Ideas on Personal Finance
Why saving strategies don’t work Saving money is the most powerful way to get to Financial Independence (FI). However, spending money is fun and saving is not. So it is important to have saving strategies that are easy to follow and can be sustained. I learned this the hard way when I started saving. I … Read more
Transportation does not seem like a big expense item. But there are many components in the transportation area – vehicle cost, maintenance, repairs, insurance, petrol / gas, etc. Add all this together, and transportation can be up to 10% of monthly expenses. How I save money on transportation 1. Not Leasing or Financing a Car … Read more
I was skeptical if I should save money on health insurance. As it turns out, I was able to save a lot by making a few changes! Health insurance was the second biggest spend item for the Finer household (after housing). For the longest time, I did not pay attention to how much we paid … Read more
After struggling to track our spending for a long time, we came up with a simple method. This helped us gain many insights into our spending and eventually helped us get to Financial Independence (FI) a lot sooner. Background: Tracking Our Spend Just like everyone else, we were skeptical about tracking our spending. It is … Read more
Thinking of retiring early? These three steps helped me create my Financial Independence / Early Retirement plan. Financial Independence / Early Retirement Planning Financial Independence / Early Retirement is a worthy goal, but it requires a lot of planning and preparation. Planning for early retirement is also important because we are good at short-term thinking … Read more
Traditional ways of reducing grocery spending (coupon clipping, price comparison, checking items on sale, etc.) were time-consuming and tedious. So we came up with simpler strategies. The average American household spends $6,000 a year on groceries. If you also include the spending on restaurants, the number goes above $10,000 a year. Not to mention more … Read more
Ignoring the traditional FIRE advice of renting a house (instead of buying), we bought our home during our FI journey. Although not a financially sound decision, we are happy with it! Renting a House instead of Buying In the ‘Renting vs. Buying a House’ debate, the die-hard FIRE community members prefer renting to buying a … Read more
A quote that captures the essence of Financial Independence (FI). It basically frames financial freedom, not as something that can be used to run away from work, but as something that allows you to choose the work you want to do. Some people (like the Finer household) keep working even after reaching FI. But the … Read more
This quote flips the traditional retirement question (At what age should I retire?) on its head. Instead of that, we should ask, ‘At what income can I retire?’. If someone has a frugal lifestyle, then it means their expenses are less. The smaller their expenses, the less money they will need to retire. Hence they … Read more
People typically retire and stop working. However, the advantage of Financial Independence (FI) is that you can retire from a traditional job and still work. The best part is that the work you do will be the work you want to do (and not the work you have to do). Some people choose early retirement … Read more