Last year after talking to a friend about FIRE, she said something that struck me "I didn't grow up in a household with aspirations". Dazed and confused, I realized that I didn't either. So I wanted to see "how did I bumble along through life and eventually stumble into my current financial independence trajectory?". Let's look back together with both a money lense, and a motivations/values lense.

I keep a lot of spreadsheets to track my income, expenses, savings, investments, wealth, and more. Here is my first time sharing the breakdown of how 2022 went for me on my journey towards financial independence. I will also share some backwards looking charts to show where I've come from. My savings rate dropped significantly in 2022 because my tax rate went through the roof. But even though my savings rate as a percentage dropped, it was my highest contribution year in terms of actual dollars.

In 2021 I re-evaluated my life through my FIRE-lense and realized that I needed to move back closer to the mountains to do my favorite hobby: hiking. I made a short list of countries in Europe with good hiking. I narrowed that list to countries with a self-employment visa/residence permit. Lastly, I narrowed that list down to countries I could save money (e.g. cost of living, and taxes). Italy ticked all the boxes. It took about 1 year of bureaucracy but I'm finally here, and now I share with you the breakdown of the €14,000 total expenses to make this happen (and how I will recoup that in 1 year).

I cannot contain my excitement at sharing my new discovery with you: a new payment disrupter called Atlantic Money targeting the exchange and transfer of money cross border for large value transactions. Wise and Revolut really cover the small value market but their fees increase as the transaction value rises which makes their service far less attractive. Sold your house in Berlin and now need to move €100,000 to your US bank account for low cost? You can do that for €3 with Atlantic Money. Read on to find out my review.

For a long time, I thought one of the most obvious financial health tools was to have a budget. I even told my friends they should have a budget. And then one day I realized... "I don't have a budget". My immediate thought was to make a budget, because we all know you need one, rather than stopping and asking myself "but do I need one?". In this blog I lay out why I don't have one and what I use in its place.

I hate alarmist content, but my friend is F**KED. Like, $87,000 of taxable income fucked with no money to pay the 32% tax. Many subscribers of FI/RE dream of moving out of the US (if that is their place of origin) to save money in retirement. Dropping money on a home in their new country of residence could be a dream come true. Until so-called "phantom foreign currency income" taxes whack you over the head with a baseball bat. Read on for the dangers of buying real estate outside of the US so you can discuss with your tax advisor BEFORE you buy.

Since discovering the FIRE movement I've been intensely studying the myth and cult of homeownership. This concept is also tied up in societal noise that if you are renting then you are throwing your money away. Or that you haven't reached adulthood if you are still renting. I wanted to find out in a case study if renting could give you the financial upper hand over buying. I took 7.5 years of records owning my house and renting it out once it was no longer my primary residence. Read on to see the numbers.

I am not an economist. I cannot predict if we have entered or will enter a recession. But it's hard to ignore the news talking about it (I call it "noise"). Recently I have been approached by a friend who is considered selling their house in order to "take the money and run". So the question became: with the tides turning, mortgage interest rates rising, demand dropping, supply rising, and price cuts increasing, should they hold off on selling the house until the economy turns around? Read on to learn my case study response from the 2008 recession.

Though many people don't believe that social security payments will be around when they retire, other financial experts disagree. Achieving FIRE with geo-arbitrage is a very attractive proposition, but there are some pitfalls that can cause you to miss out on free money in the event that social security is still around by the time you become eligible. Read on for the details and planning opportunities. 

News flash: I hate the word frivolous. Why? Because it's a judgement on how someone has spent their money. Shame is shown to be ineffective at changing money behaviors and can actually lead to financial disengagement instead (the opposite of what we want!). Imagine telling your wife "you spend too much money on clothes, we have to spend less to save for retirement!" and expecting that to inspire her to cut spending. Let's explore what tools you can use instead to assess your own spending habits, or to assess spending habits together with a partner.

If you move money between certain (most) EU countries and the US, then this blog is for you and could save you big bucks. Wise (formerly TransferWise) dominates the blogosphere and Facebook groups for expats as the standard for moving money cheaply. Wise is, deservedly, a wonderful and transparent service. However, it isn't the cheapest! I show you here how over a period of 4 years I have spent a grand total of $370 in fees using Revolut (or a combination of Revolut+Wise). If I had used Wise only, I would have spent $1,023. If I had used Bank->Bank ("direct") transfers it would have cost me a whopping $1,494. I've layed out the values transferred here, read on to learn how you can setup the Revolut+Wise method and start saving $$$.