Dear Readers, Welcome to Financial Samurai! My name is Sam Dogen (doh-gun), the founder and main writer for this site. Financial Samurai is one of the leading personal finance sites in the world with roughly one million organic visitors a month. Everything is written based off firsthand experience because money is too important to be […]
One of the main reasons why I read lots of books is to learn from people who’ve been there before. And after reading The Price You Pay For College, one of my biggest blind spots I realized is that I don’t have to save so much for college anymore! If you are a parent who’s
The Different Ways To Pay For College: My Surprising Blind Spot Read More »
The desire to retire early and live a financially independent life has been around since the beginning of organized labor. Let’s explore who started the FIRE movement and how it has evolved over time. In 1992, the book, Your Money Or Your Life, was published by Joseph R. Dominguez, Monique Tilford, and Vicki Robin that
Who Started The FIRE Movement? The History Of Financial Independence Read More »
If you were to rank the different types of FIRE, Slow FI is the lowest ranked type of financial independence retire early there is. Slow FIRE is more of a mental trick to help keep you motivated in saving and investing more without feeling too bad about your progress. If you’re Slow FI, you’re far
Slow FI: The Lowest Ranked Type Of Financial Independence FIRE Read More »
The 2024 Social Security COLA (Cost Of Living Adjustment) for over 71 million Americans is +3.2%. What was even more impressive was the 2023 Social Security COLA was a whopping 8.7%! An increase of that size is both huge and head-scratching. The 2023 Social Security COLA is huge in comparison to 2024 and prior years
The Social Security COLA Is Huge: Traditional Retirees Rejoice! Read More »
I have a love-hate relationship with owning real estate because something always comes up. The more physical rental properties you own, the more problems you will have as a landlord. In June 2022, I decided to rent out a fully remodeled single-family home I had purchased in 2019 to a second family. We had originally
How Landlords Can Create Teachable Moments For Their Kids Read More »
Since I left my day job in 2012, I’ve been constantly preparing for economic devastation. I had to because I no longer had a safety net. My plan was to take a leap of faith and succeed. It would have been too embarrassing to ask for my old job back if I had failed. Besides,
Economic Devastation Might Be Exactly What We Need To Win Read More »
Happy New Year everyone! I’ve made goals publicly for over ten years because it helps keep me accountable. Making goals also makes the year more exciting and challenging. Hence, here are my goals for 2023. Once again, I’ve divided the goals into five categories: Health, Wealth, Family, Financial Samurai, and X-Factor. My goal is to achieve
2023 Financial Samurai Goals: Back To Easy Living Read More »
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
The Best Of Financial Samurai 2022: Just Keep Showing Up Read More »
For the first year in retirement, I murmured this phrase over and over again, “I’m bored.” After regularly working 60 hours a week and interacting with clients, I suddenly had too much time on my hands. Instead of being bored, maybe what I really felt was loneliness. After my wife took the bus to work
Surprising Solutions To The Loneliness Epidemic Read More »
