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It felt odd to not acknowledge that it’s Election Day here in the US. While I found a bunch of inspiring quotes about voting, I’ll leave it to this simple one from Jenna Bush that, if nothing else, “We can all agree on the importance of voting.” ‘Last Call’ on Highest Ever Bonus on Our Favorite Card NOW EXPIRED: Chase put out a ‘last call’ date of November 8th 2020 for the incredible 80,000 Ultimate Rewards bonus point offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred. Simply put, this is the best offer we’ve ever seen on what was already our top recommended

Back to Basics: Everything is Negotiable I’m always on the lookout for patterns in life, and one I’ve noticed from your replies to this weekly email is how emboldened you are by the concept of “everything is negotiable.” Nick wrote in saying, “I only called them because it’s a technique I heard you mention on the podcast and of course they refunded the fee.” Don’t be afraid to negotiate! Ask for a discount, ask for some fee to be waived. Just ask. I know it can be difficult, but what’s the worst that can happen? They say ‘no.’ Then you’re in

This is Brad, co-host of the ChooseFI podcast. Each week I share ideas to ponder, inspire, and motivate you on your own journey to FI. What I’m Listening to This Week: Part 1 I was introduced to Naval Ravikant 5+ years ago on the Tim Ferriss podcast Episode 97 and was blown-away by the depth of his thinking. I was excited to see him pop up as a guest on Episode 473 of Tim’s show this week. Here’ a quote that jumped out to me: “Long term thinking gets you long term results… if you can just adopt long-term thinking

The Value of Blank Space We talk on the podcast about the value of blank space on our calendars – what we affectionately call the “Red X Month.” Take a red marker and draw a huge “X” over an entire month and plan nothing during that time. While I’m incredibly fortunate to truly take that time away from everything, I think this concept of blank space is valuable for everyone reading this. Start small and plan a week with no meetings or pre-planned events. Learn to say “no” to things, even when it’s difficult. Build this muscle and experience the

Finding Little Moments of Joy While on vacation, I’ve been thinking about searching out moments of joy more frequently in daily life — even if only in bite-sized chunks. Last night I watched a viral video of two twin brothers listening to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” for the first time. The pure joy and surprise on their faces when the famous drum solo hit was incredible to watch. It got me thinking about the enjoyment I get from listening to music and how infrequently I go back and listen to my favorites. Then I remembered two of my favorite YouTube

Words to Live By: Jerzy Gregorek Edition I’ve often mentioned Jerzy Gregorek’s masterful “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life” quote, as I think it is a framework for long-term success in FI and in life. Possibly even more profound is this from Jerzy: “Try to be around people who don’t do three things. They are not sarcastic. They don’t complain and they don’t blame.” If you sit back and listen, you’ll find these ‘three killers of happiness’ make up 80%+ of everyday conversation. I challenge you to personally stop this madness and also cut out the people in your life perpetuating this

Focus on Simplifying I’m a part of a mastermind group that ChooseFI podcast guest Dominick Quartuccio runs, and we’re currently focusing on simplifying our lives. I singled out my tendency to “just quickly check email and Facebook” as a constant low-level stress in my life, and then set out to fix it. I very simply took a sheet of paper and wrote “Times Checked Email/FB” on it and wrote the days of the week down the page. This paper sits next to my keyboard and every time I check my email accounts and FB I jot down a tick mark to keep

What I’m Listening To In my self-improvement journey, increasing the quality and quantity of my sleep has arguably been the single most important factor. I’m obsessive about my sleep! Dr. Peter Attia’s podcast ‘The Drive’ is a must-listen, and in Episode 126 he had Matthew Walker, Ph.D., author of Why We Sleep, on the show to discuss immune function and sleep and they passed along 5 actionable tips to improve the quality of your sleep: Regularity: going to bed and getting up at roughly the same time every day. Darkness at night:I personally bought blackout shades for my windows (here are

Next Generation Financial Independence Doug Nordman and Carol Pittner’s book “Raising Your Money-Savvy Family For Next Generation Financial Independence” is available today! This is a MUST-read book to help teach financial literacy and financial independence. I love the format, as they wrote it from both the perspective of parent and child. I picked up a lot of tips we’re using with our own kids! You can find all buying options at Choosefi.com/nextgen or:o orBuy it on Amazon What I’m Struggling With I have fallen out of my exercise routine and I’m struggling to get back in the groove. My wife Laura challenged

Making the Best of a Difficult Situation My daughters started virtual school last week and the care and effort the teachers put in to make this a “real” school year is astonishing! Nothing is ever perfect and there have been some minor hiccups, but it was a great week. The attitude and mentality you approach a situation with generally dictates your outcome. Laura and I could have infected the kids with negativity and complaints about this less than perfect situation. Instead, we chose to focus on the positives and asked a variation of: “What if the worst thing that ever

Back to Basics: The Impact of Fees Following our theme on the podcast of ‘Back to Basics’ I wanted to quickly touch on the impact of fees on your investments. This illustrates why we believe in low-cost index funds so strongly. From Vanguard’s site: “Imagine you have $100,000 invested. If the account earned 6% a year for the next 25 years and had no costs or fees, you’d end up with about $430,000. If, on the other hand, you paid 2% a year in costs, after 25 years you’d only have about $260,000. That’s right: The 2% you paid every

My Fail of the Week: Last Week’s Email Communication is all about getting your point across, and last week I had a colossal fail when talking about Amazon Smile. There was a lackluster response, which means I did a terrible job of communicating and that’s 100% on me. This is important, so here’s attempt #2: Do you shop at Amazon.com? Of course you do. Here’s a way to do something good while shopping at the internet behemoth: Simply go to https://smile.amazon.com/ first and then shop like normal at Amazon. You get the exact same low prices and Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase