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Deep Dive on Social Security Benefits I received a helpful email from Matt, who researched a really important topic we honestly haven’t done a wonderful job covering at ChooseFI:  Social Security benefits. Here’s what Matt sent in: “I went down a rabbit hole and learned how to more accurately estimate my social security benefit by accounting for future pay raises and using bend points forecasted for the year you are eligible for Social Security. I want to share with the community the following articles I found most helpful. Households of FI Series Returns If you’ve listened to ChooseFI the last month, you may have noticed a few changes including, by popular demand, the return of the Hot Seat! What I’m super excited about now is the return of the Households of FI series.  This was a series where we followed a group of FI Households as they began their FI journeys, and checked in with them every few months to see where they were, celebrate wins, answer questions and provide accountability. I actually released a Friday episode this past week featuring the first of those Households, Troy & Lindsay on Episode 398.  Take a listen and follow along with their story and the rest

Taking Action: Online Security On Episode 397 that released yesterday, I spoke with Tom, a longtime FI Community member, about common sense steps you can take to secure your online & financial life. Today is the day I challenge you to take action to make it happen! At the very least, if you don’t have secure passwords, a password manager and Two-Factor Authentication on every one of your financial logins (plus your email accounts and social media), you need to do this ASAP. Listen to Episode 397 and take action! Taking Action: Net Worth Tracking The 3rd quarter of 2022 just ended and that means it is time to track your quarterly net worth.   The fact that it was an ugly quarter with market performance makes it all the more important that you do this and don’t just stick your head in the sand. The path to FI is not just a straight line up and we know market volatility is an expected part of the process. Super simple to track your net worth:  Log into all of your investment accounts and write down the account balances.  This sums to your total assets. Then, subtract out any debts you have outstanding.  These are your total liabilities

Money Saving Tips from Laura Over the years I’ve mentioned a number of my wife’s money-saving hacks on the podcast and the community has always wanted more! Laura was kind enough to write up some tips for the FI Weekly: “Hello FI Weekly readers!  Laura here making a guest appearance and taking over the FI Weekly this week! I thought it would be fun to jot down a quick list of some of my tips for making your life with family a little easier, less expensive and less stressful: Google Chrome Safety and Essential Extensions A few months ago, I highlighted some essential tips and tricks to be more efficient with Gmail, and today I wanted to pass along 2 great twitter threads I found for the Google Chrome browser: My favorite little-known extension is called “Fast Dial,” which is basically a visual representation of bookmarked pages. When I open a new tab in Chrome, it is set so Fast Dial shows up instead of a blank tab or some other URL location. I currently have 27 websites bookmarked (from ToDoIst to our ChooseFI Facebook group to my solar panel monitoring login, and a whole lot in between) and they show up as tiles on that

The Cost of Admission for Investing Here’s a long quote from Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, with one of the best illustrations of the mentality needed for successful long-term investing in the stock market regarding normal volatility: “Anything worth pursuing in life, that has a benefit, has a price attached to it. The world is not so great that it’s going to give you great rewards and ask nothing in return. So, then, the question is, in investing, what is the cost of admission? You want great returns. Everyone knows that you can earn great returns in investment markets over time. But what is the cost of admission? A lot of investors cannot really answer that.  Or they will say something like, “the management fee that you pay to your advisor or broker.” That’s not the cost to investing. The cost of investing returns is putting up with and dealing with and enduring a never-ending chain of volatility and uncertainty and setback and disappointment. That’s the cost of admission. And this is so important because most investors, when their portfolio goes down 20 or 30 percent, they view it as a fine, and a fine means you did

What $100 a Month Truly Means In the ‘Community Taking Action’ section of today’s email (see below), Charity said her reducing $100/month in expenses “was not flashy” but I wanted to point out the immense value of every $100 reduction in life expenses: For every $100 reduction in monthly expenses, that’s a full $30,000 less in net worth you need to reach Financial Independence. Yes, $30,000 less! That’s massive. Here’s the math: Let’s say your life costs $5,000 per month, which is a total of $60,000 per year. We know to get your FI Number using the 4% rule of thumb that you simply multiply your annual expenses by 25, so your FI Number would be $1,500,000. Let’s now cut $100 out of this budget, so it’s $4,900 per month or $58,800 per year in expenses. $58,800 x 25 = $1,470,000. This is just simple math, so every $100 you cut out of your life is a reduction of $1,200 of annual expenses which leads to a $30k less you need to reach FI. Sounds pretty flashy to me! App That’s Improving My Life Jonathan told me about the Genius Scan pdf scanner app a few weeks ago, and it is making a

Return of the Hot Seat I want to take a minute to say a huge thank you to everyone who responded to last week’s FI Weekly!  With the news of Jonathan stepping back from the podcast, I was blown away by all the heartfelt messages of encouragement and gratitude plus all the amazing suggestions for future guests, topics and segments you’d like to see. I was shocked that so many of you specifically asked that I bring back ‘The Hot Seat’ questions we previously asked our guests at the end of the episode. I can guarantee it is 100% coming back starting with the next episode I record (happening today in fact!). One of the questions we asked was people’s favorite books and in anticipation of that question coming back, I wanted to pass along a remarkable resource that David at Runners FI put together: He combed through 500+ episodes to find every time a book was ever mentioned on the podcast to create a list called the ‘174 Must Read Books of FI.’ No surprise that The Simple Path to Wealth was the runaway winner for most mentions, followed by Your Money or Your Life and The 4 Hour Workweek. If you’re

Beginning of a New Era On the ChooseFI podcast Episode 392 that released yesterday, Jonathan announced that he’s stepping back as the on-air host of the podcast, and that would be his last episode. This is a ‘season of life’ change for him and he’ll continue to work on things behind the scenes at ChooseFI, so all is well certainly. This is bittersweet for me as obviously I’m bummed that he won’t be on the show with me, but it’s also exciting in the sense that the show is now mine to shape going forward. I’d love to involve you in shaping that future direction, as this has always been a crowdsourced show and I want to make that even more obvious going forward. So, here’s my request of you:  What would you like to see for the future of the show? Is there anything I should bring back from the show’s past? What guests would you like to see? What topics should we focus on more intently? Do you have an interesting story or are you facing challenges on the path to FI that you’d like to discuss on the podcast? Hit reply and let me know! What Have

Student Loan Forgiveness I wrote a note about this in last week’s newsletter and wanted to remind you: If you or anyone in your family has student loans, or you know anyone with student loans for that matter, Episode 391 of the ChooseFI podcast that came out yesterday with Travis Hornsby from The Student Loan Planner is truly a MUST listen. Like stop reading this email right now and go listen kind of important.Tell anyone you know with student loans kind of important. If you’ve read this email or listened to me on the podcast, you know I’m a sincere person and don’t hype things up.  This is essential info that could lead to 25% of all student loans ultimately getting forgiven. The Importance of a Legacy Binder My conversation with Dr. Jordan Grumet (Episode 390) on his reflections from a front-row seat as a hospice doctor to the regrets of his dying patients has made me think deeper about a number of truly essential things. Throw in an annoying sickness I had this week and it got me thinking about basic fundamentals of if I were suddenly not here any longer, would my wife and family know where all of our assets

Learn to Read Financial Statements Brian Feroldi joined us on the show for Episode 389 where we took a look at the 3 essential financial statements and why it’s important for you to have a background knowledge of each. Short answer: Sure, it helps with stock investing, but it’s truly essential for not only business owners but for your understanding of your own personal finances. Brian offered some resources at the end of the episode that we said would be included in last week’s FI Weekly email, but I goofed. Brian was kind enough to remind me and here are the short YouTube videos that provide a lot more clarity: How to read a Balance Sheet How to read an Income Statement How to read a Free Cash Flow Statement Brian also offers a course called “Financial Statements – From Rookie to Pro In 2 Weeks” for those looking for more in-depth information. Our Most Important Episode Ever PSA:  If you have student loans, it is essential that you listen to Episode 391 coming out this Monday August 22nd. I think it’s the single most important episode we’ve ever recorded. Travis Hornsby, from The Student Loan Planner, discusses how 10% of all student

Local FI Communities I got this email last week from Christian: “The one change I’d like to make is fixing the lack of like-minded FI people I have in my life. Love my non-FI people but would love to not always be the outlier in the conversation when I suggest a coffee in the park instead of dinner at an expensive restaurant as a way of catching up. Do you or Jonathan know of any good ways to find FI meetup groups?” Yes, we definitely do! There are 300+ ChooseFI Local Groups in cities all across the world to help you connect with people in your local area. Plus, there are online ‘cohort groups’ such as ChooseFI travel, meal planning, FI Families, and many more. Find all the info here at the ChooseFI Community page on our site. I’m also a huge fan of what our good friend Stephen Baughier has put together with Camp FI, the immersive FI weekend experience that brings together dozens of like-minded FI folks for a weekend of learning, fun and camaraderie at different sites across the US. You can find all the info on upcoming events at the Camp FI website plus Stephen just told me he’s

FI Family Taking Action I genuinely love reading each and every response I get to this FI Weekly newsletter, so please keep hitting reply and passing along your wins and ‘1% better’ changes! In that spirit, I wanted to pass along an incredible email that David wrote in: “Hey Brad – I don’t think I’m overstating it when I say that you guys have altered the trajectory of my life. That’s not to say that it was negative before finding ChooseFI. Just that it was uninspired. ChooseFI helped me put perspective on my life’s purpose and, somewhat paradoxically, has created a mindset that has me striving for more work. The kicker is that the work I’m striving for is different than the work I’m currently doing. I found a true passion for personal finance through your podcast and have been learning everything I can about buy and hold investing strategies, tax optimization, and the nuances involved in each individual’s path. I wanted to reach out to show you exactly what your message of “take action” motivated me to do. Here’s a list of the changes I’ve made since December of 2021 when I found the podcast and online community: Signed up for Personal

Saving on College I don’t usually say things like this, but Jonathan and I have been in a real groove on the ChooseFI podcast recently, pumping out high-quality episodes with some of our all-time favorite guests. After doing this for nearly 6 years it would be easy to get complacent, but we’re honestly just having a blast right now and I think the quality shows in these episodes. If you haven’t listened to the show in a while, now would be a good time to get back into it!  A particularly interesting show was Episode 386 with the Millionaire Educator on how he and his son have both found an ultra-cost-effective way to get a Bachelor’s Degree using internet learning, CLEP Tests, ACE courses and community college. That episode is a must-listen if you or anyone you know are thinking about going to college in the next few years (and the show notes have links to all the resources we talked about). After listening to episode 386, Molly wrote in:  “I listened to podcast Episode 386 this morning and it inspired me to share on Twitter a thread on how I graduated from UC Berkeley when I was 18. I started going