A Letter to My 22 Year Old Self

If you could go back in time a decade and tell your younger self anything, what would it be? What advice would you give? What would you do differently, given advance notice? Back in 2017, I wrote a letter to my younger self, describing why Financial Independence was so important to future me. It was … Continue reading A Letter to My 22 Year Old Self

Frugality vs. Sanity

A few years back, my wife and I were presented with an interesting opportunity. A family member, let’s call him Mike for this article, wanted to retire to Florida to take advantage of the amazing housing prices here. At the bottom of the market, homes had dropped 60%-70% in value from their 2007 peaks. The problem was that … Continue reading Frugality vs. Sanity

Why You Can’t Retire

Last week, I read along on twitter and bit my lip as MMM tried to talk some sense into a mainstream finance writer & editor who tweeted a link to a New York Times article. Above the link, she wrote: “The basic flaw at heart of so many retirement calculations: you cannot possibly save enough … Continue reading Why You Can’t Retire

The Dark Side of Interest

Money may not grow on trees, but it does still grow, completely passively. It’s the nature of compound interest that your money is always making you more money, and that new money in turn is making its own money, and so on. You may not notice it on small scales, but it is always there, … Continue reading The Dark Side of Interest