Everyone has different situations and goals in life. Not everyone may need to have a Financial Team or if they have one maybe they don’t need to see them yearly. For instance, my Mom who has no Assets and lives in a Nursing Home doesn’t need a Financial Team. We hope though our boys will acquire a lot of Assets in their lifetime and need a Financial Team along their journey to Financial Freedom. As always, I am not giving you any Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional...
Nov 23, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Most people that work at a job hopes to get a pay raise each year. Some employees want them more than once a year. Wages is one of the largest expenses they have to run their business. If you own a business then you know if you want to stay in business then you need to show a profit. If wages go up then you need to find a way to cover that expense. Most businesses raise the prices to cover the cost. This starts at the Manufacturing level to the Retail level. Each business needs to pass on the co...
Nov 12, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Bottom line with all the news and experts out there the final decision when it comes to our Personal Finances is our own. That is what we teach our boys when we are teaching them our rules to Financial Freedom. 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. Some people you hear on the news can say we are in a Bull Market and th...
Nov 05, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Pensions aren’t as common as they were back when my Dad was working at International Harvester. They made Farm Equipment there in Rock Island, IL. They had a Union there which my Dad was a Shop Steward for the Union. They also had a Pension and Health Care for life for Mom and Dad. Pretty good deal. I am going by what he told me I never read all the details of it. In todays world it seems like fewer and fewer companies offer a Pension plan. Companies that don’t have Pension plans normally have a...
Sep 17, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 55
Many people I have talked to said one of the things they worry about is running out of money during their retirement years. I have those worries also myself. The more studies that I read about and people I talk to that withdrew 4% of their retirement funds and it worked out for them gives me a calming feeling. No one has that magical crystal ball to know what the future may bring us. Especially with our Health. We could get sick and run up a ton of medical bills. One lady I know was put in a Nur...
Sep 10, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 54
Who are people trying to impress with expensive Apple Cell Phones and having Cable TV with all the Streaming Channels? If people are in debt or not even half ways towards their Financial Freedom goals, do they need these two items? What lessons are they teaching their kids if they have kids? We made this a rule for our kids to help them reach their Financial Freedom goals and not get sucked into society making it seem like you need these items to look successful. Being successful isn’t being bro...
Sep 03, 2020•9 min•Season 1Ep. 53
We get phone calls, emails and texts daily at our house of people trying to get our information or to scam us. Everything from someone in England that died and left us 8.5 million dollars to call this number right away or the IRS will be taking you to court. It has gotten worse since the Internet I feel. Now there is so much information that people can find out about other people on Social Media accounts and other websites. Even with Credit Cards you can get scammed. In our town people have hook...
Aug 20, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Darlene and myself have many different checking accounts from Personal Accounts to Business Accounts. We teach our boys to have separate personal checking accounts if they are married or in a relationship. Also, we suggest they set up one checking account for each of the following; Home Bills, Debt Payments, investing to other accounts if needed. Darlene and myself don’t need a Debt Payment account since we are debt free but a lot of people may need it. We also don’t need the other ones because ...
Aug 13, 2020•9 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Whether you are married, in a committed relationship to being single we teach our boys to agree with their significant other or if single than a friend or relative before a large purchase. This is really important if you are married or in a committed relationship and living together with plans to get married someday. You need to be able to both agree on large purchases and I you don’t then keep talking it out till you both agree. Communication is so important in any relationship and not always e...
Aug 06, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Communication is so important in any relationship. When we have our monthly review meetings with our Spouse or significant other one it can be a stressful time when money is involved. Seems hard for some couples to be able to openly discuss money and finances. That is why I suggest to people if they have problems communicating with their spouse then maybe have a third person at their monthly and yearly review meetings. It is so important that both people in the relationship are on the same page ...
Jul 30, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 48
This is something I look forward to do each month and at the end of the year. I know I may sound weird but I like to work with numbers and analyze how we did for the month or year. Darlene and myself have recaps of years past and then I have my recaps back from in the 1980’s. Yes, I am an old timer to some. LOL It is fun to look back at how low the numbers were on our Profit and Loss recaps back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. We do Profit and Loss recaps each month and each year. I will call them P&a...
Jul 23, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 47
To know if you are winning or losing you need to keep score. Just like in golf. You need to count all your strokes to know what your score was for the round and if you hit your goal or not. Also, you can see what areas that you need to improve in your golf game. Like I track not only my score per hole, but also how many fairways I hit, how many greens I hit and how many putts I made during the round also. That is why Darlene and myself track all of our Expenses and Income daily. We need to be ab...
Jul 16, 2020•11 min•Season 1Ep. 46
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 cours...
Jul 02, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 44
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 ...
Jun 25, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 43
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...
Jun 18, 2020•10 min•Season 1Ep. 42
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 fou...
Jun 04, 2020•11 min•Season 1Ep. 40
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 ava...
May 21, 2020•11 min•Season 1Ep. 38
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 a...
