In my mid-20s, I was making $50,000. Between San Diego’s high housing costs, dating, a car payment, and other expenses, I barely had anything left to put toward financial independence - let alone fast-track it. I was cutting ...

Is Real Estate the Best Path to Financial Independence? As a die-hard index fund investor, I used to have a clear answer. But after researching Chad Carson’s “small but mighty” real estate philosophy, I’m starting to see the ...

Love and money - a perfect match, right? If only it were that simple. Money is personal for everyone. We grow up with different values, learn different money habits from our parents, and develop our own financial preferences....

In today’s conversation, we will learn how to negotiate your medical bills. Wait, you can do that? Yeah, this was new to me too. Maybe it was the confusing medical jargon or the assumption that hospitals charge fair prices, b...

Struggling to spend money? Same here. Honestly, I never thought this would be a problem as I got closer to financial independence. I mean, isn’t the goal to save up enough so we can finally spend on the things we want? Turns ...

It’s the start of a new year, and you’ve set some financial goals like paying off student loans, saving for a down payment, or maxing out your IRA. Whatever your goal, how awesome would it feel if you could fast-track your pr...

Since discovering financial independence, I have focused on wealth-building: choosing the right accounts, investing wisely, and cutting expenses to save more. But now that I’m approaching my FIRE number, a new question has em...

Why save and invest? It’s a rhetorical question, but let’s think it through. When you save and invest, you’re sharing financial resources with your future self. This means your future self won’t have to worry about earning mo...

Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? With a little bit of creative frugality, I think it is possible to live below your means and buy the things that bring you joy. What do I mean by creative frugality? It is a t...

Okay, this episode was so much fun to create. This is outside my normal format but equally as informative and probably more entertaining. In October, I attended FinCon, a conference for personal finance content creators. I kn...

There are so many rules in the personal finance space. Some are helpful, others not so much. Let's set aside the bad ones for a minute (for example, stop buying avocado toast) and discuss the helpful ones. What comes to mind?...

There will be a point in your FI journey when a stable salary will become less important to you. You’ve built up your savings and investments to a place where you are comfortable. The freedom and flexibility over your time ar...

I love FI because it allows me to break the rules and live outside the norm. Like, no one has time for 40 years of traditional employment. But little did I realize I left one set of rules only to get caught up in another - th...

While we still have a lot of work to do, I’m really glad we’ve made strides in closing the gender pay gap. Women's increased incomes have led to significant changes in household dynamics. More women are becoming the primary o...

It’s one of the most hotly debated topics in personal finance…Roth or Traditional? Some argue that the national debt almost guarantees higher taxes in the future and that you should choose Roth and pay your taxes now. Others ...

Over the last couple of years, a key group of companies known as The Magnificent Seven has emerged. This group of high-performing and influential companies includes Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla....

Things can get complicated quickly in the world of personal finance. From investing and budgeting to estate planning and insurance, there are multiple ways to accomplish what you need to get done. Let’s take investing for exa...

There are going to be differences. And these differences are what lead to disagreements. Imagine a scenario where you and your friends are booking an Airbnb for an upcoming trip. The group isn’t progressing, and you can tell ...

Yes, your path to financial independence is going to take work and sacrifice but it shouldn’t be miserable. Financial independence is not worth it if it means being unhappy for decades of your life. There should be lots of mo...

Whether you consider yourself a writer or not, you’ve been asked to write before. This could be an essay for school, an email at work, or a caption for a post. Sometimes when we are writing, we have a complete brain fart. No...

Humans are weird whenever it comes to money. We drive five miles out of the way to save a few cents on gas. We buy things we don’t need because they’re on sale. We don’t ask for a raise although we’ve been working hard at the...

Work optionality is the idea that you work because you want to, not because you have to. As you’re listening to this in your 20s, this concept might seem like a pipe dream. That’s truly fair. Most of us don’t have this luxury...

Let’s not sugarcoat it, the path to financial independence is a grind. Even with an aggressive savings rate and an extended bull market run, you’re going to be at it for a while. Setting the hard work aside, we also have to a...

We always hear the importance of taking advantage of our 401K and IRA accounts. The tax advantages and employer match are too good to pass up on. But is this true for early retirees? If I’m planning on retiring in my 40s, sho...