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FI Weekly – January 24, 2023: Keep Moving, Power of Consistency

Choose FI has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Choose FI and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. American Express is a ChooseFI advertiser. Disclosures.

Keep Moving

As part of making 2023 my ‘healthiest year ever’ I am making a concerted effort to get outside and walk at least a mile every single day.

While there isn’t anything magical about 10,000 steps per day necessarily, I think it’s directionally accurate in the sense that most of us simply don’t move enough.

And that’s even for people like me who exercise and consider themselves healthy.  When I started tracking my steps, there was no other conclusion other than this:  I simply wasn’t moving enough during non-exercise hours.

I heard Dr. Peter Attia say the following on the Limitless series on Disney Plus and it stopped me in my tracks:

“We don’t stop moving because we get old, we get old because we stop moving.”

This ties in so beautifully with Dr. Attia’s concept of the ‘Centenarian Decathlon’ which is where you look at the things you want to do as an 80 to 100-year old and work backwards to what you need to be doing today and in the intervening decades to make that a reality.

Want to be able to pick up your great-grandchild when they come running at you to say hello, instead of getting knocked over and it being a calamity?

Well, you need to be able to goblet squat a heavy kettlebell today, as that simulates bracing your core, squatting down to reach out and grab them and then standing back up with them.

Want to be able to get down on the floor and play with them?  You need to be able to get back up under your own support.

And the wonderful side benefit of moving more and strength training is your hips will work better, and the existential fear of a hip fracture later in life could be mitigated significantly.

Getting back to my walking, we all simply need to move around more.

Even though it has only been a few weeks of this practice, I’ve never felt better.  The compounding benefits of walking plus being outside in nature plus getting some morning and/or evening sunlight exposure (listeners of The Huberman Lab podcast will know the circadian benefits of this type of sun exposure) are really working for me.

I think this can be a benefit for you and my challenge is to get outside, no matter the weather, and move around more often!

The Power of Consistency

Compounding Quality is one of my absolute favorite accounts to follow on Twitter and their recent post on ‘The Power of Consistency: 10 things that will help you massively in life and require zero talent” resonated deeply with me.

Here’s CQ’s list of ’10 Things That Require Zero Talent’:

  • Being on Time
  • Work Ethic
  • Effort
  • Body Language
  • Energy
  • Attitude
  • Passion
  • Being Coachable
  • Doing Extra
  • Being Prepared

I personally think doing the basics really well will put you ahead of 90% of people, right from that starting gate.

Show up, turn your work in on time, respond to emails or call, be open-minded and willing to learn new things, etc.

A lot of success comes down to these basics that most people simply aren’t doing.

(Hey, while you’re checking Compounding Quality out on Twitter, I’d love it if you’d click over to my Twitter account and give me a follow. I’m making a huge effort to post some really interesting stuff there daily and it’s the best way to interact with me in real-time)

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

  • Grady said, “My 1% this week included several actions: I finished Atomic Habits by James Clear, and put several lessons into action. I scheduled transactions on both mine and my wife’s Roth IRAs to front load our annual contributions ($6,500 each). Additionally, I set up contributions for myself and my wife to max out the annual limits of our 457(b) accounts at our new jobs (my wife starts today, and I start next week). I sold my truck and bought a 2010 Honda Civic as I no longer “need” the truck… resulting in an extra $25,000 in cash. I scheduled transactions to dollar cost average our excess cash from our checking account into our brokerage account (I’ve been putting this off for way too long), which equates to about $90K for 2023. Lastly, I deleted Facebook from my phone which has resulted in a HUGE time savings!”
  • Suzanne said, “My 1% updates: 1) called my car insurance to see if there were any discounts and they found a bunch of little tweaks saving me $600/yr. 2) My husband and I each have companion passes on Southwest so our kids fly free. I also checked the rate for my Southwest flights 3 times over the year and each time the rate went down, and I received back the equivalent of $1200 for the flights. 3) We are going to a resort in Mexico on a timeshare exchange (timeshare paid off with cash several yrs ago at a five-star ski resort in Colorado, maintenance fees extremely low so it pays for itself). I pre-paid our resort fee and meal fees and will get back $450 credit. 3) I called up our cell phone company and asked for better rates and will save over $800/yr with the same service.”
  • Tim said, “My 1% better this week is getting more connected with my wife and combining our checking accounts. Now we are better positioned to tackle our debts and honestly see our progress towards our goal of a French Chateau in 10 years.”
  • Anne said, “I live in the UK and my mission to improve 1% was to go dig deep and collect the two pension policies that had not been contributed to and transfer them into a Vanguard personal pension. They were really small and most of the growth was taken up with charges whereas the Vanguard scheme only charges you one % for all your investments.”
  • Mike said, “To be 1% better this week I increased my annual contributions to my TDA/403B to 30% to take advantage of the new contribution limits for 2023. This new rate will put me just shy of the maximum of $30,000 ($22,500 + $7,500 for catch up) this coming year. With my wife retired now, she can’t contribute to her plan anymore so I’m making up the difference. I’m planning to retire myself as a business teacher in the next 2-3 years and want to get as much money into my account as soon as possible before leaving the job. The tax savings alone will be a great help, too. After crunching the numbers, I believe we can comfortably live on her pension and my reduced net income without issue. She also is planning to start collecting her Social Security early next year so we can add that to our income streams as well. Looking forward to the results and a great start to 2023 for both of us.”
  • Loren said, “My 1% better this week was realizing how much some prescriptions vary from pharmacy to pharmacy. I was prescribed some eye drops that I found were going to cost me $220 WITH insurance at my usual pharmacy. With GoodRx, I was able to shop around and found the same prescription within 2 miles of my usual pharmacy for $45 with a coupon. I just had to call my doc and have them send the prescription to the other pharmacy as well as show the GoodRx coupon at the new pharmacy. Small effort for a huge benefit!”

Choose FI has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Choose FI and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. American Express is a ChooseFI advertiser. Disclosures.
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