In 2022, I published 156 posts on Financial Samurai. Every post is written based on firsthand experience because money is too important to be left up to pontification.
For background, I worked in finance from 1999 – 2012. Along the way, I got my MBA part-time in 2006 and started Financial Samurai in 2009. Since 2009, I've written over 2,100 personal finance articles.
Check out my About page for more details. You can also subscribe to my free weekly newsletter where I discuss all things personal finance.
I still haven't hired a staff writer to help with the workload. But I might in 2023 if I can find a great storyteller who can tackle different personal finance perspectives from firsthand experience.
Given I'm a man, finding a woman, preferably with a finance background is a logical choice. Hit me up if this sounds like you. Hmmm, maybe I can convince my wife to write more in 2H 2023 as well.
In the Fall of 2023, our daughter will start attending preschool three times a week. She'll be our last child, so we will spend as much time with her as possible before then. In the meantime, I'm sure I can convince my wife to do more podcasts with me, like this Apple episode on loneliness.
My goal on Financial Samurai is to help you achieve financial freedom sooner so you can do more of the things you want. Without further ado, here are the top Financial Samurai posts of 2022.
Financial Samurai Top 10 Read Posts Of 2022
The below posts were all written in 2022. They are not the most read posts of all time on Financial Samurai.
1) How To Enjoy Your Life After The Fed Ruins The World
The Fed is no longer our friend. But that doesn't mean we still can't have a great time!
2) It's Easier To Generate More Passive Income In A Bear Market
There's always a silver lining to every bad scenario. As a perennial optimist, this is one of them.
3) The Ideal Environment For Real Estate Investors Has Arrived
For real estate investors with cash, the next 6-12 months should present many buying opportunities.
4) How To Buy Treasury Bonds And Buying Strategies To Consider
A deep dive into buying one of the best risk-free investments today.
5) My Secret To Retiring Early With Only $4 Million And Two Kids
You can work harder and take more risks, or you can work smarter and find love.
6) 10 Years Of Fake Retirement Later: My Biggest Takeaways
2022 marked my 10-year anniversary of leaving investment banking for good.
7) Why Cash Flow Is More Important Than Net Worth
Our net worths are illusions. Regular income is what will support our desired lifestyles.
8) Why I Wrote A New Personal Finance Book
When I started Financial Samurai in 2009, there weren't many bloggers with financial backgrounds. Interestingly, in 2022, there are still few personal finance books written by authors with financial backgrounds. Check out Buy This, Not That.
9) The Best Decumulation Age To Start Spending Down Your Fortune
Dying with millions is silly. You will have wasted all that time, stress, and energy if you do.
10) The Second Biggest Financial Mistake You Can Ever Make
Before you violate the second rule of financial independence, do you know what the first rule is? It became very clear to me in 2022 why some people get way richer than others.
Top 10 Posts If Given More Time
Posts published toward the second half of the year don't have as much time to get read as posts published during the first half of the year.
1) Capital Preservation And The Desire To Protect Your Money
Those of us who are better able to preserve capital during difficult times usually end up much wealthier when the inevitable upswing arrives.
2) Your Financial Independence Number Is Not Real If Nothing Changes
You can talk all you want about having enough money to be free. But if you're still stuck in a suboptimal situation, like a broken marriage or a crappy job, you're not really FI.
3) Why Invest In Private Funds Despite High Fees
Most of us focus on fee minimization. However, even if there are zero fees, it can still feel terrible to get reminded every day of your stocks going down. Mental health optimization is worth a lot.
4) How I Overcame Money Trauma With $600,000
All of us have experienced money trauma to a certain extent. Some more severe than others. The more we can recognize money trauma in others, the more empathetic we'll be and the less sting we'll feel when others lash out at us.
5) Why Pay Off A Negative Interest Rate Mortgage When Inflation Is So High
Even though paying down a negative interest rate mortgage was technically the wrong thing to do at the start of the year, the deployed cash ended up outperforming the S&P 500 by over 15%.
6) How To Be A Good Enough Investor: Investing Lessons Since 1996
The media makes you feel like you need to be a great investor to retire will millions. Not true! Good enough is often good enough.
7) Treat All Investments As Expenses If You Want To Get Richer
This one mental trick can make a big difference to your wealth.
8) Surviving Off $400,000 A Year And Then Being Asked to Pay More Taxes
This post is a discussion about whether the hard work is worth it.
9) 2023 Housing Price Forecasts and 10) 2023 S&P 500 Wall Street Forecasts
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of optimism for either real estate or stocks.
Top 10 Epiphany Posts In 2022
Finally, here are some “ah ha” type posts. One of the best things about writing (and meditating) is that random realizations come to you.
1) Why Remodeled Homes Will Sell For Bigger Premiums Going Forward
After going through the biggest PITA remodel from 2020 – 2022, I will never do a big remodel again. Remodeling takes so much longer nowadays more people will opt for already remodeled homes.
