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The Wife

The Wife and I met in college and have been together ever since. We currently have two amazing children, and together they all keep me focused to accomplish my goals and objectives.

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I Can’t Believe I have Been Blogging for 4 Years

by Evan August 6, 2012

On August 5th of 2008 I put up my first post.  I had no idea if anyone would read about my journey, nevertheless care about what was going on in my life, but I wanted to share my thoughts with whoever wanted to read them.  Since putting that first post up I have seen somewhere between 570,000 and 630,000 pageviews (analytics vs sitemeter) and while that is probably a day’s worth of views for a news site I am pretty happy with it, especially since most of the first year or so I was getting under 15 page views a day.

I figured I would go through the full archive of My Journey to Millions and pick out some of my favorite posts in hopes that some of my newer readers can see that my writing was actually even worse back then!  Some of the tax information may have changed but I think these posts stand the test of time almost a half decade later.

It is funny as I built this list there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the topic of the posts, some are financial planning based, some are just about my life, and some are law based.  While there is no topical question I think the style in each of the picks chosen were me being me.

Favorite Posts from 2008

  • Everybody Needs a Will
  • My Greatest Asset is My Wife
  • Education is Not Always Tax Deductible
  • It only took about 20 days before I told The Wife about my blog
  • Are CDs worth it?  Maybe I should do a follow up on the topic since I would LOVE to have some of those interest rates today
  • Who Cares that the FDIC raised the insurance limits
  • Socialism is never a good idea
  • To Know Thyself is the Only Way to Overcome your Deficiencies
  • Simplest Personal Finance Advice for Newlyweds
  • The Wife and Finally Implement a Plan and Build a Financial Road Map
  • 15 vs 30 Year Mortgages why I like Longer

Favorite Posts from 2009

  • Goals for 2009 – Funny for me to read it.  As much as things have changes some things have not!
  • The Wife and I almost get ripped off while on vacation!
  • Forget your RMD? You can beg the IRS for Forgiveness
  • Accountability Leads to Success – Easily one of my favorite posts of all time that doesn’t have to do with my personal life
  • Life Insurance and Annuities May be Right for Retirement
  • Top 10 Reasons you need a Will ASAP – This is when I found out my father was having major surgery
  • A real life story of how lack of diversification destroyed a client’s retirement
  • Life is More than Finances – 14 hours spent at a hospital for my father’s surgery
  • A reminder that an average of 10% investment returns doesn’t guarantee success
  • Planning for Children with Special Needs Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3
  • Colleges are the Next Big Bubble to Burst – A theory I am still believe in but am waiting for it to hit
  • 9 Months and I paid off $12,000 of Credit Card Debt!
  • My First of many posts about Whole Life Insurance
  • An apology post I had to write
  • reasons a 401(k) is better than an IRA – My first of many posts about how there are very few bright line rules in Personal finance
  • Comparing the United States against Marx’s Communist Manifesto
  • Announcement of a Child The Wife and I were Expecting, the subsequent loss of that child (still hard for me to read today) and The Wife’s views on the situation.
  • New York Defaults getting thrown out because of bad service (and bad attorneys)
  • 2008 Tax Statistics prove that Multiple Streams of Income Are Key to Success
  • Lesson Learned the Hard Way – Some Lenders do Not Apply Extra Payments to Principal
  • Buying Life Insurance on a Child Part 1 and Part 2 (advice where I eventually practiced what I preached)
  • Using Whole Life Insurance to Build a Pension Like Stream of Income
  • Ode to my Dog
  • Living Paycheck to Paycheck Could Cost you Your Life
  • There were Never Good Ole Days when it Comes to Personal Finance
  • I don’t Understand Personal Finance Blogging – A problem I still have today
  • What did African Americans Think President Obama was Going to Do? Some fun, “Evan you are a racist” type of comments
  • Four Words in Personal Finance that PISS me off and The Wife Says them ALL the time – She has since stopped saying them as we got older

Favorite Posts from 2010

  • Goals and Objectives of 2010
  • The Wife’s Post about Messing with my Manhood
  • The Basics of Personal Finance are the Same Regardless of Income Level
  • Is There Anything More Important than Money When Talking about a Job?
  • Three Common Qualities of High Net Worth Individuals’ Balance Sheets
  • Good Humanitarian or PF D-Bag?
  • The Very First Start of my Dividend Investment Portfolio
  • My first attempt to narrow down my Dividend choices
  • Defending Financial Planners
  • A Million Bucks is still a LOT of money
  • Asking Whether the Health Care Bill was Constitutional – Boy did I miss the mark on this one, huh
  • What is Valuable May not be Worth Anything
  • Coming up with a theory on Cell Phone Insurance
  • A real life reminder of wanting financial freedom – Side note this guy has since changed jobs and is loving life!
  • My Easy Fix for Illegal Immigration
  • We are expecting a child! – VERY welcomed after the shit we went through in 2009
  • Most People that Tell you that they don’t want to be wealthy are LYING
  • Faith Based Investing May be a Terrible Idea
  • Some People may Need a Nice Car
  • People who Refuse to Change What Makes the Miserable Drives me Nuts
  • How I try to overcome paralysis by analysis
  • Why Teachers Anger me –  I still get comments on this post every so often lol
  • Would you Opt out of the Social Security Ponzi Scheme?
  • A letter to my unborn son on my 2nd Blogging anniversary
  • How I have to keep myself Cash Poor
  • Are Generation Y-ers Different? Do I follow the stereotypes?
  • My Theory on whether Money Buys Happiness
  • Get off your Ass and Follow Through with your Business Idea
  • If you have a Child with Special Needs Please Check with a Financial or Legal Professional
  • I don’t understand the Early Retirement Extreme Movement
  • Example of a High Net Worth Balance Sheet that Inspires me
  • Do I think about Money too much?
  • Do You know what You spend per year?
  • Introducing my Baby Boy! I can’t believe how little he was!
  • Review of my 2010 Goals

