Live 4 Financial Freedom

Our folks came from large families. Especially our Dads because they came from farming families and that seemed to be the thing to do. Have a lot of kids and they can help on the farm. Now a days with the high cost of living or the high living lifestyles that so many people have it is hard to have large families. Some people have one or two kids and others choose not to have any kids and have a pet. Nothing wrong with having a pet instead of kids if your financial situation or lifestyle doesn’t fit for having a kid. For instance, I always had Labs. They were the best dogs for us. For instance, Labs were always happy to see you where kids ages 12 to 22 aren’t always excited to see their parents. My dogs cost less money per year than our kids did. Both Kids and Dogs need to be potty trained but Dogs seem to learn faster. My Labs were protective and good guard Dogs where a lot of time our Teenagers are in their rooms playing Video Games. Our Labs we would be with us most of the time when we are home and Teenagers we hardly see. Our Labs didn’t complain and want stuff like our Teenagers do. Labs don’t take long showers or stay in the bathroom for an hour like a Teenager. You have no car expenses or clothing expense each year for a Dog either. The list could go on. Kids are great don’t get me wrong. I love our 4 kids. But there are times they drive me nuts. Kids are most loveable from around age 2 to age 12. They say kids come back after they are in their twenties. I have not seen that from my two older kids but with the Divorce from my first wife she bought their love and brained washed them. Hopefully they will come around someday and meet their brothers, step Mother and be apart of our family. If they don’t then it is there loss. I know our boys want to get to know them. Plus, Darlene would love to have another girl in the house. Maybe also our boys will get married someday and then we can have more girls in the house. LOL We teach our boys to have Financial Planning meetings with their future spouse and after they are married about their Financial Freedom goals, plans, budgets, desires and more. I have worked with couples in the past that didn’t have these talks until it was too late because it was uncomfortable. Then most of them was at a point of no return. Money is one of the major reasons for Divorce. We taught them that they should also go to a Church for Pre-Marital Classes. If they have a problem talking about money issues then to find a third person that they both trust to talk with them. It could be a Financial Planner, Accountant, Lawyer or a Financial Coach like myself. Remember this show is for entertainment only and you should seek advice from your Financial team if you have any questions on Investing. See my Disclaimer on MillsWay.com. I want to help you prepare for an unexpected bill so you don’t go into debt paying on a bill. I want everyone to live Debt Free and reach their Financial Freedom goals. If they both aren’t on the same page before they get married it will make it harder to be on the same page with Money issues once they are married. It will be hard to spend less then they make and to Invest enough money to reach their Financial Freedom goals or ever Retire. The people that can’t talk about Money or plan for their future then they would be a great candidate to have a dog. Besides Money there are so many things to discuss before getting married to make sure each of them knows the others desires and what they think being married should be like. Listen for More Details We hope everyone hits their Financial Freedom Goals from our family – The Mills Family. Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway https://www.patreon.com/millsway Millsway.com

Hope you had a fun New Year’s Eve and New Years Day. I am excited that it is 2021 and all the new opportunities we have this year. It would be hard for 2021 not to be way better than 2020. As many people know a lot of things can happen to a family in a short period of time. Last year we saw COVID-19 mess up peoples lives in so many ways. For instance, some businesses had to shut down and some never reopened. Which caused a lot of people to lose their jobs and probably their only source of income to pay their bills. If they didn’t have an Emergency Fund then they are probably behind on their bills. Some people that got COVID-19 had to be hospitalized and I am sure that ran them up some big hospital bills. I know my four hours in a hospital was expensive for us. Until the COVID-19 Vaccine is available to everyone I am sure more people will be hit with large hospital bills in 2021. I don’t want to scare people about COVID-19 because I am talking about it. I am not a Medical Doctor or giving any Medical Advice to you. But it is a big Thing that is in the news and our world last year and will be this year probably. Seems like a lot of people have different views on it. The ones that are really afraid of getting it probably needs to find a way to never leave their house or have anyone ever over. We don’t live that way and most of our friends don’t live that way. Some do and we just don’t see them. Such a small percentage of people live this way. I love the guys I golf with; they shared a bottle of Brandy the other day and shake hands. They are older than I am and have seen a lot of things over the years that was supposed to be dangerous to their lives. They choose to enjoy each day they are above ground. I am in that boat also. I have out lived my friends and cousins so far and not going to quit living due to COVID-19. I say leave Businesses open and let people choose to go shop them or not. We just think it is funny how many cars are on the road. Darlene works in a Grocery store and they are busy with customers. We go to other retail shops and there parking lots are jammed full. Yet some people act like don’t get by me when you are shopping. I say they should just lock themselves up in their house and do home delivery then. They should just never live the house. They made the choice to go to the store, I didn’t for them. Many people do not have enough money in their bank accounts to pay for a $1,000 car repair bill. I have worked with and talked with so many people that had less than $100 in their checking and savings account. Many had no retirement savings either. I have heard that one out of four people have no emergency savings fund. We believe in having an Emergency fund for our family. We teach our boys to have at least six months of their total expenses in a savings account. We like to use a Brokerage Account for our Emergency Funds and we invest it in Stocks, Mutual Funds and EFTs. We know if we have to liquidate some funds to pay off an unexpected bill, we could with in about seven days at the most. Remember this show is for entertainment only and you should seek advice from your Financial team if you have any questions on Investing. See my Disclaimer on MillsWay.com. I want to help you prepare for an unexpected bill so you don’t go into debt paying on a bill. I want everyone to live Debt Free and reach their Financial Freedom goals. Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Happy New Years Eve! Yea, 2020 is over and in the books tomorrow. 2020 is a year that we will all want to forget. I am optimistic that 2021 is going to be better by a mile. I don’t see how it could have been any worse. In 2020 we lost my Mom to COVID-19 and other health issues. We lost our Sister Audrey who was only 41 years old. We had to wear Masks and many businesses were closed up at times or had restrictions. Then on top of that our boys missed out on Home Coming, Prom, a formal Graduation and had to do school on-line at times. What a crazy year. So, 2021 has to be better right? Now is the time to review your 2021 Budgets and Goals for you and your family. We do actuals each month of our expenses and then do a rolling recap for the year. Darlene and myself review our past years expenses when we are doing our next year’s Budgets and Goals. Things that we didn’t Budget for in 2020 that came up was some Medical Issues we had that we didn’t plan on. They were over $6,200. We put in a Shed for our folks which was over $8,300 that we didn’t Budget for. Then we had some major Car repairs that were over $4,500 that we didn’t plan on. Then we had Funeral Expenses that we split with my Sister for our Mom and we Published a New Book this year. We had $22,000 of expenses that came up in 2020 that we didn’t plan for this year. That can happen each year and that is why we keep any Emergency Fund to help our in these crazy years. Most years we can come in below our Budget or just barely over but not in 2020. Our family keeps our Budget, Gift giving breakout and Yearly Goals posted in our Bedroom so we can see it easily everyday to help keep us on track towards our goals. Besides doing our end of the month recaps and then having a meeting to cover them. Our 2020 Goals was messed up big time with COVID-19 and all the crazy things that came up. We hit some goals but others we didn’t. Due to COVID our goals we had for our Disney Cruise was not hit because they canceled the trip. We had goals for taking the boys to special events and that didn’t happen. Then we had goals for taking the boys to movies that didn’t happen. It wasn’t all doom and gloom for our 2020 goals, we did hit a few of them. I don’t think we ever had a year that we hit every goal anyway. Things come up. Remember my disclaimer on millsway.com. I am not giving any legal, medical or financial advice. This podcast and blog are just for entertainment. This new year our family goals is about the same as 2020 except for less trips planned and lower expenses. We revised our Budget for 2021 with less expenses since Logan Graduated and having less Vacations planned. We have a Budget for our family Expenses of $50,000. Let’s hope we can come in under that. Having a personal budget is like work. The place you work needs to spend less on expenses than they bring in for income. That is no different than your own personal budget. It is simple Math. What is your situation? Do you have a Budget? Do you track your expenses each month or not? A budget is worthless exercise somewhat if you don’t track your expenses and do a recap to see if you won for the month or not. Same with a yearly recap. Some people use Envelope Budgets, Zero Budgets or even Reverse Budgets. What is most important is the one that works best for your situation. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Club on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, I-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Millsway.com

Christmas is tomorrow and then we start a new year in just seven days. Are you looking forward to the holidays or are you feeling down? This time of Year, can be hard for people depending on what their situation is and what has happened in their world in the past. For myself when I am watching Christmas and Holiday shows on TV it can get me down really easy in the past. Even today there is times that it can get me thinking of the past but now I have some ways to help me get to a better mood. We all have past experiences that can affect us in a good way or a negative way depending on how we look at it. I know there was some Holidays in the past that wasn’t a lot of fun for me because I couldn’t get myself seeing the good things in my life. Two big events in my past was my Divorce and then when my Dad died. Then I met Devin Hastings years ago and he taught me about the Mind and how to use a Positive Score Card. He taught me NLP and Hypnosis Classes for a few years. His classes where amazing and I learned a lot about the power of our Minds. This last year has been challenging for everyone from the roller coaster of the stock market to uncertainty of jobs being around with the disruption of businesses. Some people had challenges on home schooling to finding day care for their kids when the schools went to home schooling. I’m sure people around the world felt all sorts of feelings this year. I would bet that depression and anxiety rates are at a all time high. Friends of mine had different things that were bothering them about 2020 from having to wear a Mask to not being able to go to their favorite restaurant. Before we wrap this up some other ways people show Gratitude is, they will pray or meditate. I have done both in the past but for me reading my Positive Score Card and Positive Quotes helps me the best. We hope everyone has a safe, fun and happy Christmas and New Years from our family – The Mills Family. This is our Christmas Card to you. LOL Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Club on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, I-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

