Q3 Net Worth, Coast FI Summit, LA Live Event, Investing Questions Plus Community Wins

I recently started the Rebel Finance School with Alan and Katie Donegan. I've always known to pay off high-interest-rate loans, but today I put it into practice. By paying the minimum on my other loans and reallocating the extra I was paying towards them, I will be able to pay off my worst loan by August 2026. So excited!

— Mary

I was recently laid off from my tech job. Instead of panic I am taking the time to decide what I want to do next. I have this luxury because we have been doing FIRE and know we will be financially fine.

— Maryann

My wife and I decided we were FIRE four years ago, and retired at 60. Because our numbers work, I’ve found the mental side of retirement to be the area that needs the most investment. The time freedom of retirement has been awesome. Conversely I feel losing connections and purpose from our jobs made our relationship challenges more daunting.

While I agree with the suggestion to choose your mood as mentioned in the June 17th email, my 1% better comes from the decision to stop forcing myself to be positive. That practice was one part of stuffing down and trying to ignore all but a narrow range of emotions.

This pattern is a common result of social pressures on men. My wife and I have been on a counseling journey for five years, and less than a year ago I opted to follow a suggestion to try antidepressants. Along with learning to be okay with not always being okay, I’ve gained perspective and became more resilient in the process. I suspect we’ll be able to ‘fire’ our counselors in the next 12-24 months.

— Chris

This week, my 1% wins were focused on ads and privacy. One of the biggest barriers to choosing FI is ADVERTISEMENTS. Advertisement companies are using absolutely every dirty trick in the book to make you buy things you don't need and don't improve quality of life in any meaningful way. Hand-in-hand with ads is internet tracking - every website that sells your data contributes to more targeted ads.

This week, I switched the search engines on all my devices to DuckDuckGo. I made sure I had ad blockers and tracking blockers on all my browsers (uBlock Origin, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Decentraleyes).

I unsubscribed from a couple dozen email lists that were just trying to sell me things. And I started transitioning out of Google's product ecosystem (starting with moving Gmail to Proton Mail), but that will take more than a week! I was initially intimidated trying to move away from Google tools, but there's tons of guides on simple export/import processes - it's not as bad as I was expecting.

— Courtney

My 1% Win: Leveraging AI to Build a Smarter Budget (and More)

For a long time, budgeting felt overwhelming. I knew it was essential for financial independence, but I struggled to get a clear picture of my spending and often avoided the process altogether. The friction came from trying to categorize expenses manually, second-guessing myself, and not knowing where to start. That changed when I began using AI tools to assist with financial planning.

Recently, I used ChatGPT to help analyze my spending habits and build a realistic budget—something that previously felt like a weekend-long task. I uploaded a list of transactions from my bank and credit cards, and asked it to help me identify patterns, blind spots, and areas of improvement. Within an hour, I had a categorized breakdown, clearer insights into my financial behavior, and a working budget tailored to my goals.

What surprised me most was how many small but consistent expenses I had been overlooking—things like digital subscriptions, eating out more frequently than I realized, and a few automatic charges I thought I had canceled. By shining a light on those, I’ve already started making smarter choices with minimal effort.

Beyond budgeting, I’ve since used AI to:

Draft negotiation scripts for a raise

Plan recurring tasks to reduce mental load

Reflect on long-term financial goals with more structure and clarity

Identify my exact savings rate, and generated projections with "larger shovels"

That said, it’s not a hands-off process. I’ve learned it’s crucial to review all outputs carefully. AI can be a huge time-saver, but it can also make incorrect assumptions or miss context. Treating it like a smart assistant—not an all-knowing expert—has helped me get the most value out of it.

This experience reminded me that small shifts in approach can unlock major progress. The task I dreaded now feels manageable—even empowering. It’s not perfect, but it’s 1% better than yesterday, and that momentum is real.

— Aaron (with AI)

This past week my husband and I bought our first home! It’s a duplex which we plan to have a tenant by early Fall after some updates. Then eventually move out to create a stream of passive income.

It’s been exciting to not follow the norm of buying a single family home and fun to talk about supporting our future children with this income or place to live. By taking the leap now early in our 30s, we are setting ourselves up for continuing to create the life we want.

— Andrea