Updates & Inspiration for Your Financial Independence Journey

​ What Was Your Best Decision Ever? Dr. Peter Attia asked Steve Levitt, Ph.D. the co-author of Freakonomics on Episode 154 of ‘The Drive’ podcast, “What’s the best decision you think you’ve ever made?” and Steve’s response was insightful:  “I don’t know if you’d actually call it a decision, but the decision to not care what people think about me…I somehow just made a choice to just not care what other people thought about me. Which was a big choice for me because like most high school kids all I cared about was what other people thought about me, and at some point, I just broke with that and was happy to live with the consequences and it’s just a great way to live. It just frees you up from so much burden. I think all of my best decisions are ones that relieved burden.”  Do You Know a Young Entrepreneur? We released ChooseFI Episode 308 yesterday with Rob Phelan from The Simple StartUp and I love Rob’s starting point of: “Do You Have A Budding Entrepreneur at Home?”  If you do, you’ll want to help them explore the concepts of business building so it becomes part of their everyday

​ PSA: Tax Filing Deadline Extended The IRS just extended the filing date of your federal income tax return from April 15 to May 17, 2021. I was pleasantly surprised to see this from the IRS: “Individual taxpayers can also postpone federal income tax payments for the 2020 tax year due on April 15, 2021, to May 17, 2021, without penalties and interest, regardless of the amount owed.”  This is an extension of time to file AND pay for 2020.  If you’re self-employed or otherwise pay quarterly estimated tax payments, keep in mind your 2021 Q1 payment is still due April 15th.  ​This Nerd Wallet article provides further detail and also indicates your deadline for IRA and HSA contributions is extended to 5/17 as well!  Keep an eye on your state’s filing deadline as many states might move the deadline back in response to the fed’s change.  Tonight’s Live Episode: College Alternatives I received such overwhelming feedback on last week’s section about Google moving forward with their Certificate Program as a college alternative that we realized this was a pain point that needed further exploration.  Because of this, our team completely updated the “Should You Go to College” article on Choosefi.com and Jonathan

​ Disrupting Higher Education I’ve become a fan of The Hustle’s email newsletter for the variety of business stories and their post this week, “Google Goes After Higher Ed,” caught my eye.  Last year, Google announced plans to offer certificate programs that would take the place of a college degree, for some roles, in their own notoriously difficult hiring process. The thought was that this would give cover to other companies to move away from requiring the general undergraduate degree as a prerequisite.  In the modern economy, skills matter. If a degree helps you get those skills then wonderful. If you can get them from an online program for a fraction of the cost, then all the better.  We’ve highlighted this with Jonathan and Bradley Rice’s Salesforce Challenge on Episode 297, where Anita went from a layoff to a six-figure career in a few short months, and we’ve long spoken about the ‘talent stack’ of skills you need to build to be uniquely employable in today’s economy.  ​Inc.com updated us on Google’s plans this week and they are moving forward with:  “The release of three new Google Career Certificates on Coursera in project management, data analytics, and user experience (UX) design  A new

Expected Value in Decision Making I’m reading the book ‘DUCY? Exploits, Advice, and Ideas of the Renowned Strategist’ by poker player David Sklansky and he does a great job explaining a critical concept in decision making that you need to add to your list of mental models: Expected Value (EV)  “Expected value arises most frequently when you must make financial decisions about uncertain outcomes. However, it’s also useful for other types of decisions if you can convert the alternatives to numerical values.  If you don’t convert, you may be unable to compare two or more uncertain possibilities. But when you see EV, you convert your decision into a comparison between specific numbers, and then usually, but not always, select the alternative with the highest EV.  …Suppose I tell you, “I will give you $120 if you take this die and roll a three.” That’s nice of me, but exactly how nice is it? Hopefully you will see that I am as nice as a person who hands you a $20 bill.  That’s the EV of my offer. If I let you roll six times, you would have gotten (on average) my gift of $120 the one time that you rolled