Christmas is definitely our favorite Holiday Season. Darlene and myself start decorating the day after Halloween. We like to buy some new Christmas decorations each year. This is our best Christmas this year since we have our Mom and Dad spending it with us. They will be here with us for four months and we are so excited to have them here. Since the boys don’t spend much time with us. Logan didn’t go into the Navy like he had planned on so we will get to enjoy the Christmas holiday with him and Seth this year. The more the marrier. 2020 has been an ugly year after my Mom passed away and our Sister Audrey passed away just two months ago. ughhh Remember - 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. So, let’s talk about Christmas or Holiday Season spending. I saw that Investopedia said $998 is the average amount that consumers expect to spend on winter holidays in 2020. That is down $50 from 2019. Probably due to COVID-19 and people not getting out to the malls shopping. 2021 can’t come fast enough and come on vaccine. I don’t know your views on taking the vaccine but for myself I will be first in line once it is available to us. I always get a FLU shot each year also. COVID-19 has affected everyone in one way or another. For us we have become experts at online shopping. LOL The $998 they said covers gifts, food and decorations. Of course, your numbers may be smaller or higher depending on your own personal budget or family size. Welcome back, let’s talk about what we are looking at spending this Christmas and Holiday season; - $800 on Christmas Gifts. Which is over our budget by $425. We got shopping happy. LOL - $175 on Christmas Decorations. We like to add to our Christmas Decorations each year. This year we about some more outside lights and wall décor for inside our house. - $350 on Christmas and New Years foods and drinks. We want to go all out this year with Mom and Dad here and both boys still with us. - Total $1,325 of Christmas and Holiday spending for our family. We are over the $998 average that Investopedia said for consumers in 2020. But we want to be above average in everything we do. LOL Some more changes we are doing this year due to COVID-19 is we aren’t going to the Mall has often. Also, we aren’t giving out Christmas Cookie trays to neighbors or friends this year. We haven’t drove around looking at Christmas lights like we have in past years either. So sad… Do you have a Christmas Spending Budget? We have one even though we didn’t follow it this year. We teach our boys to have one and stick to it. Then after Christmas to do an Actual of what their expenses were and compare it to their budget. Then make notes what they can do the next year to improve. We hope everyone has a safe, fun and happy Christmas and New Years from our family – The Mills Family. This is our Christmas Card to you. LOL Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club

There are a lot of different philosophies on the subject of if you should stay in the market through the up and down times or not. Some of my friends say they get out when it is high and then buy when it is low. They swear they make a ton of money doing it that way. Yet, I don’t have a crystal ball on when the Stock Market is at around the top and not going any higher. I would have felt bad jumping out of the Stock Market when it was even at 20,000 and then waiting for a crash. I would be missing out on all these dividends and growth we have been receiving. I have been to classes and heard from many other people that was against trying to time the market and they showed examples of why not to try jumping in and out. 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. The mental part of Investing is a challenge and with all the news that hits us constantly from our TV’s, Radio Stations, News Paper to Social Media posts we are smothered by good or bad news on the stock market and opinions. We teach the boys to hold strong to their beliefs and ride out the stock markets roller coaster. To hold on to their stocks and not to try to time the market. They think it is boring to just hold on to their stocks and not trade them. I hope the older they get they will realize that holding is the way and yes it can be boring to some. To also have the money they have in Stocks, Real Estate or Businesses. Not to be sitting around not working for them. Of course, we want them to keep building on their Financial and Investing education each year and work with their Financial Team to make the best choices possible towards their Financial Freedom goals. We want them to learn how to make the best educated choice when picking a stock. They should feel that stock is a solid company and will be around through their retirement years. The boys are human and the stocks they own go up and down. So often they will say “If I had only sold it before it dropped”. Each time I remind them that they are in for the long run and they have probably at least forty more years till they retire. With AI technology coming into play who knows what the world of Investing will look like in the next forty years for our kids. I feel AI is the future for sure. For all the Details listen to the full Podcast Show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1, Tony Robbins Book called “Unshakeable” https://paulminors.com/blog/unshakeable-tony-robbins-book-summary-pdf/

We have taught our boys to shop around for the best Financial Planner that they like. We have told them to do research on different Financial Planners from what they charge and more. We want them to feel good about who they work with and are able to talk with them comfortably. If they do choose one to work with, we prefer Free of course or if they do pay, then to pay a fixed cost. I have talked to people that pay a percentage of their holding to a Financial Planner. Some paid from around $5,000 to $20,000 a year. Ouch. Six years ago, when we had someone want to be our Financial Planner it would have cost us over $6,000 a year. Think if we paid that each year for twenty years for a total of $120,000. Would we have maid more than if we did it ourselves or not. 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. Basically, there are four fees the boys could pay for a financial planner or advisor; - Free – I like this option the best. - Flat Fee – Could range from $500 to $3,500. - Percentage of your Portfolio – For them to manage your investments monthly. Charges could range from .80% to 2% of your money they are managing for you. - Hourly Fee – This isn’t a bad option if you just want to see them once or twice to help you with advice. They could also help you create a financial plan. Cost could run $75 to $400 an hour. Of the four above options I still like the Free option with our current situation. Maybe for the boys one of the other options will work better for them. I know they could benefit from working with a Certified Financial Planner and if it is in their budget it could be a good investment. Finding a Certified Financial Planner that you may like to work with can be more of a challenge. At least if they are Certified Financial Planner then you know they took the classes and received the training to provide good advice. For more details listen to the whole Podcast If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only. We want the boys to have a Financial Team to help them make sure they made educated choices towards their finances and that they are protected along the way. Having a Financial Team is important, but to always keep a good relationship with them along the way and to keep in touch with them. For us we like to keep in touch yearly in one way or another. Once we have more Assets, we may need to see them more often. Having a Financial Team can be expensive since they are professionals and may charge a lot for their time. Darlene and myself want to control our expenses so when we are working with one of our members of our Financial Team we are prepared and keep things on track to limit the time we spend with them. Since some of them charge by the hour and some by the project. Some people may spend a lot on their Financial Team but we keep ours pretty low cost. Except for our Accountant we just changed this last year and they charge more than our last Accountant. Our last one retired so we were forced to change after twenty years with him. It was hard change for me, almost like a death in the family. We took along time looking for a new Accountant. Once that we could trust and afford within our budget. Nice thing about having a good Financial team that you can trust is that they can help you put together your Financial Freedom goals and plans to achieve them. As we know life happens and changes need to be made so it is good to keep in touch with them yearly at least. It will help with the relationship you build with them also. Listen to the whole Podcast for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

We teach the boys that it is OK to change their Financial Goals plan along the way. That things will come up and goals or plans will change and to accept the change. 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. For example, if they are single and make up their Financial Freedom goals and plans there are many changes that could come into play during their lifetime that can change their plans and goals drastically. Here are some examples that could come up for our boys; - They could get married. Then they would come up with new plans and goals that work for the two of them. - They could have kids of their own. Then they would have a huge change in their lifestyle and budget which could affect their plans and goals. - They may have a large Medical Expense. Think if you had a large out of pocket bill of $50,000 and how that could affect your plans. - They could encounter Job loss. Some people it takes over 12 months to find a new job. A person could burn through a lot of savings until they get a new job. - They could encounter some major home repairs. Homes are expensive and repairs can add up. New Heating and Air Condition unit could run $5,000 to $10,000 depending on the size or a new Roof could run $10,000 to $20,000 depending on the size and type of your roof. Plus, things wear out around your house and need replaced. For instance, to have a Water Heater replaced with installation can run around $1,000. We factor in projected costs of home ownership into our plans. The list could go on and on of things that could come up and alter their original plans and goals towards Financial Freedom. It could take them longer to hit their goals and they would need to accept the new time lines. The choice is always there depending on what they encounter on if they try to increase their income coming in or to reduce other expenses to cover the new ones. The other choice is it could take them longer to hit their Financial Freedom goals. It will be what ever they choose to do.. Listen to the whole Podcast for all the details. . If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 costs of operating so they maintain their profit margins to stay in business. There is such a push to get the minimum wage up. In some states they are pushing to get it up to as high as $15 per hour. With the Federal Minimum rate at $7.25 per hour. Here in Arizona in 2020 we are sitting at $11.00 an hour. The Federal Minimum wage rate in 1955 was 75 cents per hour. In 1975 it was $2.10 per hour and in 2015 it was $7.25 per hour. The link to this is in the below show notes. As you can see it has gone up quite a bit over the years so no wonder prices have risen. This shows why we need to factor an Inflation rate in our Financial Freedom plans. 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. U.S Bureau of labor Stats in April 2014 listed some of the below food prices back in the following times. The link is below in the show notes. Apples – 15.1 cents per pound in 1955. 34 cents a pound in 1975. We currently pay now around $1.19 per pound for the cheaper apples. For more info listen to the whole Podcast. . If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Prices in the past from U.S. Bureau of Labor Stats April 2014 - https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2014/article/one-hundred-years-of-price-change-the-consumer-price-index-and-the-american-inflation-experience.htm 2. Inflation Caculator - https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ 3. Past Inflation Rates by Year - https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-inflation-rate-history-by-year-and-forecast-3306093

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 then the next channel they can say we are in a Bear Market. Today I read one article on-line that said the market looks solid for the next year with the solid earning reports and low unemployment. Then another article said to basically sell now that we were entering into the next recession. For a second when I was reading it, I was thinking what if they are right? Maybe I should sell everything? Being married we have two opinions in our relationship when making big decisions or strategy towards our Financial Freedom. If a person is single, they only have to worry about themselves and can make a decision by themselves. In our marriage we like to talk things out and agree on big decisions. We both have been to seminars together; we have talked with several different Financial Planners. We have studies and read a lot about Personal Finance. We don’t have a crystal ball to know what the future will be though, but we have a strategy we are going to try and stick with. So, no matter what a friend or relative tells us we should do we are going to stick with our own opinions. We listen to people and try researching things to see if maybe we should change our strategy or not. We try to not let other people or the news sway us. Darlene is really amazing at like blocking away what other people say and sticking with our plans. I think she does a better job than I do at times. We are both human and when a trusted person said that they are doing something a certain way we take the time to analyze if we should make a change or not. Most of the time we never alter from our set path. I still remember back in when the Dow Jones broke 8,000 and people said to sell now, it is going to crash. It won’t get any higher. Then I heard a lot of the same news when the Dow Jones broke 10,000. Of course, we had different events over the last 20 years that brought the market down for a while. But things rebounded. Year 2000 we had the Dot Com Crash. Years 2005 to 2010 we had the Real Estate, Auto Manufacturers and Banks effecting the down turn the Stock Market. Listen to the whole Podcast for full details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

Growing up we didn’t have the power of the internet to be able to learn about Personal Finance and Investing for Financial Freedom. My parents didn’t have any books around are house that had to do with Personal Finance or Investing for your future. Yes, we had a library in the town I grew up in but Personal Finance or Investing wasn’t even talked about in our house or at school. When I was with my friends we talked mostly about Cars, Sports and Girls. We didn’t ever talk about Personal Finance or Investing that I can remember. We just wanted enough money for the weekend. 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. We stress to our boys the importance of studying about Personal Finance and Investing the whole life. We feel that can’t read enough different books on the subjects. If they don’t like to read books then they could attend classes to seminars. There are also audio books available also to them. I am old school and like to read books but our boys like to watch videos on subjects. How times change. LOL Here are some personal finance books to start with reading after you read my books of course. LOL Remember I am not saying their way or my way is the way to the magic land of wealth. I am saying I feel we can learn from anyone. Some of them may be opposite views from other authors. We suggest to the boys to learn the most they can and make their own beliefs or strategies. If you check them out at your public library you can save some money also. Here are some books to check out besides mine; Listen To Podcast for Full Details Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Club on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, I-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

