Financial Freedom

To borrow and recreate a phrase from Will Ferrell’s character in Zoolander:

Side hustles; so hot right now!

Yes, side hustles are very in fashion these days and with good reason. Even before the pandemic, wages had been stagnant for years while the cost of housing and higher-education (a classic means to increase your wages) have reached all-time highs.

The impacts of COVID-19 have been devastating. Not only from a public health perspective but from an economic perspective. Many of the same people who found their wages stagnant in 2019 found themselves out of a job in 2020.

The illusion…

Money

The most important factor that determines how wealthy you will become is the cards you were dealt.

I know the “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” crowd doesn’t want to hear that, but it’s the truth. You can be the best poker player in the world but if you’re starting hand is an offsuit 2 and a 7 (the worst possible hand,) you’re probably not going to win.

Millennials have drawn a 2 and a 7 at every turn, and all some people want to do is criticize them for how they played their crappy cards.

In this article, I…

Financial Freedom

The entire point of accumulating money is to trade it in for time and freedom.

But, how much money do you actually need to exchange for a lifetime of doing what makes you happy and fulfilled? The answer to that question can be incredibly clarifying for your financial plan.

To come up with your minimum number for what you consider “enough,” we need to talk through three issues;

1. The connection between money and happiness.
2. Cost of living and what you value in life.
3. Building your savings plan to accumulate “enough” money.

The depressing reality of money and happiness

It turns out that money can buy happiness. But…

Money

The highest level of financial freedom is having enough passive income to cover your living expenses. If you manage to reach that point, you can spend your days doing whatever makes you happiest.

If passive income is the key to financial freedom, then anyone who can enable others to generate passive income will be able to wield massive influence and make themselves wealthy. That is why the internet is full of spammy articles and videos, promising easy solutions to generate passive income.

Here is the brutal truth about passive income.

Generating enough passive income to cover your living expenses takes…

Investing

Your fear of a market crash will do far more damage to your portfolio than an actual market crash.

When the stock market crashes, it’s often accompanied by a very scary story in the real economy, like a global pandemic (2020) or a financial crisis (2008.) When people get scared, they often make very bad decisions with their money.

Fear is one of the great destroyers of wealth.

Do you know who doesn't make fear-driven investment decisions?

Robots.

That’s why I was not surprised to read new research that shows retirement savers who use a robo-advisor were less likely to…

Over the next 18 months, you are going to read a lot of uninformed, hyperbolic takes about inflation.

For those actually interested in understanding a topic as complex as inflation, I would highly recommend Paul Krugman’s weekly newsletter. This past week he provided a “wonkish” but educational breakdown of when we should and should not be worried about inflation.

Personal Finance

Here are the most thoughtful comments I read from Making of Millionaire articles this week.

An endless summer vacation

I couldn’t do it until I was 55 (I have four kids and my wife passed away almost 12 years ago). I’ll never look back though. I’m almost two years in to this experiment in freedom. The first year was a little unsettling but now that I’ve opened my eyes a bit wider, I can see that there really is no limit to what I can explore. I feel like a kid again who just walked out of school for an endless summer vacation. …

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I Retired at 35 — Here Are 5 Lessons from My First 6 Months of Freedom

Written by: Charlie Brown

In October 2020, I officially retired from work and life as I knew it. I was 35.

Through a series of largely intentional — but some fortuitous — events, I now have enough passive income to oversee all my…