Favorite Posts of 2011

  • 2011 Goals and Objectives (written in 2010)
  • Past Wasn’t as Good as you Remember it
  • I came up with a new way to track and share my net worth – I updated it every month but only share a few in this list
  • Practicing what I preach when I bought Life Insurance on my Child
  • Stop Bitching and created a Second Stream of Income
  • It is Okay to Just want things
  • My Favorite thing about paying off debt
  • My Biggest Fear Laid out there for Everyone to read
  • Investment Services Don’t make Sense
  • Sharing my First Experience Being an Entrepreneur
  • Do you Compartmentalize Spending Decisions?
  • Are you the Kind of person that Best to Win? Place? or Show?
  • June 2011 Net Worth Update (half way through the first year) – Up 33.6%!
  • What You Think Someone Else Wants at Death is Irrelevant
  • What do you Do at Night? I try to make money
  • Is Something Valuable if No one Knows?
  • The difference between liberals and conservatives when it comes to Equality
  • Insurance Products should not be a 4 letter word
  • My Unlikely Financial Hero
  • Is your financial ship run by one captain or two captains?
  • A cool Scotch tasting experiment my friends and I did – one bottle was free while the other was $130 (and a few in between)
  • An update to my family’s cash flow chart
  • I feel guilty when making unneeded purchases
  • Why I am not a huge fan of Revocable Living Trusts
  • It is probably about time to Grow the Fuck Up
  • My Trip to Atlanta for my 30th Bday
  • Am I a complete Hypocrite or an Opportunist?
  • There are other Dividend Stock Lists besides the Dividend Aristocrats
  • No Research Reasons why I like Mature Dividend paying stocks
  • Don’t assume your time is worth money
  • Happy First Birthday to my Boy!
  • Great discussion on Unequal Distribution to Future Heirs
  • Reviewing how I did on my 2011 Goals and Objectives

Favorite Posts of 2012

We are only half way through the year but I have some favorites:

  • Why the Hell are there New Pension Plan Participants?
  • You have Absolutely No Patriotic Duty to Pay High Taxes
  • Don’t be a Sheep When it Comes to Your Finances
  • My Experience at a Storage Auction
  • A Reminder why buying life insurance early is important
  • Our House is on the Market – Another chapter in my life is going by
  • There are Some Business Models I don’t Understand
  • Thoughts on Professional, Personal and Family Relationships
  • Responding to Someone Calling you Cheap
  • There are NO Money Rules
  • I don’t get he Hype about the Facebook IPO – Only time will tell if I am correct
  • The Secret Business I am dying to open up
  • What the Hell is Wrong with Some People – Emergency Fund vs the Smart Phone Statistics
  • How I Invested my Child’s Money – I hope to share this with my son one day
  • Where Would You Invest if You didn’t Trust the Markets?

If you told me that I would be blogging 4 years later I would have said you were crazy!

  • That is as long as HS,
  • As long as College
  • Longer than I was in Law School
  • One-Third of my Relationship with The Wife (we dated a long time before getting married)
  • It is more than a seventh of my life

This blog has kept me on track with my finances and has opened up opportunities to save money like I never would have imagined.  I started a very viable business with someone I have only met once in real life (I don’t talk about it much here, but it is pretty damn successful); I have shared some of my happiness, scares and tragedies with people I will never meet.  I have actually met like-minded people who have their own blog which is always cool.

For all those things above I want to thank everyone who has ever stopped by my blog.

August 6, 2012 28 comments
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The Wife

The Wife’s Confusing View on Credit Cards

by Guest Post June 17, 2011

Post by The Wife

I am not a huge fan of credit cards, but I am aware that sometimes they are necessary.  It has been trying but I have learned over time that a credit card doesn’t always have to equate to an uncontrolled amount of debt.  Credit cards can provide security in an emergency, and better yet they can get you free stuff! But all the good stuff credit cards can bring get voided if you abuse them. And I am sad to say I think one reason America is where it is today is because of the misuse of credit.

I am a huge believer that if you can’t pay for something in full, you can’t afford it (minus things like houses or cars). It is way too easy to keep buying and spending, then only paying the minimum. But that adds up quick, and soon you are in over your head.

