Wealth Today

This lesson in The Wealthy Barber covers investing and taxes. The author and his siblings are told by Roy, the barber, that to make good decisions regarding investments other than real-estate suck as stocks and bonds, takes knowledge, math skills, self-discipline, and intuition. He suggests seeking professional advice if you choose to do this. This may not be the best advice for some of the more savvy readers, but if you’re not sure or committed, then he provides another suggestion I like. If you happen upon a large lump sum of money, increase your regular contribution to your tax-advantaged savings until the lump sum is exhausted. Doing this puts dollar-cost averaging on our side, and we still have the found fortune.

The second part of this lesson is taxes. Again, the author suggests seeking professional assistance if you have special circumstances, such as being self-employed or owning a home, because of the complicated laws that allow for some helpful deductions.

The basic concept related to both of these lessons is “A dollar saved is two dollars earned.”

The fifth lesson in The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton covers “Saving Savvy.” This chapter is mostly about common sense. It’s diverse and briefly covers some down-to-earth concepts that I’ll list here for a quick overview.

• For obvious reasons, avoiding credit cards is to our advantage. After monthly fees and the high interest rate, as well as buying things we wouldn’t have bought if we had no credit card, we tend to lose a lot of money through using them.
• Instead, pay yourself first and plan for the purchase.
• By investing a little time shopping around, you can save a lot of money.
• It may be helpful to try to establish a budget.
• You should also consider a ‘household financial summary’ to discover what kind of hidden expenses you may not be aware of that are holding you back.