Funding the Adventurous Life
Well…almost free anyway. But more on that in a moment.
Hot off the heels of our trip to Germany in June, I had no plans for any big international trips in 2019, in line with our general “Big Trip Every Other Year” family policy.
All that changed over the course of the last few days, when Mrs. CC caught wind of an incredible deal from Delta offering low-point fare to select European and UK cities, including Zurich, Frankfurt, and London.
Continue reading “How to Fly to Europe for Free”
The binary solutions for work/life balance in climbing tend to be one of the following:
The lifer pursues climbing at all expense and makes ends meet as best as they can. The lifer participates in seasonal work or other flexible jobs that provide an income capable of sustaining life, but allowing for little to no saving for the long term. Individuals on this path are reluctant to place any roots: careers, property, family, long-term relationships. These individuals experience unparalleled freedom, but may harbor deep-seated concerns about their financial future after the youthful years.
The optimizer pursues a career and climbs as much as they can in the margins. This is where most of us fall in modern climbing. We have careers, we may have children, perhaps even own a home. As life demands increase; careers develop, children enter the equation, climbing progressively gets shoved further towards the back burner.
These are the weekend warriors and the people who fill up the campgrounds on the holiday weekends. There is comfort in that this life is a shared experience with most others; almost anyone can relate. These individuals tend to have much healthier and stable incomes, but also tend to fall victim to lifestyle inflation: As income increases, so does unnecessary spending.
Despite vastly higher incomes, the optimizer’s financial future may be no less secure than the lifer, but they may have lots of nice stuff.
Continue reading “Having Your Cake and Eating it Too: The Millionaire Dirtbag, Part 1.”
Two facets of my life that keep me fully engaged are rock climbing and personal finance. I’m guessing you’ve come to this site because you are more interested in one of these seemingly unrelated subjects than the other, but I’ll slowly, hopefully, make the case that there are valuable lessons to learn from my experiences in wading deep into either respective…pool?
Continue reading “The Goal of Clipping Chains: Linking Up Personal Finance and the Climbing World”