Freedom goals. Action Step 1 is to list your goals you have for Financial Freedom and then your Why’s for each goal, what you will give up to attain each goal and when you want to accomplish each goal by. More details in the Podcast Episode.

If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at [email protected] or Text me at 480-389-6224

Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway

Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs.

Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas

Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

#financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway