Get Your weekly FI update from Brad

Taking Action Sometimes I get an email that is just so amazing it has to be included verbatim in the FI Weekly. Tyler wrote in with the progress they’ve made in the 53 weeks since finding ChooseFI: “This week we made an offer on our first rental property and the offer was accepted! 53 weeks ago, I found the Choose FI podcast. In those 53 weeks my wife, kids (8 and 6) and I have made some big changes. Like you said, nothing to do with pinching pennies but just being wiser with our time and money. In the last 53

The Essence of FI Part 2 Last week I included a section called the ‘Essence of FI’ and after some reflection, I wanted to add a Part 2: Part of the Essence of FI is how much you love your future self, and how much you value that future self.  It’s easy to merely live in the moment and maximize enjoyment now, with no care for the future you. Enjoying life is essential, but if you reframe delayed gratification as an act of self-love instead of deprivation, I think this slight mental pivot will greatly enrich your day-to-day life.  In

The Essence of FI I was listening to the All The Hacks podcast episode with Morgan Housel and the following quote from jumped out to me as the essence of the financial aspect of FI: “I’ll leave you with one financial hack that might disappoint you, but it’s the only hack that works and it works incredibly well in finance. You want to do well with finance? Spend less money than you make and be patient. That’s 90% of what finance is, and if you can actually do those, you have a black belt in finance.  It’s the only hack that I think really

Books I’m Enjoying (Plus a Quote) I’m currently reading two of the best books I’ve read in my entire life (shout out to the FI Weekly community for recommending them!); reading these will definitively make your life better, so first check if your local library has them, but if not, the Amazon links are: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life by William Green In the “Beyond Rich” chapter of Green’s book, this paragraph jumped out to me, as it touches on so many things we talk

Take Action The main reason ChooseFI exists is to inspire you to take action to make your life better. Small changes compound to something significant, and you’ll be amazed how wonderful it feels to get started taking control of your life! A friend of mine recently found the FI Community, and he asked for ideas he could implement today to get started with some quick but significant wins. Here are the items we talked about for huge impact, but minimal effort (and this represents a small fraction of easy things YOU can do no matter where you are on the

Live Event with Paula Pant If you haven’t yet listened to ChooseFI Episode 330 with Paula Pant, it is quite likely the most important podcast on real estate you’re going to hear this year! Paula explored why this time it truly is different in the overall housing market, and gave us detailed, actionable steps on how to navigate this market both as a buyer and seller. I’m also excited to announce that Paula and Jonathan are co-hosting a ‘virtual live event’ next Monday June 28 at 8pm ET to help you “discover how you can make more money without going

New Adventures One of the things I’m personally working on as part of the mastermind group I’m in with Dominick Quartuccio is being open to new adventures in life. Too often I don’t seek out new experiences or doing something I’m either scared of, or could fail at. It’s nice to have routines, but routines become boring when you don’t mix it up at all. Exactly one year ago in this newsletter I mentioned Ben Aldridge’s book, “How to Be Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable: 43 Weird & Wonderful Ways to Build a Strong, Resilient Mindset” and I coincidentally just picked it back

One Year of the FI Weekly Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the FI Weekly Newsletter! I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed writing this and reading your replies full of wins, questions, actions taken, etc. fills me with more joy than you can imagine. I’m hopelessly behind on responding to all your emails, but please know that I do read each and every one of them! A trip down memory lane from newsletter #1: Book: The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek. Even for long-term FI thinkers this book is a game changer. I now think in terms an ‘infinite’

A Full Review of Your Finances Cody Garrett, one of the most helpful and active members of our community and a CFP, recently posted the following in our FB group: “When is the last time you completed a FULL review of your finances? If you don’t know where to start, here’s a data gathering checklist that includes the most common documents to review.” ​Click here to see the entire list and be sure to bookmark this for an annual review. The Simple StartUp Summer Challenge Registration is closing on June 7th for this Summer’s The Simple StartUp’s group course and I

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

The Power of FI Cam wrote in with a powerful message I wanted to pass along: “The most recent episode (320) regarding stress at work made me reflect a little bit on the power of FU money and my own recent win. I’m not FI, but I’m about halfway there (though with compounding interest, probably *a lot* closer :)) I was moved to a new team this time last year, and my skillset and preferred work was not being prioritized, in an attempt to try and inject life into this other team. I was stuck doing work that I was

1% Better: Stop Junk Mail ChooseFI is a crowdsourced community and I love getting contributions that are so good I can just cut and paste. Courtesy of Debra: “In the podcast episode 100 ways to get 1% better, stopping junk mail was mentioned. This is the bane of my existence. I live in Tennessee and this is how I was able to stop all junk mail: ​Credit offers and insurance ​Junk mail: Data and Marketing Association ​Blue envelopes of coupons (Valpak) ​Catalogs and opt out by company​ ​Weekly coupon mailer​ ​Phone Book ​Clipper or Market magazine You can sign up