Some people say they don’t want to retire early because they enjoy what they do for work. It makes them feel good and they can’t imagine not doing it anymore. We teach the boys that they don’t have to retire early just because they may reach their Financial Freedom goals early in their life. But it is nice to have options if they choose to retire early. 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. If someone decides not to completely retire early because they like to keep busy or they just like their job. Maybe they like their co-workers, helping their customers to the daily challenges of the job. People can have many options though if they want to keep busy or feel productive. Here are some ideas to think about if you reach Financial Freedom at an early age; For full details listen to the whole Podcast show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

Very few people probably don’t think this is possible to do. But I am telling you that anything is possible and some people are able to do it. Our boys for sure don’t believe in it but we are working with them on it. They want everything now and not to save up for it. We teach them that they need to try to always pay cash for anything they need or want in their lives. If they don’t have the money at the time then they need to wait on buying it. They can also find ways to make more money so they can buy it sooner. 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. We are all faced with so much temptation everywhere we go. Almost every place has their own Credit Card also and offers special perks if you use their Credit Card when purchasing stuff. Yes, if you play the credit card game right you can make a little money or some extra savings on the stuff you want to buy. A lot of people though aren’t able to play the game and end up not paying the credit card balance off right away. They end up making the minimal payments and paying high Interest rates. That is what the credit card companies love to see. Our boys think they need that video game now and can’t wait till they save up the money. We tell them that they won’t die not getting the game until they have saved up the money for it. We don’t want them to get into a habit of buying things on credit. It is a dangerous habit we feel. The boys if they don’t have money to buy a car let’s say for an example then they have options until they have the money saved up. They could take public transportation, walk, ride their bike or see if a co-worker lives by them and maybe they can give them some gas money to ride with them. They need to know even if they just have enough money for that car to buy, they need to also save up for Insurance payments, title and registration costs, gas, oil and possible repairs in the future. Cars are expensive and they need to have enough money saved up to be prepared. We want them to stay out of debt. Listen to the full Podcast Show for more info. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

We have talked about Choices and Consequences so much in our house that the boys will make jokes with me about it. We laugh and it does help me think about it when they say something about one of my choices. One of the jokes the boys make to me is about my food choices. The boys know one of my long-term goals is to get my BMI (Body Mass Index) under 25. So, if I am eating Ice Cream or Cookies, they will joke with me about my Choices and Consequences. I know they love me and are joking with me. But they are correct in what they are saying. If I eat have a bowl of Ice Cream or a bunch of cookies then I need to be able to live with the consequences that could happen to me if I do. For instance, I could gain more weight and be further away from my weight goal. The food could give me less energy and drive to exercise which could cause me to gain weight. If I keep gaining weight it could hurt my golf game, which would be sad. LOL But also it could hurt my wallet or finances since if I out grow my current clothes I may have to buy new clothes from belts to pants. That could affect our Financial Freedom goals in a way also. So, the poor eating choices that I may be making could hurt me in several ways. If I choose to eat those sweets then I have to be OK with living with the consequences. 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. We also remind them each time they leave the house to make good choices. Seth when ever he leaves the house, we for sure to remind him to make good choices. Since he is our wild child. LOL It doesn’t matter if he is going to school or to the park to play with friends, we want him to make good choices or we want him to be able to handle living with any consequences that may come about because of his actions. To hear all the details listen to the full Podcast show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

We like to teach the boys that nothing is always black and white in our lives and there isn’t always just one way to achieve your goals that you want to achieve. Of course, we hope they follow the Mills Way to Financial Freedom rules that we have taught them over the years and what we have taught to other people around the world. We even turned the Financial Freedom rules we taught them into a book. 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. We raised the boys with golf in their lives besides education for success and personal finances. With golf and life, we have showed them that their can be many ways to get from Point A to Point Z. For an example of that is if the four of us go golfing. We could have four different Tee shots, like I hit it 300 yards, Seth drive short at 139 yards, Logan drives the ball to the way right about 175 yards and Darlene drives it 220 to the way left. Then we all hit our second shots up short of the green. My ball goes in the left sand trap, Logan’s is 25 feet short in the right rough, Seth hits his ball 12 feet short in the left rough and Darlene hits the ball just a foot off the green. Then we each take our third shots and we all end up on the Putting surface. We all end up two putting on the green for a bogey. Since the hole was a par 4. Isn’t it funny how four people can play the same game but play it four different ways and yet still score the same score? This happens so often when I play golf with my friends. That is why we teach our boys that it is OK if they decide to make up their own set of Family Financial Freedom Rules. We know ours worked for us but maybe the boys want to pave their own path in life. Listen to the whole Podcast Show for more details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

Emotions can factor in many money decisions. Emotions also can come into play when Money is part of the topic in a relationship. Especially when both people in the relationship has totally different views in their mind. We teach the boys to work on keeping their cool when in a relationship and if they are single if money issues start to get their emotions out of sorts. 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. We teach the boys the Mills Way to Financial Freedom Action steps and rules to help them achieve their goals. We want them to know that it is OK if they want to change some of the rules or not follow them at all. It is their choice. The main thing is that they are happy and can live with their choices and consequences. If things go sour for them then we want them to accept it and learn from their choices. It isn’t the end of the world and many people have lost everything and recovered from it even stronger than before. If they are married or in a relationship Emotions can even run higher. Each of them could have been raised by different beliefs from their families and friends when it comes to money. Which can make things challenging. Listen to the full Podcast show for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 401K plan, even most small companies offer one. We teach our boys that if their company offers a pension, they need to find a way to work there long enough to qualify for it. Of course, if they just started there and it is a dead-end job then maybe it isn’t worth for them sticking it out. If the business would go out of business then that is out of their control also. 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. Darlene already has a lot of years in with her current company towards her Pension plan with them. It would be good for her to stick with them till she qualifies for the Pension. She is able to even work just 20 to 30 hours a week average and still get credit towards the Pension. Her Pension contract is a revised contract from earlier years so it isn’t as good but it could still help us out at retirement time. We project it could be around $6,000 per year income for life. Possibly starting for her at age 65. A lot of the guys I golfed with are retired from Pension plans also but they are in their 70’s and 80’s. I have worked for several different companies over my career and none of them offered a Pension plan. So, I am glad Darlene is able to at least get a Pension at her job. Darlene also has money invested in her 401K plan to help supplement the Pension money. Plus, we have other investments and Passive Income Streams. For more details listen to the whole Podcast. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 Nursing Home and she needed a lot of Medical attention. Before she passed a way, they spent over $1,000,000 of their own money on her care. So, it can go fast as times if we get sick in our older years. 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. Darlene is good for me because she doesn’t worry about hardly anything. She is not worried about us running out of money in our Retirement years. She said we will be fine no matter what. I am a numbers person and want to put percentages in our favor. I don’t want to run out of money in our Retirement years. For me to feel really comfortable I would want to be at a 3% withdraw rate at retirement time. I have friends that have taken out 3% and some up to 7% and they are still doing fine. It for sure depends on each person’s situations. We printed off studies from different people to show our boys the chance of their money lasting at different withdraw rates. Of course, it depends if they have the money invested in Stocks, Bonds or sitting in cash. Plus, what mixture they have from 100 Stocks or 50% Stocks and 50% Bonds, etc. My perfect world would be to never do a withdraw from our Retirement funds and just live off our Dividend Stocks and other forms of Passive income. But not every one has multiple forms of Passive Income. Listen to the whole Podcast show for all the details. . If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 broke, living paycheck to paycheck or living with debt. Success can be many things to many people but in the terms of reaching Financial Freedom having debt or living paycheck to paycheck isn’t success. It is opportunity to change, to take action towards your goals. 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. We showed our boys what some others have paid for Cable TV, Cell Phones and Cell Phone Service. We ask them is it worth the extra cost versus living in a debt free house and possibly retiring early? Cable TV - Listen to the whole Podcast Episode for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

We teach our boys that if they don’t take care of their health now, they could be paying for it in the future. Choices and Consequences from their actions now. It can affect their Financial Freedom plans they may have. Registerednursing.org said over age 65 cumulative health spending in United States in 2016 dollars is $169,740 or lifetime spending under different growth rates in 2016 in 2016 dollars is $414,328. Think with inflation and depending on the boys ages what it could run them by the time they want to retire. We feel they should take action now to try to reduce their possible costs. As always, I am not giving you any Medical or Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Medical Doctor or Professional Advisors to see what is best for your situation before starting any exercise program. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only. We aren’t any medical doctors but we believe and teach our boys to work on creating Healthier habits in their life from things like their Diet, Fitness and things to avoid. We aren’t perfect by our examples but we are trying every day to be better examples for our boys. Seth has been our star eater lately. Logan is another story, maybe the Navy will get his eating habits better. LOL Remember again to see your Medical Doctor before changing any of your eating habits to starting any fitness programs. Let’s dive into these three areas and start with a Healthy Diet and what we feel could help our boys with and others; Listen the whole Podcast for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Medical Care Costs at https://www.registerednursing.org/healthcare-costs-by-age/

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 hooked up Skimmers on Gas Pump’s Credit Card Machine. I have heard of Scanners that someone can walk by you can scan your card. This is why I have my Cards in Protective Cases to try to help block that from happening. We have a friend of ours that was shopping on the East Coast at a name brand store and the person who waited on her took her information from her ID and Credit Card and then went and took out other Credit Cards in her name. They eventually caught the lady who did it but our friend had to fly out to the East coast for the court case and testify. She lost not only time from her life, stress of the whole deal but also traveling costs. It can be a nightmare for anyone who gets scammed. I know every time someone has used our credit card number fraudulent it bugs me a ton. We want our boys to be safe as they can in the future. 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. With our Credit Cards our companies we have accounts with have been really good for investigating fraudulent charges. I once had someone send me a Money Order for a purchase, it seemed fake so I took it to our bank and they said it was. They took down the information and then did the investigation. We never lost any money any time so far that we have been scammed. Listen to the whole Podcast show for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Common Scams Information at https://www.usa.gov/common-scams-frauds

