Back in 1992 I 1) was married for less than a year, 2) had just started to grow my career, and 3) knew virtually nothing about managing money. The terms "FIRE", "financial independence", and "financial freedom" were nowhere to be found, at least compared to how they are today. And they idea of financial independence/retiring early was certainly not as widespread. In fact, … [Read more...]
Three Ways to Play Good Financial Offense and Defense
As most of you know, one of my favorite personal finance books is The Millionaire Next Door. In fact, it's one of only five money books I think people need to read. The Millionaire Next Door was the first money book I took to heart and applied to my life. It's one of the main reasons I was able to achieve financial independence and retire at 52. One of the book's … [Read more...]
Top 10 Money Mistakes I Made on the Way to FIRE
Now that we've detailed the money mistakes millionaires make, I thought it was time to share another round of my money mistakes. I do this from time to time to 1) keep myself humble, 2) interrupt what can seem like a never-ending list of "I'm so great" posts, and 3) demonstrate that you don't have to be perfect to achieve financial independence (FI). It's the last of … [Read more...]
Multiple Streams of Income: Helping You Get to Financial Independence and Beyond
You've probably heard the phrase "multiple streams of income". I'm not sure if he started it or not, but I first heard the term in a book written by author Robert Allen many years ago. The idea of multiple streams of income is that you earn money from a variety of sources. Money is flowing into your life from the left and the right, from up and down, from the north and the … [Read more...]
How to Become Financially Free
This past summer I spent some time with Grant Sabatier, the founder of Millennial Money. I must say, I was impressed, something that's not easy to do with me. We chatted about his book that was to come out in February and he gave me a copy. I read it over the next several days and then had to sit on it for a few months until it released -- which is now … [Read more...]
Self-Reflection: A Critical Step Before Really Pursuing Financial Independence
You all know what a fan I am of the book The Millionaire Next Door and the impact it's had on my life (for further info on it see my review and my list of the only five money books anyone needs to read.) You also know that I loved the update to the book, The Next Millionaire Next Door (see my review for details). I've run an excerpt from the latter book (see The … [Read more...]
Suze Orman Can Kiss My Assets
Ok, so the title is a bit over-the-top. :) But "Suze Orman is Not a FIRE Expert" just didn't have the same ring to it. Ha! Anyway, today's post is about a clueless financial "expert", the FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) community, some good points about planning for retirement, and an admission of a mistake (for which I give a TON of credit.) But before we … [Read more...]
10 Crucial Qualities You Need to Reach Financial Independence
Sometimes when bloggers want to guest post at ESI Money they send me suggested topics. In other cases, I give them some ideas I've been wanting to cover and just haven't had the time. If they think they can write a post on one of my suggestions then we go with that one. Today's topic is one I've been wanting to cover for a while now, but just haven't gotten around to it … [Read more...]
The One Thing FI Can’t Give You is the Only Thing You Really Want
The following is a guest post from Half Life Theory, a site focused on building wealth through personal development. I wanted to run this article because it brings up some interesting points about striving for financial independence and its relation to happiness, two things that are closely related IMO. I don't agree with all the conclusions below and I think for some … [Read more...]
How I Lost Millions by Retiring Early
I've been thinking about this issue for some time now. And since I had fun digging into my financial independence numbers I thought I'd do a few more math gymnastics to see how much I had "lost" by retiring early. I had considered this idea a while ago, but what prompted me to finally write about it was a conversation with my mom. She and my dad have been working on … [Read more...]
