FI Weekly Greatest Hits
I'm on the second week of a 3-week trip to Japan, and I didn't want to leave you without a FI Weekly newsletter in my absence. Here are some of my favorite segments from the last 6 years of writing this newsletter:
Financial Literacy Month: Favorite Reads
April is financial literacy month and if you’re just finding the world of Financial Independence, I’d highly suggest you start with Episode 500 of the ChooseFI podcast and read JL Collins’ book ‘The Simple Path to Wealth.’
If you’re looking for what’s next, here are the 5 best money-related books I read over the past year:
- ‘The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness’ by Morgan Housel
- ‘Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life’ by Bill Perkins
- ‘Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life’ by William Green
- ‘Why Does The Stock Market Go Up?: Everything You Should Have Been Taught About Investing In School, But Weren’t’ by Brian Feroldi
- ‘The Little Book That (Still) Beats the Market’ by Joel Greenblatt (Note: I’m not necessarily recommending the strategy, just found the book fascinating and it resonated with my understanding of the stock market and business)
The first 3 on the list are all about the mental side of investing and accumulating money (the main idea in ‘Die with Zero’ changed my life more than any other) and the last two are more about the fundamentals of investing.
Enjoy!
Appreciating the Full Value of Your Money
Here’s an email from Ben with a great perspective on Financial Independence:
"You’ve talked about reframing the FI message as spending on what you value (including investing) rather than only saving every penny for later. I had a thought:
Maybe FI isn’t the right term for this, but really the imperative thing – the message that everyone needs to hear isn’t just to budget, invest, and become financially independent.
What’s most important is to realize that you could do that, so that you appreciate the full value of your money. Then, to look mortality in the face so you truly see the limits and value of your time, relationships, etc.
Once you have that perspective, you’re equipped to make intentional decisions about what you want to prioritize. You will understand the tradeoffs of taking on debt, purchasing something nice right now, or sacrificing spending power today to invest.
The scope of that concept goes quite a bit beyond financial independence, but for many people like us the informed decision will be to #ChooseFI. Yet this is a bit more universal; everyone could get value from better understanding those things.
The real problem people have is making decisions unintentionally or with the wrong perspective on the value of their money. That can be improved by learning about that value and being encouraged to make intentional decisions.”