Wealth Within Your Reach

1. Start saving for kid's college as early as possible College savings accounts and plans, like a 529 plan (US) or RESP (Canada) help jump start children’s future education early so there is less of a financial burden years later. These plans also allow tax-free withdrawals when you take out money to pay for college. By getting started early, you can save a significant amount of tax savings. The power of compound returns can be so beneficial, so get started early on.  2. Review employer benefits, take advantage of all of it Many companies offer more than just retirement plans which will help save money and even invest to earn more. Do review the employer provided benefits thoroughly.  Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPP): An employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) is a program in which participating employees can purchase company stock at a discounted price. Employees contribute to the plan through  deductions which build up between the offering date and the purchase date. Em...

Below are the top habits wealthy have in common: 1. Buy cars and plan to keep them long-term Cars depreciate in value the second you drive one off the lot. By keeping their cars long-term, the wealthy use the time between car purchases to save up cash that would otherwise go towards a monthly payment. If you need to finance the car, pay it off as soon as you can and plan to keep the car long after that loan is paid off. 2. Have emergency funds This is one of the key steps in building a solid financial foundation. The wealthy have a six to nine months of monthly expenses that they can tap into in an emergency goes a long way. If you have an unexpected expense like car repair or urgent medical bills, a rainy-day fund that is immediately available for withdrawals helps. This way, you don’t need to charge the expense onto a high-interest credit card or take out a personal loan. 3. Invest The wealthy have organized investment plans - stocks, bonds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs). As a gener...

Web 1.0 was the early Internet where websites were just static pages, you could read the information posted on servers and interact with such servers in simple ways. There were search engines, and there were e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay. Web 2.0 arose following the turn of the century. It was far more interactive, far more collaborative, and far more capable. Web 2.0 brought "Web as a Platform". It is this generation of the web that gave us smartphones and mobile computing. Web 2.0 could support near real-time interactions and thus collaborative activity was feasible. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter were part of this. It also included the birth of Big Data and the machine learning algorithms that sifted through it. Web 3.0 is the decentralized version of the Web i.e. there is no central authority to dictate or govern the usage of the data. Although still in the growing stage, it has the potential to revolutionize the Web as we know it today. Web 3.0 is r...

The Richest Man in Babylon is a timeless classic book for personal finance. Below are the top 10 lessons I took away from the book.   #1 Start by feeding your pockets   This point is actually the crux of the book: the classic principle of paying yourself first. Save at least 10% of all income earned. Even in the example of those who are paying off debt, the author advocates setting aside this 10%. If you want to save money for your future, you must begin by consistently setting aside part of your earnings today. #2 Control your expenses Essentially, this is learning to live within your means and avoiding lifestyle inflation.   As our income grows, we often increase our so-called “essential costs,” leading to lifestyle inflation . While we are allowed the occasional latte and extravagant dinners, we need to keep our spending in check. We shouldn’t deprive ourselves of everything. However, fulfilling every desire is no longer a special treat. Don’t fall into the trap ...

It is a common misconception that saving and investing are the same thing. Many people are taught about saving money in high school. While you save your money, it's positive action on its own but it doesn't grow your money in the same way as investments. Savings earn relatively small returns and almost no interest, which means your saved money won't grow at all if you just stick it in a jar. As soon as you put your money into a savings account, its value becomes fixed, meaning you won't benefit from any potential future increases in the market value of shares or bonds. The main difference between saving and investing is that while saving involves putting your money away and expecting some interest, investing means putting your money into stocks, bonds, mutual funds, cryptocurrencies, and other places to increase your gains in the long-term by risking some of what you have to potentially make more in the future and expecting a return on the investment. In other words, ...