Got any good insights on cash flow? | Personal Finance & Lifestyle | Yakezie Forums

I consider cashflow to be very important, but you're right, I don't write about it often. I pretty much bring it up when I'm talking about financial security. If your cashflow is from one source, you are not very secure at all. But, if you have 4 income sources that provide your overall cashflow, losing one of them wouldn't impact you that greatly.

I place a high emphasis on cash flow… I spent the first 3 years of my career in corporate treasury for a fortune 500 company and my primary duties revolved around cash management.  Definitely on a different scale than personal finance but it relates quite a bit when you consider the basics.  Cash is king whether or not you are dealing with a global company or even a household.

Im heading over now, it's nice to see someone hit this topic finally.

frugalforty said:

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I like to focus my articles around the earliest stages of going from living paycheck to paycheck to becoming a saver, investor and eventually a giver. For me, this was the hardest part, just getting started on the right track.

Before you can get the money flowing into savings or investments, you've got to get living expenses and debts taken care of. And to balance that with all of the unexpected things that life throws at you, it comes down to cash flow.

I'm glad you enjoyed the post. Come on back and read more :)

Well it depends on what you mean by "debt taken care of"… they dont necessarily need to be paid down prior to putting money into savings and especially retirement accounts.

I think cash flow is key – if you've got a lot of cash above your daily expenses, you'll be able to swallow a lot bigger "fish" than if you only had a small cash flow – think being able to handle a 1000 insurance deductible out of your cash flow instead of raiding your E fund…makes a huge difference. 

That was a great post.  I hope you are still updating your site!

Sounds like cash flow is a river somewhere that I can just redirect for my own purposes.  Sign me up!  But joking aside, I have started two small side business that are making about $100/month.  It's laughable to most of my friends but I think it will pay off.  They are both businesses I can scale up, and my main goal is to get to the point where those side cash flows take care of my bare minimum expenses (rent, minimum debt payments, food).  

My eventual goal for cash flow is that it takes care of those minimums with a much lower amount of work than a 40/hr week job does, so that your career can be focused on interests or passions and not always focused on the fact that you HAVE to work because otherwise your bills are not taken care of.