I thought these visual-friendly brackets would help in your 2024 planning and 2023 taxes. Bookmark and enjoy!
2024 Tax Brackets That Don’t Suck (and 2023 too)
QA12: Will A Life Of Financial Independence Meet Expectations?
We’re back to the digital mailbag to answer your questions!
For this week:
- An update on markets and our personal finance situation
- The role of dividends in growth and withdrawal assumptions
- Expectations vs reality on a life of financial independence
- Our experience with health insurance without employer-sponsored plans
- Real estate investing: an update on our experiences and economics as remote landlords
- Health insurance considerations for long-term travel
- Short- to medium-term savings goals (like a house) versus saving for retirement
- Loss of purpose without a traditional job
- So much more!
Dr. Jim Dahle of the White Coat Investor on Building the Ideal Life
Jim Dahle is the founder of the White Coat Investor, a widely consumed personal finance and investing blog and podcast specifically designed for physicians and other high-income careers. What Jim created in 2011 as a simple blog has grown into a multi-media empire that now employs fifteen people and hosts content from a range of columnists.
Jim has cut back from his full-time (plus) emergency physician career and White Coat Investor responsibilities to focus on what makes life worth living, and that’s where I wanted to pick up this conversation. Jim is a climber, husband, and father of four. Today we discuss how he’s managed to step away, at least slightly, from his hard-charging career and blogging days to what he’s now describing as his ideal life.
Continue reading “Dr. Jim Dahle of the White Coat Investor on Building the Ideal Life”QA11: Laying It Out in Simple Terms
We’re back to the digital mailbag to answer your questions!
For this week:
- How has my lifestyle evolved since achieving financial independence and how do I spend my time?
- Updated thoughts on money and markets
- Are we putting too much faith in institutions like Vanguard?
- Can and should life insurance policies be used for retirement savings?
- Tax avoidance versus accepting higher tax rates
- What is a Simple IRA and how does it differ from a 401(k)? Can I still do Roth conversions?
- Savings rates are great! Should I pay less on my loans to maximize my savings?
- Big picture: Where do I start on getting my financial life together?
- Outreach and presentations
- So much more!
What Happened to Frugality?
Frugality is an endearing element of saving money and living the good life. But interestingly, the recent discourse in personal finance circles has seemingly shifted to embrace spending over saving. What is going on, how did this happen, and why should we care?
Continue reading “What Happened to Frugality?”Jeff and Priti Wright: You Might Need a Sabbatical
Today on episode 64 I’m excited to welcome Priti and Jeff Wright, two accomplished young professional alpinists from Seattle, WA. In 2020, Priti, a software developer, and Jeff, a mechanical engineer at Boeing, embarked on a year-long sabbatical to travel across the globe and climb alpine objectives in Patagonia, France, and Pakistan, finishing by the beach in Hawaii.
The trip was wildly successful, even amid the raging pandemic, including ascents of the Cerro Torre, the six classic North Faces of the Alps in a single season (including the Eiger North Face in winter), culminating in the first ascent of K6 Central and the third ascent of K6 West—both 7000+-meter peaks—in the Karakoram Range of Pakistan.
In contrast to early retirement, Priti and Jeff make the compelling case for a traditional career peppered with sabbaticals. This episode is filled with lifestyle and career philosophy, planning concepts, detailed financial considerations, and just a damn good time. And they are even planning their next sabbatical in 2024, which will look drastically different than their trip in 2020. You won’t want to miss this one.
Continue reading “Jeff and Priti Wright: You Might Need a Sabbatical”Brent Barghahn: Real Estate Investing and the Future of Home Ownership
Today on episode 59 I’m pleased to host Brent Barghahn, a 29-year-old elite climber who used real estate investment as a way to effectively “retire” from his career as an engineer in the outdoor industry in his late twenties.
Brent and I discussed a fascinating reality on the idea of dream jobs, the growing trend of short-duration careers (and what that means for society), and of course many details on Brent’s path to financial strength and community building through his preferred method of real estate investment. Of course, though, I wanted to discuss the stark differences in today’s high interest rate and sky-high price environment, which has changed markedly in the last year. It begs the question: can someone still be successful as a real estate investor today? I have my concerns, so we aired out some of them in today’s episode.
Finally, we take an interesting look at the realities of full-time climbing and why Brent has found he needs more. Also, Brent and I admittedly harbor negative sentiments on the world of social media, especially in climbing. What narratives and stories are being missed by the modern form of shallow media consumption?
Continue reading “Brent Barghahn: Real Estate Investing and the Future of Home Ownership”Lean Out: The Achievement Paradox with Dawn Baker
Today on episode 57 I’m pleased to welcome Dawn Baker, a board-certified anesthesiologist, wife, mother, climber, coach, and now the author of a new book about the perils of, as she puts it, an intense need to achieve. And Dawn has walked the walk. After years of hard-driving pursuit of linear improvement in both career and climbing, she suffered crushing fatigue and malaise, and ultimately faced a major health crisis during her residency. If that wasn’t enough, she was then plagued with infertility problems. The result was expensive and demoralizing rounds of in-vitro fertilization, an approach that ultimately proved successful and led to the birth of her daughter.
The need for achievement and success is so pervasive in our culture. And this interview is not just for downtown or medical center careerists. This is as much a discussion of climbing and our hobbies, which can so often derail into something quite different from our original healthy and recreational pursuits.
Today, Dawn’s life with her husband and daughter is so different. Through evaluation of her core values, married with a strong financial position, she now works “very part time,” and has moved with her family to a homestead in the high plateaus of southern Utah. But in choosing to step away, or lean out, as Dawn says, we risk our position and standing in the social hierarchy. This is much a discussion of status as it is of lifestyle.
Continue reading “Lean Out: The Achievement Paradox with Dawn Baker”Joy and Tyler Black on Career, Money Mindsets, and Parenting
Today’s guests on episode 51 are Joy and Tyler Black. Many of you may be familiar with Joy, who has rapidly built a successful online business as a coach for pregnant and postpartum rock climbers. If you follow Joy on Instagram, you know her as a fun-loving and engaging mother of three, with a reputation for solid technical and personal coaching. Tyler on the other hand, is not a climber at all. He’s a biologist with a contrasting, yet highly complementary personality. In that way, they make for fantastic interview subjects on the discussion of relationships, money, career, and parenting.
Continue reading “Joy and Tyler Black on Career, Money Mindsets, and Parenting”Earning to Buy Time with Meghan and Jeff (A Way to FI)
Today’s guests on episode 44 are Meghan and Jeff, two Colorado climbers who are at very different positions on the spectrum of financial independence. Jeff achieved financial independence along with his wife, Rose, over four years ago. Meghan, along with her husband, were inspired to get serious about their personal finances after meeting and learning from Jeff and Rose. Jeff and Meghan now write about their experiences and learnings at awaytofi.com.
Today we discuss their different origin stories, long-term goals, and shed some light on the fraught balance between work, money, family, and the seemingly elusive control of our time.
Continue reading “Earning to Buy Time with Meghan and Jeff (A Way to FI)”