JL Collins Interview and My Favorite Article
JL Collins recently appeared on Hasan Minhaj’s YouTube channel and it has nearly 1 million views in the first month! JL is a great friend and an extraordinary ambassador for the financial independence community.
Check out the ‘Financial Literacy for Dummies (Like Me)’ video and be sure to forward it to friends you think might benefit from it.
I’ve also been contemplating business building recently and it reminded me to listen to Episode 107 of ChooseFI with a local friend of mine, Craig Attkisson, who is a co-owner of what has become one of the biggest landscaping firms in Virginia.
He passed along hard-won wisdom on building processes and incentives into your business and it was a wonderful episode.
Craig mentioned one of my favorite articles of all-time from JL’s blog, “Why Your House is a Terrible Investment;” Craig read this article years ago and sold his house and built his own tiny home on some family land and dramatically reduced his living expenses. A very cool FI-action story.
Half FI is More Like 75% FI
My friend Katie from ‘Money with Katie’ published an article a few years ago that I really enjoyed called, “Why Hitting “Half FI” is More Like 75%.”
The article is loaded with info, but in essence, Katie crunches the numbers and says that once you’re halfway to your FI Number, you’re most likely at least 75% of the way there in terms of time to FI.
Here’s an excerpt from a key section from Katie’s article:
“Where did she technically hit “half FI”?
That said, we can define half FI as – ready for this? – the FI number halved. In her case, $500,000.
She didn’t hit $500,000 until sometime between year 8 and year 9!
Yet by Year 11, she was FI.
If she weren’t watching her progress, she’d probably clock in during year 8/9 “halfway there” and be like, Ugh, I’m only halfway there? 8 more years to go?
No, sis!
Those returns are compounding. The snowball has taken on a life of its own. Just three years later, she’s FI.
Reaching half your FI number means you’re about 75% of the way through your FI investing timeline.”
I genuinely love analysis like this by people who look at the problem a little bit differently and come out with clarity that helps us all on our FI journey!
Katie’s podcast ‘Money with Katie’ and her newsletter are absolute can’t-miss pieces of content for me and I highly recommend them both.
It’s amazing that Katie found personal finance through ChooseFI way back at the start of our show and is now one of the most important voices in all of personal finance.