Financial Peace

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5 Reasons Why Men Born in 1981 are Unapologetically Obsessed with Making Money, Saving Money, and Investing Money: The Firstborns of the Millennial Generation are Financially Woke!

Exactly 20 years ago, just a couple weeks away from my high school graduation, my plan for a career was quite humble:

To become a school teacher, to marry a school teacher, and to live in a small house in my small hometown.

That’s all I wanted. I specifically didn’t care about money. For those of us born in 1981, the firstborns of the Millennial Generation, we were led to believe that “money isn’t everything” and that “all you need is love”.

But by the time I began my career, I saw the world in a different light. And I imagine many other men who were born in 1981 also experienced the same culture shock, and therefore, a rewiring of how we perceive money.

What makes us this way? I have compiled 5 reasons why men born in 1981 are so much more woke when it comes to personal finances. Consider this to be my comic book villain origin story:

1.      The average American man gets married at age 27; which for those of us born in 1981, coincided with the Financial Crisis of 2008. Needless to say, I got married just a few months before the recession hit.

2.      Most of us attended college compared to previous generations, which meant more competition in the work force in addition to starting out our careers with heavy student loans.

3.      We were told we would be the first generation to actually make less money than our own parents; who themselves didn’t necessarily need to graduate college like we did in order to be successful in our careers.

4.      It is common knowledge that there should be no expectations for my generation to actually get social security when we retire.

5.      Thanks to the Internet, we have so many opportunities to have multiple online side hustles; to add passive income in addition to our salaries from our full time jobs.

Both at my office as well as my online persona as a YouTuber, I am referred to as Slick Nick.

If you know me at all, you know I am a person who is unapologetically fixated on making money, saving money, and investing money:

In addition to my full time job at a Fortune 500 Company, I also handle my 5 online side hustles: running two YouTube channels, managing the SEO for a majority university here in Nashville, plus selling guest blog spots and planting Amazon links here on my website.

As opposed to the excess culture of the 1980s and 1990s as people went in debt to impress people they didn’t care about by buying McMansions and brand-new luxury cars, I am from a generation where the goal is to impress people by how much money we save and invest; not how much we spend.

I feel like men from my generation will be like those who survived the Great Depression. We will spend our lives finding ways to independently fund our own retirements; assuming there will be no social security left for us.

If we’re lucky, we’re wrong. But if we’re wrong, we just might be rich.

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5 Reasons Our Townhouse Sold In Just 3 Days

5 Reasons Our Townhouse Sold In Just 3 Days

Last week I revealed that my wife and I sold our townhouse after it was on the market for just 3 days; for more than our asking price. See Dear Jack: We Sold Our Townhouse… It’s Official! Thank The Lord!

And yes, we made a profit. Today, I would like to highlight what enabled that to happen.

I have to start off with what is, for me, the most obvious part of it: God orchestrated all the events I’m about to talk about.

5 Reasons Our Townhouse Sold In Just 3 Days

#1: We prayed for the right people to find our house. More important than focusing our prayers on our house selling for our personal benefit in our time, we focused on the future buyers being blessed by finding it. That way, they would know our home was the right one once they found it. Here’s an email excerpt from the buyer of our townhouse:

“As for selling points these are the things that really sold us: Open concept, large bedrooms, more bang for your buck with a townhouse versus detached home, safe neighborhood close to entertainment and work, reasonable HOA fees. The extra half bath was also huge; huge garden tub and double vanity in the bathroom.

We looked at 2 others. One was unimpressive and we actually put in an offer on another one that was an end unit. It was a blessing in disguise that we missed out on it because this home really is so much more perfect for us.”

5 Reasons Our Townhouse Sold In Just 3 Days

#2: We had an excellent real estate agent. I have known Dave Stanley with Reliant Reality for most of the time I have lived here in Nashville, since 2005. He is assertive and calculated. He went through the process of figuring out exactly the perfect price point for our model in our neighborhood. We actually received more than our asking price for our townhouse which set a new record for that model in our neighborhood.

5 Reasons Our Townhouse Sold In Just 3 Days

#3: We had kept our house immaculately clean. I mean this as a compliment to my wife: She is obsessed with cleaning to the same degree as Monica from Friends. We don’t smoke, we don’t have pets, and we clean everything weekly. Here is another excerpt from the buyer:

“The fact that [your home] came from what looked like a good family who kept it very clean and up to date was huge. At least 50% of our decision if not more.”

5 Reasons Our Townhouse Sold In Just 3 Days

#4: We staged our home well. It went on the market in October, so we made sure we set out a pumpkin, as well as seasonal flowers, in our staged home. As for the bigger stuff, my dad and I put in a backsplash in the kitchen (seen in the picture above, where I had my smoothie station set up). Not to mention, we painted some of the rooms to bring them to life, but not that same dark red color that most people in the neighborhood used: Another email excerpt from the buyer:

“YES! I totally forgot to mention the backsplash. This was the only house we saw that had a backsplash. That really set the house apart from the rest. I can’t believe I forgot that! It’s one of my favorite features!… We [also] really liked the paint y’all had which made the transition easy.”

5 Reasons Our Townhouse Sold In Just 3 Days

#5: We were debt-free when we put the house on the market. Like most “normal” young couples, we were tens of thousands of dollars in debt for the first several years of our marriage. Thanks to following Dave Ramsey, on our 5th wedding anniversary we official paid off our final debt (as seen when I originally posted about it on my corporately sponsored blog, The Dadabase on Parents.com). That enabled us to be better prepared financially for when we found our new home. Had we not been debt-free, the time would not have been right for us to be able to afford a bigger home when we did; taking advantage of a good deal when we saw it. Additionally, we were able to put our townhouse on the market when the market was ready; not simply just when we were ready.

Hopefully our experience in selling our home in just 3 days for more than the asking price can help you. Individual results may vary.

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Big Hands: For You to Be Rich, It Means Someone Else Must Be Poor

In 1992 I was in 5th grade and it was in my reading class that I learned so much of the way I see economics. I remember reading this story about a boy who wished for all the money in the world. He got his wish. His entire house became completely full of cash. More money than he could ever spend. It was wonderful. But not for long. He realized that he literally had all the money in the world. That meant that no one else had any, which kinda took the fun out of the whole thing.

The most education I can really claim to have regarding finances is a micro-economics and a macro-economics class my first year of college and completing Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace program a few months ago. I don’t claim to really know much about how money really works. But here is an interesting qustion: If every person in the world had the exact same financial status, how much would everyone have? Financially speaking, which country would we all be most comparable to?

I looked up the GDP (Gross Domestic Product- indicates the size of a country’s economy) for all 191 listed countries in the world. The midway point on the list was Albania, with a GDP of $5,600. The USA was #6 on the list with $43,500. I did the math. Americans are 7.6 times richer than Albanians. We have over 7 and a half times more of everything than we should have, based on my simple ballpark math.

So in my 5th grade reading class I indirectly learned that in order to be rich, to some degree, we have to get more than our share. Because if everybody was rich, then nobody would really be rich. It’s mathematically impossible. Just like not everybody can be famous.

What’s funny to me is, so many people that I know that everybody else thinks are rich, are actually just as worried about money as everybody else. The more money a person makes, the bigger their house gets. The newer their car gets.  It doesn’t end.

I think it’s easy to tend not to take the 10th Commandment as seriously as the rest of the Commandments. “Do not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor”. It seems kind of petty at first. But not when I think about it- and realize where that can get a person, or a country.

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