Mortgages: It is very important to know how to leverage your debt to retirement. How many times have you refinanced your mortgage? Once? Twice? Three times? Did you put any consumer debt into it (i.e. tuition, vehicle payments, credit cards, etc…)? Do you really understand the benefits? Are you aware the current mortgage is paid off and the new mortgage start from scratch? Therefore, you are perpetually renting from the bank instead of building equity. Learn to not only trust, but verify that your actions are really leading to homeownership.

Yes, our great-grandparents were influenced on the importance of whole-life insurance and they pass these values down to us. Fact: When the whole-life agent retires and moves to a beach resort sipping mojitos he/she still receive income from the monthly payment we struggle to pay. Now if we are only paying a very small sum monthly can we afford to build up wealth over our working years? Unlearn destructive lessons.

Because Long-Term Care policies are so very expensive, a HSA is an affordable way to save a small amount of money over a long period of time to insure you have the funds necessary to cover the 20% that Medicare does not cover.

We never associate paying our bus-fare with saving money. But partaking in the commuter benefits program, if available, reduce our taxable income by the amount of the fare. When we pay the fare directly from our pocket the funds are taxed through our paycheck.

Start your emergency fund with any amount. Every paycheck add something to it.