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 our system works for us. A lot of people need those extra accounts to make sure they keep on track. Some people even set up accounts for large upcoming expenses. For instance, a Wedding Checking Account. Where they each put money into the account for the wedding and then either one can write checks from that account to pay for wedding expenses. Once the money is gone, they are done spending. Hopefully they have been agreeing on what to buy and how much to spend. If not, they could have some pre-marriage fights. LOL Darlene and myself have known other people that have separate personal checking accounts and one Home Expense account that each person puts money into the account each month. The people we know has been doing if for many, many years and are happy with it. Other people we have told that we have separate checking accounts think it is wrong and seem offended by us doing it that way. I am sorry they get upset but it works for us and we believe in it. That is why we teach out boys to do the same. 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. With having separate personal checking accounts, we each can spend our own money and not worry about getting it approved or feeling guilty buying something. For instance, if Darlene wants to buy a new golf club for $99, she can do it and not feel guilty about it or ask me for the money. She has the money in her account and can spend it on what she wants. Listen to Podcast for more Details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 easy to do. 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. Why you may ask, it is because if you don’t discuss it with your spouse or others than it could create a lot of frictions or future fights in your relationship. Being single basically you only have to be accountable to yourself for your own finances of course but it is still good to talk it out with another person. Sometimes we get caught up with emotions when wanting to buy stuff or someone talks us into it. But if we would talk out every large purchase maybe we would decide that we didn’t need it. Maybe we realize when talking with someone else that it is a want and not a need. Maybe we would realize we would be better off not buying it and investing that money towards our Financial Freedom. Listen to the whole Podcast for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 when it comes to finances and working towards Financial Freedom. I am sure you can tell early on by their tone of voice or lack or talking to what mood they are in when you are reviewing your numbers. Not all communication is speech though. A look or a certain way they hold their body can communicate volumes also. Communication is the key to our existence, and this higher ability to communicate is what separates us from other animals in the world. While other animals have rudimentary communication skills, our skills are evolved to the point in which there are many different languages spoken, written, seen, and drawn. Not all communication is speech or writing. Listen to the whole Podcast for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #communication #relationships

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&L’s for the rest of the show to save me some typing. LOL 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. We do P&L’s for our Personal Income and Expenses each month and also for our Business ventures each month. For us it is our Monthly and Yearly report card on how we are doing. If we are winning or losing. Also, where we need to improve. We compare a lot of different categories each month and year along with our P&L forms like how each of our Investments are doing and our total Net Worth. Back years ago, when we had that nasty thing called “Debt” I used to do monthly and yearly recaps on that also. Thank goodness we haven’t had that for along time and plan on never being in debt again. Each month the totals can range widely depending on when a big bill comes in. So, we list the big bills that are due at the top of each column on the recap to remind us. For more details listen to the whole Podcast show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 able to see if we are winning or losing against our budget and goals towards 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. We track expenses maybe old school for some people but for us it adds something to the power of tracking by writing it down on our forms we have made up daily. When we write it and see it then helps us control our spending the rest of the month. Our monthly expense forms that we write our expenses down on is pretty basic and we make subcategories in some of the columns. Some of the main columns are; Listen to the whole Podcast Episode for all the details. . If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

We teach our boys to maintain their cars and home to make them last longer and save money. Without proper care things can break down faster and cost lots of money. This is why this is one of our Financial Freedom rules we teach our boys. I am far from being a car mechanic or a home repair expert so these numbers come from my experience and the experience of others I have worked with. Year to year cost of repairs can range widely also. We have had some huge things all hit in some years and other years hardly any. That is another reason to keep your Emergency Fund completely funded. 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. Car Maintenance Last year our car maintenance and repairs were only $921 for our three cars. We had a really good year. Normally I have heard of repairs running people up to $1,200 a year per car. Last year our car repairs were 1.2% of our home Income and others years it has ran up to over 3%. We teach our boys to do the following to help maintain their cars to last longer; To get more details listen to the whole Podcast Show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 course, our first choice for the boys would be that they would pay cash for a house they decide to buy someday. The second option if they do decide to buy a house before they have enough money saved then they get a 15-year mortgage. 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. We want the boys to stay debt free their whole lives but if they choose to go into debt for their house then we hope they will follow the Mills Way to Financial Freedom steps that we taught them and pay it off even faster than the 15 year old mortgage they took out. Listen to the whole Podcast show for all the details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #rent #mortgage

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 a good feeling when they reached debt freedom. He was now at the early stage of having some extra money but his wife was wanting to buy a new car. We teach our boys that when they have any extra money leftover after they are completely debt free and their Emergency Fund is funded completely to Invest the money in their Brokerage Account. They can also Invest in other Asset forms if they like, it is their choice. The main goal that we keep stressing to them is to work towards 10 times at least of their future expenses. So, if they think their future expenses at retirement will be $75,000 a year then they would need that amount times 10 plus their Emergency Fund of $50,000 for a total of $800,000. If they want to retire-early we are suggesting they work towards 25 times their future expenses in their Brokerage Account since they won’t have their Retirement fully funded. They of course can choose to have alternates to any of the rules that we teach them towards their Financial Freedom goals. Let’s say they decide to retire early and work towards 25 times their future expenses in both their Brokerage Account and Retirement funds accounts, plus their Emergency Fund. Nothing wrong with that either. They just need to have enough in their Brokerage Account or in streams of Passive Income to cover their expenses until they can touch any of their Retirement funds. Darlene and myself hope to never touch our Retirement funds or at least not till I am in my 70’s. 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. Listen to the whole Podcast for more about Passive Income and more. . If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #passiveincome #savings #investing

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 fell off the roof while hanging Christmas Lights than you may have to use your up your savings for money to live on. That could possibly set you back a while from your projected Financial Freedom date or Retirement date. This is an important lesson to cover with our boys. Even though they may not be in their career for years we want them to know the importance of protecting themselves financially. I know of one family that their lifestyle was really hurt when their main breadwinner had a Heart Attack and didn’t have any Disability Insurance. He was self-employed, I think. As always, I am not giving you any Insurance or Financial Advice and you should seek advice from your Professional Insurance and other Advisors to see what is best for your situation. See my Disclaimer at MillsWay.com. This is for entertainment only. Listen to the Podcast for the whole show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Investopedia says about Disability Insurance https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disability-insurance.asp

Maximizing your 401K each year after we are Debt Free is one of the rules and action steps that we teach our boys for them to head towards their Financial Freedom goals. It is Action Step 9 in our 10 action steps to Financial Freedom. Action Step 9 is to maximize their Retirement Savings and Investments up to 25 times their expenses. There have been many examples that if you have 25 times your expenses and take out a 4% withdrawal a year it could last them the rest of their lives. Check with your Professional Advisor on what the maximum is that you can Invest this year in your 401K and IRA. Investopedia said “if you have both a Roth 401(k) plan and a Roth IRA, your total annual contribution for all accounts in 2020 has a combined limit of $25,500 ($19,500 Roth 401(k) contribution + $6,000 Roth IRA contribution) or $33,000 if you are 50 or older ($19,500 Roth 401(k) contribution + $6,500 catch-up contribution + $6,000 Roth IRA contribution + $1,000 catch-up contribution).” For you fact checkers you can see the link in the below show notes. 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. Listen to my Podcast for the full show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. 2020 401K Limits by https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102714/what-are-roth-401k-contribution-limits.asp 2. 4% Withdraw Chart “Portfolio Success Rates: Where to Draw the Line” 10/25/19 by Philip L. Cooney, Ph.D.; Carl M Hubbard, Ph.D.; and Daniel T Walz, Ph.D. https://www.onefpa.org/journal/pages/Portfolio%20Success%20Rates%Where%20yo%20Draw%20the%20Line.aspx

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 four more years with Seth till he is in college. I feel it is good to take time in your own ways to celebrate your achievements when you hit a goal, finish a Mills Way to Financial Freedom Action step to your monthly review meetings. You may be saying why celebrate a monthly review meeting? It’s sound so much like work when you have a meeting scheduled but if you can celebrate a monthly review party it sounds like more fun. We don’t always make progress each month due to something comes up. We can always find a lot of things that we did hit with our budget, goals, action steps and more each month to celebrate. We don’t have balloons or confetti but maybe we will in the future. Here are some ways that you could celebrate your successes after each milestone. Even if you are single, I believe you should have a monthly celebration party and be grateful for what you achieved during the month and then make a plan on how to attack things this next month. Here are some ideas; Listen to the full Podcast for details. 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. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #success #familymeeting

There is no law that I know of that says parents have to pay for their kids’ college. As far as I know it is optional. We have told our kids for years that they need to pay for college if they want to go to college. We believe college is very important and something they may need to get a good job in the future. Some people say that college isn’t needed, those people must not be putting in for jobs. If they were, they would see how many jobs are asking for a BA degree as a requirement. We do know many successful entrepreneurs that never went to college and are very well off. Some of them went into the family business, some started their own business and some went into the trades by working their way up with a company. Here are some ways to help your kids with College without paying for their college expenses. Some ways are; Listen to the whole Podcast for all the details. 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. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #college #studentloans #studentdebt #debt

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 available to put their money in their companies 401K plans. In the past some of the companies I worked with had limited options and some pushed company stock. Today it seems like companies are offering more options to pick from within the 401K plans. 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. Reasons Why With our boys we taught them to always invest in their companies matching 401k to at least the minimum to qualify for a 100% match. Here are some reasons we like them to do it; Listen to the Podcast for more details. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 and improve. As an employee they paid for my learning and I could get more of a bonus by doing it. We had to get with our manager and cover our quarterly plan for what three things we were going to do to improve ourselves. You could choose from reading a book, going to a seminar or taking a class. It wasn’t anything hard to do. Still a lot of employees wouldn’t do it. The company also paid for the classes and seminars. They had a huge library of books you could check out or you could go to the library to find one. What ever you choose to do your manager had to sign off on it and then when it was completed you just needed to do a quick recap on what you learned and how it could help you in your job. Those were really good years I worked for them. I was already a habit of life long learning so I thought it was really cool. I still keep learning new stuff every day. We hope our boys will keep up their learning after they are done with their school years. We encourage our boys to read at least 30 minutes a day and work on learning programing skills for at least 30 minutes a day. I plan on taking them to seminars and conferences with me in the future if they are not in school or at work. There are so many reasons why someone should continue to keep learning their whole life and how it would help them towards their Financial Freedom goals. Some of the benefits that we talk with our boys about are; Covered in the Podcast Show 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. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

