“Hey Dad, you can change your own oil and save $20 bucks!” “Honey, that’s not worth my time.” My Dad and I had this conversation in high school, and at the time, I had no idea what he meant. How could saving money be a waste of time? Now I get it. Traditional finance advice…
I recently received a question from a reader named Briana, who asks: “Paula your story is definitely inspiring. I’m having a bit of trouble though. Since being laid off in January, I’ve been pursuing a “career” as a freelance writer, and while things are steadily looking up, the fact of the matter is I’m still…
Sophia from Minneapolis says: “The more I sit in an office, the more I want to be location independent. … I feel this need to travel more, to explore, and not be tied to an office in Minnesota.” In my last post, I told Sophia how she can see the world for the price of…
Time for Answer the Reader’s Mail: “See the World” Edition! Today’s question comes from Sophia, a 27-year-old financial planner in Minneapolis with a desire to travel the world. Sophia says: “I’m a world traveler … My husband and I went to Thailand at the beginning of the year and we loved it!” “The more I…
There’s a huge problem with traditional advice about how to earn more money. Conventional wisdom wants you to sell yourself short. Most advice says you should trade your limited time and energy for a few cents. Here’s what a quick search for “earn more money” found: Babysit Mow lawns or rake leaves Clean homes Host…
Welcome to another round of Reader Mail: Earn More Edition! Today’s letter comes from Carolyn in Georgia. You may remember Carolyn from an earlier post when she asked about creating passive income and traveling the world. Today she asks about becoming “location independent” – working from anywhere on the planet, as long as you have…
Today we have a question from the Reader Mailbag: Travel Edition. Today’s question comes from Maggie. She asks: “Please could you give more details on how you were able to afford to travel the world. “What your planned budget was ahead of time, how you earned money ahead of time, how you saved money while…
After last week’s three-part series on rental property investing, several readers posed fantastic and hard-hitting questions. I answered most in the ‘comments’ section. But one question deserved its own post. How did you come up with the your maintenance cost estimate? I would expect much higher on such a large and old house. You’re probably…
Note from Paula: This is the final installment of my three-part series about my building my real estate empire, one lopsided rotting house at a time. Check out Part 1 — House-Hunting — and Part 2 — Funding — before you read this conclusion. **** NOTE: This article was last updated in 2014 (and all…
Note from Paula: In my last post — Part 1 – I described how I searched for a rental house. In today’s post, I’ll spill the details of how I put the deal together. **** To say that the house is a “fixer upper” is too polite. The house is –- well, it’s safe for…