Funding the Adventurous Life
We leave our home in Denver on July 13, 2020. The house is yet to be listed for sale, and we pull off in a 90-square-foot A-frame camper, hitting the road north for Wyoming. One month later, and we’re still chugging along.
So, how’s it going?
Continue reading “One Month on the Road: Getting a Groove”
Okay friends, let’s do an interview, shall we? This week I bring you Bethany Macke, a climber and trainer with a unique approach to correcting muscle imbalances and mechanics, an often-overlooked foundation to building movement skills. Bethany, along with her husband Adam, bring more than just a different approach to training. She also has an interesting story of change, adversity, and building meaningful work, even during the pandemic. And sometimes change comes in high doses. In the age of Covid, there’s much we can learn from Bethany’s resiliency, and mastery of the career and personal pivot. And of course, we even discuss a bit about the freedom of financial strength.
One quick note: Bethany has a lot of great little nuggets in this interview, so it’s a long one. Please let me know in the comments or via email if you’d prefer to see interviews this long broken into two or more parts. Or maybe you prefer it all in one place. Let me know!
Let’s go!
Continue reading “Bethany Macke: The Powerful Art of the Pivot”
The following are fictional narratives of many of the character traits, decisions, and habits that either my wife or I have exhibited, or those observed or communicated by readers of this website. Let’s examine together some of the many common scenarios where young people set the ball rolling on a path to destroying their finances.
Continue reading “How to Destroy Your Finances in Your 20s and 30s”
The global coronavirus pandemic flipped the world on its head: spreading tentacles of infection led to a stock market collapse and unprecedented unemployment for those not fortunate to have remote work. A thick, dry underbrush of discontent and polarization grew unchecked for months, sparked by a series of lightning strikes, resulting in a raging inferno. People amassed on the streets in search of change, driving each side someplace closer to their dreaded corners of hate.
With a new decade came so much promise, yet the rate of change experienced in the first seven months of 2020 feels like that new decade has already come to pass. So much to consider in seven months.
But with all this negativity can come so much promise. While there can be an element of guilt to consider silver linings, we must. We must always look for promise and hope in times of darkness, for every night eventually turns to day.
One such ray of sunshine is the movement towards a more permanent remote work culture. The fortunate white-collar world has been working business on top, party on the bottom (nice shirt for the screen, underwear in the seat) since March.
So…what’s it going to take to keep that cushy remote job in a post-pandemic world?
Continue reading “Keeping Remote Work in a Post-Pandemic World”
This week I bring you the first installment of our homeless series from beautiful Lander, Wyoming. As described in this post, we’ve decided to list our house for sale and hit the road for an extended road trip. In our first week, we’ve seen the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of life on the road. Are we built to last?
Continue reading “Week 1: Lander, Wyoming: Working Out the Kinks”
The often-touted rule-of-thumb for achieving financial independence is to secure 25 times one’s annual expenses via intentional saving and investing. Even though these are simple systems, we know from the second or third grade that multiplying things by 25 produces much bigger numbers than the thing itself (our spending in this case). Therefore, it seems absolutely outlandish to imagine saving that much money! Outlandish, I tell you!
So, as with many difficult endeavors in life, the tendency is to focus too narrowly on the distant target, and then immediately get overwhelmed. And in doing so, we may never start in the first place. Behaviors remain unchanged; the status quo is preserved.
How can a series of simple systems be implemented to change our lives forever?
Continue reading “The Simple Systems to Kicking Monetary Ass”
It’s July. Once again, coronavirus infections are surging across the country. Mrs. CC and I, in a moment of hopeful optimism a few weeks ago, decided to list our house for sale. Where are we going? We don’t know, we’ll be homeless. Will we have income? Not sure. Considering we’re hitting the road in one week, there’s the shocking reality that we really don’t have a plan. And if we are anything, we are planners.
So…where do we go from here?
Continue reading “Selling Our House: On the Road, Pandemic Edition”
Alright folks, we’re finally getting back on the interview wagon, and I’m pleased this week to bring you Nate Drolet. Nate, at 31 years young, is a coach, trainer, and podcast co-host for Power Company Climbing, a well-rounded climber (he has climbed multiple 5.14a routes and V12 boulders), and a master of movement. Nate also takes an admirably pragmatic approach to learning and self-improvement.
In many cases, it might be as simple as mind over matter…
Continue reading “Nate Drolet: So You Want to be a Coach?”
Things aren’t always as they seem. Today’s Wall Street darling can quickly fade to black with a single headline. The company that everyone is talking about around the water cooler, while popular, could make for a terrible investment. Helping to fund a new neighborhood restaurant might sound like a fantastic idea, but are the fundamentals there to generate a sustainable return? Today we examine the pitfalls of investing in individual enterprises or commodities, like Bitcoin. But hey, we can still have our fun. Here’s how.
I’ll begin with a story.
Continue reading “Bitcoin and Other Things You Shouldn’t Own”
Hi guys. Many in the financial independence community see a new car as the sunlight and garlic to an otherwise sublime fiscal vampire existence.
Thou shalt not buy a new car!
Well, thankfully there are no rules in financial independence, so we bought a new car. Twice. In three months. And we learned a hell of a lot in the process about how to get a good deal.
Continue reading “How to Get a Fantastic Deal on a New Car”