Q and A

Q and A With The Creators of Wealth Well Done:

Who are you?

We are earthlings, Bill and Amanda, a married couple born in the 1980’s who live in the Twin Cities, Minnesota.  I, Bill, do most of the writing you’ll find here.  Amanda does all the art on this blog and helps keep my hyperactive mind on track.

What is your goal with this site?

Our goal is to help as many people as possible figure out the direction and purpose of their lives. We believe that money management is one of the most powerful skills that can help you cross the bridge from the person you used to be, to the person you want to be.  That’s why we write so much about personal finance on this blog.  We want to help and encourage you to get the resources you need to become the person you want to be.

Are you FIRE bloggers? (Financial Independence/Retire Early)

We are pursuing an entrepreneurial version of FIRE.  We believe the coolest thing about financial independence is that it allows you the freedom to start passion projects and businesses without caring if they make money.  We don’t want to retire and stop working.  We want to devote all of our energy to the ideas and activities we are most passionate about.  We are pursuing FI so that we can spend the rest of our lives creating businesses, non-profits, ministries, creative projects etc, because it feels like the right thing to do.  If our passion projects make money, great.  But money is not our goal. Doing the right thing is the goal.  Money helps you buy the time and resources you’ll need to be able to do the right thing.

Why are businesses and passion projects so important to us that we want to work even after we’re financially independent?

It’s simple:  I believe the entrepreneur is the last great American hero, and the world needs more heros.

What is our dream?

Pablo Picasso once said this famous line that really inspired me.  Picaso said: “I want to be a rich man who can live like a poor man.”

That’s kind of what I want.  I want to be a wealthy, creative human being, who can start creative projects on a whim and not worry if they make money or not.  I want to work on projects because it feels right to me.  I want to write novels, and give speeches, and maybe even write a musical one day.  On my way to doing this, I want to inspire as many people as I can that their dreams are possible.  Utilize the power of investing to help you reach your dreams. Inspire you to save your money so that you can build the cash-flow streams necessary to fund your deepest and grandest dreams.

My financial goals are to become a millionaire in my 40’s.  I may want to buy a ski and beach condo eventually that will allow me to escape Minnesota winters and see a different part of the world.  Follow the blog to see if I can achieve these dreams.

What is your annual budget?

We try to live on around $35,000 per year.  If we go above that, it’s because we chose to travel more than usual which can balloon any budget.   Together we make about twice that through my 3 businesses (Promotional sales, real-estate investing, and blogging), and Amanda’s part time job which brings in about $15K a year.

We understand that our low cost of living (compared to the coasts) is more easily achieved because we live in the Midwest.  But we work hard at keeping our costs down too.  We drive 2 old cars when we could buy much fancier vehicles. We offer to cook meals at our house for our friends, rather than meet at restaurants and walk out with $50+ bills.  Most of our entertainment is free as we like to walk, hike, mountain bike, work on this blog, and do the occasional house improvement project.  When you have low monthly payments, you can take more risk and invest more.  Putting yourself in a position to be able to take a maximum amount of smart risks, while limiting your exposure to failure, is how wealth is created.

Even though we try to save a lot, we do have our guilty pleasures we splurge on.  We like the occasional trip to a ski mountain, round of golf, and a Minnesota Viking’s football game.

What do you invest in?

We’ve had good experiences investing in index funds for stocks and residential real-estate.  Once I have a good experience with an investment, I try to scale that experience and buy more of it.

What is the top things you did to change your life?

#1  I quit drugs when I was 21 years old.

#2  We asked God to come into our lives, and found our identities through a spiritual perspective of the world.

#3  We stopped seeing money as a substance to spend, and started to see it as a resource that could help us accomplish our biggest dreams.

#4  We learned how to become our own financial adviser, and we invest the excess money we saved.

#5  We listen to God on a daily basis, and try to do everything we can to do the right thing and become the people we are meant to be.

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