FI Weekly – May 25, 2021

June 8, 2021
Brad Barrett

Negotiate Your Salary

I got an amazing email from Tim that I needed to share: “I just wanted to drop a note and say THANKS for episode 147 with Tori Dunlap about negotiating your salary. I followed her simple gratitude sandwich and it worked!!! I got a $12,000 bump in salary just by using this method. I’m using the bump to fund my kids’ 529 plans so this is awesome. THANKS!”

If you’re like me, negotiating your salary has never crossed your mind. That is a HUGE missed opportunity, so take some time and go back and listen to these 3 episodes and take some action:

My Favorite Shirts

I’ve had at least 20 people email me after we mentioned on Episode 317 that I get quality t-shirts for just a few dollars each, and they are basically my entire wardrobe. But…I didn’t give you any details on where to find them! Let’s fix that:

Next Level shirts from ClothingShopOnline.com are my favorites, especially the 6210 and 6200. I’m also going to check out the 6010 ‘triblend’ shirt.

FI Weekly Reader on the Podcast

I hope you all realize how much I love reading the responses I get each week to this newsletter – it is genuinely inspiring to see the action you’re all taking!

On February 23rd of this year, Dennison wrote in:

“I was doing massage therapy right around the time lockdown happened last March. After being furloughed, I immediately took the opportunity and pivoted to Salesforce after putting it on hold from listening to ChooseFI, and last month I started my first Salesforce position making $70K right out the gate, more than double what I was making before. I’m super happy making the switch. Keep doing what you’re doing. This podcast has changed my life all for the better.”

This was so incredible that we had to have him on the show! It went live last week as Episode 322: Financially Bulletproof in a Pandemic. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend it!

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

Annette said, “Our 1% better was paying off our mortgage this week, we are officially debt free! I feel like that is much more than 1%. Then our 1% action was setting an automatic transfer (for the principal and internet portion of our former mortgage payment) of funds into our taxable brokerage account on paydays. I am happy with our lifestyle, no need to increase our spending at this time.”
Cliff said, “My 1% better this week is successfully lobbying my employer to switch 457b providers to one with lower expense ratio options. The cheapest target date or index fund available under our previous provider was .75%, but now I have access to similar funds at .32% expense ratios (still high, but Fidelity and other lower cost providers wouldn’t service accounts as small as our agency, I definitely tried that). I max out my 457, so this easy switch will save me almost 200k over a 30-year timeline. The new provider also services our 401(a) (defined contribution pension) so the weekly administrative workload has been simplified for our finance staff. Win win.”
Tanner said, “I have a couple of wins this week: First, I reached out to my insurance agent to see if we could get a better rate since we were coming up on our one-year renewal. I worked in the insurance industry for years but for some reason it didn’t click for me that I should shop around yearly. After hearing you mention this a few times on the podcast I decided to give it a try and I was able to save over $1800! We also signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card a couple months ago after hearing you talk about it and were able to achieve the bonus points with our normal bills and spending. We are going to do the same with my wife’s card and by the end of the summer we will be able to use the points and our savings from insurance to fully fund a much needed kid free vacation. Thank you for all you do!”
Laura said, “My 1% better for this week was going on vacation with my two boys. They are both grown and being able to get us all together is a big deal. Also, I used my Sapphire Preferred card and finished meeting the minimum spend requirement for the signup bonus!”
Jake said, “My 1% better is actually a lot more than 1% better this week. I sold a rental property that I have been Airbnb-ing for the past few years. The market got so hot in the area, I felt like I’d be crazy not to sell. We are doing a 1031 exchange into a newer, much larger property that will be a better vacation spot for our family. It should also generate at least double the profit. Great win! This takes us a lot closer to FI and wasn’t even part of our long term plan.”
Shannon said, “This week my 1% better was finally opening up a Roth IRA account! It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but kept putting off because I wanted to keep all of my savings accessible for the down payment and closing costs on my first home purchase/house hack. But on May 17th, when I saw “Tax Day” on my calendar, I knew it was a ‘use it or lose it’ situation to fund for 2020. So, I calculated what I could safely contribute, and while it wasn’t close to the maximum, it was something! And it’s more than the $0 I’ve put into a Roth thus far in my life.”

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