What Your Tuesday Could Look Like

Five-Minute Win

This week's Five-Minute Win: Lower your thermostat by two degrees tonight.

A cooler bedroom is one of the simplest ways to improve sleep, yet most of us never experiment with it.

Try lowering the temperature a couple of degrees tonight and see what happens. Better sleep doesn't always come from buying another gadget. Sometimes it comes from making your environment work with your body instead of against it.

Take five minutes today. Your future self will be glad you did.

What's one small change you could make tonight that tomorrow morning might appreciate?

☀️ Tuesday Project

One of the ideas I've been thinking about a lot over the past year is what I call The Tuesday Project. The goal isn't to optimize for extraordinary vacations or retirement someday. It's to build a life where an ordinary Tuesday is one you genuinely enjoy.

Jasmine, a member of our community, shared this in our Facebook group this week, and it perfectly captures what I mean:

I've been thinking about Brad's 'Tuesday Project' and something that's surprised me about early retirement is how much joy I get from the small things.

• Not having to set an alarm

• Time to work out every day

• Time to read more

• Long walks in the middle of the day while listening to podcasts and audiobooks

• Time and headspace to explore new recipes

Doing these things on my own timeline instead of trying to cram them into a busy work schedule is so freeing.

I almost feel guilty about how happy and content I am every day, even if it's just a random Tuesday at home.

I love this because none of it is extravagant. It's simply someone who has enough control over her time to enjoy an ordinary day.

To me, that's what financial independence has always been about.

I'd love to make this a regular feature. What does your Tuesday look like? If financial independence has changed the way you experience an ordinary day, hit reply and tell me about it. Every month, I'll share one story that captures what financial independence actually feels like.

🎓 Help Advance FIRE Research

I mentioned this last week and the response has been overwhelming so far:

One of our own, Nick Kieren, is conducting what appears to be the first large-scale academic study of the FIRE community as part of his PhD dissertation at Texas Tech University.

If you're pursuing financial independence, I'd really appreciate you taking 15–20 minutes to complete the survey. The more people who participate, the more valuable the research becomes. Your responses will help researchers better understand the motivations, financial behaviors, and well-being of people pursuing FIRE.

As a thank you, you'll have the option to enter a drawing for one of three free tickets to the Extraordinary Weekend event I'll be hosting with Alan and Katie Donegan, currently planned for February 2027.

Take the FIRE Research Survey (The survey closes August 22.)

A Few Things...

A few things I found interesting this week...

🎲 Quick Games

While we were in Salt Lake City, I wandered into a game store and noticed that one of our family's longtime favorites, Cover Your Assets, now has a sequel called Cover Your Kingdom. I haven't played it yet, but it immediately brought back a lot of great memories.

One thing I've learned over the years is that the best family games aren't necessarily the biggest or the most elaborate. They're the ones that actually make it to the table.

Most of our favorites can be learned in just a few minutes and finished in about twenty:

• Monopoly Deal

• Skull King

• Qwixx

• Five Crowns

• Love Letter

• Cover Your Assets

Even now that my daughters are older, I love pulling one of these out after dinner. They're quick, there's plenty of laughter, and before you know it you've spent an hour together without anyone looking at a phone.

If you've got a favorite quick game, I'd love to hear it. I'm always looking for another one to add to the rotation.

⏳ A Countdown

Years ago, after reading The Tail End by Tim Urban, Die With Zero, and thinking about the idea of memento mori, I created a simple text file on my desktop with two dates.

August 15, 2026.

August 15, 2030.

Those were the days I expected each of my daughters to leave for college.

For a while, I updated the countdown every day. I don't do that anymore, but I still open the file every now and then.

As this newsletter goes out, one countdown says 4 days.

The other says 4 years and 4 days.

I'm not counting down because I want those days to arrive. If anything, it's the opposite. The countdown simply reminds me that this season of life is temporary.

When I see those numbers, I don't feel sad. I just find myself putting my phone down a little sooner and spending a little more time with my daughters.

🛏️ Hotel Pillows

Here's a travel trick that's made a surprisingly big difference for me.

I'm mostly a stomach and side sleeper, so those giant, fluffy hotel pillows that many people seem to love are actually the opposite of what I want. They push my head into an awkward position, and I usually wake up with a stiff neck.

The first thing I do when I get to my room is inspect the pillows. If one of the four on the bed is thin enough, great. If not, I call the front desk and ask if they have a thinner pillow. Most hotels keep a few different options, and they've almost always been happy to swap one out.

It's such a small thing, but I've found that sleeping well on the road often comes down to removing little annoyances before they become big ones.

I've also realized that many of the best travel upgrades aren't expensive—they just require asking.

🌅 Sunrise & Sunset

Whenever I'm planning a trip, one of the first things I do is Google "sunrise sunset" followed by the name of the city. I almost always end up on Timeanddate.com, which has become one of my favorite travel resources.

Of course, it tells you the sunrise and sunset times. But what I really pay attention to is the sun's altitude throughout the day.

I've noticed that there's usually enough natural light to be outside about 35 minutes before sunrise and about 35 minutes after sunset. Once the sun gets to roughly 7° below the horizon, it gets dark surprisingly quickly.

It sounds like an oddly specific thing to care about, but I've found it incredibly useful when traveling. Whether you're planning a hike, deciding when to head out for the day, or figuring out how long you can stay somewhere before it gets dark, knowing how much daylight you actually have makes the whole day easier to plan.

There's a real chance I'm the only person who finds this interesting, but it is one of those tiny travel habits I never skip.

More Years of Freedom

I recorded a podcast with Fritz from The Retirement Manifesto last week, and he crystallized a connection I'd never quite made before.

We spend decades saving and investing because financial independence can give us more years when we control our time. But taking care of our health is really an investment in the same thing. Staying strong, mobile, and healthy increases the number of years we're able to use that freedom.

Financial independence and physical fitness both buy additional years of usable freedom.

We spend so much time in the FI community thinking about how to make our money last for the rest of our lives. Maybe we should spend just as much time thinking about how to make our health last too.

Around ChooseFI

A few things happening around the ChooseFI community...

🎉 Community Wins

One of the most-loved parts of the newsletter is the ChooseFI Community Taking Action section, and it only continues to exist because you share your wins.  Hit reply to this email and send in your win.

📍 Local Groups

If you haven't already, take 30 seconds to join your local ChooseFI group. You'll automatically receive email notifications about meetups and events in your area, making it easy to connect with other people on the path to FI.

I love seeing what these groups are doing around the country. The St. Louis group has been using the new Local Group Platform that Jonathan built, and more than 80 people showed up for their recent FI 201 presentation on taxes! They filled the room, had a waitlist, and even had a couple drive more than four hours to attend.

This is exactly what we hoped would happen when we rebuilt the Local Group Platform: make it easier for people in the FI community to actually get together in real life.

🎙️ Continue the Conversation

We actually have something a little different this week. On Monday I rereleased Episode 41 with Paige and Sam, one of my favorite conversations about pursuing FI on a lower income in a high-cost-of-living area. Then tomorrow, Episode 612 comes out, where I sit down with Paige again to find out what actually happened over the past nine years. I think you're going to enjoy hearing the rest of the story.

✈️ Travel Rewards

My Top Ten Recommended Travel Rewards Cards page is always up to date, including current welcome offers. If you're thinking about your next travel rewards card, that's the first place I'd look. 

If you apply using our links, ChooseFI earns a commission at no additional cost to you. That support helps keep the podcast and newsletter free, and we're incredibly grateful.

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week