Comments on: Four Phases of the Family Financial Cycle

By: Oscar

Oscar — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:22:31 +0000

I promote the 10-20-70 Plan, which means you give 10% of your income, save 20% and live off of the remaining 70%. This only works if you are debt free, excluding your mortgage. We do this and live on one income and have eight children. You just need to make the lifestyle decisions to live within your means.

By: LC

LC — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:02:37 +0000

My DH and I are 27. We have saved enough for retirement already that even if we never save another penny we will have $1M at 50 (assuming only 8%). We will also have our mortgage paid off well before then. We are planning kids in a few years and we have already started saving for their college and we have a fund started for all the “startup costs.” It’s really not that hard if you start young. Good advice though.

By: a

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:41:27 +0000

but traciatem’s comments are even more useful, thought-provoking.

By: Juan20

Juan20 — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:05:56 +0000

That is a great article. I never thought of the squirrel adage. It is so true though.

By: Traciatim

Traciatim — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:27:07 +0000

Sure that works in a perfect world where people are all mindless robots and nothing happens outside of plans.

I much prefer the David Chilton version of simply save 10% your whole life, and retire wealthy. (a little simplistic, but it works). At least this way you spend the excess any way you wish.

There is also the David Bach version of the baskets for security, freedom, and dreams. This works pretty well too for real life since they can be used for the down times.

I think the underlying message in all of the plans though is ‘Stop spending all of your money’. Personal finance and financial security all comes down to that one single point. If that one single point could be mastered by the general public I bet the world would be a much better less stressful place.