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July 2, 2024: Everyday Adventures, Simple Path Summarized, Q2 Net Worth, Luck plus Community Wins

Brad
Posted by Brad Barrett

Everyday Adventures

I just returned from an 11-day trip to Europe and while you’re reading this, I’ll be finishing up another short trip – this time to Kansas City to watch the US men’s national soccer team play a match against Uruguay.

This is part of my new mindset to build more fun and adventure into my life.

A perfect example of this mindset was on display when we visited London last week:

There is a flying trapeze school (no joke!) right in the middle of central London that’s available to anyone off the street who wants to sign up.

How crazy is that?!?

My daughters and I took the class and we were 3 of only 4 people in the class who qualified to do the ‘extra credit’ at the end.

Take a look at this short 27-second video of me doing the flying trapeze and at the end you’ll see what that extra credit was all about! (all 3 of us completed it!)

My challenge to you:

Find something in your city or state that puts you just outside your comfort zone and sign up for it today.

I definitely experienced some fear each time I climbed that little ladder up to the trapeze platform, but I pushed through it 5 times and was really proud of myself.

Simple Path to Wealth Summarized

The Sloth Investor put together this 7-minute YouTube summary of JL Collins’ masterpiece, ‘The Simple Path to Wealth.’

If you haven’t read the book, or you want a short refresher, this video, with 6 main summary points, is the perfect place to get started.

In my opinion, ‘The Simple Path to Wealth’ is the most important FI book ever written and it’s always good to reacquaint yourself with its main messages.

One of my favorite quotes from the books is highlighted in the video:

“Stop thinking about what money can buy. Start thinking about what your money can earn. And then think about what the money it earns can earn.

Once you begin to do this, you’ll start to see that when you spend money, not only is that money gone forever, the money it might have earned is gone as well.”

Q2 Net Worth Statement

Every 3 months I take 5 minutes to update my net worth spreadsheet and I think this is the most important thing you can do to track your finances.

The 2nd quarter of 2024 just ended and here’s your reminder to update your net worth spreadsheet.

If you haven’t done this before, it’s really simple:

  • Log into each bank/brokerage account you own and write down the current balance

  • Add those balances together with the market value of any real estate or other significant assets you own. This makes up your Total Assets

  • Write down all debts you owe including mortgage, credit, student loans, etc. and add them together to get your Total Liabilities.

  • Total Assets minus Total Liabilities = Net Worth

Track this quarterly and watch this amazing journey to FI unfold before your eyes!

Thoughts on Luck

“I’m not lucky. I put myself in that situation. Luck doesn’t happen Sunday night watching The Kardashians on your couch. It happens when you put yourself in an environment where the universe can reward you for being there. And then you have to be good at what you do, and take advantage of it.

So, my 20s and 30s were built around putting myself in environments where I could get lucky.”

- Jesse Itzler on the Prof G Pod

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

Our 1% better this week! My husband serviced our vehicles; a truck oil change and headlight replacement (bought on Amazon parts) and a van brakes local parts store with a lifetime warranty. While he was doing that our girls and I made breakfast; chocolate chip waffles, cinnamon sugar French toast and mixed berry pancakes items for our upcoming vacation.

We made a menu for the vacation so we don't have to eat out every meal while on vacation. We are currently looking at the options to create memories during our vacation. We are also trying to connect with the local FI chapter to get their insight about the area.

- Deaon

Shopping around for car insurance, and using my company's corporate discount to go from $3200 premium for 6 months (for 4 cars), to $1798 premium for 6 months. Kicking myself for not doing this earlier!

- Tatiana

My wife and I have recently become net worth millionaires! We have 3 year old identical twin boys and I've been working 12 hour shifts for 8 years or so. Unfortunately this prevented me from seeing my sons on my work days so our 1% better was me accepting a .8 position with a flexible schedule.

Thanks to a solid budget and consistent investing, my family has the freedom to take this job with a small cut in my annual salary but less hours overall at the age of 30. Starting next week I will see my family every day.

- Jordan

My 1% improvement for the week: my husband is a little uncertain about pivoting 50% of our income into retirement investments. Currently, we invest 6% to capture his employer match (I'm a SAHM). As we move toward FI, we've agreed to reconvene on the subject quarterly to allocate more of our margin towards 401(k)/IRA until we get to 50% or reach a spot where we can't afford to put more away.

I wanted us to be thinking long term as we're investing so I put projections of when he would be able to retire based on our current savings ratio, next goal savings ratio, and our final savings ratio goal of 50%.

When he saw that he would be unable to retire until 98 while maintaining our current life style, he couldn't believe his eyes. When I demonstrated to him that a 50% savings rate would cut it down to 47, things seemed to click more in his head. Here's to greater unity and making motivated next steps!

- Hanna

I have a desk job so I get very little exercise, and I've never had success getting into a regular workout routine. The smallest amount of weekend yard work would make me super sore the next day. I recently realized that no matter how busy my day is, I always take time to make several cups of coffee.

So I decided to start doing "K-cup Workouts". While I wait on my k-cup to brew, I do a set of push-ups or sit-ups. That's it, that's my whole routine. Repeat 3x per day. At first I could only do about 20 push-ups or sit-ups and would be very sore the next day. Now I can do 50 sit-ups per k-cup, or 70 push-ups, and I don't even get sore!

- George

Went to my nephew's high school graduation this past weekend. We sat down together and he opened up a Roth IRA. He deposited his first $100 (and took the next step to actually buy a fund). I told him I'd match all his Roth contributions 50% until 2030 to help keep him motivated. He was able to get started investing much sooner than I was and cant wait to see what his future brings!

- Aunt Val

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