1% Better: Life Insurance Comparison

Pursuing FI is all about taking small actions that, when compounded, add up to big results. This past month I've received (and shared here in the FI Weekly) a bunch of success stories of people who got insurance quotes that saved them hundreds of dollars a year on either their auto, home, or life insurance policies.

We had Jennifer Fitzgerald, the Co-Founder and CEO of Policygenius, on the show on Episode 132R to walk us through a framework for what types of insurance we need in different stages of our lives. Since then, we've come to really like and trust the team at Policygenius and I think you'll be impressed with them as well.

Your action this week should be to review your term life insurance policy and then take 5 minutes and head over to Policygenius to get quotes from 10+ top insurance providers. I think you'll be surprised by the potential savings!

Voicemail Request: Money & Relationships

Our friend Jillian Johnsrud from the Everyday Courage podcast is joining us on an upcoming ChooseFI episode to discuss money and relationships and we want to feature YOUR voicemail questions.

If you have a question about money and relationships, combining finances, how to communicate, or anything else on the topic, please send us a voicemail this week.

FI Investing in the News

I came across this fantastic article entitled, ‘How to Win at the Stock Market by Being Lazy’ on the New York Times’ website this week and it’s interesting how much it ties into the FI Community’s buy-and-hold, low-cost index fund investing strategy (see the Stock Series from JL Collins). A few sections that jumped out to me:

“Yes, there is abundant greed and venality on Wall Street. But the reality is that the stock market has also offered a path for ordinary people to build wealth — and more so in the last generation than ever before. You haven’t needed to burn down the system. All you’ve had to do is take the laziest, simplest approach to stock investing imaginable, and have a little patience.”

“If the market is rigged, it is rigged in a way that allows people to achieve a substantial return on their money by watching television or playing golf or taking a nap, rather than by spending their hours scouring message boards or developing elaborate theories of how to enact revenge on perfidious hedge funds or learning what the gamma of an option is.”

“But the extraordinary payoffs of being a passive stock market investor are not something to overlook. When you are offered a free lunch — a reasonable expectation of good returns with zero effort and only moderate risk — it makes sense to eat it.”

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

• Edward said, “Win of the week for me thanks to your podcast: Called about an emergency department bill and asked whether they offered a discount for payment in full. They did: 20%! Saved $290 with a 10-minute call!”
• Carolina said, “The 1(thousand)% wins of this month were maxing out our Roth IRAs for 2021 (this is our 3rd year in a row maxing it out in January) and reading A Simple Path to Wealth by J.L. Collins with my husband! We used the reading as bonding time, reading a couple of chapters every day, hitting pause, and discussing how these changes can be made in our life. We got so excited when we figured out that we can be financially independent in 10 to 15 years with regular jobs and smart investing! If we play our cards right, we can retire in our early 40s! Listening to you guys and reading this book makes FI seem like a real possibility, not just some far-fetched dream. Lastly, reading this book really lit a fire under my husband and it was really cool seeing him get passionate and excited about our finances. I felt that moment he got on board the "we can really do this" train. Can't wait to see how much more we will learn during 2021.”
• David said, “My 1% for this week was opening a Custodial account for my daughter after hearing the M1 podcast (Episode 292 with Brian Barnes of M1 Finance). My wife and I are each going to contribute $101 a month to this account for the next 16 years, as my daughter is 2. Assuming normal 8% compounding this amount will be just under $80k when she turns 18! I truly believe most parents would love the ability to set their children up in a financial position of strength and to take your saying we just "looked at the problem a little differently."
• Amber said, “My 1% for this week has 3 parts to it. In September I got my first "real job" as an IT Project Manager, I'd been a self-employed hair stylist for the last 10 years so it's been a big change but knew that taking this job would definitely expand my talent stack and network. This week I'm getting Scrum Master Certified, and starting a 7-week course about digital project management, both of these classes were paid for by my company because I sought out the education and presented it to my boss! I also just got my first raise of 5.25% because I had outstanding review scores for my first employment review, you better believe that extra money is going into Vanguard.”
• Razell said, “Fully funded 2020 and 2021 Roth IRA last week. This is something I would not have been able to do in the past.”

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