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The Top Financial Samurai Posts Of 2017

Updated: 06/13/2021 by Financial Samurai 22 Comments

Best Financial Samurai posts for 2017

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone! Here are the top Financial Samurai posts of 2017.

The best thing about hard work is when it’s over. Once finished, you can basically sit back and enjoy all of the rewards if you wish. And if you hustle long enough, you might positively change your life forever.

In 2017 I wrote 175 posts, averaging 3.3 posts a week. In addition I also published 173 pages, consisting of product reviews, random thoughts, and different spins on existing topics. Pages are public, they just don’t hit the homepage or got out in my feeds. Finally, I’ve got 36 pending posts in the queue waiting to be unleashed. All in, I averaged 7.3 posts a week.

My goal was to do as much as possible before our baby was born to buy time in the future to take care of him. It’s like saving all your tax cut money to inevitably pay for a tax hike later. Even though I don’t have a day job, writing a comprehensive article is easier said than done. Further, the average stay at home parent spends 97 hours a week taking care of their little one.

Here are the most popular posts written in 2017 by traffic and some of the the most popular posts by traffic regardless of when they were written. My #1 goal is to help readers reach financial independence sooner, rather than later. Every single post was written based on first-hand experience because money is too important to be left up to pontification.

Overall, Financial Samurai received about 12.1 million unique visitors in 2017, which is better than a poke in the eye. 25 more years of this and I should be able to reach the entire population of America!

Top Financial Samurai Posts Of 2017

Investing

The FS Investment Tracker Spreadsheet – A downloadable spreadsheet to help you track all your investments each quarter. You’ll be surprised by how much more you’ll end up putting to work once you’re focused on investing.

Just Say No To Angel Investing – All the reasons why you shouldn’t throw money away on long shots. After 10 years of investing in a gin company that got sold to Campari, my investment returned way less than expected.

The Main Types Of Investment Risk Exposure To Be Aware Of – Introducing synthetic maximum exposure, where you’ve got maximum exposure to risk assets, but also are protected with a cash buffer.

It Feels A Lot Like 2007 Again: Reflecting On The Previous Peak – When things are crazy, like they are now, it’s good to reflect and see if we can learn from the past. This is my time machine for all you young guns out there.

Real Estate

Focus On Trends: Why I’m Investing In The Heartland of America – Now that the tax plan has passed, investing in non-coastal city real estate makes more sense than ever before.

The Real Estate Investing Rule To Follow: BURL – This is a logical, and unique take on how you can maximize your returns and your lifestyle as a real estate investor.

Why Is US Property So Cheap Compared To The Rest Of The World? – For all of you who are whining that US property is so expensive, you can stop now once your realize how good we’ve got it.

Being A Landlord Tests My Faith In Humanity – Shared terrible landlord experience with five guys that pushed me over the edge to sell a rental home I’ve had since 2005.

Retirement

Retirement Savings By Age Show Why We’re So Screwed – The statistics about how little Americans save are shocking. I’m not sure why there’s not a larger sense of urgency.

Reflections Of Early Retirement Life Five Years Later – Please don’t waste time. Here are some thoughts about being jobless since early 2012.

How To Calculate The Value Of Your Pension – If you’ve got a pension, you’ve got yourself a lottery ticket. You’re richer than you think!

How To Achieve The Two Spouse Early Retirement Dream – Having one spouse work while you can kick back is nice. But really, having both spouses not have to work is better.

Financial Independence

Your Chance Of Becoming A Millionaire By Age, Race, Or Education – Learn your odds, now do your best to beat them. I firmly believe your odds of being a millionaire is at least 3X better if you read Financial Samurai long term.

The One Ingredient Necessary For Achieving Financial Independence – You need this ingredient, otherwise, you’ll never push yourself to reach FIRE.

Financial DEpendence Is The Worst: Why Each Spouse Needs Their Own Bank Account – A look inside who some spouses who don’t work or don’t have their own bank account are miserable. This post was a Yahoo homepage highlight.

Debt Optimization Framework For Financial Independence – A logical framework to follow for those of you who want to boost your net worth using other people’s money, and finish up debt-free.

