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Financial Samurai

Slicing Through Money's Mysteries

Conduct A Regret Minimization Exercise To Help You Move Forward

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One of the main reasons why I wrote Buy This, Not That was to help readers feel less regret by making wiser choices. Regret is one of the worst feelings, especially if it is a type of regret that could have been prevented through knowledge.

The easiest way to stop saying, “If I knew then what I know now, life would be better,” is to simply learn from someone who has experienced what you might experience. But it can’t be learning from just any experienced person. It has to be from someone who is willing to share both the good and the bad.

It feels like most of us tend to conduct revisionist history, where we make bad things seem less bad to make ourselves feel better. However, if we mask the pain, we rob those we want to help with the truth. And if you don’t know the truth, you may end up making suboptimal decisions, which can lead to more regret!

Hence, as soon as you find me writing how everything is awesome, please slap my head to stay balanced. As a perennial optimist, I have a tendency to always look at the positives.

Related post: The Negatives Of Early Retirement Nobody Likes Talking About



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Quiet Quitting Is Wonderful For Financial Freedom Seekers And Parents

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Quiet quitting is taking the younger generation by storm, especially those on TikTok. The idea behind “quiet quitting” is to do no more than what’s asked of you at work and then check out. Once you’re out of the office, there’s no more responding to work e-mails, slack, nada.

A quiet quitter does not go above and beyond the call of duty. Instead, they put in up to 100% work for 100% pay. They’ve been able to create a strong boundary between work and personal life.

Quiet quitters are also the ones who work 40 hours a week or less! By only having to work a single-digit hours day, there is much less stress. So long as they aren’t complaining about why they can’t get ahead, all is good!

Work-from-home has created increased anxiety for workers to always be on. And most people have a hard time saying no, especially to a boss who also wants to get ahead.

For those of you wishing to achieve financial freedom sooner, the quiet quitting movement might be a godsend! And for parents, quiet quitting should lower your anxiety about your child’s future.



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Making Money As A Professional Writer Is Hard, Here’s How To Succeed

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The reason why the terms “starving artist” or “starving writer” exist is because they are true. It is very difficult to make money in the arts. However, if you want to be a professional writer and not starve, let me provide you with some insights.

For background, I’ve written over 2,500 articles on Financial Samurai since 2009, authored a 200+-page e-book in 2012, and published a 300+-page hardcover personal finance book in 2022. Combined, these writing activities have enabled me to earn enough money as a professional writer to provide for my family of four in San Francisco.

However, sadly, I could NOT make it as a professional writer if I only was the author of books. Let me explain more about making money as a writer. I’ll share with you some dollar figures that will make you scratch your head with dismay.

While writing is one of the best ways to make extra money from home, it is also a difficult way to make money full time. For those of you looking to build more side income through writing, this post is for you.

The Easiest Ways To Make Money As A Writer

To summarize this long post, the easiest ways to make money as writer are as a:

1) Freelancer. Since we all took English in high school, almost all of us can write. You just need to start applying for freelance writing gigs online, which there are plenty.

2) Journalist / Columnist. Get a job at a media organization and you are a professional writer. But not everybody can get such a job without a degree in writing, English, or Journalism.

3) Blogger. Anybody can start their own site for less than $100 nowadays. From your blog you can make advertising revenue and money from your own products. But it takes years of making little-to-no money, which is why it’s harder to sustain.

4) Book author. The hardest way to make money as a writer is by writing a book. Don’t publish a book if you want to get rich. Publish a book only if you have something you must say. Even with my book, Buy This, Not That being a WSJ bestseller, it likely won’t generate enough royalties to pay for my family’s living expenses.

Now let’s get to the meat of why being a professional writer is so hard to make a living!



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Overcoming Blindness: Achieving Financial Independence With A Visual Impairment

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One of my goals on Financial Samurai is to share different perspectives. Roughly 15% of the world’s population (1+ billion), lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning. This is the minority group I’m most passionate about fighting for in this extremely competitive world. My hope is that more awareness will create a more loving and compassionate society. – Sam

My name is Adam. I run the website BlindLuckProject.com where we discuss all things FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) and how to make your own luck despite the odds.

Financial Samurai has asked me to share my story of how I went blind and still achieved financial independence at age 32.  

I’m sharing this story to spread awareness about:

  • Visual disabilities.
  • What it was like to slowly go blind in my young adult years.
  • How I went about successfully finding engaging work.
  • Seeking reasonable accommodations when needed.
  • What my retirement looks like

I will also review my thought process at various stages of my path to financial independence. Hopefully, sharing what I’ve learned along the way can inspire other blind individuals, people with other disabilities, and anyone facing adversity in their lives.

While every situation is different having a strong process to evaluate opportunities at critical times is important. You can do this!  



