Three Tips to Keep You From Quitting on Your Financial Goals

[Intelligent Income Daily]( Welcome to Intelligent Income Daily, the free newsletter from wealth and income expert Brad Thomas. In it, Brad and his team share the safest, most reliable ways to earn and grow your income in any market condition. Please note: We will now publish Intelligent Income Daily Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. You can find all past issues [here](. And if you have any questions, please contact Brad and his team [here](. Three Tips to Keep You From Quitting on Your Financial Goals By Brad Thomas, Editor, Intelligent Income Daily Don’t quit on me now. Last Friday was Quitter’s Day. Two weeks into the year, people are already quitting on their New Year’s resolutions. Most give up by the end of the month. At the [beginning of the year]( I shared three easy resolutions to help you meet your financial goals: - Save more of your income - Invest in quality companies - Learn something new every week If you want a stress-free retirement, it’s more important than ever to build up a reliable income from investments. You can’t rely on the government. At the rate Social Security is handing out money, it will run out and have to reduce benefits within a decade. That’s why you need to save and invest more. The earlier you start, the easier it will be. Because your money will have more time to grow. So today I’d like to share three tips to help you stick to your resolutions and meet your financial goals. Recommended Link Market Wizard Reveals: [The One Ticker Retirement Plan]( [image]( Introducing the “One Ticker Retirement Plan”… It’s a way to trade just one ticker… And potentially make all the money you need – no matter what happens in the stock market. Sounds too good to be true? [Larry reveals everything in this interview – including the name of the ticker you need to get started.]( -- Three Tips to Help You Meet Your Financial Goals 1. Start small It’s hard to make big changes to your lifestyle all at once. That’s one of the main reasons people quit. So instead, start small. One of my best investments ever hangs on the wall of my office. It’s a single share of Starbucks that I bought for just $15 in 2006. Today it’s worth more than $180. And the dividends from that one share are enough to buy me a coffee every year. It doesn’t take a lot of money to get started investing. I like to get a Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte from Starbucks on my way to the office. It costs about $5. That’s about $100 a month. Or $1200 a year. It doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up over time. If I had invested my coffee money into Starbucks stock, that $100-a-month habit would now be worth over $25,000 since 2012 – the year Starbucks started paying a dividend. And it would be paying me over $600 a year in dividends. 2. Automate Another reason people give up on their goals is that it takes too much effort. You can get worn out by having to think about doing something all the time. But with modern technology, it’s easy to automate saving and investing. You can use the tools your bank provides or your favorite financial app to set aside money for investing. Then forget about it. A 2014 study by Fidelity Investments found that their customers with the best returns were the ones who were dead. The second-best were the ones who had forgotten about their investments. It doesn’t take a genius to grow your money. Time in the market is what will compound your wealth. 3.Track your progress People often quit their resolutions when they feel like they’re not getting anywhere. Why put in the effort if it isn’t making a difference? To keep yourself motivated, keep track of your progress. Fortunately, with financial goals it’s easy to see how well you’re doing. One word of advice though – don’t just look at the value of your investment portfolio. It’s easy to lose track of your progress that way as the market will go up and down. Instead, keep a log of your income from investments. If you’re building a portfolio of high quality dividend paying companies, your dividend income should only go in one direction – up. It may be small at first. When you start out, your dividends might only pay for a coffee once a year. But after several months of investing, your dividend income might be enough for a nice dinner. And after a couple years, your dividends might be enough to pay for all of your groceries. Pretty soon, your dividends will cover all your regular expenses and give you financial freedom. One quick way to get started investing with multiple high-quality dividend payers is through the Schwab U.S. Dividend ETF (SCHD). This exchange-traded fund yields 3.5% and invests in companies that have better fundamental strength than their competitors. And for subscribers to the Intelligent Income Investor, we just released a report on how to position your portfolio for 2024 and beyond. In it, we provide our analysis and expectations for the best income investments the market has to offer. If you're a paid-up subscriber to Intelligent Income Investor, [you can read it here](. So don’t quit. Start slow. And let that momentum build up on its own. Slow and steady progress can build a fortune and meet your financial goals. Happy SWAN (sleep well at night) investing, Brad Thomas Editor, Intelligent Income Daily [Wide Moat Research]( Wide Moat Research 55 NE 5th Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33483 [www.widemoatresearch.com]( To ensure our emails continue reaching your inbox, please [add our email address]( to your address book. 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