May 14, 2020•11 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Back in 1990 I think I got our first will done and it was a pretty simple Will at the time. Now the older we get we have revised our Will and other documents for Estate Planning and final decisions more often. We have done new wills twice now in the last six years. We had one done in Minnesota before we moved to Arizona to live. Then when we got down here, we found out from our new Lawyer that we should have one done in the state that we live in and of course that meant we needed a new one in Ar...
Apr 30, 2020•15 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Whether someone wants to get their debt paid off or if they want to really focus on investing for their Financial Freedom goals then this might help. We told the boys that if we would have tried to live off our old wages and just saved all raises and bonuses, we ever received we could have reached our Financial Freedom goals even soon. You may be saying that isn’t realistic but anything is possible and I bet there has been people that have done it. Even if you took some of your raises for any ex...
Apr 23, 2020•14 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Health Insurance is a major expense for some people. It is an expense we teach our boys to factor in their Financial Freedom plans. Medicare Insurance doesn’t start till age 65 so if we quit working before than we will need to buy our own policies. With two boys living at home it is really beneficial for us to have one of us working for Health Insurance. Our boys can be on our Health Insurance until they turn age 26. So that is for 12 more years that we will have one of our boys on our Health In...
Apr 09, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Most people probably would say they love and care for their family and friends. Myself I like to solve problems because I don’t like to see anyone suffer. Especially when it is my family or friends. It normally has felt good when I could help them out with loaning people money but then normally those feelings go away and new feelings of pain seem to set in. Most people that I loaned money too paid me back but without a lot of hassle, lost trust and hurt relationships. Some people that loan money...
Mar 19, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 29
Once debt free it is important to stay debt free. This is one of the lessons we teach our boys. It is easy to get back into debt if you let yourself once you are debt free. I know this from personal experience. I let myself do this several times until I got tired of the rollercoaster of debt and jumped off. It took me remembering the pain that I felt when I was in debt and the times that I wondered how I was going to make the minimal payments that were due for the month. People I worked with in ...
Mar 05, 2020•15 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Everyone has different situations that can affect when they choose to start taking Social Security payments. Some of my friends started at age 62 and some waited till age 70. For your situation it would be good to visit with your Financial Planner and your local Social Security Office. Darlene and myself have a plan to wait till age 70 for our situation. We want to max out our monthly Social Security benefit that we possibly could get. Of course, we still have sixteen years to wait until that ti...
Feb 27, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 26
We just showed the boys again today how we were over charged at the store. It was only $4.20 on that trip but like we told them that $4.20 if it happened each week it would add up to $218.40 in one year. We had a time with the boys that four out of six stops in a row we were over charged. We were wanted to be undercharged to show them how to be ethical and let the store know you owe them money. But that hasn’t happened yet when the boys have been shopping with them. We stressed to them to check ...
Feb 20, 2020•12 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Most people would say they love pets. I know growing up I had Rabbits, Fish and Dogs. As an adult I had dogs also until I was in my mid-thirties. My first dog was a Black Lab called “Flash” and he was a fun dog but I had to leave him with my folks when I moved out of the house to an apartment. My next dog was a female Golden lab called “Mariah”, she was a great dog also but tore up the yard. Our boys would love to have a dog I know but it just doesn’t fit in our current situation. For us the boy...
Jan 30, 2020•16 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Have you ever co-signed on a loan for someone before? If so, how did it work out? I have had many friends that co-signed loans from student loans to personal loans for their kids, relatives or friends and some of those loans they ended up having to pay them off. I co-signed on a couple of loans and they both worked out but at times I lost sleep worrying about getting stuck paying for them. I tell myself I won’t put our family in that position again. We have told the boys many times that we won’t...
Jan 16, 2020•17 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Prime reason why you should do Action Step 3 of the Mills Way to Financial Freedom 10 Action Steps just happened to us recently. I got a call from Darlene and she said that when she was leaving for work at 1am that the Garage Door wouldn’t close all the way down. It would go three quarters of the way down and stop and then go back up or just stay there at times. I did my normal you tube search of how to fix our household issues. I tried what I learned on the videos like making sure the sensor li...
Jan 09, 2020•16 min•Season 1Ep. 19
We have the Mills Way to Financial Freedom rules that we teach our boys. Today let’s talk about the main Action Steps that we teach our boys so they can work towards reaching Financial Freedom. They could have your own action steps on their journey to Financial Freedom or if they choose to go in different order than that is their choice. They could also go at different speeds and that is their choice. They just have to be able to live with the possible consequences good or bad. A lot I would say...
Dec 26, 2019•23 min•Season 1Ep. 17
It would be really hard or impossible to know everything about everything even though my teenagers think they do. LOL Building a Financial team is one of the Mills Family Financial Freedom rules we cover with our kids. Since it is hard to be an expert at everything that is why I feel it is so important to build your own Financial Team. A team that can help protect you financially and legally so can retire with Financial Freedom. Of course, depending on how much your Financial Nest Egg is dependi...
Dec 19, 2019•16 min•Season 1Ep. 16
