About

Picture by : Joanne Hobbs Photography

My name is Brian and welcome to my site. I’m 41 years of age and currently reside in St Albert, Ab Canada. I’m happily married to my wife Maria and we have two beautiful children named Zoey and Colton.

This picture above is what it’s all about and clearly defines what my Why’s are!

Currently I’m working full-time hours and have been with the same company for over 18 years. My wife and I also have a very successful home based business that we have been running for just over nine years although Maria is the true success within this business.

We currently have a mortgage among other costs that most families have today. Like many were want to generate additional income in various ways to help fund our lifestyle (Kids activities, travel, passions etc..), our retirement and in the meantime help others do the same by providing ideas that can help you along the way.

A little bit about me and why I focus on improving my families financial wellbeing:

As a young man I knew nothing about money. At 25 I was working fulltime and spending every single dollar with no thought on my future. I knew something was wrong as I was struggling financially but didn’t really know where to start. So I picked up a couple financial books, Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and David Chilton’s “The Wealthy Barber”. These books started to retrain my brain and look at my financials in a totally different way. This is when I started making my daily decisions based on what I had learned within these book. For the first time in my life I felt like a was in control.

At the age of 35 I started this website, sharing my life’s journey and putting my goals on the internet for everyone to see. I made some bad stock purchases along the way looking for a homerun on certain picks. I knew I had work to do and continued to learn from other successful investors. I’m sharing this with you because its okay to make mistakes along the way, the important thing is you learn from them and continue to get better. The world is changing at a very fast rate so its important to continue to stay up to date on what’s going on.

In 2019 we had our best year investment wise (30% return) followed by and amazing 2020 (15% return). 2021 is showing similar numbers to 2020.

A few strategies that we have implemented in our day to day life to improve our overall financial situation are:

1. Using income from the 9-5 and home based business to build a solid portfolio. 80% of the portfolio is invested in blue-chip companies that provide dividend income (Dividend income is basically companies providing a percentage of income back to the shareholder and in some cases raising it every year). We then take this income and reinvest this back into the portfolio to get the portfolio compounding at a faster rate.
2. We continue to build our home based business that’s in the Health and Wellness sector. We have now been doing this for over 10 years. By building a business in a sector you support, it not only brings in income you also get to help others live a healthier lifestyle. 
3. We accelerate our mortgage meaning we make 26 payments a year vs the typical monthly of 12 payments or bi-weekly of 24 payments. By doing this not only to you put more to the principle of the mortgage (pay less interest) but you actually pay your mortgage off about 3.5 years earlier. At this time we do not place additional payments to the mortgage each year but now considering due to the interest rates climbing at the fastest rate we have ever seen.
4. We use a cashback credit card for a purchases throughout the year. Its important to know this is only a benefit if you pay it off each month. 
5. When your going to make a purchase it’s crucial you shop around and find the best price possible. The internet gives you the opportunity to do so. You may only save $20 on something however I’m sure you can find a place to invest it. Needs vs. wants is such a hot topic. Before you decide on what you want to buy, ask yourself will you be happy with that said item next year? Is it adding value to your life?
6. Shop around for the very best utility prices, phone/internet bills etc… If you have a monthly payment you may be paying too much. In some cases a quick phone call to your current provider explaining that your shopping around and see if they can do anything for you. A quick example is we just switched internet/cable providers, by doing so we are saving $90/month. That phone call was worth over $2,160 as its locked in for 2 years.
7.  I got news for ya, your power/gas/water bill are unlikely to go down in the future. Get energy efficient everything. Some examples are shower heads, lights, smart thermostat etc… If you know your not going to be home for quite a few hours why heat your home like you’re. Before you leave the house make sure you turn the lights off, nowadays you can get smart plugs that do this for ya when their is no motion (Big corporations install these now in many of their new facilities).
8. Debt is probably one of the most important factors to retiring early. Did you know there studies that show that the average person pays upwards of $600,000 in interest payments through a lifetime. That’s after tax dollars! In a world that’s willing to lend you everything, consider this stat next time your looking at adding a debt payment. Of course there are different situations where its not a bad thing but know the difference.
9. Set goals! This is so important to do if you want to ensure your meeting targets your setting. I personally set annual goals and look them over each month to ensure I’m doing what is needed to accomplish. You are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down.

I share dividend updates each month so please subscribe if you’d like these to hit your email inbox, its free!

You can also follow me on twitter HERE where I share many articles on breaking news of several different companies, my purchases, tips and other financial education material.

Invest in yourself,

Brian