Quote I’m Pondering “Comparison is the thief of joy” – President Theodore Roosevelt  It’s so easy to get caught up in comparing yourself to others around you in almost every aspect of life, regardless of how successful or well off you are. In this regard, humans compare on a relative basis, not an absolute one. Those around us matter the most in this comparison.  One of the best aspects of joining the FI Community is that we’ve stepped off that “keeping up with the Joneses” hamster wheel and aren’t as concerned about what others think. Subtracting this ‘thief of joy’ is an often-overlooked benefit of FI that I wanted to point out.  Aggregation of Marginal Gains We talk quite often at ChooseFI about the power of making small 1% changes that compound to something great. This is the concept of the “aggregation of marginal gains” we were introduced to from the British Cycling team where each individual change can seem almost meaningless, but when aggregated together can be life changing (or Tour de France winning in their case).  I cam across an article on CNBC that explained the concept brilliantly and this one section stuck out to me:  “Brailsford believed

Live Podcast Recording Tonight Starting tonight (2/23) at 7:30 pm EST, Jonathan and I are trying a 10-week experiment of recording our podcasts LIVE on a new app called Stereo!  We’re always wanted to do a radio-show format, so we’re looking to make this really fun and interactive (you can send in short voicemails through Stereo that we can play while we’re live).  We hope you join us tonight and be sure to open the link on your cell phone as it’ll help you download the app the first time, but then each week going forward use this same link as I’ll have it updated for that Tuesday’s 7:30 pm EST live recording:  Join the Live Event! Favorite Days of the Year Two of my favorite days of the year are coming up:  Daylight Savings Time starts here in Virginia in less than 3 weeks! I love getting that extra sunlight at night, and it reminds me that warmer weather is just around the corner.  On the money side, Warren Buffett is set to release his annual Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder’s Letter this coming Saturday morning (link below will have the new letter when published). I’ve long said that reading Mr.

PSA: Tax Season is Here The IRS started accepting the filing of 2020 tax returns on February 12th, so tax season is officially here. Most major brokerages such as Vanguard and Fidelity provided consolidated 1099 tax forms this week. That means 95% of us can gather all our forms and start filing this week.  Two things to watch out for:  1) If you have a form K-1 coming from a partnership or S-corp, those can come in up until 3/15  2) If you’ve received amended 1099s in prior years, it might be worth holding off a few weeks before filing.  Based on some backlogs at the IRS, e-filing your return is strongly recommended.  Mental Math: Estimating I’m constantly looking for useful strategies and mental models that will help us all lead better lives. One came up this week that was interesting enough to share: The critical importance of estimating.  My daughter was trying to figure out exactly how long she was in virtual school each day after subtracting for recess and lunch.  I estimated she was in school from 8 am through 1 pm (5 hours) and had about an hour total for recess and lunch subtracted. So, I knew

1% Better: Life Insurance Comparison Pursuing FI is all about taking small actions that, when compounded, add up to big results. This past month I’ve received (and shared here in the FI Weekly) a bunch of success stories of people who got insurance quotes that saved them hundreds of dollars a year on either their auto, home, or life insurance policies. We had Jennifer Fitzgerald, the Co-Founder and CEO of Policygenius, on the show on Episode 132R to walk us through a framework for what types of insurance we need in different stages of our lives. Since then, we’ve come to really like and trust the team at Policygenius and I think you’ll be impressed with them as well. Your action this week should be to review your term life insurance policy and then take 5 minutes and head over to Policygenius to get quotes from 10+ top insurance providers. I think you’ll be surprised by the potential savings! Voicemail Request: Money & Relationships Our friend Jillian Johnsrud from the Everyday Courage podcast is joining us on an upcoming ChooseFI episode to discuss money and relationships and we want to feature YOUR voicemail questions. If you have a question about

