Category: Behavioral Economics
The Great FI Hack That FI Bloggers Largely Ignore: Marriage
In 2002, my household income was $51,413. In 2006, my household income was $117,217. This 128% jump was accomplished without changing jobs, without getting a promotion, and without working overtime or moonlighting. So how did I pull off this economic miracle? I got freakin’ married. If you’re not married, the best way to grow your…
Doing Poverty Right
In the financial independence community, the difference between your monthly take-home pay and your monthly expenses is called the gap. The larger the gap, the more you have to save and invest. The best way to grow the gap is to make more money while simultaneously lowering your expenses. In this post, I want to…
Building Groovy Ranch: Update 19
Not much to report this week on Groovy Ranch. We got our builder, Terry, and now we’re just formulating a contract. Terry gave us a boilerplate contract to review and we’re basically satisfied with it. There are just a few things that we’re not comfortable with. The lawyer who handled our land purchase is addressing…
How To Be Less Spendy
Last week, during one of my daily constitutionals, I had some great thoughts. First, I came up with a pithy way of describing the connection between wallet management and financial independence. Here it is. Feed your desires, starve your savings. Starve your savings, kill any hopes of achieving financial independence. Then I needed some pithy…
Should Medical Tourism Be On Your Radar?
Imagine this scenario. You go into a pizzeria for a pepperoni slice and a coke. But there are no prices. When you ask the young lady at the counter what the pepperoni slice and coke will cost, she doesn’t know. In fact, no one who works there knows. The only way to tell is to…