Rebel Finance School
Katie & Alan Donegan are once again offering their 10-week Rebel Finance School in 2026, and it starts Monday, June 1.
Rebel Finance School is a completely free personal finance course covering everything from getting out of debt and building emergency funds to investing, Sequence of Returns Risk, and Drawdown Strategy. Each week, you'll get practical, actionable steps to achieve financial freedom.
Plus, this is the course that won them the British Empire Medal from King Charles, and I know it will bring an extraordinary amount of value to your early financial independence journey.
There’s no upsell or hidden costs. They are just trying to bring financial independence education to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe.
You might already be well on your way to financial independence and if so, this is a course you can share with family, friends, and people that aren't on the path to FI yet.
Here’s a link to sign up for the free Rebel Finance School course.
The Surprisingly Simple Formula for Building Muscle
As I discussed in Episode 480 with my trainer Dean Turner, I’ve built more muscle over the last 3 years than I had in my entire life using what I consider to be the most devastatingly simple and effective workout programming imaginable.
This is such a FI-minded workout plan because it makes sense, it’s grounded in science, and it works so effectively it feels like a cheat code.
I’m not a fitness professional, but over the years you’ve trusted me to curate and synthesize ideas that actually work. And since gyms can feel incredibly confusing and intimidating, I wanted to share the simplest framework I’ve found for building muscle effectively:
• Use perfect form on every rep. Lift the weight with control and lower it slowly. Never swing your body or sacrifice form just to move heavier weight. You’re not trying to impress anyone; you’re trying to improve.
• Machines are incredibly effective because they stabilize the body and allow you to target specific muscles without cheating through momentum. Consult YouTube videos to learn how to use each machine properly.
• Aim for roughly 5–10 reps per set. The final 1–2 reps should slow down involuntarily against your will. That’s the signal that the set is hard enough to stimulate growth. Ideally, I like to know that I can’t complete another rep (without perfect form). That’s a muscle-building set.
• If you can’t reach 5 reps, the weight is too heavy. If you reach 10 reps without significant slowdown, increase the weight the next set or next workout. You should always try to add weight or reps every set and every workout.
• Rest at least 3 full minutes between sets and exercises. This was one of the biggest surprises to me. If you’re training hard enough, you genuinely need the recovery time.
• Track everything. Write down your weights, reps, and machine settings. Progress comes from gradually adding reps or weight over time.
That’s really it: train hard, recover fully, and progressively overload over months and years. Simple doesn’t mean easy, but it absolutely works.
Quick side note: Jonathan actually built a workout tracker inside the ChooseFI app community specifically around progressive overload — tracking weights, reps, and gradual improvement over time. He’s been using it himself throughout this process, and has already logged 30 workouts with it so far.
It lives inside the Health section of the app if you want to try it yourself.
If you’re not already using the app, you can grab it here(it's free) : ChooseFI App
Tiny Hotel Room Hacks, Better Sleep
I just got back from a long trip to Japan and one thing has become non-negotiable for me when traveling: optimizing the hotel room for sleep.
Because let’s be honest… hotel rooms are somehow simultaneously designed for sleeping yet filled with glowing LEDs, mystery noises, and curtains that seem philosophically opposed to actually closing.
A few simple fixes make a massive difference:
• Use the hotel hangers with the little metal clips to clamp the curtains together in the middle. Most blackout curtains still leave that annoying beam of sunlight right through the crack. This fixes the problem instantly.
• Cover every glowing red, green, and blue light in the room. Alarm clocks, TVs, smoke detector LEDs, power strips, random unidentified blinking objects from the future. I travel with small blackout stickers for this now. (A couple important notes: Remove any stickers or tape before checking out so housekeeping doesn’t have to deal with them. And obviously don’t cover or interfere with any lights tied to safety equipment or emergency devices.)
• Roll up a towel and place it at the bottom of the door to block hallway light.
• Lower the thermostat more than you think you need. Most people sleep better in a cooler room than they realize.
• Turn the fan to continuous mode if the room allows it. Constant white noise beats random bursts of air conditioning at 2 a.m.
• I’m a stomach/side sleeper, so overly thick pillows are brutal for me. Don’t hesitate to ask the front desk for thinner pillows. Hotels often equate giant fluffy pillows with “luxury,” but for some of us they’re basically a neck injury waiting to happen.
• Put your phone across the room or at least out of arm’s reach. Hotel rooms are already sleep-disrupting enough without adding doomscrolling.
Tiny optimizations. Shockingly large payoff.
A great hotel room is nice.
A great night of sleep is a superpower.
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 will 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 598 where Ginger and I go in-depth with a “Deep Dive Hot Seat.”
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. There’s a new number one card as of last week, so check it out!
(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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I live in the Raleigh/Durham NC area and I have family in central NY. Avelo airlines has a nonstop route from Raleigh to Rochester, and back that has been great for visiting family. They recently came out with a travel rewards card that I signed up for. Free carry on for each flight when using the card, which is about $35 per flight. And I get to select a standard seat for free, which means I will almost always get to choose a window seat without having to pay $30 + for it. This will make visiting my family cost less! — Nick |
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My 1% better for this week: Our local library started offering a seed library. In this case, it's just regular packets of seeds that you could buy in a store that are donated. I picked up about $25 in seeds that I can already start planting. This will help start my garden and produce hundreds of dollars of produce to feed my family and share with others. And gardening gives me free time in the outdoors and exercise. Last year we grew far too many tomatoes to consume. I froze several gallons that we have used throughout the winter in sauces and stews, but I also brought several deliveries to my office. It was a great way to make friends, as people I barely knew came up and thanked me. — Suzanne |
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Here's our family's 1% better--the power of coupons for prescriptions. Because we have very good health insurance through my job and our income level, I had assumed that the "co-pay coupons" provided by drug manufacturers wouldn't apply. But when I went to pick up my most recent prescription, the pharmacist and I struck up a conversation about the high cost of medications. In passing, she mentioned that they accept coupons. I was able to step away from the pickup window, sign up for the coupon, and return to the pickup window to re-run the bill. All told, it only took me 5 minutes even though I had my three kids with me. When they re-ran the bill, my $200 co-pay for this specialty drug was reduced to $0, AND they saved the coupon in the system so it will run at that price moving forward without any additional effort on my part. In total, I'll save over $1600 in medication costs this year for my family all because of the kind pharmacist and my willingness to ask about ways to save money. — Tim |
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Our 1% better this Easter is that my husband resigned! He was in a toxic work situation, and was suffering terribly. We have a few months’ runway, and I know he’ll find something much more suited to him than the high-stress engineering job he had (he’s already talking to our favorite local coffee house/bakery 😁). This past week has been one of the most peaceful of our lives! Here’s to FU money and taking mini-(or maybe permanent?) retirements. — Jennifer |
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My 1% of the week revolves around a vacation my family and I took at the end of March:
— Henry |
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My 1% better was that I looked at my quarterly pension report and saw that the fees I am paying are higher than the average fees for this type of account. I simply sent an email to the company asking to lower the fees, and they lowered them from 1% to 0.7% of my accumulated assets. If your managing company (or any kind of investment company that manages your money) has a report of the average fees, I always feel comfortable asking to be charged the average fees and no more, and I haven't been denied. Make sure to check that number annually. — Lily |
