Funding the Adventurous Life
Hi, how are you? I’ve been doing some traveling by plane. After a 15-month hiatus from the grind, I found refreshment in some good-ole’-fashioned civilization this week. Apologies for the departure, but you will find no tips about finances or rock climbing today. This is an essay on the inherent ridiculousness of human nature and the forgotten joys of plane travel.
Continue reading “Forgotten Lessons From a Jet Plane”
New research presents a natural solution to being smarter, stronger, slimmer, wealthier, more attractive, more likable, less anxious, depressed, and generally far healthier. Sounds dreamy, eh? Is there possibly a natural homeopathic method to improve all these arenas in life; some sort of fountain of youth? The answer is a resounding yes, and the solution is simple: We simply must improve the quantity and quality of our sleep.
But you might already know that.
So how do we actually sleep more and sleep better in a world that wants us awake?
Continue reading “The Shocking Truth About Sleep”
Helloooo friends, and welcome to Clipping Chains. This is your host Mr. CC. Wait…does that sound familiar? If so, you—like me—might find yourself listening to a lot of climbing’s refreshing new podcast: The Nugget Climbing Podcast, by Steven Dimmitt.
Today, we’re flipping the mic, so to speak. Steven shares with us how he decided to leave his traditional job as an engineer, move into a van, and start a podcast about life and climbing. He is cultivating a livable income from a product often given away for free. Most importantly, we discuss how Steven is honing a craft that simply cannot be ignored.
It begs the questions: What does it take to make this a repeatable path?
Continue reading “Steven Dimmitt: Taking the Big Leap”
Most strategies for spending less involve some degree of shaming or a fist-pounding and stoic stance of extreme willpower. But in absence of a complete mental overhaul, what other strategies do we have? The robots, of course. Welcome to the power of automation, our new best friend.
Continue reading “Automation: The Dirty Little Secret to Spending Less”
Life has been good lately, which I correlate with the general sense of hope in the air. I thought this week would be a good opportunity to just check in and talk about life, and uncomfortably for me, my own climbing. After all, aren’t we pursuing financial wellness as part of a broader plan for a life well lived? What is that, anyway? And have we struck the balance lately?
Let’s see.
Continue reading “Lately: Is Hope Really in the Air?”
The long approach mentality is required to last as an investor. But first a story:
Everybodddy…! Yeahhh-ahhh! Rock your bodddyyy! Yeahhh-ahhh!
These were the lyrics absolutely shaking the walls of the Mercat de l’Olivar fish market in Palma, Mallorca as the mid-day closing time approached. The vendors were busy packing up product, mopping, and wiping down metal countertops in a cool and expansive room, rich with the briny, iodine smells of the sea and the thumping sounds of late-90s Backstreet Boys hits.
And oddly enough, hearing a 1997 boy band hit in 2019 left me thinking about staying power and the long approach. Tell em, boys.
Continue reading “The Long Approach to Being Scared of Investing”
Hi. Good morning. How are you? I’m excited this week to bring you a much more in-depth analysis of the Roth Conversion Ladder, a method used to spend retirement money early without penalty and with little to no tax burden. I’ve already talked about this method here, here, and here, but I decided this very important topic needed its own special post.
Changing subjects momentarily, I get a real kick out of directly translating ridiculous American expressions in other languages. For instance, when in a German grocery store in 2018, I suddenly wondered if German lovers addressed each other as honig, the German word for honey.
Honig! I’m home!
See, isn’t that fun?
This week we will investigate the intricate web of methods designed to spend the money you’ve saved. It’s not all milch und honig.
Continue reading “The Bold And Beautiful Roth Conversion Ladder”
I almost didn’t write this post. It’s been such a strange and bizarre year that I didn’t at first consider it representative of the typical “early retirement” experience. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that life—just like those “irregular” regular one-off expenses—is typically atypical. It’s still life, just without a job.
With so much information about self-care, wellness, early retirement, and a life-by-design, I’ve had a lot of time to sift through the noise. And shockingly, perhaps I don’t recommend retiring early.
Here are some lessons from one year without a job…
Continue reading “Six Lessons From a Year Without a Job”
This week we’re taking another look at your specific questions. Today we examine the thorny subject of income and how much is needed to pursue financial independence, how we fund our lives without a job, the best option for medium-term saving goals, some discussion of real estate investing, and a requested expansion on last week’s post about emotional fragility, plus plenty more.
Here’s what you wanted to know…
Continue reading “Your Questions Answered: Volume 2”
Until the advent of the Scientific Revolution and the pronounced growth of technology and tools of human innovation, the vast majority of humans lived in squalid conditions of abject poverty. Picture your modern neighbor with three garages filled with late-model cars, his-and-her jet-skis, and a really impressive angle grinder. In 1437 this same middle-class citizen would be just another expendable, filth-ridden pawn serving some narcissistic warlord. He likely lived with his family in fetid conditions, in very poor health, with a narrow range of skills necessary to provide life or keep from being brutally executed in front of blood-thirsty neighbors hungry for a good-ole’-fashioned Saturday rip-about. Life was extremely difficult for the vast majority of humanity until very recently. Emotional fragility was not a useful trait.
Life, without question, sucked.
Today, developed societies have everything. We squabble over macronutrient ratios and the pros and cons of carbs while failing to appreciate that our ancestors would have dropped dead of a heart attack if they stepped into a Costco or the produce section at Whole Foods. We have vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers that vacuum and mow without us even being present! The internet provides endless information and the ability to make (in theory) well-informed choices and decisions to better our lives.
Life is unquestionably better and easier in modern times. Yet for so many of us…life still sucks. We aren’t happy, and we’re getting less happy every year.
Why are we so unhappy when life is so much easier? Are we becoming an emotionally fragile society?
Continue reading “Emotional Fragility: Is This the New Normal?”