Financial Dream To Reality

15/06/2026

Stop waiting to save what’s left. Pay yourself first, build the habit, and let your money start working toward your goals💰

13/06/2026

Every wealthy person in the WORLD built their wealth by a combination of these three things!

While it can be tempting to think that increasing income is the only path to increasing wealth, it's not quite the case. Decreasing expenses is actually MORE impactful at lower levels of wealth.

When you increase your income by $1, your wealth actually only increases by $0.65-0.80 (depending on your marginal tax rate). When you decrease your spending by $1, your wealth ACTUALLY increases by a dollar, and potentially more if that dollar is going towards investments.

This difference may not seem huge, but when your net worth is less than six figures, the savings makes a huge difference to get the ball rolling on your net worth. I wouldn't suggest that you to pinch pennies your whole life, but frugality while you're beginning to build your wealth is VERY important.

Regardless of your wealth level, make sure you're investing optimally as well! This means with patience, without mindless speculation, and without paying exorbitant fees. Some VERY high income people I know even struggle with this one - there is a tendency to think because you make a lot of money that you "know better than everyone" in the market. You don't. Buy low cost, diversified assets and hold!

- Matt

P.S. I use SoFi for my high-yield savings accound and they are running a sign-up bonus where you can get up to a $400 with opening a new account and connecting direct deposit. Comment "HYSA" and I'll send you a link to get your bonus!

13/06/2026

Space Exploration Technologies—Elon Musk's space exploration, connectivity and AI company—is meeting with a warm reception from investors. Its IPO is the biggest in history.

11/06/2026

09/06/2026

If you've ever found yourself asking the question "should I invest in a 401(k) or an index fund?" you should probably brush up on the different levels of investing, because that question doesn't make sense :)

I've broken down 3 main levels here - your brokerage firms that "broker" (buy and sell) your investments, the assets themselves, and the accounts you hold them in.

The brokerage firms are simply a middle man - they don't actually own assets (in a large scale at least), per say. They just hold your investments for you. When you hear about a brokerage firm's AUM - that means their "assets under management." Vanguard has $7.2 trillion AUM, but make sure you don't confuse that with them owning $7.2 trillion in investments - they just hold $7.2 trillion of other peoples investments.

Assets are what you buy and sell from these companies. Assets are your investments that you buy in the hopes of them going up in value in the future. An example would be a stock or a bond, but sometimes those get rolled up into funds. A fund would just be a bunch of assets in a basket together. When you buy the fund, you're owning a little piece of that basket and therefore a little piece of every asset in the basket.

All of those assets are then held in a brokerage accounts. A brokerage account is ANY account where you buy and sell assets. Some brokerage accounts are traditional and have no restrictions (but also no benefits), and some brokerage accounts have government mandated tax benefits to encourage you to invest.

Understanding this is core to a solid investing foundation - if anything is unclear just drop a comment and I can clarify!

- Matt

P.S. Car insurance rates have been up a LOT in the past year. If you haven't price shopped your rate in a few months, comment "car" and I'll send a quick quiz to you on messenger so you can see if you can save any money (free quiz, takes

05/06/2026

One of the biggest questions retirees have to decide: When do I claim Social Security?!

Now before the comments pour in about this being overly simplistic, I’ll beat you to it. This is only one factor in your decision, and there is even more to the break even than you see here.

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. If you’re working at 62 and claim, your payment will be reduced (or even fully wiped out). It can still make sense to claim in certain situations, but the math changes.

2. The exact dollar figures are an estimate here and will vary depending on how much you actually

3. Even if you do live past the break even age, you may still “win” by claiming earlier. Some people want the money earlier, or want to claim it earlier and invest it to let it grow even more. This assumes you don’t need the money to live.

4. If you want to maximize survivor benefits, you may want to delay claiming so your spouse could have a higher payment if you die first

5. Social Security may be reduced in the early 2030s, so some people who can claim now may want to claim before it potentially gets reduced.

This barely scratches the surface of factors to consider, but understanding the notion of a breakeven on lifetime earnings can help you think about one of the most important factors with a bit more of a framework.

What else are you considering?!

- Matt

03/06/2026

30/05/2026

Do you understand the underlying assets of your investments?!?

People want to make money investing, but you need to first understand the BASICS of some of the most common asset classes: stocks and bonds.

Fundamentally, these assets are quite simple. It's more common to understand the definition of a stock. When you buy a stock, you are buying a piece of a company. That means that your share will (in theory) fluctuate in value depending on how well the company does, you may be entitled to direct payments of the companies profits, and sometimes you may even be able to vote for big decisions the company needs to make!

Bonds are much less commonly understood than stocks are. When you buy a bond, you are actually lending your money to an institution. This could mean a company, but it could also be a government or another type of establishment. You are lending them money with the expectation that they will pay you premiums on that money for getting the loan. The premiums that you are paid will usually be higher if the loan is risky, and lower when the loan is safe (like when loan the U.S. government money).

Make sure you understand what your assets are and it will help you to understand why you are buying what you are buying!

- Matt

P.S. I use SoFi for my high-yield savings accound and they are running a sign-up bonus where you can get $400 with opening a new account. Comment "HYSA" and I'll send you a link to get your bonus!

27/05/2026

Learn when transferring your 401(k) to an IRA is worthwhile — and when it’s best to leave it untouched.

26/05/2026

You’d be surprised

I asked all my service providers for lower prices. Here's what happened.