Financial Advice for Your 28 Year Old Self, Berkshire Quotes, EconoMe 2023 Speeches

Alicia posed an interesting question in our Facebook group this week (and wow, the group recently grew to over 100,000 members!!) that I wanted to include here in the FI Weekly, along with some of my favorite responses:

Alicia asked, "If you could go back and tell your 28 year old self one piece of advice regarding finances, what would you tell yourself?"

Some responses that jumped out to me among the nearly 250 comments:

Rosa said, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to having a job. Have multiple jobs that equal part time or full time. Work for yourself if at all possible. Save as much money as you can, keep the car you have, and live well below your means. All things I'm doing now. Future is looking good."

Molly said, "Talk regularly about money with your partner if you have one. The less frequent, the more emotional conversations can get. There’s no reason for that- find your shared vision so you can frame conversations around creating the future you imagine."

Greg said, "You can't beat the market. Stop trying."

Bob said, "Trust in the power of compounding…. It starts slow but as the years go by … it is an amazing transformation."

Catherine said, "Live frugally while in college and grad school so you don’t end up with so much school debt."

Diana said, "Buy a house with a duplex, have the tenant pay your mortgage."

Berkshire Buffett and Munger Quotes

The Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting was held this past weekend and as usual, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger shared essential wisdom and I wanted to pass along my favorites:

Buffett: "Write your obituary and try to figure out how to live up to it. For business, you just want to make sure you don't make any mistakes that take you out of the game or come close to taking you out of the game. You should never have a night when you're worried about investing. You should spend a little bit less than you earn."

Buffett: "I've never known anybody who was kind that died without friends. But I've known plenty of people with money that died without friends."

Munger: "It's so simple: you spend less than you earn. Invest shrewdly. Avoid toxic people and toxic activities. Try to keep learning all your life. And do a lot of deferred gratification. If you do all of those things, you are almost certain to succeed. And if you don't, you're going to need a lot of luck. And you don't want to need a lot of luck. You want to go into a game where you're very likely to win without having any unusual luck."

Ebikes, Lazy Landlords and Much More

I talked about the EconoMe conference on a recent podcast episode and mentioned a few of the main stage speeches in detail.

Enough people followed up with me specifically asking about Kevin Ha’s ebike presentation and James Lowery’s ‘Lazy Landlord’ speech that I wanted to link up the entire list of 8 main stage speeches that Diania just posted on the EconoMe YouTube feed.

There were some real gems in here long on inspiration and if you have the time, I’d highly suggest watching this entire slate of videos.

ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week

Zuhayr said, "My 1% better recently has been getting an Amex Platinum credit card because the fees are waived for military members and then using that card to get reimbursed for an audible membership where I was able to download and listen to JL Collins Simple Path to Wealth 100% for free. I'm excited to use some of the other benefits and I'm also going to be looking into the Choose FI posts on travel rewards with the Southwest Companion pass soon to better understand how that whole process works."

Chase said, "My 1% better for the week was booking roundtrip flights for my bucket list trip to New Zealand this November. I used my Alaska points and got both flights for basically free (one of which will be my first ever business class flight!), and saved myself over $2000. A few years ago, I would have never thought this sort of travel would be within my budget. ChooseFI and travel rewards has permanently changed my life for the better!"

Quinton said, "My 1% better is asking for a raise. I asked for $6 an hour raise. My director called me with great news. They were giving me an $8 raise! From that raise process, the HR department realized I slipped through the cracks for pay increases. I was getting paid $3.75 an hour less than I should have been. Now the HR department is going to back pay me for all the hours I was underpaid over the past year. I would have never asked for a raise if you all didn't talk about it on the podcast! I'm so grateful for everything you all do, thanks!"

Lauren said, "My 1% better was reaching out to my credit card company (Citibank) to reverse a late fee. I was ready to make my case for the reversal as it was a onetime mistake. I paid after midnight on EST, when I'm on PST. I thought talking to a rep through the chat would be the easiest. I felt a bit worried when I saw the chat on the Citi app was a bot. But I asked for a late fee waiver anyway… and voila! The bot granted it to me without any need to prove my case. Hope this can be encouraging to others in the situation!"

Casimir said, "My 1% better this week was getting some in-person time scheduled with my best friend. It has been months since we last saw each other and those days together are some of the more enjoyable ones I can have."

Olivia said, "My 1% better was working on lowering our recurring expenses. We switched phone plans to Pure Talk (Mint Mobile not available in my area) canceled 2 streaming services, and switched car insurance. For only a couple hours of work these adjustments saved about $230/ month!

Sheila said, "I ate less meat and more veggies which helps my budget and my inflammation, and I created a vision board and wrote in a gratitude journal."

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