This may not apply to your situation if you are currently debt free. Chances are though you may have someone you know that you could possibly help with this Mills Way to Financial Freedom rule. We taught this to our kids so if something happened and they found themselves in debt during their adult kids they would have the skills to get debt free fast. Of course, depending on how much debt they may fall into. Choices and Consequences, we stress in our house. Some people have things that happen to them that maybe they couldn’t have prevented that causes debt but most people that have debt spend money they don’t have on normally stupid stuff. People I have worked with in the past that wanted to get out of debt normally drove nicer cars than I did. They normally had nicer cell phones than I had. They normally go out to eat and events more than I do. They live in a larger house than they can afford. This list can go on and on. Again, they made some poor choices. 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. Action Steps That is why this Rule is part of Action Step 2, 4 and 7 in getting towards your Financial Freedom goals. Action Step 1 is to list your goals you have for Financial Freedom and then your Why’s for each goal, what you will give up to attain each goal and when you want to accomplish each goal by. More details in the Podcast Episode. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 Arizona. I am glad we did get a new Will and more done down here because I feel we laid out our wishes even better than before. I know some people do it themselves to save money. I just believe in using a Lawyer for our situation. We teach our boys to hire a Lawyer also. As always though, I am not giving you any Legal or 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. I feel that we do all these legal forms for our loved ones and not ourselves. Things are hard enough when someone passes a way or is sick in the hospital. Why not try to reduce their pain or headaches with having your plans and wishes in place. I don’t want them to go through legal battles or to have a judge decide who gets what from our estate. Plus, I have heard that without these forms your estate can be hit hard with legal costs when you pass away. Listen to the whole Podcast for more info. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Stats – Legal Zoom https://info.legalzoom.com/statistics-last-wills-testaments-3947.html

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 expense that may have increased over the last year and still pocketed your bonus check you would be much better off. 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. Sticking to your Budget Back when I was working in my early years my pay outpaced my cost of living for my basic needs. I moved up fast over the years and got some really nice bumps. If I only was taught this rule. But instead I just let my lifestyle increase. I got nicer place to live, nicer furniture and fixtures. Bought nicer vehicles and went on more exciting vacations. Ughh. LOL This is why we are teaching our boys this rule so maybe they don’t make the same mistakes we did when we were younger. Bonus Checks Then Bonus checks is a whole other story to talk about. Bonus checks are basically free money if you don’t count on them as part of your pay. For me the companies I worked for, bonus checks were not guaranteed and we were told not to plan on them. With human nature we didn’t listen to them in our younger years and we spent the bonus checks on normal wants and not needs. We pretty much got used to them and factored them in our income and budget we had. One Million Dollars - Listen to the whole Podcast for the rest of the show. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

What Passive Income means to you may mean something different to others. Darlene and myself want to have many streams of passive income built up for our Financial Freedom plans. Passive Income if you don’t know is Income that you make with out going to work or doing work to get paid. Yes, maybe you did work once to do it but then after you do it you could be making money off that constantly the rest of your life. What’s nice is that some streams of passive income once they are in place can take little to none effort from you. I will always give most of our streams of passive income some love, maintenance and effort to grow them even more. For instance, let’s say you write an e-book and put it on Amazon.com. You did the work once when you wrote it and then you did a little work uploading it onto Amazon. But you have the chance to be selling that book for the rest of your life with no more work from you. That’s good living and that’s Passive Income. We are at 35% Our current streams of passive income are about 35% of our current expenses. That is not counting any money that our Retirement Account’s are making for us. When we are older, we could also have Darlene’s Pension Check each month and both of us receiving Social Security. We also want to have as many other sources of passive income streams so we never have to have a job again. 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. Passive Income Streams we cover in the Podcast. I like to read books and one of the first books I read that got me really fired up about creating passive income streams was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. It is one of my must-read books we had our boys read. Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. . If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

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 Insurance coverage. If Darlene worked till Seth was off our Health Insurance coverage than she would be 55 years old. At that time, I would already be on Medicare so she could retire if we had our Financial Freedom goals hit. If we don’t have our Financial Freedom goals quite done yet she has the option at her job to go to an average of 20 hours or more and then she could stay on her employers Health Insurance program. Her insurance at work cost her $15 per week for the family. At age 55 when I am on Medicare and the boys are off than it would drop to $10 per week unless the company changes rates. We hope they keep them the same that they have had for years. If they kept the rates the same that they are currently at, she would pay $520 a year for Health Insurance. That includes Dental Insurance also. I have known people that pay as low as $150 per month for an Individual plan or $1,800 a year and some have paid up to $650 per month or $7,800 per year. As you can see it is a huge benefit for Darlene to keep working until she is age 65 if she is healthy enough. Of course, if we do have our Financial Freedom goals hit and can afford her to retire at age 55, we would need to factor in the added costs to our projected retirement expenses.Listen to the full Podcast episode for more details. Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #healthinsurance #insurance

Emergencies funds is an important part of our Financial Freedom plans that we have. We want our Money working for us the best it can and still be able to get to some of it that we may need for Emergencies. Money hit under your mattress doesn’t earn anything or even can be worth less next year because of inflation. Some people like to put their money they use for Emergencies with their local bank in a savings account. They feel they can get to the money easily and be able to have it available for Emergencies. Darlene and myself we want not only to be able to reach get our Emergency Funds when needed but also to make some money off it. We teach the boys to have their money work for them. For instance, we currently have $30,000 in our Emergency funds. If we had the money in the following places this is what we may be making off of it in a years-time. If in; Rest covered in Podcast episode. Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Club on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, I-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway #emergencyfunds #dividends #stocks Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Fidelity.com 1.Gas Price 1965 https://www.dollartimes.com › items › price-of-a-gallon-of-gas-in-1965

For our family Roth IRA’s and Roth 401K’s are currently our best option. We are a huge fan of them. It isn’t for everyone but we stress to our boys to start with Roth Retirement Accounts early to help them towards their Financial Freedom goals. Fidelity Investments say “With a Roth IRA, you make contributions with money on which you've already paid taxes. You're able to withdraw your contributions tax- and penalty-free at any time, for any reason. Any earnings have the potential to be withdrawn tax-free in retirement, provided that certain conditions are met.” 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. One Roth Advantage I like that some people may see as a disadvantage is that you pay the Taxes upfront. Some people don’t like the thought of not using that on their taxes for the year. But I would rather pay on $10,000 contributions for the year than pay taxes on $150,000 if that is what it grew to once retired. Another Roth Advantage I like also is not only it is a powerful way to save for Retirement but you don’t have to do the required minimum distributions at retirement age. In our situation I hope to keep living on our other Investments and not have to ever worry about using the money in my Roth Account until Darlene retires. Even after she retires the longer, we can go with out touching the money the better off we would be. Not having to do the required minimum distributions is huge in this case for us. We are looking at other sources of Income and we want to only use Social Security and our Roth accounts as the last options. Of course, we will start taking out Social Security when we reach age 70. Darlene could have a Pension from her job starting at age 62 also which will help. Plus, we have our Business Income and other Investments. We are currently rolling over some of our money that wasn’t set up as a Roth into a Roth. After this year all of mine should be into a Roth and then we can focus on Darlene’s the following years. If you don’t have one set up you can go to any Financial Planner to get setup if you don’t want to do it yourself online. Fidelity and Charles Schwab can be very helpful also. I like the Roth Advantage of the savings growing tax-free. That is nice. Of course, I don’t have a crystal ball for the future but I hope the law makers will always keep the Roth rules in place. There are Income limits and other factors that your Financial Company that you work with can help you with. More covered in the Episode. Listen to it today. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Fidelity.com

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 to others get feelings of being used, taken advantaged of and not wanting to help anyone else ever. Few people never paid me back and I never heard from them again. But when they asked me for money, I was their best friend and we would be best friends for life they made it seem. Funny how that happens. LOL Few people paid me back when they said they would. That is very few did that. Most people I had to hunt down, hassle them and one I even had to hire a Lawyer with to protect the money that was owed to me. Most people that did pay me back took anywhere from One to fifteen years. Yes, one took fifteen years to pay me back. It is tough when people don’t even try to make small payments to you monthly. Instead they seem to never bring it up what they owe you and normally don’t pay any money towards the loan unless you bug them. I even loaned someone my house to live in and I moved in with a neighbor. The family that moved in my house was supposed to be a short time situation and were to pay me for utilities and a small rent amount. They paid the first month and then after that nothing. I had to have friends help me evict them. I never received any money from them for the past utilities and rent from the house. I never have heard from them again. Plus, they broke some stuff while living there. Sometimes when we loan money to people, we hurt them more than we help them. We don’t let them solve their own problems and think outside the box. Plus, they probably have deeper issues like spending more than they make. If you solve their money problems, they will probably be right back in money problems down the road again. I asked my Dad twice for money and he said “Sorry Son but you will figure it out, do you want to talk to your mom?” He was so right and both times I did come up with solutions once I let my mind calm down and it made me stronger. Some more reasons to think about before you loan money to any family or friends; Covered in Podcast If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Many people do not have enough money in their bank accounts to pay for a $1,000 car repair bill. I have worked with and talked with so many people that had less than $100 in their checking and savings account. Many had no retirement savings either. I have heard that one out of four people have no emergency savings fund. We believe in having an Emergency fund for our family. We teach our boys to have at least six months of their total expenses in a savings account. We like to use a Brokerage Account for our Emergency Funds and we invest it in Stocks, Mutual Funds and EFTs. We know if we have to liquidate some funds to pay off an unexpected bill, we could with in about seven days at the most. Of course, no place is safe and no investment is safe. Any Investment can go down at any time. Some Financial Coaches or Advisors may feel that you should keep the money in a well know Bank and not in stocks. That is fine for them, but for us we believe in the Market. You need to make your own decision with what amount of risk you can accept. That is where a Financial Planner can help you out with options and making your choice if needed. Remember this show is for entertainment only and you should seek advice from your Financial team if you have any questions on Investing. See my Disclaimer on MillsWay.com. I want to help you prepare for an unexpected bill so you don’t go into debt paying on a bill. I want everyone to live Debt Free and reach their Financial Freedom goals. So, if our monthly expenses average about $3,600 per month then we need to have saved $21,600 in our Emergency Fund. If we know we have some big expenses coming up in the next year or two we will build up our Emergency Fund account to cover those expenses also. For example, if we need to buy a used car next year and we feel it will cost us around $10,000. Then we will need to build up our Emergency Fund account to $31,600. Here are some examples of Emergency Expenses that can come up and if you don’t have the money saved for them then you could go into Debt. Covered in the Podcast. Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Club on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, I-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club