Housing Expense Guideline For Financial Independence – If you’re wondering how much money to spend on property in your lifetime, while achieving FIRE early, this post is for you.

Entrepreneurship

How Much Can You Actually Make Blogging – You can make more than you can imagine. You just need to build your brand and consistently publish for at least three years.

The 10 Best Reasons To Start An Online Business – An online business is the best type of business in the world because it’s low cost, scalable, and can be done from anywhere in the world.

How To Create Next Level Wealth: When A Million Won’t Cut It – You don’t get rich earning a salary. You get rich by earning equity in a business whose valuation expands.

Career Grind

Abolish Welfare Mentality: A Janitor Makes Over $250,000 A Year – Not only do janitors make more than $250,000, elevator technicians have total compensation packages over $280,000. Believe you deserve to earn big bucks as well.

A $500,000 Redo: How One Couple Got Their Mojo Back – After the original post on earning $500,000 and scraping by received millions of views, I incorporated some of the internet’s feedback to improve their budget.

What If You Go To Harvard And End Up A Nobody? – A deep look at what real people who went to Harvard and other elite schools do with their lives now. Sadly, it’s not much different than the rest of us.

A Severance Negotiation Success Story: The Inside Scoop On How One Man Negotiated His Freedom – A non-believer shares his story on how he was able to escape the rat race with money in his pocket.

Lifestyle 

When It’s OK To Forsake Stealth Wealth And Spend Up – There’s no point making money if you don’t spend it. Here are some goals that once achieved, gives you the green light to live a little.

For A Better Life, Be The 1% In Something, Anything – As soon as you become excellent in something, your world will improve. Money is just one of many things to work on as a multi-dimensional person.

The Safest Cars To Survive A Crash – At some point, you’ll focus more on safety than anything else when buying a car. Learn what makes a car safe and the safest cars to protect you and your loved ones.

What’s The Best Age To Have A Baby? A Biological And Economical Analysis – We all know that younger is better, but let’s take economical considerations into account.

Don’t Let Frugality Lead To Lifestyle Deflation – Here are five ways to halt your overly frugal self from hurting the quality of your life.

Most Popular Posts In 2017 Written At Any Time

Scraping By On $500,000 A Year: Why It’s So Hard To Escape The Rat Race – The post that went nuts all over the internet because people can’t fathom how life can be so hard making so much.

How Much Savings Should I Have Accumulated By Age? – A detailed savings guideline by age so you don’t end up depending on others once you no longer want to work.

How Much Should I Have In My 401k By Age? – You’ll be amazed at how much your 401k will grow after 10 years of maximum contribution. Add on after-tax investments and Social Security and you’re golden.

The Average Net Worth For The Above Average Person – Everybody wants to be better than average, but not everybody can. Here’s a realistic net worth guideline to follow that will lead to a comfortable retirement.

How Much Income Do You Consider To Be Rich? – The definition of rich just keeps growing thanks to inflation. I’ve updated the definition for 2018 with the new tax rules.

A Slingshot Into The Future

I’m proud of the quantity, quality, and variety of posts published in 2017. My goal as always is to keep things fresh and interesting. I would die of boredom if I had to focus only on one subject. Life is full of different challenges, and my goal was to address as many of them as possible.

Who knows how long my creativity will last. I’m well aware that like the body, the mind will slow down. But in the meantime, I will continue writing about meaningful topics that affect all our lives. Feel free to mention any particular topics you’d like me to address in the future and any particular posts that stood out.

Related: Most Popular Posts From 2014

Thanks for reading and sharing my work. Besides bookmarking FinancialSamurai.com, you can keep in touch by subscribing to my posts via e-mail, my private newsletter, and my iTunes channel.

Check out my Top Financial Products Page to help you achieve financial freedom sooner, rather than later.

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Filed Under: Motivation

Author Bio: I started Financial Samurai in 2009 to help people achieve financial freedom sooner. Financial Samurai is now one of the largest independently run personal finance sites with about one million visitors a month.

I spent 13 years working at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. In 1999, I earned my BA from William & Mary and in 2006, I received my MBA from UC Berkeley.

In 2012, I left banking after negotiating a severance package worth over five years of living expenses. Today, I enjoy being a stay-at-home dad to two young children, playing tennis, and writing.

