A working dad, starting a long journey to reach FIRE, contentment, or both.
So, I’ve been away for a while. Anything happen in 2020?
Obviously, this past year has been…different. Once again, I’m glad I didn’t try to set resolutions for 2020, seeing as virtually nothing went anywhere close to the way I had hoped. But, I do like to look back at the goals I set and figure out where to make changes and/or improvements for the next year. So, let’s rip this bandage off and look at how 2020 turned out for me, and then we can move on to my 2021 goals.
When I think about all the bad money choices I made in my early years, one thing comes to mind quickly. (Why I didn’t write about it until now, I don’t know.) See, we got caught up in the wonderful world of timeshares. And we knew better, even back then.
What happened?
When I started writing about dumb money choices from my 20s, I am a little ashamed to say that I missed the obvious mistake we made. The right choice was there, right in front of us, and we chose poorly. The obvious mistake? We had student loans, and instead of paying them, we consolidated into a longer term. How much money did that cost us over the long run?
Continue reading “Dumb Money Choice: Not Paying Student Loans Early”
A couple of years ago, live trivia apps were the rage. And why not? The enticement of answering a few questions and possibly making a decent amount of money pulled in quite a few people. A couple of months ago, it seemed as if the genre had dried up. But recent developments have breathed new life into live trivia, at least temporarily. So, is it still possible to make money from this?
Continue reading “Can you still make money with live trivia in 2020?”
A little while ago, I started a series of posts regarding all the bad financial choices I made in my 20s. I made a bunch, I can see now (with my 20s way, way behind me), and I am still paying for them now. Today, let’s talk about one of the big mistakes I made: not planning for the future.
I mean, as I must have thought at the time, everything was going to stay the way it had been, right?
Continue reading “Dumb Money Choice #2: Thinking Nothing Would Change”
If you’re like me, you’re looking to reach FIRE* by any means possible. Side hustles, investing, whatever. We’ll take what we can get, right? If you have read my blog before, you know that I’ve made some extra money through ways that others might consider abnormal. But the most unlikely way I made money was many, many years ago, when I won a March Madness contest.
Yeah, really.
Why am I, a father in his 40s, still a long way off from FIRE when so many financial bloggers are decades younger but way closer? Well, for me, it has more than a little to do with decisions made long ago that, if I had it to do again, I might have changed. The first thing I would have changed would have been to invest more when I was much younger.
Continue reading “Dumb Money Choice #1: Not Investing in Your 20s”
As I have moved into the personal finance blogging community*, I have seen a lot of people who appear to have followed their passions. Isn’t that what we’re told to do? At the very least, lots of people have escaped the 9-to-5 cube life by pursuing a passion. Aren’t we all aiming for that?
Not necessarily, according to Cal Newport. His book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, argues that following one’s passion is bad advice and can actually make things worse.
When one is in the early stages of pursuing financial independence (FI), the road can seem long and hard, with tremendous sacrifices ahead and a lot of goals to meet. But when one has depression, there are days when anything, any goal perhaps, becomes nearly impossible. So, to that end, I present my story of depression and financial independence.
Continue reading “How Depression Kills Financial Independence”
So…for the last couple of years, I’ve set goals instead of resolutions. I said resolutions are such an absolute concept that they generally lead to disappointment, at least for me.  (Aside: if I had made some of my old resolutions this year, I would have already broken some. This rather solidifies my reasoning.)
Each year, I like to look at last year’s goals to see where things went well and where I could improve. After that, I like to plan out my goals for the coming year.
So, let’s move toward my 2019 results and 2020 goals.