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 the past had different reasons why they wanted to stay debt free. Some didn’t like the feeling of not wanting to answer their front door because it could be a debt collector, some people were afraid to answer the phone and others were afraid to check the mail because it may have more letters from Debt Collection companies. Finally, the pain of those experiences was enough for them to make a change and take action to not only get debt free but to stay debt free. If you are married or in a committed relationship then this can be twice as hard than for a single person of course. So, if you are married or in a relationship it is so important to have this be one of your monthly topics at your monthly financial review meeting or celebration parties. What ever you want to call it. Once you are debt free for life then you can start focusing on your Financial Freedom goals and how you are going to get there. For our situation we wanted to be debt free except for the house before we started saving for our retirement. We know the value of investing money early but with debt we are investing into getting debt free for life so we can then really be focused on our Financial Freedom goals. Some times people want to be totally debt free including their house before investing for retirement. There is no right or wrong way that I feel as long as you are reaching your retirement goals. Reminder that it is a math choice and consequences. Bottom line you need to be happy with your choices and can live with the consequences. Listen to the whole Podcast for all the info. Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Club on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, I-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club

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 time but we hope our other Investments maintain us so we don’t need to touch Social Security. Social Security website said the following – “If you were born between 1943 and 1954 your full retirement age is 66. If you start receiving benefits at age 66 you get 100 percent of your monthly benefit. If you delay receiving retirement benefits until after your full retirement age, your monthly benefit continues to increase. The chart below explains how delayed retirement affects your benefit. The increase is based on your date of birth and the number of months you delay the start of your retirement benefits. If you start receiving retirement benefits at age: 67, you'll get 108      percent of the monthly benefit because you delayed getting benefits for 12      months. 70, you'll get 132      percent of the monthly benefit because you delayed getting benefits for 48      months. When you reach age 70, your monthly benefit stops increasing even if you continue to delay taking benefits.” See the link in the below show notes. We print off our Social Security statement each year to check and make sure they have our correct past years income. Plus, it is fun to see what the projected benefit amount is at different ages. Hopefully our elected officials don’t take away from Social Security and help protect it for future generations. Remember I am not giving you any financial or legal advice, this is just for entertainment purposes and see my Disclaimer Page. Here are some reasons that people I have talked with decided to start taking Social Security payments early; More covered in the Podcast Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com or Text me at 480-389-6224 Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1. Social Security Stats from https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/1943-delay.html 2. Social Security Break-even Points https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/13/those-social-security-break-even-calculations-can-be-misleading.html

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 all receipts on anything they ever buy in their lifetime. This goes for all repairs that they ever pay for. We told them to look at how much they were over charged and then figure how many hours they would have to work to pay for that amount. You may not think it happens often but it does. I know the Customer Service department at some of our stores we shop at a lot know us well. Darlene and myself grew up basically in retail and management jobs so we probably watch pricing better than most people do. To be Financially Free I feel we need to not only to save and invest our money but we also need to not lose money when we don’t need to. I know all Investments can go up or down and we could lose on them but with what we purchase we can control what we are willing to spend. Same goes for asking for deals. We taught the boys that and then told them that even when people said they would give us a deal to make sure that you get the deal. We have had many times that we were told that we would be getting a deal and they forgot to give us the discount. More covered on the Podcast. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor Text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas

Some people don’t like to think or talk about their own budget. They may feel like it is work to do or they feel they won’t have anymore fun in life if they start following a budget. Having a personal budget is like work. The place you work needs to spend less on expenses than they bring in for income. That is no different than your own personal budget. It is simple Math. This is part of our Mills Way to Financial Freedom Action steps and rule that we covered with our boys. They don’t do a great job at it so we help them at least with the savings part of their budget and staying debt free. Creating a budget is more than just making sure to place a spot of each expense. It is also important to create a payment accelerator amount in the budget. The payment accelerator amount is what we use to get our debt paid off faster and then to save towards or Financial Freedom goal. Sometimes when I have worked with people, they had to make hard choices what they felt was hard to them. To other people their choices may seem like they should have been easy. For instance, if one family gives their kid’s $100 per week allowance and someone like us that doesn’t pay our kids an allowance, we would see that as an easy choice to cut back on in the budget. But they may not think so. One family may spend $150 per week on Cable TV and another family like us has Antenna TV. So, for us that would be an easy expense to cut back on in our eyes but maybe not theirs. Couples I have worked with in the past had a harder time agreeing on what to adjust than single person of course. Sometimes people made even larger reductions by downsizing their house or selling off an expensive truck they own. I have budget sheets available for people I work with that we can break each expense out monthly and yearly. We show what the percentage of the expense is to total expenses. Then we can see that they roughly need to in investments to reach their retirement goal. Of course, before they can save for retirement, they need to get their budget in-line and then get all their debt paid off. Below are some suggested rough percentages that people could use as a rough guideline when doing a budget. The one I like to plug in first is 10% for your Debt Accelerator amount to get debt free and save towards Financial Freedom. Our Budget has Needs and Wants in it. Remember we need Shelter, Food, Water and the rest of our expenses are negotiable. Yes, we need clothes but in reason. Our Clothes budget for the four of us is $1,380 a year. I have seen some people spend over $6,000 on just clothes a year. Some people think if Blue Jeans or Shoes aren’t over $100 than they aren’t any good. If people make the income to support $6,000 in clothes then good for them. But a majority of people have debt, no savings and spend more than they make so they need to look at every expense. Here are some suggested percentage of your family take home pay after taxes and insurance. It is covered in Podcast. Remember my disclaimer on millsway.com. I am not giving any legal or financial advice. This podcast and blog are just for entertainment. Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor text me at 480-389-6224.

Down here in Arizona I have golfed with so many people that had plans on enjoying retirement and playing tons of golf but things happened with their adult kids that they had not planned about. Most people love their kids and it is hard to say “No” to them. I know that for a fact. When the boys ask me for stuff it is hard for me to ever say “No” to them. They say “Dad” and give me those cute eyes and I melt. But there are times we need to say “No” so they can grow and figure it out on their own. One of my friends has a daughter that got Divorced and moved in with them with her two kids. That was over ten years ago. Another friend has two adult kids living with them and they each have kids also. He said he is picking up after them all the time and they don’t help out at all with pitching in towards house or food expenses. His kids are in their thirties, that is crazy. I know one lady has a healthy and stable son that has never moved out, he is in his sixties. WOW. The three examples above are sad stories. The parents are in their seventies and eighties and still working jobs to support their adult kids. I say it is time for their kids to move out and figure it out and to pay their share of rent. All three examples of parents all have Debt also. Ughhh.. I asked my Dad for money a few times in my life and he turned me down each time. He said “Sorry son but you will figure it out, want to talk to your mom?” He was right, I did survive and figured it out. It is hard for people to say “No” to their kids but they could be hurting them more than helping them. CBSnews.com said “Almost 40 percent of young adults lived with their parents, step-parents, grandparents and other relatives last year, or the highest point in 75 years, according to data from real estate analytics company Trulia. The research echoes findings from the Pew Research Center earlier this year, which found that 32.1 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds lived at their parents’ homes in 2014, exceeding the 31.6 percent of young adults who were married or living with a partner in their own household.”. See link below in the show notes.. Listen to the whole podcast for all the details.  Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway Have a great day! Bruce Mills and family Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) Cbsnews.com https://www.cbsnews.com/news/percentage-of-young-americans-living-with-their-parents-is-40-percent-a-75-year-high/

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 boys are busy with work and school for one thing so I would be taking care of the dog. Plus, our backyard isn’t ideal for a dog since it is a Golf Putting and practice area. My last dog would have torn it apart. Another reason a dog isn’t for us now is we travel a lot so we would have to find a place for it to stay. Also, some of our relatives are allergic to pets so they wouldn’t be comfortable staying with us. The last reason is that a dog or a pet doesn’t fit into our current budget and plans for financial freedom. But I know some of you may be saying “they are so cute”, yes, they are but there are too many reasons why not to have a pet in our situation. I have worked with families in the past that had anywhere from one to four pets in their house which they couldn’t afford. They weren’t saving for retirement; they weren’t saving for their kid’s college and they were all in major debt problems. A pet to most people is a “want” not a “need” like we covered before in rule 38 of the Mills Way to Financial Freedom Rules. For those of you that track your expenses you will know that they can get very expensive. One of my dogs averaged us around $1,800 a year or $150 per month. I know that number can change depending on the health of the pet and how much you pamper them. I am sure there are some people that drop a ton of money a year on their pets. Some people have Dogs, Cats or even Horses as pets. The cost per year is going to be a lot different from a Dog or Cat to a Horse. So, I will give some examples in the podcast. Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Click here for some Side Income and Part-time Business Ideas Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more. #financial freedom #financial independence #FIRE #Hustle #Live4 #podcast #millsway

We all probably have different meanings of what a “Need” or a “Want” is to each of us. We have tried to get our boys in the habit of looking at things as a Need or Want when they want to buy something. Of course, it would be nice to buy only Needs until we are Financially Free but that is not the real world. I am not saying it isn’t possible but I don’t know of anyone that hasn’t bought a want sometime in their lifetime. In life every thing we strive to be in balance even though it is hard to achieve. When we get out of balance in one area then another area suffers. Same goes with buying too many Wants versus Needs. If we spend too much on Wants then maybe our Budget is out of whack, we could get in debt or take longer to reach our Financial Freedom goals. Basic needs we need is a roof over our head at night when we go to bed, Food for our body to have energy for the day, Water to drink for our body and Air to breathe. We also need Money to purchase those items. To find money for the basic needs we have we need a source of income either from Savings, Investments, Job or other outside sources. If we have a job, we would have some more needs and if we have kids, we have even more needs. More is covered in the Podcast. Positive Quotes Here are two positive quotes I like; “There is no way to happiness; happiness is the Path.” By Buddha “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” By Peter Drucker “Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life” by Wayne W. Dyer Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.comor text me at 480-389-6224 Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club

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 co-sign on any student loans or personal loans for them. We love them all but we don’t want to be on the hook for the loans. Also, we want them to learn to only count on themselves and to save up the money before buying something so they don’t need to get any loans. You may think I am crazy but it is possible. We all have many choices in life and we can put off things till we can afford them. I know our society pushes us to borrow money and enjoy things today. That is why so many people are in debt in the United States. We walked in Kohls department store on Thanksgiving night when Logan wanted to buy a Nintendo Switch and right in the front door, we were stopped by a Kohls employee who had a clip board. She asked if we had a Kohls Credit Card. Of course, she had a sales pitch on the values of having a Kohls Credit Card but not the negative things like high interest rates and being in debt. In the last month I have been asked at many places like Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart and more. Think of all the places you shop that ask you to open up a credit card. We told the boys if they ever want to co-sign on a loan, they need to be prepared to take over the loan if the person decides not to pay on the loan anymore. Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) Bankrate.com website      at https://www.bankrate.com/loans/personal-loans/reasons-not-to-co-sign-loan/ Creditcards.com      stats - https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/co-signing-survey.php

