According to a press release from the Independent Publisher Book Awards (known as the IPPYs), 500,000 new books are published each year in the US alone, with millions of new titles worldwide. The pitch I received also highlighted that 80% of people have considered writing a book! 80% seems really high, given that Statista calculates the mean number of books read in the US at just over one per month per person – and that includes e-books and audiobooks. Still, I often hear anecdotally that being a published author is a bucket list item. This hedge fund lawyer by day/ [...]
Analysis of Google search data, courtesy of luxury real estate platform RubyHome, shows that searches for ‘HELOC’ – the acronym for “home equity line of credit” -- more than tripled in the United States as of July 2023. This is the highest level of search interest in internet history for the topic. The report suggests that the increased interest is due to people looking for relief from rising costs and a buffer in case of recession. Here are three possible downsides to having a HELOC and corresponding ways to ensure you are using a HELOC the right way. Downside 1: [...]
I read a lot of personal finance, but somehow missed Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money when it debuted in 2020. I learned of Housel when a blog of his was spotlighted by Todd Tressider at Financial Mentor, one of my favorite personal finance resources: Is the goal financial, or is it just to become independent? Do you want more money, or do you want to no longer need to think in terms of money? Todd Tressider Tressider then linked to a Housel post on The Highest Forms of Wealth, a short but powerful piece that made me want to [...]
Becoming a digital nomad can be a shortcut to achieving financial independence because of geo-arbitrage – earning in a high-paying geography, while living in a lower-cost base. We bought a property in Costa Rica to secure that lower-cost base (see our budget for a month-long stay), while retaining predominately US clients paying US rates. Our move to Jacksonville, FL is less extreme geo-arbitrage, but still a good example given the significant cost savings compared to our previous expenses in New York City. If you’re looking for location independent jobs, so you can try geo-arbitrage for yourself, accountant is the top [...]
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 that is worth covering (I highly recommend The Risk Paradox!). While it is eye-popping to consider what Musk could have purchased instead of Twitter, it is an important reminder that [...]
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 why achieving financial independence is so important. 1 - Financial independence as disability insurance In my case, I was shifting my writing focus to my Forbes.com column, but once I [...]
I am a runner. Not a fast runner in the grand scheme of things, but a runner nonetheless, who enjoys the challenge of distance running and particularly the marathon distance. My running log goes back to Dec 26 1998, and in the intervening years I've covered 13,150 miles over 2,547 runs. That includes 218 races of every conceivable distance between the mile and the marathon, with a few triathlons mixed in for good measure. Three summers ago, I even ran 31 days in a row. My latest running feat is completing 2 marathons over the course of 15 days. Completing [...]
Having my own business gives me flexibility in my day-to-day schedule, my location and the projects I take. But my favorite type of flexibility that comes with self-employment is the flexibility to build out bleisure trips – traveling for work and mixing business with leisure. This year, I happen to have four business opportunities in the same place – Los Angeles. We can’t always tack on leisure segments, but for our first trip out, we combined four days of work/some fun in Los Angeles with four days of fun/some work in San Diego. Los Angeles in the distance on approach [...]
Scott has a goal to run a marathon in all 50 states (there’s even a club for people dedicated to this!). He added Utah to the list this past January, and most recently Wisconsin this past August. Wisconsin was an opportunistic add-on to a trip we were already making to Ohio. Our youngest goes to college near Columbus, and we were dropping her off for her senior year! Traveling from Florida to Ohio, we hit: Florida Georgia South Carolina North Carolina Tennessee Virginia Kentucky West Virginia Pennsylvania Ohio With the marathon leg, we added: Indiana Illinois Wisconsin On the way [...]
I thought that when we reached a base level of financial independence (living in Florida is Stage 2, where we can pay our minimum living expenses by moving to a cheaper location), I would gain more clarity about how to spend my time. I have always been money-focused – not driven to make a lot of money, but I equated money with security and had a high bar to feel secure. My first career was in banking and consulting, two highly paid industries where you have little to no personal life. I wanted to be self-sufficient in New York City, [...]