2) I Found Out I'm Autistic As An Adult And I'm Glad
This post was a big revelation by my wife. It also shows that we're never too old to discover new things about ourselves. Don't go your entire life without knowing the true you.
3) Your Dynamics Safe Withdrawal Rate In Retirement Can Now Increase
The Financial Samurai Safe Withdrawal Rate is a dynamic one that changes with the times. 25X expenses or the 4% Rule to achieve financial independence is outdated.
4) The Student Loan Forgiveness Threshold Is The Ideal Income For Max Happiness
Understanding what the government wants is an important variable for happiness. The government and the elites decide who gets a helping hand and who doesn't.
5) How To Get Life Insurance For Free: Make More Money
This concept made me feel even better about paying for life insurance. I also discovered that getting life insurance was better than therapy.
6) Minimalism And Early Retirement Go Perfectly Together
The older you get, the more you may want to simplify life. It doesn't matter how much money you have, you can only live in one home at a time.
7) I Could Have Been A White Man, But I Remained Asian
A story about always speaking up for yourself. If you do, you might be surprised by the results.
8) How To Develop A Better Personality To Get Into An Elite University
Even if the system is stacked against us, we should still work on our personalities.
9) How To Convince People You're Middle Class When You're Actually Rich
Social media is entertaining because everybody is trying to convey a certain image. I learned from a rich guy how he hides is wealth.
10) Two Levels Of Rich: One Of Which Doesn't Rely On Index Funds
None of my really rich friends ($10+ million) got rich due to index funds. Yet the entire personal finance world loves to focus on index funds. What a conundrum.
Thanks For Reading!
Phew, going through all 156 posts to choose these 30 took a while. If each post takes three hours on average to write and edit, this means I spent over 450 hours writing on Financial Samurai in 2022.
If you want to do anything creative, the most important advice I can give you is to keep showing up. You will overestimate what you can do in a day, but underestimate what you can do in a year.
It's easy to give up. But we have a saying in the Samurai household, “Hard things get easier with practice.” Keep going!
Related posts:
The Best Of Financial Samurai 2021
2022 Financial Samurai Year In Review: Family Over Money
The Best Of Financial Samurai 2023
Reader Questions And Recommendations
Readers, do you have any favorite posts? What would you like to read more about in 2023?
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You can also subscribe to my podcast on Apple, Google, or Spotify. I've been recording at least one episode a week since 2019. You'll hear riffs off existing posts and new stories.
Finally, if you'd like to gain more financial knowledge and make more optimal decisions than 99% of the population, pick up a copy of Buy This, Not That: How To Spend Your Way To Wealth And Freedom.
Hello Sam,
I felt like I’ve discovered you later in life than I wanted to/should’ve. I’m a HW oriented tech guy (Working as an engineer in one of the well known tech companies). Turning 30 this year, lost a TON of hard earned money last year due to my immaturity/stupid investments… down to ~300K in NW, trying to re-build now the right way having learned my lessons. Thank you for all you continue to do!
Welcome to Financial Samurai Daniel! Things are definitely tougher now. We must stay on top of things and survive until the good times return again.
I love so many of your posts. Thanks for writing! And I picked up a copy of Buy This, Not That as well. Excellent book!
Happy New Year, Financial Samurai! Wishing you and your family all the best in everything. I am wondering if it’s a good idea to buy JEPI, which yields about 11% in a Roth account, in order to generate more passive income in a bear market. As far as I know, in the long run, it could lose its principle, but I’m still thinking that maybe it’s a good idea in the short term to hold JEPI because last year it outperformed the SP500 and yielded a 10% dividend. Looking forward to your thoughts. Thank you, Financial Samurai!
Happy New Year! Wishing you and your family all the best in health, wealth, and much happiness. I really tried to think of any articles I would like to see and each time I could think of something, I realized you had already addressed the topic in a past article. I do like to see what you would do with cash ‘now’ articles at different times throughout the year so please keep those up. Thank you
Is paying down 50% your house mortgage in 2023 stupid? We bought last year and got rate just under 3%
So, save cash and buy equities when JP pivots on rates or pay down house?
Suboptimal when you can get a one-year treasury bond for 4.6% guaranteed.
See: https://www.financialsamurai.com/negative-real-mortgage-rates/
Mr. Sam,
Just a quick note to let you know how much I appreciate your thoughts, insights, and musings on life, health, wealth, family, and everything in between. I’ve been aware of and infrequently visited your site for nearly a decade, but over the last few years I’ve listened to every podcast and now read nearly every new article. Given I’m 43, married with two kids of a similar age (6,2), similar net worth and with similar life aspirations your words talk to me.
By far and away my favorite article is, “The Ideal Retirement Age To Minimize Regret And Maximize Happiness.”