But there is a way to use credit cards correctly. Credit card companies probably hate people like me who always pay their balance in full, but they just have to deal with that. We use our card to buy everything, and while doing so we are racking up the rewards points that credit cards offer. Mind you, it takes forever to actually save up enough points to get anything worth while, but if you do your research and get the right card, you can get some great rewards.

I could go on for days about my disdain for credit cards, but I will save you the reading time. My little PSA is this: Use credit cards, but be smart. Don’t buy what you can’t afford, and don’t get over your head. The debt is really not worth it.

Evan’s Note: This post was inspired by the folks at Money Expert.  I asked The Wife if her views on Credit Cards have changed at all since we got married and entered into and succeeded in Operation Eradicate Credit Card Debt.  It seems like she has moved from I hate credit cards, to if I can find the right one and not abuse the card they may be ‘alright.’  I actually find this post very funny because you can sense her anger through the post about the little plastic, but I am rubbing off on her that the card isn’t the evil item but rather the person using it. Point for Evan.

June 17, 2011 9 comments
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The Wife

Musings of a Work at Home Mom

by Guest Post May 26, 2011

This is a Guest Post Written By The Wife.  The Wife also writes at After The Alter

I have always loved working from home. Although sometimes challenging, working from home has allowed me many luxuries that people who work outside of the home don’t have. Don’t get me wrong, I do sometimes miss the camaraderie of an office, but how many people can say that they can work sometimes in their pajamas? I’d say not many!

Some people have asked me if I have ever considered renting office space.  The honest answer is no! With how is it is to communicate in today’s world, there really has never been a need. Who needs the extra overhead when I can easily answer calls, e mails and faxes from my own home.

I have to admit that with the addition of our child my office space has become a bit cramped. My office, which once was in our second bedroom, has now been moved to the first floor. I now share my office space with a living room couch and my Husband’s Fisht tank! What was once a closet filled with work items, now has become a store all of children’s items. Luckily, I don’t spend much sitting at my desk, so the move hasn’t affected me TOO much.

The main challenge of working from home is making sure to actually do my job. You can easily become distracted, especially now that my son takes up most of my time. I doubt most people could handle the responsibility of working from home. I guess I am just the special sort who can.

I will be honest and say it’s not for everyone. What works for me may not work for everyone else. Also, my main focus is on being a mom these days. My work has now come secondary. It’s great and I love it. Yay for being a work at home mom/wife!

May 26, 2011 32 comments
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The Wife

Happy 30th Birthday to The Wife

by Evan June 24, 2010

cake

In honor of The Wife’s 30th Birthday I thought I’d go through the archives and find some of my favorite posts about her, from her, or that having something she did that made me nutty.

  • My favorite post is from 2 long years ago when I declared that My Wife was My Greatest Asset
  • How could I not mention my Announcement that She was Pregnant
  • Alrighty Done with the Nice Stuff – 4 Words that She Says that Pisses me off (this one has 36 heated and funny comments)
  • The Wife then responds to my previous angry post
  • Lastly, a touching piece the Wife wrote on my blog about the lessons learned from our Miscarriage from Last Year

So say happy birthday to my love!

June 24, 2010 5 comments
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The Wife

Regardless of your Financial Situation Don’t Forget to be Happy!

by Guest Post April 23, 2010

My sister asked me the other day why I sounded like such a “Debbie Downer” all the time when I spoke to her on the phone. I apologized and told her I just have a lot on my mind. Later in the day she sent me an e mail with the “Dance Like Nobody Is Watching” Poem. I know it’s nothing new, and that most people have already read it, but when I read her e mail I cried. Not necessarily tears of sadness, but tears because the poem is so very true.

I wrote a post a while back titled Remembering To Live , and even though I wrote those words I find them hard to follow. Reading this is a good reminder to enjoy life no matter what. I love the part that says “happiness is a journey not a destination”. So true! So take a moment and read this poem. If i’s the first time you are reading the full thing then I hope you enjoy it. If you’ve read it before, I recommend reading it again. Maybe it will have new meaning to you.

Dance Like Nobody Is Watching

We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren’t old enough and we’ll be more content when they are. After that we’re frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage. We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation, when we retire.

The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when?

Your life will always be filled with challenges. It’s best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. Alfred D Souza said, “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have. And treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time … and remember that time waits for no one…

So stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new car or home, until your car or home is paid off, until spring, until summer, until fall, until winter, until you are off welfare, until the first or fifteenth, until your song comes on, until you’ve had a drink, until you’ve sobered up, until you die, until you are born again to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy…

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

Thought for the day :
Work like you don’t need money,
Love like you’ve never been hurt,
And dance like no one’s watching.

Author: Crystal Boyd , 1998. From the book: “Midnight Muse.”
© Crystal Boyd (
Visit Crystal Boyd website)
Please note that the Thought for the day is not part of Crystal’s poem, but from an old Irish Proverb

This is a guest post from The Wife.  She writes on her own, very different but much better blog, After the Alter.  Check out her site, follow her on twitter @AftertheAlter and subscribe to her feed – you’ll notice right away she is a much nicer person than me!

April 23, 2010 10 comments
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