Funding the Adventurous Life
Raise your hand if you want to climb more but work seems to always take up so much time? This notion of balancing work and life is essentially the essence of what we do on this site, and there’s nobody better to discuss this intricate balance than elite-level climber and software engineer Mike Doyle.
Continue reading “Mike Doyle: A Remote-Controlled Climbing Life”
I’m sort of fascinated with the concept of fear. It’s the entire subject of this post, but it’s also something I weave into a lot of my thinking and writing. Steve Bechtel told us how fear affects his clients, noting the powerful, crippling effect of worry, inaction, and ultimately⏤unfulfilled potential. All the best ideas mean nothing when we lay catatonic and hesitant to act on those ideas. It therefore seemed suitable for me to reach out to Hazel Findlay.
Hazel Findlay is a UK-based professional climber known for bold, traditional ascents. To use the American parlance, Hazel steps up to the plate.
Not only has Hazel learned to harness and use fear to propel her climbing career, but she’s begun a coaching career in tandem to mold and shape the fear of others. And speaking of fear, we discuss how her blossoming climbing career nearly came to an early end.
Continue reading “Hazel Findlay: Fear Is Trainable”
Howdy! Last week on Should I Buy a Home (Part 1), we established that home ownership isn’t really a good “investment.” Make sure you go back and take a gander at that post first. But, when compared to the cost of renting all along, is home ownership still a better long-term financial decision, especially for early retirement? Or did we pay the biggest expense of all…opportunity cost?
Stick with me here. This sort of stuff was never my forte years ago, but I’ve grown to love this like Mrs. CC grew to love sushi. We can all learn to love raw fish, seaweed, rice, and investment return analysis.
Continue reading “Should I Buy a Home? Part 2: Opportunity Cost”
In the personal finance world, the decision to own a home or rent is a particularly frothy debate. Traditionally, the long-held belief goes something like this: a home is an investment and a path to building wealth. I’m here to put a gentle and understanding hand on your shoulder, but deliver the hard news that your home is no longer an investment or an even remotely efficient wealth-building machine (was it ever?). But can it still be a better long-term financial alternative to rent?
This will be the first in an on-again-off-again series as we consider selling our home over the next year. We plan to document all incurred costs of homeownership, and compare to what we likely would have spent if renting all along.
But as current homeowners, was it a mistake for us buy in the first place? What should you do if you are weighing home ownership? Quick, math!
Continue reading “Should I Buy a Home? Part 1”