Happy New Year and Best Posts of 2023

Well, here we are, at the start of a brand new year. Is it just me or do the years seem to go by faster every year?

Anyone looking forward to 2024? I know I am. It has the potential to be a GREAT year for me and my family. Why is that? You’ll have to keep reading ESI Money to find out! (And who knows, nothing might happen anyway — lol!)

I want to start today’s post by wishing you the happiest of New Years! I hope 2024 is amazing for you!

As for the post itself, I wanted to share what I feel were my best posts of 2023. After all, you may have missed some of them and it would be a shame if the year passed and you didn’t get a second chance to check them out. 🙂

This year I remained focused on letting people tell their stories — which I find fascinating, inspiring, and utterly more valuable than most content on the web these days because they are the stories of real people having real financial success (as opposed to most mainstream sites where it’s a person who knows nothing about money writing tips that often are worse than useless.)

So with that said, here are what I would consider my top 2023 posts in no particular order…

• The Best Post-Retirement Decisions I Have Made – One of my main missions at ESI Money is to demystify retirement. It’s a huge financial and life decision that many people struggle with because it’s (usually) a once-in-a-lifetime event. And whenever you have a high risk, big money decision that you have no experience with or knowledge about, it’s going to be stressful. So I write about retirement as much as possible to give people a glimpse into it so they can feel more comfortable with it as they approach it. This post is an example of that.
• Retirement Interview 50 – To the point above, Retirement Interviews are a great way to demystify retirement. And this year we reached the milestone of having 50 of them posted, so I celebrated by making #50 my own interview https://esimoney.com/retirement-interview-50/. Spoiler alert: retirement is GREAT!!!!
• How to Retire as Soon as Possible (How to Retire in 10 Years) – If you want to retire asap, here are my thoughts on how to do that. Take these, tailor them to your likes and situation, and go for it! The retirement water is AMAZING — jump in!!! Hahaha.
• Hilton Grand Vacations Presentation, Take Two – Who doesn’t like a good timeshare presentation recap? I still can’t believe that 1) people buy these things and 2) we went to another one! It’s almost as bad as…
• Financial Seminars in The Villages – Yes, I have a problem — I can’t seem to stop going to these. Or at least there was a time where I couldn’t. I think I have had my fill of them for some time at this point — but you never know! LOL!
• Retirement Update: 7 Years – It’s amazing how much has happened to us in the past year (most of it our own doing, of course.) I’ll keep posting these updates to keep you informed of what it’s like in retirement. I’ve done one additional one since the 7-year one was posted, but I highlighted this one because it’s SEVEN YEARS in retirement — all before the age of 60! Woo hoo!!!!
• Life in The Villages, Florida: Purchase, Arrival, and Getting Settled – Speaking of how much has happened to us — the big event of the past year has been moving to The Villages, getting settled, and so on. Stay tuned as there’s more to come in this saga before it’s over — I can just feel it!
• Millionaire Interviews — Ok, this isn’t an article, but a series! I love it because in each of these someone details the real-life steps they took to become wealthy. Anyone reading enough of these will have a ton of practical tips they can implement in their life to become wealthy! We started the year with Millionaire Interview 346 and ended with Millionaire 375. This was a smaller number than past years primarily because I cut back from three posts a week to two. We will get past 400 in 2024 (I already have up to 396 ready to post) and my ultimate goal is to get to 500 before I dial it back a bit…but we’ll see. Of course, if anyone wants to participate…send me an email!
• Retirement Interviews — Just have to mention the entire series here. Retirement is one of the greatest things ever IMO and yet it remains a source of anxiety for many. As I noted above, this is because 1) it’s a HUGE decision that usually involves hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions and 2) it’s something unknown (like stepping off into the abyss). So by hosting retirement interviews, I hope to demystify retirement and show how people have successfully made what can be a tough transition for some. If you’re a retiree for at least six months and want to be interviewed, drop me an email and I’ll send you details.

Those are my favorites for the year — what are yours? Are there any I missed that you especially liked?

Happy New Year!!!