Free Events in Your Town/City

On one of our earliest episodes, Liz from Frugalwoods.com taught us something that might be counterintuitive: Entertainment in a city can be incredibly inexpensive. Free in many cases.

There are many cultural events, museum exhibits, and university offerings (among many others) that are completely free – if you just take the time to look for them.

My family loves outdoor activities and we learned that The Valentine museum offers free “self-guided Richmond history tours” complete with pdf walking guides and maps.

2 of the past 3 weekends we’ve set out, maps in hand, and explored areas of the city we’d only ever heard about!

What activities can you find for free in your local area?

Words to Live By: Alan Donegan Edition

Our good friend Alan Donegan from the Rebel Entrepreneur podcast posted a video on Facebook about a 40 burpees per day physical fitness challenge he’s taking part in with his wife Katie.

The video of Alan & Katie doing their burpees rocked my world: At the end of each burpee, they each jumped as high as they possibly could.

I wrote to Alan, “Those are legit jumps at the end!”

To which he responded, “Push every one and go the highest possible!!”

Aren’t those just amazing words to live by?

If I’m honest with myself, when I do burpees, I do the smallest possible jump just to check it off as a legit rep.

Instead of doing the minimum possible to succeed, what if we all lived life like Alan & Katie and pushed it constantly? Something to really ponder in all aspects of life.

The Psychology of Money

I highly recommend you listen to Morgan Housel talking about his new book ‘The Psychology of Money’ on the Afford Anything and Mad Fientist podcasts.

He does a great job of explaining the FI mindset and I think this quote is incredibly important to remember:

“The world is filled with people who look modest but are actually wealthy and people who look rich who live at the razor's edge of insolvency. Keep this in mind when quickly judging others' success and setting your own goals.”

My summary: Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses. Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks about you and don’t try to look “rich.” That’s a surefire way to end with an empty bank account and some fancy possessions that nobody is impressed with.

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ChooseFI Community Taking Action this Week

• David said, “I am in the process of a deck remodel. The company I was going to get the deck boards from ended up not being able to deliver to me so I went through Lowes instead. The deck boards were cheaper at the other company but I asked Lowes for a price match and as a result I saved around $200. The only reason I bothered to ask for a price match was because I got the idea from a previous ChooseFI email. That email literally saved me $200. Thanks!”
• Grace said, “This week I got an 8.6% raise! I work really hard, and I also learned to negotiate (starting with the ChooseFI episode on negotiation, "Her first 100k"). I also switched my husband's and my phone plan to Mint Mobile, saving us about $60/month total, and I quit one of my side hustles that wasn't worth the time/effort.”
• Jen said, “This week my husband and I started refinishing our hardwood floors. The previous owner of our house did not take care of them so it was either fix them by refinishing or wait and replace later. We decided to refinish them ourselves and all in it cost $250, versus the $2000 per room it would cost to be professionally done.”
• Kyle said, “My FI win of the week was being able to start and fund our newborn baby's 529 plan for the year using points from cashback credit cards. This was a big win for my wife and I as we were able to do this in addition to our annual FI goals of maxing out my 401K and our individual IRAs. We are well on our way to the path of FI and are glad to onboard our daughter on the same path to success!
• Kristin said, “While my husband and I were applying to rent a house last month, I remembered various guests talking about leveraging the power of paying up front. We were able to beat out 40 other applicants by making a cover letter and paying 6 months’ rent up front. Now we are settled into a lovely house in our dream neighborhood!”

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