The Wall Street Journal posted a video of an imaginary couple making $400,000 and how they would still only ‘just get by’. The Huffington Post and other media outlets were quick to ridicule the video and even call it the “a deliberately unsympathetic joke designed to agitate the stirrings of an American class war”.  For…

Lifestyle Cash Flow is the linchpin of your Point of Independence.  Yet when I ask, “How much after-tax cash flow does it take to support your family each year?” very few people know the answer.  In our Blue Pages we call this number Lifestyle Cash Flow.  It represents the sum total of every dollar spent…

Burn rate is a phrase I have always hated; it has rather morbid implications. I first encountered the term while working with dot com executives in the late 1990s who effortlessly dropped the term to describe the amount of cash the company was burning (spending) per month. They divided the burn rate by the cash…

We are addicted to stories. Stories are so fast they can outrun reality. Even in our sleep we tell ourselves stories. The term “Homo Fictus” explains it best. This is the name given by Jonathan Gosthaldt in his book The Storytelling Animal, explaining how humans are simply primates trapped in Neverland. Our minds will travel…

The second law of financial physics — Never pay fixed bills with variable money. Watch video as Rusty explains.

I still love the power of the written word but some concepts are hard to explain in 2 paragraphs. Fortunately, video allows us to deliver a complex message in less than 2 minutes. So we brought financial physics to life in a 4 part video series. Click on the video below as Rusty explains the…

As a child, each of us had dreams of who we wanted to be and what we wanted to accomplish. As we mature, we begin to lose sight of those dreams and aspirations as the daily reality of life takes up more and more of our time. Despite life’s best efforts, many of our dreams…

15% profitability is your breakeven Why do businesses need a profit? To stay in business! Profits are used to expand, to invest in new ideas, to replace old equipment, and to hire new employees. Businesses that succeed reinvest and reinvent themselves because the world is always changing. If they don’t adapt, the business will fail.…

Never pay fixed bills with variable money In the second law of financial physics, we move our discussion to the importance of understanding cash flow. In my years of advising clients, I have noticed one main difference between those that find perpetual peace and those who don’t. It all lies in how they pay their…

If you’ve never heard of financial physics, no worries, it’s just like regular physics. There are fundamental laws of cash flow that apply to every situation. It does not matter if you are a government, business or person. Violate these fundamental truths and you put yourself at risk. I have created these principles by studying…