Comments on: Understanding Your Financial Fortress

By: Andy @ Retire at 40

Andy @ Retire at 40 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:40:47 +0000

Too true. It’s a great way of explaining it … and such beautiful pictures too!

By: SimplyForties

SimplyForties — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:17:48 +0000

Great analogy. Great pictures. I think I’d sell my car, and anything else I could get my hands on, before I raided my 401K

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:14:40 +0000

this was really cool! very fun read.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:43:22 +0000

Yup, I’m that nerdy, I keep track of posts that Jim wrote two years ago…

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:12:59 +0000

This is a great analogy. I would have never thought that a fortress could be remotely similar to our financial situation, but it is.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:32:58 +0000

I did this about two years ago too but my tool of choice is Excel.

By: David Duran

David Duran — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:11:59 +0000

Hey Jim,

Last year when we decided to move abroad, I realized the need to start gathering all the information for my ‘financial fortress’. There are just too many different pensions, 401k’s, rollover iras, credit union and other accounts. It’s great to spread the eggs across multiple baskets but you certainly don’t want to forget where one of those baskets is!

My tool of choice to keep track of this (and all the other random things in life) is Backpack. I really can’t recommend it enough!

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:20:20 +0000

That’s definitely a wrinkle I didn’t think of… very clever.

By: Jace

Jace — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:04:46 +0000

Ironically if you don’t pay off your guards enough (i.e. minimum payments), they’ll allow more enemies (interest charges) into your fort. This analogy is more appropriate than I think Jim thought it would be.

By: Chelle

Chelle — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:55:13 +0000

Great analogy! I liked how you used this one. It made sense and it works. Right now our guards are being paid off as well as we can. We’ve stopped adding to our outer wall for a bit until we get back to somewhat normal paychecks. For now it is waiting, hopefully we won’t have to have it come down any.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:22:30 +0000

Whoops, I should’ve updated that too. I went through and rewrote a large part of the post but managed to miss that bit. I wanted to refresh it and reintroduce it to new readers. This was originally published two years ago!

By: Rae

Rae — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:10:14 +0000

ahhhh. I get it. Thanks! Thought I was missing the boat!

By: The Personal Finance Playbook

The Personal Finance Playbook — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:20:53 +0000

I keep track of all my accounts with software. I personally use Mint – but Quicken and Wesabe are supposed to be good, too.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:18:03 +0000

I believe this is a repost of an older post (at least I think it is)

By: Wayne

Wayne — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 19:15:46 +0000

Hey Dustin, I thought I would weigh in on your question. You left a number of details out of your post to use to make the decision between the Roth and the house downpayment. But as former Real Estate Investor and Broker I would keep your powder dry in an insured savings account in a small solid bank. No one has any idea what is really going to happen in today’s market. BUT one thing I am TOTALLY sure of is that when todays economic issues blow over there will be some incredible deals in homes and investment property. I would be looking to buy no soon than a year from now and very possibly as much as 3 or 4 years from now… don’t jump the gun. Ride the rental market down, as owners get less and less for their properties you can negotiate better and bette deals for yourself. When this situation begins to bottom out you will be sitting in the catbird seat with a nice chunk of downpayment money. You may be surprised how far it goes in the new market down the road.
regards,
Wayne