Funding the Adventurous Life
This week I decided to dig through my emails and finish answering some questions.
In this post we take another look at investing now vs later, the dynamics of financial independence without retiring early, housing and home ownership, more on day trading and investing apps, what the hell I do with my time, and much more.
Here is what is keeping you guys up at night, or at least spurring mild curiosity.
Continue reading “Your Questions Answered: Volume One”
Hey guys. I know that 2020 was a hard year. And 2021 only seems like a continuation of that trend. It’s easy to throw up our hands or hunker in a ball, suck our filthy, calloused thumbs, and wait. But that’s not the solution.
Despite everything that happened in 2020, the S&P 500 returned over 18%. For those of you with money in the market back in the late February and March, I hope you held your breath and squeezed your butt cheeks while the sky was falling. During that time the S&P 500 fell over 30% from its recent highs, with several pucker-inducing drops of 10%+ per day! For those who stuck to the plan and avoided market timing, you did just fine.
For instance, someone with $1 million dollars invested on January 1, 2020 ended the year with approximately $180,000 in gains for doing nothing other than owning an index fund. That’s real, folks. Of course, we have to pay tribute to the inevitable years this will not be the case (where we could lose just as much as we made), but over time, history shows us that the market returns approximately 7-10% per year, on average.
These are the simple little things that we did every year. The result? We were able to walk away from paid work in our 30s.
Does financial freedom appeal to you?
Here’s how we can set the ball rolling in 2021.
Continue reading “Your 2021 Guide To Actually Saving Real Money”
This week I’m thrilled to bring you an interview with a pinch of international spice and flavor. Please welcome to the site, the legendary Australian climber Lee Cujes.
In this interview we take a hard look at the long-term aspects of finding a balance on career, lifestyle, relationships, nails-hard climbing, and future prosperity. Lee graciously shares with us how he was able to carve a career niche while climbing at an elite level, how he and his wife Sam made the big move out of the city to a small climbing mecca in the Blue Mountains, and how Lee has used the same, boring and lazy-ass methods of passive investing to build an enduring path to financial freedom. And during some of his darkest days, Lee and Sam embarked on an incredible global climbing trip. Yeah, let’s discuss that too.
Shall we?
Continue reading “Lee Cujes: Super Psyched on the Long Game”
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”
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”
Oh boy! Nothing like a good bear market/recession quick-slider combo to stir the simmering pot in the investing world! There’s no need for a long introduction. Let’s dive into the meat: why market timing still doesn’t work.
Continue reading “Market Timing: Why It (Still) Doesn’t Work”
It’s clear now that we will be stuck in our homes for all of April, doing our part to stem the spread of the coronavirus. And let’s be real, I’ve got a close eye on May as well, if not October. While we may be minimizing our physical health risks by staying at home, the negative effects of boredom might be the second-wave infection facing our society. What can we do to maintain or even improve our prospects for sound mental and financial health during these times?
Continue reading “Boredom? Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That”
I don’t want to talk much about the novel coronavirus today. I want to talk about money, because that is what I do here. Money may not be a priority for you and your family now amongst a spreading virus. However, I want to calmly acknowledge that the world is also facing a very real personal finance threat, one that could be far more impactful for most Americans than the virus itself (which I’m not taking lightly). Before we make rash decisions in a time of panic and hysteria, let’s examine some important headlines from the 2008 financial crisis and why those messages are so incredibly important right now.
Continue reading “Shocking Headlines of the 2008 Financial Crisis”
Happy Monday! What a week! The coronavirus is spreading like southern Kudzu and is now officially a pandemic. Social distancing is suddenly the new order, flaming a wildfire of fear and panic, crippling the economy. The stock market is currently down 20% from its February high. The S&P 500 dropped 9.5% in a single day. And then the very next day the market bounced back 9.3%. We have entered bear market territory, ending the historic 11-year bull market run. OPEC meddling crashed oil prices. And I just quit my job. We have (had?) big plans for a new way of life. So, what’s changed?
Continue reading “The Sky is Falling: Lessons from the Coronavirus”
Hey, hey, hey! Some cash just landed in your lap. Or perhaps you have a vested interest in your company, and now your stock is available to sell or transfer. What do you do with it? Do you keep it? Invest it elsewhere all at once as a lump sum and hope the market doesn’t fall (further)? Is it best to dollar-cost-average? WTF is dollar-cost-average?! But isn’t there about to be a recession?? Ahhh!! Let’s take a look!
Continue reading “I Have Cash! Is Now a Bad Time to Invest?!”