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 lights were matched up, the tracks were straight, wheels were oiled. But nothing worked. So, I called the Garage Door repair company and they said that it may be a Mother Board to the Garage Door Opener. So, they lined up a repair person to come to our house the next day. When he got there and walked in our garage, he knew right away what the problem was (See Photo Above of the Broken Spring). He pointed up to the Springs above the Garage Door and showed me where they broke. Bummer I said. It’s Christmas time and now we had to fix the garage door. The bill was $400. This is a prime reason why to have $1,000 Emergency Starter Fund in Action Step 3.  Since we have an Emergency Fund, we were able to pay for the Garage Door Repair easily. Even though it is never fun for me to spend money on repairs. But it comes with home or car ownership. On the Podcast we cover a lot of ideas on how to raise the money. Positive Quotes “Take Action! An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention.” By Dr. Steve Maraboli “The Future Depends on What You Do Today.” Gandhi Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Weddings are a fun and very emotional time. They can also be a very expensive time. We get all caught up with the excitement of the event or party and can lose control of the cost if we use a credit card instead of paying cash. Start with having a Wedding Budget is a key. Sitting down and deciding on how much you both want to spend on the wedding, reception and honeymoon. Also ask both sets of parents if they want to give any money towards your wedding. It is your wedding and you aren’t entitled to any money, it is there choice to help you out or not. Setup a Checking Account just for the Wedding expenses. Both names should be on the account. Stick with your budget. If they agreed on $250 for a dress then you shouldn’t buy a $800 dress unless you both agree on a revised budget. No need to go into debt for a wedding. Don’t think you have to have a big wedding or reception. Some people who don’t have the money can just go to the courthouse and get married for little cost. You don’t have to go on a honeymoon if you don’t have the money for it. We were married we never went on a honeymoon. We figure everyday we are together is our honeymoon. LOL Pay cash is the way to go so you don’t go into debt for this special event. I would suggest opening up a joint checking account so you both have access to the funds for the wedding. Both of you can deposit the money you have decided to spend on the wedding. If your parents decide to give money towards the wedding then that money can go into your wedding budget checking account fund. Here are some ways people I know have kept the costs low when getting married. Like I said before if you want to have a really low-cost wedding just go to the courthouse and skip the reception and honeymoon. Keep the Wedding Costs Low Ideas are on the Wedding Budget Podcast. Listen to it today! Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club

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 would start with what their goals are. Action Steps Let’s dive in on what the Mills Way to Financial Freedom Action Steps are that we taught our boys; (On Podcast Listen to) Our Mills Way to Financial Freedom rules help tie into the above 10 Action Steps to Financial Freedom. We have to remind them that if they are in debt that they won’t get out of debt overnight. There is no magic wand to help them with it. Normally people get in debt overtime and enjoyed spending the money so now they need to pay for the fun they had. It is such a better feeling being debt free then it is when you are in debt. Or even worse drowning in debt and trying to figure out what bills to pay next month. I have been they’re and that is what drives me to help our kids and others not to be in that debt black hole. If you know anyone that needs help to reach Financial Freedom please pass on my contact information to them. Positive Quotes Here are two positive quotes I like; “There is no way to happiness; happiness is the Path.” By Buddha “Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life” by Wayne W. Dyer Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club

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 depending on how much you will need to have your team around. I would guess a billionaire would almost have some of the below team members be working full time for them. Darlene and myself aren’t at Financial Freedom yet but we are on our last step towards achieving it. So, for now we don’t need our team very often but we have a team that we know we can count on them. We trust them and know that we can call them and they can help us out. Our Financial Team may not be the same as you need or want. This is just what we have for our Financial Freedom goals. Here is what our team looks like: See MillsWay.com for the full list if you don't listen to it in full. Here are two positive quotes I like; “There is no way to happiness; happiness is the Path.” By Buddha “Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life” by Wayne W. Dyer Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club

Car shopping isn’t one of the most enjoyable things for a lot of people. A friend of mine once said he would rather go to the Dentist then go car shopping. I am not a fan of Dentist either and probably enjoy some of the hunt and numbers of car shopping. This is one of the rules to Financial Freedom that we teach our kids and we have taken them with us to experience the whole car shopping experience. Including the games and negotiation that is played. Before we start talking about how we go about car shopping lets think about some things from the Millionaire Next Door book. Here are some key things from the book that studied Millionaires (It is on my must read book list); You aren’t what you drive. They believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status. 81% of  Millionaires purchase their cars and 19 leased in their study. Only 23.5% bought  Current year cars. The rest were all older. Average car buyer in America has a net worth of 2% that of a Millionaire but spends 72% of  the most that a typical millionaire ever spend on car, Then another good book to read is Spend Smart book. Here are a few things to think about before we dive in to the rest that we teach our kids. Bill wrote: If your goal is to keep automobile costs down, buying is much better than leasing a car. The three largest costs in automobile ownership are depreciation, insurance and finance charges. Leasing tends to maximize all of these costs. Don’t lease a car.  If you can’t afford the payment on the car you want downsize what you  want. In Suze Orman’s book she said that taking out leases is a costly financial mistake. She also said Certified Pre-owned cars with warranty is a good option. We start with first knowing what our budget is to spend on a car that we are looking at getting.  Everyone can have their own opinions on how to car shop or feel they are an expert but the below points are what we taught our boys. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) Spend Smart Book      by Bill Keenan The      Millionaire Next Door Book by Thomas J Stanley, Ph.D. and William D.      Danko, Ph.D. The Do’s and Don’t      of Money Book by Suze Orman

How does the word “No” have anything to do with reaching your Financial Freedom Goals you may be asking me? It is a huge factor, I think. You need to be able to say “No” at times to be able to stay on your budget and disciplined to reach your goals. In our house hold we have to say “No” quite often to our boys. If they had their way, we would be going to the movies every night and out to eat every night. Which I would agree with them that it would be fun but then the next day I would be disappointed in myself that we didn’t stick by our budget. Each week I get invited to golf at least three times at about an average cost of $50. The prices are higher in the winter months because of all the snow birds. My budget for golf is about $50 a week. In the months from May to October I can play about three times a week for $50. But in the winter months I can only play once a week. It isn’t any fun turning down friends who invite me to play golf but in our current budget that is what our budget is. Maybe once the boys are out of the house and my business is making more money. So, in the Winter months I try to mix it up and golf each week with a different group of friends to try to stay in touch until the cheap rates come back. I also will invite them over at times to watch Football on TV to help keep in touch. Another time we have to say “No” at times is when friends want to go out with us for the night to dinner or drinks. Our budget on going out with friends is currently only $100 a month. So, depending on what friends want to do that is normally one night out for the month with another couple. We try to mix it up and rotate different sets of friends to get with each month so we can try to keep in contact with in person other than just social media. Sometimes we will also ask friends over to our house to play some cards or do some putting in the backyard. We can have fun with friends at our house for a low cost for sure. About $25 in snacks can go a ways. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Millsway.com and Live4.Club Personal Capital - Manage your money now. Smart way to track and manage your financial life. Award-winning financial tools and more.

Setting Financial Goals is the first rule in the Mills Way to Financial Freedom rules that we covered with the boys. The importance of goals is to help us make our dreams happen. You need to write them down to be able to make them happen. Difference between a Dream, Idea, Vision and a Goal is nothing more than writing it down. After we write our goals down on paper, we don’t hide it and forget it. We post it, shout about them and we review them monthly. “We” is a must if you are married, it is hard to hit Financial Freedom goals if both of you don’t agree on them and the action plan to attain them. When setting the goals to your monthly review meetings schedule it with your spouse or partner if you aren’t single. If you are single maybe ask your best friend to come to your monthly goal review meetings. Having it schedule a month in advance helps make sure the meetings happen. Some people hear the word “Meetings” and they run. Some people feel meetings are a waste of time at their jobs when they could be getting their work done and getting out of work earlier. Financial Freedom Goal meetings aren’t a waste of time. They are important tool in your achieving your Financial Freedom that you want. Why not make the goal review meeting fun? Maybe get some snacky food or order pizza to be delivered. Make it a party and have fun celebrating what progress you made towards your goals. When you are having fun, you are able to think outside the box easier to be able to come up with ideas on how to achieve more the next month. These goal meetings we will be covering our budgets and actuals from the last month. We like to schedule our goal review meeting on the 2ndof each month so we have last months numbers to review. We will talk about budgets and tracking numbers in other posts. We have personal goals and financial goals that were based off what our family priorities are. So, you would need to decide what your own priorities are. Goals and Priorities, you both need to agree on them if you aren’t in a committed relationship. Here are some example steps to do for your goal setting; List your Top 5 Priorities. Set Long Term      goals for each Priority. Make them attainable. Set Short Term      goals for each priority. Make them attainable. Set Action Steps      for each long-term goal and short-term goals. List 3 habits you      want to do in the mornings and 3 habits you want to do at night to obtain      your goals. List any things      that you are doing that is distracting you from your goals and make      adjustments. For instance, let’s say you are watching TV every night from      6pm to 10pm. Why not adjust it and watch from 6pm to 8pm if you wanted to      and spend the other two hours working on your goals. That is just an      example. I am not a fan of watching much TV. Set daily goals      and Weekly goals and then list the progress down you did each day. Each      night you could reflect on it before going to bed and making the plan for      tomorrow. More info at MillsWay.com under Blog tab.  Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night. MillsWay.com

Christmas is around the corner and people are starting to think about what they want to give at Christmas time. At our house we have our Christmas Tree up and our Outside decorations up also. We have been getting Christmas Ads in the mail from companies like Best Buy and Kohls.  We have been getting plenty of emails sent to us about Black Friday sales coming up or pre black Friday sales. There is so much temptation this time of year to blow our Christmas budget out of the water. We want to buy for everyone and make everyone’s dreams come true, especially the boys. But thank goodness we both are on the same page with our Christmas budget and sticking by it. If you are single then you don’t have to worry about a spouse at Christmas time and you can go spend what ever you want on who ever you want with in your budget hopefully. But if you are married it can get tricky if you want to buy them a special gift for Christmas but you don’t want them to know how much you spent on it or what it is. That is a challenge when you are married and both on a Christmas budget. Remember that you both are grownups and should be able to stick to budgeting goals you have both decided on. If you haven’t yet it would be a good time to sit down and decide on how much you both want to spend for Christmas this year and then break it out for each person you want to spend it on so things don’t get out of line. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Let me know your thoughts or ideas. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a Merry Christmas.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway Bruce of MillsWay.com Millsway.com and Live4.Club Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) Average Christmas Spending Stat - https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1112/average-cost-of-an-american-christmas.aspx https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/consumers-will-spend-41-percent-more-last-year-during-winter-holidays