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The Average Hours Worked Per Week Explains Why It’s Easy To Get Ahead

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One of my most reviled posts is called, Do People Really Only Work 40 Hours A Week Or Less And Complain Why They Can’t Get Ahead? The post paints me as an unsympathetic person full of tough love. “Thank you sir! May I have another!”

I wrote the post back in 2011 when I was burning out from working in finance. Every week was a ~60-hour grind of doing the same thing I had been doing since 2009. Whenever I heard someone complain on the bus or online about their single-digit-hour workday, it irked me.

Oh, how I wished for a 9 AM to 5 PM workday. Instead, I was always expected to get in by 6:30 AM and stay connected until 9 PM because I needed to correspond with my colleagues in New York and Asia who were in different time zones. 

Wanting to go straight to the corner office without putting in the work is human nature. As an old man now, I empathize with those of you who want six-pack abs while eating donuts every day. Sign me up! Nevertheless, I encourage you to act more rationally if you want to get ahead.

There are extremely smart people out there who are also working extremely hard at their goals. If you’re of average intelligence, as I am, it’s very difficult to be successful by working normal hours.



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In Search Of The 2-Hour Work Day While Getting Paid Full-Time

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I’ve made the case the best time to work may be during a pandemic. With fewer things to do, you might as well spend more time making more money. Further, if you are able to work from home, you could actually figure out a way to work less and still get paid in full!

Since March 2020, I’ve talked to many tech friends about their work schedules. About 80 percent of them said they loved the flexibility of working from home because they had more freedom. They also said they were able to work fewer hours and get the same amount of work done. As a result, they could play more tennis during the day, catch a SF Giants matinee game, take long naps, and travel everywhere.

Hearing about their flexible work schedules made me really think about going back to work full-time. Our worlds were converging, therefore, I thought I might as well get paid. Besides, with two young children, having subsidized health care, paid time off, 401(k) matching, and a steady paycheck sounded good.

But my wife knocked some sense back into me by asking whether any of my tech friends had kids. None did. Therefore, the freedom my friends had working from home would be different from the freedom I was imagining.

I put my dreams of getting paid to do less aside until now.



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Are You A HENRY? High Earners, Not Rich Yet

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It occurred to me while writing my bestselling book that a good percentage of you are HENRYs. A HENRY is a “high earner, not yet rich” consumer who is on the path to financial freedom.

HENRYs mostly earn six-figure incomes who also save and invest aggressively. However, HENRYs often don’t feel rich compared to others. As a result, HENRYs are often a little anxious about their current status in society.

Nobody really feels sorry for HENRYs given their plentiful opportunities to make a fortune. Perhaps the only thing keeping a HENRY from achieving their lucrative destiny is grit.



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Why The Smartest Countries Are Not The Happiest

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Being smart is generally a good thing. You can use your smarts to make more money and do more things with ease. However, what if you live in one of the smartest countries in the world. Can your smartness shine through when many of your peers are equally as intelligent?

Or what if you live in one of the happiest countries in the world. If you’re not always happy, will you feel like there’s something wrong with you? Surely, there are some unhappy people living in Norway and Sweden, two countries that consistently rank in the top 5 happiest countries in the world.



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Investment Returns Versus Active Income: When Work No Longer Matters

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At some stage in your investing journey, you may experience a situation where your investment returns surpass your active income (non-investment income). The first time this happens, you may feel excited as you imagine the possibilities. But you likely won’t quit your job just in case it was a fluke.

However, after several years of your investment returns surpassing your active income, you will develop a lot more courage to do something new.

Perhaps you might finally ask for that well-deserved sabbatical without fear of your year-end bonus getting slashed. Or maybe you’ll have the guts to start severance negotiation talks so you can pursue a new career.

The power of compound annual returns is why you should save aggressively and invest for the long term. It is also why you need to think twice about splurging on big-ticket items like a car you don’t really need.

That $40,000 car you bought 10 years ago would be worth around $150,000 today if it was invested in the S&P 500.



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Ask People What They Do, They Might Surprise You

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When you’re working, one of the most common questions to ask new people you meet is what they do. Before the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, I happily said I worked in banking. A big part of my identity was where I worked for 60+ hours a week.

After leaving finance in 2012, I noticed I gradually lost interest in what people did for a living. Part of the reason was that I didn’t want anybody to ask me what I did for a living. I lost all my status.

During social settings, the last thing I wanted to do was think or talk about money. Therefore, I kept Financial Samurai and my old career mum. I knew others felt the same, so I never delved deeper into their professions, even if they volunteered.

The final reason why I stopped asking people what they did was that I often came away disinterested with their responses. Here in San Francisco, many people work in tech, finance, or law. If you’re not working in a well-paying profession, then you might be working at a startup that could make you rich.

There are some very fine people working in these professions. However, I just wanted to leave this type-A world behind, especially while I was in a social setting that had nothing to do with work. Unfortunately, my lack of interest in what people do cost me a deeper friendship.



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