Month: January 2017

Not Investors Banner

Are You an Investor, or Just Investing?

Posted on by Mrs. ETT

Since I discovered Financial Independence blogs, I have begun to seriously consider and research how I can put our money to work for our future. All I wanted to do is get to the point where I could start investing. We finally have an emergency fund, along with three months of living expenses fully funded, so it’s time. However, late in 2016, I read a post by Kayla from Shoeaholic No More detailing ways you can start investing with a small amount of money, and that gave me pause. Am I already an investor? Having recorded where our money goes since January 2016, then performed an end-of-year analysis, I realised we were already participating in some of Kayla’s … Show Me More!

Overwhelmed Banner

A Mindset Change To Banish Overwhelm

Posted on by Mrs. ETT

I love blogging. I decided when I started that I would commit to posting once every 8 days for at least a full year. You may be asking, “why not weekly?” In my head, that didn’t feel achievable, whereas for some reason adding an extra day did. I didn’t want to overwhelm myself, or reduce my chance of success. To me, blogging regularly shows commitment. However, as it turns out, blogging isn’t only about chucking some words down on a page and pressing post. What’s So Overwhelming About Blogging? I enjoy all the other tasks that go along with running a blog, such as: maintenance tweaking the theme adding plugins … Show Me More!

Spending 2016 Banner 2

This Year We Need to Reclaim Our Spending

Posted on by Mrs. ETT

OK. So we’ve had a week to digest the fact that our spending for 2016 was close to $80,000. What now? Is it good? Bad? OK? Shameful? Appalling? Execrable? Firstly, we are going to follow Your Money Or Your Life’s exhortation that this is a no-blame game. It is what it is, there is no use attributing negative emotions to it (or positive ones, for that matter). It is there for analysis, to learn from, and to act as a catalyst for change. In order to better understand what that level of spending means for us, we are going to do some comparisons. Many years ago I was taught that when you … Show Me More!

Spending Review 2016 Banner

The Shock of Calculating Our 2016 Spending Total

Posted on by Mrs. ETT

The Enough Time Machine has a full 12 months of recorded expenses in its data log, so it is time to command “Computer! On screen!”, run an analysis and determine what we can learn from all of those numbers. We use YNAB to record all of our expenses, and now they have some nifty built in reporting features, it is easy to drill down and listen to the stories that our spending is telling us. Spending Story: Horror I still can’t quite believe that we have spent nearly $80,000. I’m starting to understand why the barely dressed blondes neglect to run away when the scary man with a knife comes … Show Me More!