The other day I received a press release highlighting what Elon Musk could have bought instead of Twitter. One of my favorite perks in writing for Forbes.com is that I get story pitches from business owners, PR firms, authors and others looking for coverage. Much of what I see isn’t relevant to my beat or newsworthy, but sometimes I get an interesting survey or an advance copy of a book [...]
After posting to Costa Rica FIRE multiple times each month for over four years, I resolved to take a break in fall 2022. However, I ended up taking off much more time than one season -- my last blog post was almost a year ago! As a career coach, I see these longer-than-expected gaps pretty regularly, when a job search or career pivot takes longer than expected. It’s one reason [...]
Multiple companies, such as Tesla, Coinbase and Redfin, are announcing layoffs. Some companies have rescinded previously made offers (Coinbase again! also Twitter), while some are decreasing hiring (Netflix, Peloton, Facebook). You also can’t visit any news site without seeing a post on crypto winter, which impacts not just crypto values but also the job market at crypto firms. At the same time, we’re facing the highest inflation rate in recent [...]
The two most influential teachers in my financial literacy journey were also my piano teachers. My first financial literacy teacher was my first piano teacher and also my mom. Many people probably learned about money from their parents. My mom didn’t talk about money management or investing directly, but I learned by watching. My parents separated right after I was born, so my mom raised two kids on a single [...]
Generational wealth for my kids, their kids and beyond is a key priority for the same reason I also prioritized financial independence – as a hedge against an increasingly difficult job market. It’s not that I don’t expect my kids to work. I just don’t want them to get stuck if AI reduces job prospects considerably, or if future careers (and therefore earning potential) are even shorter than careers are [...]
At the end of each year, I pre-fill my Time Diary for the upcoming year with activities I know I will be doing. This includes three entries for checking my credit report. I make three entries because I check each of the three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and Transunion), and I separate when I check each of them by four months. Why four months? You can check your credit [...]
We recently moved into a condo that we had owned as a rental for 7 years. While the tenant was great (e.g., paid on time, low maintenance), the place still needs a lot of work. We also have very different tastes. I think the tenant had migraines or otherwise didn’t like light (vampire?) because the floor and walls were kept very dark. One of the first things we did upon [...]
Our last investment was a private loan at 10%, to fund a flip, and it’s coming due shortly. This is a borrower we have worked with before – a family business but with decades of real estate experience. We also know their work firsthand because we bought a rental property from them (they do sales, renovations and property management) and have done very well with it. Finally, we like investing [...]
What is the right amount of support to give your adult kids? That's a question we think about a lot, and related to another topic we recently wrote about: how we have approached financial fairness with our own kids. Let us know what family-related expenses are testing your financial plans, in the poll at the bottom of the post. A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their [...]
We recently signed up for a course on making printables. My main business is career coaching, so I do a lot of writing, keynotes and training – activities which lend themselves to printable quotes and exercises. We had been thinking about adding a product in our business to give it another stream of income. While most of my work was already virtual, I still did a significant amount of live [...]
