Retirement

If you want to retire early, you must maximize the value of your after-tax investments (taxable investment portfolio and real estate portfolio). It is your taxable portfolio and investments that will generate the passive income necessary to retire early. It is also the taxable portfolio that will enable you to feel secure during times of

When Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, at 87 years old, the first person I thought about was my 9-month-old daughter. I thought about how RBG fought her entire career for women’s rights so that daughters, mothers, and sisters everywhere could lead better lives. Thank you RBG! I’m not sure

Want to have a wonderful life? There’s a simple personal finance mantra everybody should consider following: one spouse, one car, one house, one job. The idea is that if you stick with one of everything, you’ll maximize its usage, minimize extraneous expenditure, and live happily ever after. We get in trouble when we want too

Everybody should have a net worth target to shoot for by age, work experience, and income. Net worth targets will help you stick to your financial plan and motivate you to do more. With net worth targets, you will likely build way more wealth than if you had zero net worth targets. Too many people

生き甲斐, pronounced ikigai, is a Japanese concept that means “reason for being.” In other words, what makes you get up in the morning without an alarm clock because you’re so damn excited?! Ikigai is at the heart of Financial Samurai, this personal finance site I created in 2009 to hep people achieve financial freedom sooner

After my post, The Proper Withdrawal Rate: 4 Percent Rule Is Outdated, ruffled some feathers, I began to wonder why people argue so much on the internet. Arguing is exhausting and pointless. There’s no need to win a financial argument. Just get rich instead. The last time I got into a financial argument must have

For those of you without cushy pensions, I’m sorry folks. The 4 percent rule is outdated. The rule was popularized in the 1990s. It is now unwise to follow the 4 percent rule as a proper safe withdrawal rate in retirement, especially if you are part of the FIRE movement. Instead, I highly recommend lowering

The median net worth for the middle class hasn’t changed for decades. Conversely, the median net worth for the top one percent has performed extraordinarily well during the same time period. The main reason is because the mass affluent and top 1% regularly invest in stocks, real estate, and other risk assets that tend to