Jason Unger

Day 13: Set Your Bills to Be Paid Automatically

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I hate paying bills. But who doesn't? It's so arcane to take a couple hours out of a beautiful day, or a night when you could be sleeping, or otherwise doing something fun or productive, and write a ton of checks and stuff a lot of envelopes and stick a lot of stamps. Today, you're [...]

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Day 12: Automate Your Long-Term Savings

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Since today's post is about automation again, I can use another picture of a robot. So here's a robot with a frog. Automating your long-term savings is the key to protecting yourself … from yourself. When you're attacking a long-term goal, it's incredibly easy to procrastinate or convince yourself that something else is more important. [...]

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Day 11: Open Long-Term/Retirement Accounts

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Today's post may be one of the most important chapters in the entire book. It's a perfect example of the mentality that, if you just get it done, you will be set for the future. We all love a little bit of procrastination, but given that saving for retirement is all about maximizing your time, [...]

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Day 10: Automate Your Short-Term Savings

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OK, there's not actually any robots involved in today's post, but the image above was too good to pass up. Now that we've got your accounts open, it's time to put the system in place to automate your success. The beautiful part about this is that once you set it, you can essentially forget it. [...]

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Day 9: Open Your Online Savings Accounts

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I know I've written about it before, but the day I opened my first online savings account literally changed the way I manage money. It was back in the good old high-interest days of the mid-2000s, when you could find an account paying 5% or 6% in interest. I remember putting money into the account, [...]

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Day 8: Establish Your Savings Goals

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So at this point, if you've been following along, you've basically gotten a big picture look at your financial situation. You know what you're bringing in, how much you've been spending and what you've been spending it on. But now it's time to focus on what you're keeping — your savings goals. I have to [...]

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Day 7: Create a Budget

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Budgeting. Even the word screams BORING, right? Well, it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but it is crucial to hitting your financial goals. If you assign a value to every dollar you bring in in a month (from fixed costs to flux costs to savings), you've given yourself a path to success. So [...]

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