In college I was reading Rich Dad Pour Dad and I aspired to retire at the absolute earliest age possible and even tried a mini retirement at 29; however, I’ve found that I love what my job does for my life and more or less like the day to day work interactions and tasks.
I also love making (and spending that money). Perhaps I’ll term yet another “FIRE” or build on the MO-FIRE (Morbidly Obese Fire) and call it “MOFO-FIRE” (Morbidly Obese Fun O-Rama FIRE).
Furthermore, a high school buddy of mine from Germany (I too grew up overseas – military) who works at The Motley Fool share the intricacies of the makeup of our net worth, spending, earning, and life musings and your articles sometimes provide us great topics for our regular meetups. Once again, thank you.
Lastly, I have your book on order and look forward to reading it. As far as your work please keep on keeping on – I wish there was a way I could better support your platform other than just buying your book and referring you to my friends. If you’re ever in metro DC you have drinks or a lunch/dinner on me.
All the best and Happy New Year’s!
MK
If you ever need a POC (Person of Color) insight on financial literacy, let me know! I was once living in my car, and now have completely changed my life based on your advise. Thanks you for what you do!
P.S: Is blogging hard? Thinking trying it myself.
The best way to know is to give it a go! Try writing and publishing two articles a week for a month and come back to me.
If you have any writing samples, feel free to email them. Thx
I’ve been a Vanguard investor for decades and always bought bond funds. When you wrote the post on how to buy individual bonds I had an epiphany and started to buy treasuries because it was soooo easy to do. Thanks so much for that post!
Have enjoyed all of your posts. Happy New year!
You’re welcome! There is definitely a different investment philosophy when you’re buying bond funds versus individual bonds. I predominantly buy individual bonds and hold them to maturity to take out the principle risk.
But before the massive hike in interest rates this year, I was buying up real estate in lieu of bonds.
Thanks Sam, wishing you and your family a very happy 2023. Your posts have helped me improve my awareness on personal finance and I have found your suggestions very useful. Request you to share your thoughts on mutual fund investing, taking one step further, into specific categories like Midcap Growth, Smallcap Growth, and if they would be able to generate alpha over a period of time and take us closer to financial independence faster.
Thanks, Sam – for another year of great posts! It’s hard to pick a favorite post when all of them are good. I’m always learning something new as a regular reader.
Looking forward to the next year of amazing posts!
I am so impressed by the number and qualities of the articles you put out. Even if half of your 156 articles were reposts, that’s still 78 new topics, or about 10 times what money mustache produces. Very impressed that you are able to not only come up with great topics, but actually do the research and write about it! Certainly understand your interest in getting help. It may be hard to find someone with your work ethic though. Good luck and thanks.
Props to you on a super solid year of blog writing, newsletters, and publishing your book! Phew that is so much harder than many people realize!
One of my 2023 goals is to get back to writing more regularly which I already made before reading your post. And yes on the podcasting too! The episodes we’ve recorded have been so much fun. So we are well aligned. :) I certainly hope I can keep to my goals.
I definitely enjoy writing so much. But I fully admit I struggle with getting distracted by so many tasks and responsibilities. I’ve got to make adjustments and schedule in the time and stick to it. One change in approach I can apply is to write less research intensive articles to help improve my productivity. ;)
Are you still planning on moving to Hawaii?
Could already be here! Oops, I mean there.
Hey Sam,
I would like to see more content for those people already retired. Also for those who retired around January 2020 like myself into the Covid pandemic. Also for those like me whose portfolio was decimated by sequence of return losses of about 18% and believe 2022 was the worse year of their life. So far I am holding steady trying to avoid panic selling, having enough cash to last through 2024. By then I will need to sell something to generated cash and hope we are generating positive returns by then? Can you give us hope we will survive?
Hi Steve, the S&P 500 is still up since you retired. Can you elaborate how this year has been the worst year of your life? To stock market, losses stink, but there have been many worse years.
I’ll think about more post retirement post topics. Thanks for the suggestion.
Man you had an amazing year – congrats!!! Here are my favorite topics you wrote about. I learned SO much!
Treasury bonds
Decumulation
Capital preservation
FI number isn’t real if nothing changes
Minimalism and early retirement
It was a great year for posts! 2023 should be just as interesting. Keep it up!
As an aside, is there a way for commenters to be notified when someone replies to their comment?
I’ll have to look into it and risk changing the comment system. Could be good!
There used to be a box to check off if one needed to be notified about follow up comments.
Cheers to a better 2023!! I’ve been reading up about finance since I was 14, now I’m 17. I will be 18 in December of 2023 and I’m super excited to finally invest on my own. Thank you so much for all of these informative articles, I really appreciate it.
Wonderful Sam! You may be my youngest and most consistent reader.
You can start investing in a play portfolio now to see how to do. It’s good to make mistakes early, with little money, versus later with big money.
Cheers