Today is a good day since I was able to do my first pod cast with Seth who is our Son. He is 13 years old and a future star in any thing he goes into.  Asking for deals or for a cash discount isn’t always very easy for a lot of people. My parents never talked about this subject when I was a kid and I don’t remember ever hearing them ask for a deal or a discount. Now I think about all the money they could have saved during their life time. Seth and Logan, I hope they will take the Mills Way to Financial Freedom rules that we teach them and use them in the future. Then hopefully they will continue on and teach their kids the rules also. Here is two positive quotes I like; “There is no way to happiness; happiness is the Path.” By Buddha “Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life” by Wayne W. Dyer Let me know your thoughts about this blog and let me know of others you would like me to do in the future. I feel we can all learn from each other. That is why I am in the helping people retire early, enjoy life more and be more successful. Also, please see my Disclaimer page. Don’t give up on your dreams; don’t let others talk you out of your dreams. Make your dreams happen. Make it happen today. Let me know your thoughts or ideas. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway  for access to all my blogs. Visit my website today to see my recommended Must Read Books and other info. Millsway.com 

Divorce Sucks.. Sucks.. Sucks…. Divorce is not a favorite topic for me, it is an ugly word and a word we never talked about in my parents house when I was a kid. I never even knew anyone personally before I got married that went through a divorce. Now I know many people with divorces or as we say on the golf course “D’s” and it keeps growing by the day. I will go on record I am against Divorce unless it is a safety issue for them or their kids. Most Divorces seem to happen over one spouse cheating or money issues. WebMD said 2 out of 5 of first marriages will end in divorce after one spouse cheats. WF Lawyers said that almost 50% of marriages will end in divorce or separation when I was searching about money issues. From my time helping people with debt problems it sure seems like over 80% of those divorced said Money was the top reason for the divorce or one of the top reasons. Some references are listed below in the show notes if you like stats. I think people who may be on the fence about getting a Divorce may want to go see a counselor or pastor at church. Another good option would be seeing a marriage counselor or buying a set of Gary Smalley Relationship tapes. That is if your spouse will attend. My past ex went one time and then said it was just me that needed help. We had so much debt that even after selling our house we still had debt to divide up. Some more things to think about is from an article in Time Magazine. It had some stats like: Average      first marriage 8 years Average      second marriage is 6 years. I have heard that divorce rate is higher on 2nd     marriages and even higher on 3rd marriages. Overall      showed kids are more likely to be harmed by their parents getting divorced Average      total household wealth of those ages 51 to 61 for married couples as      $132,200. Those Divorced was $33,700 and Widowed was $42,300. It is      cheaper to live in one household than two for sure. Judith Wallersteom on a book she wrote a book called “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce” Said “Children from broken families tend to marry later, yet divorce more often than those from intact homes. Listen for more info. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway Bruce of MillsWay.com Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) 1.Timeline of a Love Affair - WebMD https://www.webmd.com › sex-relationships › features › love-timeline 2.Divorce Statistics and Facts | What Affects Divorce Rates in the U.S.? https://www.wf-lawyers.com › divorce-statistics-and-facts 3. Time Magazine September 25, 2000

Insurance isn’t maybe the most exciting subject but one that Darlene and myself feel is important to cover with our Teenage Boys. We want them to know that they need to protect their assets as their assets grow. Especially since today with all the Lawsuits that are filed. It is hard to not watch TV in our house and not have many different Personal Injury Lawyer Commercials come up on TV. Insurance costs a really big expense most people have and the costs can vary so much from company to company. In our situation we are one of the lucky families that have no debt so we have more that we want to protect from losing. We have higher amounts of Protection to help us with that. But since we have our Emergency fund complete, we are able to have higher deductibles so we can have lower cost for our Insurance. We have Term Life Insurance on Darlene to Protect her income from her day job till she fully retires and the boys are out of the house. We are looking at Umbrella Policy’s currently for more Coverage now that Logan is driving In this podcast I covered some ways we lowered our Auto, Home and Life Insurance cost lately and our plan for the future. Let me know your thoughts or ideas. If you are looking for a Financial Coach drop me a note. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway Bruce of MillsWay.com

We feel it’s so important for Logan and Seth to start their lives after college with no Student Loans and No Car loans. No Debt at all. We are helping them out by giving them each a used car and they can live at home rent free until they are done with school. But they will need to pay for their college tuition, books and misc. charges. Having NO Student Loans is one of our Mills Way to Financial Freedom rules that we stress to the boys. We want them to grow into successful Adults and give us grandkids to play with someday. Way down the road. LOL Seven Top things we are trying to do for Logan and Seth so they don’t have any Student Loans they owe on after they are done with college. They are explained in this Podcast with some interesting Stats. Let me know your thoughts or ideas. Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway Bruce of MillsWay.com Sources and Resources from Podcast (Available in Show Notes) Student Scholorships average they receive - https://withfrank.org › for-parents › scholarships-and-grants-for-parents › ho... Student Loan Debt - https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/02/25/student-loan-debt-statistics-2019/#63ffb661133f

This was our second Disney Cruise to Mexico. We left out of San Diego, CA. We were gone 3 days and 2 nights so it was a quick trip. But the boys loved it and loved the other cruise also. Now they want us to book a 7 day cruise for next summer. They ran into some old friends from their last cruise and made tons of new friends.  Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes, Apple Podcast and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway Bruce of MillsWay.com Show Notes and References 1. Info about Disney Cruises at https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/onboard-activities/halloween-on-the-high-seas/

Sales is Hard. Most days you have to be your own Cheerleader. You may say that you aren't in sales but I would disagree. We all are in sales everyday.  Also we will talk about starting a Home Business and the importance of staying Debt Free. Work within your plan and budget.  Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Thanks, and Have a great night.  Please Support or Follow me at https://www.patreon.com/millsway Bruce of MillsWay.com Resources 1. https://sbecouncil.org/about-us/facts-and-data/ for stats about Small Business

Live for Happiness is way better than being stressed out. I give in the Podcast some ways I help to reduce stress and be Happier in my life. Disclaimer I am not giving you and Medical advice and you should see a Doctor for that. Liv4 Podcast is available on Anchor.fm, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio and more. Leave any comments you have on our show or email me. Please support or donate to our Podcast at anchor.com/Live4 or patreon.com/millsway or paypal.me/millsway Also please share us with your friends if you like our Podcasts. if you want to be a guest please e-mail me at bruce@millsway.com Thanks and Have a great day! Stay Happy! Bruce Mills Show Notes and Resources 1. Stats from gostress.com/stress-facts 2. Mills Way to RICHER LIVING book by Bruce Mills 3.  Your Best Life Begins Each Morning book by Joel Osteen

Living in Balance is hard. In this show I hope to help you live a life in more balance. It may be impossible to ever be in perfect balance but I hope to help you improve.  Visit my Podcast at www.Live4.Clubon Anchor.fm, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Breaker Audio, Google Podcasts, Radio Public, i-tunes and more. If you would like to be a guest on my Podcast drop me an email at bruce@millsway.com Support me at Anchor.fm/Live4, Patreon.com/Millsway or Paypal.me/Millsway Show Recources 1. https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/02/work-life-balance-statistics.html for some good stats to check out. 2. "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey. A great book to read and shows how to use a schedule to achieve balance in your life.

Darlene asked me if we should sell our Stocks with the market so high. What are your plans? We don't have a Crystal Ball in our house to know what to do. Our long term plan has been to hold on to our stocks and ride out the roller coaster of the stock market. There is so many different opinions out there. Just watch the news or read your email blogs from stock investors and you will see what I am saying. If you would like to be a guest with me in a future show please let me know. Please support and share my Podcast to help sustain our shows. Thanks and Have a great day.  Bruce Mills Email is bruce@millsway.com Websites are Millsway.com and www.Live4.Club Some more resources from the show if you want so good reading. https://www.aaii.com/ and June 2019 aaii Journal No.6 pg 7-11 Kiplingers Magazine Nov 2019 pg 22-26 Money.com Magazine March 2019 pg 21-22 Jon Johnson from Investment House Daily email 10/13/19 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/03/markets-rebound-in-major-comeback----five-experts-weigh-in.html

Being Broke can be temporary if you let your mind come up with positive solutions. In this Podcast I will be sharing with you my past experiences and how I made it through it. I also shared how some others handled being Broke. I also shared with you ideas of where to possibly go to for Free advice to help you through your challenging time. Please support Live4 Podcast if you find them helpful and enjoy them. Also share it with your friends. If you would like to be a future guest on our show just drop me a note to bruce@millsway.com Thanks and Have a great day! Bruce Mills Show Resources; Books to read  1. What Color Is Your Parachute Book by Richard Nelson Bolles. Can be found at the library. A helpful resource book if looking for a job or a new job. 2. Spend Smart Book - Creating Wealth Even With No Room in Your Budget by Bill Keenan 3. The Debt-FREE & Prosperous Living Basic Course Book by John M. Cummuta 4.  Mills Way to RICHER LIVING Book by Bruce Mills. 5.  The MILLIONAIRE Next Door Book by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. For Homeless States check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States  For Bankruptcy Stats check out https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/this-is-the-real-reason-most-americans-file-for-bankruptcy.html

If you have kids and they don't have a drivers license yet be sure to hold on. The costs will add up if they get a Drivers License. Be sure to check for Insurance quotes to find the lowest cost. We called nine different companies and the prices ranged a lot. There are a lot of other costs and risks along with Insurance costs. Let me know what your costs have been and experience with your teenager driver. Leave me a message below in the comments or email any comments to bruce@millsway.com.  If you would like to be on a future Podcast just let me know. Thanks for listening to Live4 at www.Live4.Club Resources for stats on Teenage Drivers go to the below for a few examples https://www.geico.com/information/safety/auto/teendriving/statistics/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/13/teen-drivers-license/2891701/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-decline-of-the-drivers-license/425169/ https://www.crchealth.com/find-a-treatment-center/alcohol-substance-abuse-treatment-programs/alcoholic_rehab/substance-abuse-articles/parental-liability-underage-drivers/