Weekly Wrap-up, August 30

Weekly Wrap-up

With the past week flying by at the speed of light, August is already coming to an end. On Monday most of the country starts its old routine again: children going back to school, parents working full-time instead of enjoying a lavish vacation, and a traffic jam bonanza hitting all major and minor roads. But before you start worrying about that, be sure to check out my favourite reads from the last few days.

Because the month is coming to a close an income and expense report should appear on my blog soon. I’m pretty sure that my savings rate will surprise you, considering it’s the first month I live on my own.

Speaking of living on my own, yesterday my grandparents visited my new abode! They came, they saw, they approved. After which I took them out for sushi. Had I known in advance how funny my grandparents’ chopstick eating skills would be, I’d have brought a video camera.

Another thing that cracked me up this week was Noonan’s post on how he was a teenage toffee baron. I wish he still was, because the toffee sounds delicious! I have a similar story coming up soon, but it’s not nearly as hilarious as Noonan’s is.

If you’re looking for more happy posts  pop over to the Dividend Diplomats. Bert surpassed his projected dividend income for this year for the second time already! After cracking $1,500 and now $1,750, he’s trying to break $2,000. It’s these kind of stories that motivate me to keep on saving and investing.

You could say that most of you serve as online mentors through your stories, experiences and expertise. I’m constantly amazed by how inclusive the personal finance community is and how much I’ve learned these past few months from reading your excellent posts. Maybe I should have responded to Debt Debs post on mentors she admired that I admire you guys?

In the beginning investing scared me though. Nicola from The Frugal Cottage seems to experience some of the same hurdles even though she feels that investing is key to building wealth. Be sure to check out her questions and help her out if you can.

Steve from Kapitalust only recently overcame some of the barriers to investing and started pouring his savings into equities this month for the first time. He furthermore revealed his net worth to all of us! I know first-hand that revealing personal information like that is scary, but Steve should be proud about what he and his spouse are worth already. Great job!

For those of you who are just starting out and still building the foundation of your wealth empire, I highly recommend checking out Kipp’s post on the different layers of an emergency fund. While it’s mostly US focussed, he challenges some common concepts applicable to every emergency fund setup.

Before you can start building your emergency fund you first have to save of course. For some people saving seems impossible, but the comments on my post about savings rates show that a lot of personal finance bloggers think a 50% savings rate is the sweet spot, especially if you want to retire early.

However, the problem for many people is that they don’t want to sacrifice a certain standard of living to save more of their monthly salary. If you feel that way sometimes, I suggest you check out Ryan’s post about FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out. He provides four great tips to deal with your fear to miss out on fun stuff.

Catch you guys on the flip side, enjoy your weekend!

12 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing my post! I can’t imagine my grandparents ever eating sushi, so yours are doing well! Have a good weekend 🙂

    1. You’re welcome! We have to get you over your fear of investing so you can truly start building wealth.

      My grandparents loved the sushi, but they were so glad when I finally offered to ask the waiter for a knife and fork. 🙂

      Cheers,
      NMW

  2. Thanks so much for spreading the word about my latest article, NMW! May the gross domestic happiness of the planet be enhanced by Belgium waffles and Canadian toffee! 🙂

    1. You’re welcome! Really enjoyed your article!

      Ha, the gross domestic happiness is the best economic indicator of all time. 😀

  3. Grandparent’s approval is so important. 🙂 I loved Noonan’s post too. I think I nominated him for Best Kept Secret blog at the Plutus awards. I want to start a campaign to get him on Twitter.

    I guess things are going to be getting busy at work for you. Me too.

    Thanks for featuring my post at More Than Just Money’s blog. Mentorship works both ways and I admire what you are doing here.

    1. Spot on nominating him for Best Kept Secret blog! Noonan deserves a lot more attention than he is currently getting. I absolutely love his writing style.

      Things are getting busy indeed, but I don’t mind. I was getting bored and stuck on some projects because almost everyone was out.

      You’re welcome, Debs! Inspiring articles deserve to be shared!

  4. August sure flew by! That’s great that your grandparents came visit you. Sushi is delicious, I love sushi. I especially like the sushi I had when I was in Japan.

    Once you can pick up two peanuts at the same time using chopsticks then you can say you know how to use chopsticks. 😉

    1. Sushi is awesome! The chefs of the place I go to were actually born in Japan, so they’ll probably come close to the real deal. At least, that’s what I think. One day I’ll go to Japan and check it out for myself. So jealous of you right now!

      Damn, that’s quite the chopstick skills you’ve got there! I’m taking you up on the challenge! 🙂

    1. Thanks for the kind words! I’ll continue writing then! 🙂

      Had a blast with my grandparents and I think they did too!

      Thanks for stopping by,
      NMW

  5. Thanks for the shout out NMF! Haha you were a bit of a motivator and inspiration for me to get going on the net worth post! Portfolio post will come sometime soon and that’s also largely because of seeing how kickass you have been with posting and being active right out of the gate!

    Grandparents willing to try sushi is awesome – sometimes old people are super picky about what they try and don’t try!

    1. You’re very much welcome, Steve! I’m glad to hear that I was the figurative kick in the butt to get you started on your net worth post! I love reading those kind of posts. I’m looking forward to your portfolio.

      My grandparents are awesome. They’re both around 80 years-old, but they don’t look or act a day older than 60. Making short trips everywhere and trying out new things keeps them young!

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