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.”
Why Did Your Habit Not Stick?
“It’s one year from now. The habit you were hoping to build during the year didn’t stick. What is the most likely reason it failed?”
That is the question James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, recently asked on Twitter.
I love this type of thinking where you view the problem from a completely different angle in order to get more clarity. “Invert, always invert” as Charlie Munger would quote.
For me, habits often don’t stick when I don’t have enough motivation or clarity.
Simply put, I sometimes pick habits because it sounds like something that would be good for someone, but ultimately not for me.
Running is a perfect example. I loathe running, but almost invariably it’s on my ‘to do list’ of goals every year. No surprise when that habit doesn’t stick.
What is the most likely reason YOUR habit failed?
ChooseFI Updates
ChooseFI Local Group Events: Take 30 seconds and sign up for your local group. Then sit back and get email notifications of the local events in your area. This is a complete game changer and you'll never miss knowing about an event again.
Podcast Discussion: Join in and give us your thoughts on the podcast. Here's the link to Episode 596 where the Donegans and I discuss many of our past financial and life mistakes.
Travel Rewards Credit Cards: I keep my Top Ten Recommended Travel Rewards Cards page constantly updated, so it should always be your first source for your next travel rewards card.
(Note: If you sign up for a credit card using our links, we earn a commission. That support keeps the podcast and newsletter free from ads. Thank you for making that possible.)
ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week
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Here's a fun life update and a frugal win. I’m getting ready to propose in the next few months, and just locked in an engagement ring I’m really proud of (and saved a lot of money doing it). I got a 3.5ct D/VVS2 lab-grown diamond with excellent cut, polish, and symmetry, plus full lifetime maintenance coverage and appraisal. List Price: $10,377.93 What I Paid: $3,655.93 TOTAL SAVINGS: $6,742 (a 64.8% discount) Here’s the breakdown on the engagement ring:
For context, the average engagement ring in the US runs ~$6,500 for a 1.3-1.6 ct center stone. I landed 2 extra carats and came in $2,600 under average. I will say it time and time again, ChooseFi has been a cheat code for life. The podcast has taught me so much about negotiation, value alignment, and intentional spending. I kept thinking about the “everything is negotiable” mantra throughout this process and not just following the default script on a purchase like this. It’s wild how different of an outcome you can get with a little bit of knowledge and intentionality. — Devon |
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It had been years since I had searched my state's unclaimed property site. I found $2,600 sitting in an escrow account from when my husband and I had refinanced years ago (likely 2021 ish), there was an overage which had somehow been lost in the mail. For fun, I searched for my family and friends and found about $700 and then $2,400 for a stranger who happens to have common friends with me on social media. It was fun and we have some extra funds for travel this winter. — Heather |
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Thought I would share a win that I don’t see much written about, but I do hear as a major barrier to early retirement, health insurance. We have been early-ish retired for 2 years and have made good progress on this. I left the ACA world and started getting care through the VA. I have had a great experience and recommend veterans check it out. By the way, a quick internet search says over 16 million people are eligible out of a population of 180 million adults over the age of 30. So not everybody but something like 9%. My spouse has to use an ACA marketplace plan. At least here in Texas, it is both expensive and painful, with lack of providers and poor continuity of care top of the list of problems. She has started doing concierge program which solved many of these problems. She has rapid access to both primary care and specialists and it has made a huge difference. Still expensive but now she gets timely, good quality care by adding a $600 quarterly fee. — David |
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In related news to the medical recommendations, one that I have personally used and has helped lower our emergency room high deductible copay is goodbill.com. We had a $5500 balance and goodbill was able to negotiate down 20%! That’s over a $1000 win! Another site is dollarfor.org. This site helps pay your medical bills if your income qualifies you for assistance. And as a side note, I love a great massage and we have a massage school that offers professional massage by students. I get 50 minutes massage for $30 and if I buy the 5 massage package I get an extra 20% off costing me $24 for the massage!! Win win for both parties. — Emma |
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In 2020 I reduced from ONE $2.5M term life insurance policy to FOUR Term Policies for $500k each. A 15 Year, (2) 20 year, and a 30 year. This allowed me to drop policies off without having to go through age and health blood draws again in the future as I no longer needed insurance as my investable net worth increased on my path to FI. I hit FI last summer, this week finally dropped 3 of 4 policies keeping only the 15 year $500k Policy for a whopping $11/mo as a "just in case" on top of my FI assets. I also cut or dropped the following this week: Long Term Disability Insurance, Home Internet, Insurance Policy Held on my mom no longer needed, life insurance on my wife, and soon to be Verizon to Xfinity Mobile (comes with some cashback credits to the tune of $300 for phone and internet!) all netting out to a $320-$350 total savings PER MONTH and $96k fewer dollars needed in the investment account . Unreal. Just got a little bit fatter FI. — Mitch |
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My husband and I have been navigating the huge expense of childcare for our 2 young children (ages 2 years and 8 months). We live in a HCOL area and daycare for each child costs $2,000 per month, making childcare by far the largest category in our budget. It’s not a cost we can negotiate or reduce, but we do have the option to use pre-tax dollars through a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (DCFSA). My husband and I both work, and both have access to DCFSAs through our employers. However, my husband is considered a highly compensated employee while I am not, so we opted to go through my employer to create our DCFSA. Had we gone through my husband’s plan, we would have only been able to contribute $3000, whereas we could contribute $5000 to mine. In 2025, each of my paychecks had a portion taken out pre-tax that was reimbursed to me after I submitted a receipt showing a valid expense for childcare. Overall, it worked out to about $1,600 saved, given our marginal tax bracket. In 2026, we look forward to taking advantage of the increase in the DCFSA contribution limit to $7,500 — about $2,400 in tax savings. It’s a drop in the bucket when it comes to the total cost of childcare, but we are trying to find small wins wherever possible. As financially difficult as this season of life may be, we recognize it’s temporary and very much worth it to have a lifetime with two amazing kids! — Sarah |
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My 1% better this week was following up on a warranty of an old hiking backpack I had. The backpack is over ten years old and the stitching was starting to rip so I followed up with the company (Gregory) about the warranty. It fell outside of their warranty conditions, however they were willing to offer me 50% off any new bag of theirs. This is about $200 in savings! My recommendation is to try to warranty old items that are falling apart and see even if they do not replace them, they may give you a large discount. — Ben |
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Our recent win was putting our house up for sale! We currently live in a HCOL area, and made choices to start looking at relocating where we can save money and be closer to family. We accepted a great offer on our home that makes us so excited for what is next. Even with paying off our primary mortgage, equity loan, and credit cards, we will walk away with about $150k cash that goes right into our savings. My husband and I will be able to start over completely debt free in a MCOL city. We have prioritized remote work so our jobs come with us to keep our income up. Getting rid of the debt, the stress of home ownership, and the distance from family feels incredible. I am fully committed to using this win to kickstart a new era in our life of staying debt free and putting a laser focus on the FI path. Thank you for all the encouragement and information to help us along the way. I'm going to send my husband the episode talking about rent vs own and look at ways we can make a rental work for us short term while planning our next move. — Lauren |