Quote I’m Pondering My brother sent me this quote from the book “Doesn’t Hurt to Ask: Using the Power of Questions to Communicate, Connect, and Persuade” by Trey Gowdy, which I submit to you for reflection in these tumultuous times:  “The world will be a quieter, less hostile place if we replace the desire to shout with the desire to be heard, if we replace the desire to win the argument with the desire to move the person who wants to argue, and if we reserve for ourselves some of the toughest questions we can conjure up.” Ask questions and try to understand where people are coming from! You’ll have a better understanding of the world and a whole lot more empathy for your fellow humans.  Rebel Entrepreneur Podcast: Season 2 Launch Alan Donegan is back with Season 2 of the Rebel Entrepreneur Podcast! It is one of my favorite podcasts, so I’m incredibly excited. This week, along with his PopUp Business School co-founder Simon Paine and Katie Coombes, they dropped part 1 of the PopUp Foundational Principles they’ve developed over the past 12 years helping 10,000+ people start their own businesses.  Alan is the leading voice in the FI

Mental Models: FI Math A few weeks ago, I talked about the importance of mental models to leveling up our problem-solving abilities. I came across an article in the Washington Post yesterday that happened to be about the UK coronavirus variant and its increased reproduction rate and I thought it was a perfect example for the FI Weekly. My bringing this up here isn’t necessarily about coronavirus, but the increased level of understanding we all have when we understand exponential math, the math behind the compound growth of our money, and mental models generally. The article noted that in a Facebook post, the Danish “Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told people to imagine sitting in the top row of Copenhagen’s Parken Stadium, a soccer arena with a capacity of 38,000 people. A dripping tap is filling it up, one drop the first minute, two drops the second, four drops the third. At that rate, Frederiksen said, the park will be filled in 44 minutes. But it will seem almost empty for the first 42 minutes, she said. “The point is, you only realize that the water has risen when it’s almost too late.”” When you work backwards with it doubling every minute, the

FI Wisdom – Berkshire Hathaway Edition I came across quotes from two of my heroes, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger from Berkshire Hathaway, that I think do an incredible job of encapsulating the two aspects of the journey to FI:  Warren Buffett: “Do not save what is left after spending; instead spend what is left after saving.”  Charlie Munger: “There were a lot of questions today — people trying to figure out what the secret to life is, to a long and happy life…The secret is easy, because it’s so simple:  You don’t have a lot of envy.  You don’t have a lot of resentment.  You don’t overspend your income.  You stay cheerful in spite of your troubles.  You deal with reliable people.  And you do what you’re supposed to do.  And all these simple rules work so well to make your life better. And they’re so trite.”  New Podcast I’m Enjoying ChooseFI community member Heidi Dusek recently started a podcast called ‘Ordinary Sherpa’ and it’s genuinely fantastic! The theme of the podcast is to “help families connect through simple and authentic adventure experiences” and our very own Edmund Tee was featured in Episode 8.  Give it a listen:  Ordinary Sherpa And

Favorite Books List I was blown away by the response to last week’s newsletter asking you to send me the best book you’ve read in the past year. I can’t thank you all enough for the overwhelming response!  I’m still digging out from the deluge of emails and hope to publish a much longer list of recommended books in the future, but in the meantime, here are the books mentioned most frequently:  Atomic Habits by James Clear (guest on Episode 157 of ChooseFI)  The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel  The Wealthy Gardener by John Soforic  Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins  Die with Zero by Bill Perkins  Deep Work by Cal Newport  The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran  Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari  Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss  Quote I’m Pondering James Clear, author of Atomic Habits (the #1 most recommended book above), on Episode 145 of the ‘Feel Better, Live More’ podcast with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee:  “If there is ever a gap between your goal and your system; if there’s ever a gap between your desired outcome and your daily habits, your daily habits will always win. It doesn’t matter how good your intentions were. It doesn’t matter what you hoped to achieve. It’s what your habits