Vlada the Money Muse

Saving 10–15% of your take-home pay consistently is a key habit for building wealth. It creates a gap between income and spending and that gap is what allows you to protect yourself, plan ahead, and invest.

A SIMPLE PATH:

• Create a budget and save consistently
• Save your first $1,000, then grow your Emergency Fund to 3–6 months of essential expenses
• Save for big and irregular expenses (car, home down payment, vacations, big ticket purchases)
• Start investing (retirement accounts first, then brokerage)

If you have high-interest debt, focus on that first, and if your employer offers a 401(k) match, take advantage of it early, even as you are still building up your emergency fund and short-term savings.

Can you be a late starter when it comes to retirement saving? Yes.
Is it ever too late to start? No.

No matter how many years you have until retirement, starting now, investing consistently (think automated contributions) and sticking with low-cost index funds means you’ll end up with far more than zero.

A Roth IRA is a powerful tool: you contribute after-tax dollars, your investments grow tax-free, and withdrawals after 59½ are also tax-free.

Another key feature: you can withdraw your contributions (not earnings) at any time, penalty-free, since you’ve already paid taxes on them.

Taxes and penalties apply only to earnings, which can be withdrawn tax-free after age 59½ and once the account has been open for at least 5 years (the clock starts January 1 of the year of your first contribution).

If you don’t currently have a retirement account (no 401(k) or rollover IRA), a Roth IRA can be a great place to start, and starting now is what matters most.

2026 contribution limits:
• $7,500 if under age 50
• $8,600 if age 50+

Want to maximize it? Divide your annual limit by 12 -- that’s your monthly number.

Income note: Roth IRA eligibility is based on Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) and tax filing status. Married filing separately generally doesn’t qualify, and higher earners may be limited to partial contributions. Check current IRS limits or confirm with a tax professional before opening an account.

Source: Matt The Money Guy

It's so common to think that investing is just for rich people. Investing makes you rich, not the other way around!

Sure, there are plenty of people out there who have a trust fund on day 1 and just get richer from investing from there. That is NOT the "normal" rich person. The "normal" rich person got there by creating a budget surplus and investing money month after month.

It almost sounds too simple to be putting out there, but I feel that it needs to be said: If you never start, you'll stay broke forever. It's obvious, yet so many people think that they don't have enough to start investing. $5 a day is better than nothing!

There is someone out there making just as much money as you who will build a bigger net worth than you by investing more often. That isn't to make it a competition, but to point out the fact that your decisions will ultimately be the determinant of your wealth creation.

No matter if you have a $0 net worth or a $1m net worth right now, you can make the choice to invest your money and continue to improve your wealth in the future.

It all starts with a decision to invest!

Excerpt from « Your Money » by Carl Richard’s

Financial planning isn’t a one-time event.
It’s a lifelong process boiled down to three questions:

Where are you today?
Where do you want to go?
How will you get there?

The first question requires honesty.

You need to look at where you truly are — not where you wish you were or where you tell others you are. This means facing your current financial situation, even when it’s uncomfortable and mistakes have been made.

The second question demands imagination.

Planning is a creative act. We don’t know what the future will look like; part of planning is dreaming about it and creating a clear picture of that dream.

The third question calls for action.

Tactics, spreadsheets, and calculators are important tools, but they can also become a place to hide. Instead of doing the challenging work of spending less, it’s easy to hide behind reading one more article comparing credit cards.

Where you are changes daily.
Where you want to go evolves with you.
How you’ll get there adapts to both.

Financial planning isn’t a one-time event.
It’s the lifelong process of asking these three questions again and again.

— Carl Richards

Excerpt from Your Money by Carl Richards

We don’t know when to stop.
I include myself in that.

Sometimes, I stop by the grocery store, buy a pint of ice cream, and eat it. That’s right. The whole thing.

I’ve noticed a predictable pattern when I do this:
Bite 1: Best thing ever.
Bites 2–10: Really good.
Bites 11–15: Good.
Bites 16–20: Meh.
Bites 21+: I’m sick.

I keep repeating this experiment, hoping for a different result.
This behavior is called diminishing marginal utility. It’s not just about ice cream, but getting more of anything.

Beyond a certain point, more stops making you feel better.

If you keep going, more makes you sick.
More becomes “too much.”
The secret isn’t getting more.
It’s knowing when to stop.

-- Carl Richards

Excerpt from Your Money by Carl Richards

***
We look at what people buy and think we know what they make.

Their car.
The house they live in.
Their clothes.

Then comes the dangerous part: We use these guesses to justify our spending.

Your neighbor buys a new car. A month later, you’re shopping for one too. This isn’t just about competing with the neighbor; it’s a psychological trap economists call the Relative Income Hypothesis.

We see others spending big, so we spend bigger, even when we can’t afford it.

When you catch yourself falling for this trap, stop! Stop and unwind the story.

The new car in your neighbor’s driveway tells you nothing about their bank account. More importantly, it tells you nothing about what YOU should spend.”

— Carl Richards

I just finished listening to this fantastic podcast episode by So Money where the host, Farnoosh Torabi, interviews the author of "Automatic Millionaire" 20 years after original book publication.

In a candid heartfelt interview, the author David Bach talks about why the insight he once had about the power of automation (as in pay yourself first, automate your savings and investments) still works in today's world.

Quite simply, automation works better than self-discipline. Once you get that and automate the most important aspects of your cash flow, you start seeing big progress.

I love the book, I love the concept -- a big part that fueled my own Net Worth growth over the last decade was the automation I introduced to my savings and investments. If you need to listen to something encouraging at the start of the year, take this podcast on your next walk and get inspired.

Excerpt from Your Money by Carl Richards

***
As a kid, I wanted a bike because my friend had one.

I never considered wanting a private jet.

Back then, my comparison set was my little buddies in my local neighborhood.

In this hyper-connected world, my comparison set is everyone with an internet connection.

There’s a reason it feels so hard to keep up; it’s because there’s always someone with more, and now we can see them.

Envy has always been hard to deal with, but now it’s at a whole new level. This is new territory requiring new behavior.

Carefully cultivate your comparison set.

— Carl Richards

Excerpt from Your Money by Carl Richards

Two people can have the exact same resources — yet one feels rich, and the other feels trapped.

Why?

Whether we experience the world as scarce or abundant isn’t always about how much we have — it’s often about what we choose to focus on.

Scarcity and abundance are functions of perspective.

They’re almost like postures we adopt, independent of our circumstances.
We can choose to feel like there’s never enough to go around, that the world is closing in on us, and we’ll never get ahead.

Or, we can choose to believe that the world is expansive, that there’s plenty to go around, and that we already have enough to feel content.

It’s not about getting more. It may be about learning to love what we already have.

In a world of constant comparison, viewing things from a posture of abundance is a way to break free from the trap of always needing more and redefine success.

Instead of asking what’s missing, we can learn to ask: What’s already enough?”

— Carl Richards

Follow this basic math to calculate how much you need in retirement savings, so it lasts you 30 years at 4% annual withdrawal rate, inclusive of pension and social security you expect to get.

If the number in Step 4 shocks you as too high, may it be a wake up call to treat retirement savings seriously starting this year, starting this month.

💰Can you increase your contribution to 401k at work?

💰 Are your investments in 401k optimal?

💰 If you don’t have access to 401k, can you open a traditional or Roth IRA and maximize it?

💰 Can you focus on reducing debt, including early mortgage pay off, to lower your expenses in retirement?

These questions are good starting point to get on track with your retirement savings and take care of your future self.