money

These days I hardly ever think about money. It is quite the contrast from before when I’d check in on the stock market every day, do back-of-the-napkin math on investment opportunities, and follow the Federal Reserve for macroeconomic movements like a hawk. But after some reflection, I must admit that I am a little stuck in my progression towards FIRE. In this blog post, I want to share the 3 challenges all FIRE people go through and how one of them currently has me in a pickle. Are you ready? Standby. (FIRE update at the end)

2023 was a fantastic year for people who held on to their stocks–up ~25% for the year. Despite interest rates, the cost of housing, and the cost of cars still being high, it was an overall good year for investors. As long as you were in crypto, bonds, or stocks it was pretty hard to have lost money. In this post, I will go over some of the highlights of my year. Are you ready? Standby.

4 years ago when I started MyRoadToFire I got a good amount of readers because the FIRE community was defining fatFIRE as having a net worth of $2,500,000 but I, and many of you, believed that to be too low. In 2019, I strongly believed that having $4 million would comfortably allow a family to FIRE. Fast forward to the end of 2023, I strongly believe that having only $4 million would be extremely risky for that same family to FIRE. So was I wrong? As one of my most annoying managers used to say “yes and no.”

For many, 2022 was a disaster year. Especially for me. I was set back by $1.84 million–yikes! Many people believe we still haven’t hit bottom yet and even fewer people believe that we will recover to 2021 levels in 2023. My prediction is that SP 500 will continue to hover around 3800-4200, mortgage rates will continue to hover around 6%, residential real estate prices will drop, but tech stocks will boom. Based on those predictions there are 3 areas I want to put my money to earn a positive return in 2023. Are you ready? Standby.

I have spent a decent amount of time reflecting on my biggest money mistakes. 13 years ago I started on a journey to build wealth. I can’t say that I always did the right things. In fact, I made a lot of mistakes. And now looking back, those mistakes have amounted to $3+ million dollars in either lost opportunity or lost money. In this article, I’ll be talking about specific mistakes and try my best to quantify how much money was lost.

At the beginning of 2020, I started a new M1Finance portfolio where I picked several dividend stocks to invest in. The goal is to achieve similar returns to the SP 500 index but beat it in terms of dividends. As of the writing of this article, I’ve contributed $73,000 of my own money into this portfolio. By the end of this year, I will have contributed $77,000 ($25,000 initially and $1k contribution per week). In this article, I’ll share my M1Finance portfolio, how I’m doing against the market, my thoughts on the current stock market, and how I am doing against my FIRE schedule.

At the beginning of 2020, I started a new M1Finance portfolio where I picked 7 dividend stocks to compare against VTI. The goal was to have a similar appreciation, but better dividends. On Feb 24th, news about COVID-19 sent the US stock market into a frenzy. We have since seen 9 (as of 3/13/20) 1000+ point swings in the DJIA. In this article, I’ll share my M1Finance portfolio, how I’m doing against the total stock market, and share my thoughts.

This is the blog post series where the rubber meets the road, where the pen meets the paper, and where my $77,000 meets its Dividend Aristocrat friends. In one of my previous posts, I had written about why I think Dividend Aristocrats is a great alternative to real estate, and in general, provides a great way of increasing one’s monthly cash flow.

Now that 2019 has come to an end, I took some time to review my finances. The week between Christmas and New Year is my favorite week of the year. Other than the obvious reasons of getting to spend time with family/friends and getting a breather from work, I get to spend time reflecting and reviewing the previous 51 weeks. And I often learn something that significantly impacts how I operate in the following year.

Did you know that the average net worth for people between the ages of 30 and 34 is $95,235.53? And that the median for the same age group is $29,125? That is, half of the people from ages 30 to 34 have more than $29,125 and the other half has less. In this article, we will explore net worth by age through a fat FIRE lens.

Lately, I’ve started to run ads on my Road to FIRE blog. It is to ensure that can achieve and maintain a cashflow neutral blog. And in the name of transparency, I plan to come out with a report every month or quarter (TBD). In it, I will highlight the costs associated with running this blog and how much I’ve made from the ads. And if you’re curious about what I plan to do with any excess profits, don’t worry I will report on every cent made and spent.

When thinking about FIRE, people often ask me what should I do to fat FIRE? While an important question, an equally important question is what should I not do if I want to fat FIRE? I’ve had many money-conversations with people living in poverty, high-income individuals, low-income individuals, and HENRYs (a HENRY is someone who is a “High Earner, Not Rich Yet.”). The mistakes that I’ve deduced from my experience applies to all of these groups, but especially the HENRYs.

As I prepare to go into early retirement, I am slowly changing my asset allocation to produce a higher cash flow. There are multiple good ways to do this. The most popular method is to own rental properties. But my preferred method is to own Dividend Aristocrats.

Have you ever been given the advice to contribute 15% of your income into retirement? Or that you should max out your 401K? Or that you should at least contribute up to your employer match? Don’t worry, those are not going to be my tips to maximizing your 401K. In this article, I’ll share the most common mistakes you should avoid to not only maximize the returns but also protect your 401K account.

Recently there was an article that Financial Samurai published which outlines why a $350k household income is barely middle class in big cities like San Francisco. This was a pretty controversial article that raised a lot of eyebrows. Both from big-city dwellers as well as middle America. I previously shared my budget for a family of three and it is nowhere near the budget that Financial Samurai laid out for a family of four. In this post, I'll convey my personal take on each line item in his budget.

I had a great time in my 20s. I had built great friendships, found my own identity, found love, and got off to a strong start in my career. I had it all—except for a good financial education. Had I been more aware about personal finance, I’d be in a much better position than I am today. But I really can’t complain. I will share with you the 8 key lessons that I wish I knew straight out of college. I will split them into a 2-part blog series between “defense” and “offense”.

Retirement investment accounts are complex. Some are pre-tax, some are post-tax. Some have penalties if you withdraw early, some allow you to withdraw up to a certain amount without penalty. Some require you to withdraw a minimum amount after the age of 70.5, some don't. And many others. In short, there's a lot of choices—and a lot of tradeoffs.

Did you know that 40% of Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency? And that 60% of Americans cannot afford a $1000 emergency? We live in a society where people carry thousand dollar iPhones, drive brand new cars, are proud Netflix and cable TV subscribers, yet they are living paycheck to paycheck.

In the past several years, there's been a movement that's especially popular among millennials called FIRE. It stands for Financial Independence Retire Early. But other than agreeing on what the acronym stands for, there is very little that the FIRE community can completely agree on. And perhaps the most popular debate is what is a good FIRE number?

Have you ever wondered if you’d be a millionaire? I certainly didn’t. But it happened—and much faster than I could have imagined. No, I didn’t strike it rich over night with the lottery, exit from a startup, inheritance, or bitcoin. I attribute it to several things: high savings rate, consistently investing, high income, luck, but mostly a shift in mindset—from linear savings to compounding returns, from only working for money to also making my money work for me.