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I wrote an article about getting teens to enjoy travel and published several shorts this week.
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MONEY TIP
It will cost you less money when you start saving for retirement in your early 20s. Here are some numbers to show you why. Your kids need to see this:
If you start at age 25:
- With an 8% rate of return: $486.97 per month
- Annual salary needed if you save 10% of your income: $58,436
- Annual salary needed if you save 15% of your income: $38,959
If you start at age 30:
- With an 8% rate of return: $741.10 per month
- Annual salary needed if you save 10% of your income: $88,932
- Annual salary needed if you save 15% of your income: $59,291
If you start at age 40:
- With an 8% rate of return: $1,787.54 per month
- Annual salary needed if you save 10% of your income: $214,505
- Annual salary needed if you save 15% of your income: $143,011
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OPPORTUNITY
If your dates are getting boring and you want to make it fun again, here’s a great resource from Dave Ramsey. It’s a comprehensive list of cheap date ideas.
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MINIMALISM TIP
Minimalism is often associated with decluttering, but its real power lies in something more profound: eliminating the nonessential from our mental and emotional space. Minimalism isn’t just about having fewer things—it’s about freeing up the bandwidth to focus on what truly matters. Think of it as a mental shift, not just a physical one.
Here’s something not often considered: what if the greatest clutter in your life isn’t physical, but your commitments, distractions, and even your thoughts? We tend to accumulate more than just stuff—we collect tasks, habits, and relationships that don’t align with our core values. This overload is often disguised as productivity or busyness, but in reality, it fragments our attention and leaves us exhausted.
Imagine applying minimalism to your time and energy. What if, instead of constantly striving to do more, you made space to do less but with more intention? It’s about questioning the necessity of every “yes” you give to commitments.
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ESSENTIAL READING
I know it may seem like this contradicts the minimalism tip, but this is one of my favorite productivity books of all time. If you focus on what matters and then implement everything you learn in No Excuses by Brian Tracy, you’ll be unstoppable.
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NOTION
Teach your kids about emergency funds. The first step in Dave Ramsey’s famous 7 Baby Steps is to save $1,000 as a starter emergency fund. Once all debt other than the mortgage is paid off (Baby Step 2), he suggests saving 3-6 months of living expenses as Baby Step 3.8. An emergency fund is a crucial part of finances. I don’t know of any financial guru who doesn’t recommend having an emergency fund. Still, so many Americans don’t have one. 40% of Americans don’t have enough in savings to cover a $400 expense. According to a Nerd Wallet survey, when Americans were asked what caused their debt problem, the main reasons were emergencies: Credit cards are the most common way I’ve seen young adults handle emergencies. I’m not sure if credit card companies are teaching this or if kids decide to do it themselves. It’s a toxic solution to a problem that could have easily been solved with enough savings.
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TRAVEL TIP
I travel a lot, and I find most “packing hacks” useless. One that I can get behind is packing cubes. These are the ones we use (Amazon is running a special deal on them right now). This way, your clothes stay organized, and if you mostly roll your clothes instead of folding them, they’ll usually stay mostly free of wrinkles. This way, I can arrive, take out the cubes, put them in the dresser, and then put my bag in the closet. Of course, repacking is also easier.
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SCRIPTURE
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.”
Joel 2:25
Closing Question
Is there anyone in your life you know you should spend more time with? Is there something you can do today to ensure you start spending more time with them?
