Doing Hard Things FI Edition: Selling Shares
I had a fascinating conversation with my friend, Kim, in NYC earlier this month:
Kim reached FI and left her job literally two days before I saw her.
She’s going to live off selling shares of index funds, and she mentioned all the talk recently in the community about FI potentially “not working” because people would be too scared to sell shares when the time came.
While she said it did feel a little odd to finally need to sell shares after so many years of diligent savings, her brilliant point was as follows:
It will only feel weird the very first time.
Once that’s done, selling shares is just what she’ll do as part of life.
We concluded that it’s just like any other hard thing in life. You do it precisely because you know it’s the right thing to do, and that once you’re on the other side of that initial discomfort, it’ll be a cakewalk.
So, we have people questioning the validity of the entire concept of Financial Independence because they don’t think you’re adult enough to come up to that point of discomfort and get past it that one initial time.
I look at the FI Community as the most resilient, intelligent, and forward-thinking people I’ve ever seen.
I fully believe you’ll lean into those 5 minutes of discomfort when the time comes..
You’ll log into your brokerage account and you’ll enter the dollar figure you need to live on that month and you’ll hit the sell button.
You’ll breathe a big sigh of relief at how easy that was, and not believe how nervous you were.
Every subsequent month you’ll just sell your shares, because that was the plan you set in place 10-15+ years prior. And it’s working exactly as expected.
Travel Tools and Tips (to Save Money)
Suzy was my guest on Episode 442 of ChooseFI where we discussed ‘Intermediate (Level) Travel Rewards’ and she runs the private Facebook group SONIC Travelers, which is an excellent resource for all things travel – especially saving money!
I saw this post from Suzy and asked if I could include it here in the newsletter as it has some fantastic tips:
LESSER KNOWN TRAVEL TOOLS AND MONEY SAVING TIPS
- HiChee.com is a search engine for rental properties. It aggregates inventory from AirBnB, Vrbo, Booking.com, and direct-to-host properties, comparing rates on the properties across platforms. It can help you ensure that you are paying the lowest price possible if you find a rental you're interested in booking.
- Points Transfer calculator: The Upgraded Points website has a useful page that helps you see all airline and hotel loyalty programs, the credit card programs that can transfer points to those airlines / hotels, the ratio of the transfer, and the transfer time for the miles/points to show up in your airline/hotel loyalty account. I like the way you can type how many points you plan on transferring into a program, and it will calculate how many miles will actually show up, taking into account if there is a current transfer bonus.
- Do you have TSA Precheck but noticed that your boarding pass doesn't show the TSA Precheck logo when you printed it or downloaded it to your Apple / Google wallet? You can get your pre-check status corrected by messaging @AskTSA on Twitter / X.
- Daytrip.com: This is a site that helps you arrange private transportation from city to city with the option of adding scenic stops in between. For example, if my husband and I want to go from Lisbon, Portugal to Porto, Portugal, Daytrip shows that a sedan for 2 people would cost $398. For $29 extra, we could add a 1-hour stop in Fatima, Portugal. For $102 extra, we could do a 3-hour stop at the Pena Palace in Sintra. By comparison, taking the train from Lisbon to Porto would cost $92 for 2 people, but it's not private, has no sidetrips, and is not a door-to-door service.
- Vacationstogo.com: This is for bargain-hunters searching for a last-minute cruise (i.e. within 90-days of sailing). The 90-Day Ticker on the website lists numerous cruise options from many popular cruise lines, showing deals that are as much as 88% off the typical price.
- Apple subscriptions: I learned about this by listening to Chris Hutchins 'All The Hacks’ Podcast. He says: "If you have a subscription to an app on an iPhone and you made that subscription through the Apple subscription platform, you can actually go into your settings, look at your subscriptions, and you can click this button that says See All Plans...." Frequently, there are promotional plans offered that will give you the same app features but at a significantly lower price. Thus, if you're paying any subscriptions to Apple, be sure to check for cheaper plans that will help you save money.