Order a hardcopy of my new WSJ bestselling book, Buy This, Not That: How To Spend Your Way To Wealth And Freedom. Not only will you build more wealth by reading my book, you’ll also make better choices when faced with some of life’s biggest decisions.

Current Recommendations:

1) Check out Fundrise, my favorite real estate investing platform. I’ve personally invested $810,000 in private real estate to take advantage of lower valuations and higher cap rates in the Sunbelt. Roughly $160,000 of my annual passive income comes from real estate. And passive income is the key to being free.

2) If you have debt and/or children, life insurance is a must. PolicyGenius is the easiest way to find affordable life insurance in minutes. My wife was able to double her life insurance coverage for less with PolicyGenius. I also just got a new affordable 20-year term policy with them.

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Comments

  1. FIRECracker says

    December 30, 2017 at 8:25 pm

    Nice work, Sam! I don’t know any blogger who hustles harder than you. No idea how you’ve managed to keep up a consistent schedule for this many years.

    Happy New Year to you and your family! Enjoy your time with your little one!

    Reply
    • Financial Samurai says

      December 30, 2017 at 9:23 pm

      Thanks! When you have no skill, as people like to remind me every week, all you’ve got left is effort. Hence, I gotta keep grinding away! Happy NY to you guys.

      Reply
  2. Financial Samurai says

    December 29, 2017 at 6:16 pm

    Thanks for reading and sharing ZJ! I hope you and your family have a great 2018 as well :-)

    Reply
  3. Untemplater says

    December 29, 2017 at 12:08 am

    Seriously unbelievable performance this year writing SO much with so much happening in your life simultaneously!!! Major major props!!! Now it’s time for you to relax more and let all that hard work and seo pay off. You’re a truly talented writer and we really appreciate everything you’ve done on FS and in our lives as readers!

    Reply
  4. Cindy says

    December 28, 2017 at 7:52 am

    Thanks for all your insights and hard work. It’s been a joy reading your blog. Wishing you and your family a wonderful new year.

    Reply
  5. Grant @ Life Prep Couple says

    December 27, 2017 at 10:28 am

    That is crazy. I just threw in the towel on my first blogging adventure. Much respect to people like you who can grind away for so long. Not as easy as it looks from the outside.

    I don’t always agree with you (even though you are usually right) but you certainly write the most engaging article. Look forward to reading in 2018.

    Reply
  6. D'Angelo R. Woods says

    December 27, 2017 at 9:15 am

    Appreciate the free quality content, Sam. I always find myself back here when there’s a financial decision to be made. Ready for the next book!

    Happy holidays to you and the family.

    Reply
  7. Paper Tiger says

    December 26, 2017 at 1:35 pm

    Sam, congrats on all of your accomplishments and I have to believe you’ll be looking back on 2017 as a very successful year on many fronts. Let’s hope 2018 is even better for all of us on the FI journey!

    Reply
  8. Steve says

    December 26, 2017 at 1:13 pm

    That is amazing Numbers Sam. I always enjoy reading your articles and looking forward to reading more in 2018. Thanks for all your hard work.

    Reply
  9. Matt Spillar @ Spills Spot says

    December 26, 2017 at 11:19 am

    Incredible year full of high quality posts, thanks for all your hard work! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!

    Reply
  10. Ms. Frugal Asian Finance says

    December 26, 2017 at 8:31 am

    Wow I have a long list of posts to get through this holiday season hehe. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

    Reply
  11. Tom says

    December 26, 2017 at 4:35 am

    Thanks for all the hard work, Sam. Merry Christmas!

    Reply
  12. Kathy Abell says

    December 25, 2017 at 10:24 pm

    Thank you for all your hard work all these past years. Looking forward to reading your perspective on things in the years to come (until you “really” retire to that beach house in Hawaii).
    ;)

    Reply
  13. Mike H says

    December 25, 2017 at 6:10 pm

    Sam,

    Your hard work is inspirational and I’ll also credit your other half for helping you with the process. Never underestimate the power of a great joint effort! Have a great 2018 with your wonderful family.

    -Mike

    Reply
  14. Lily | The Frugal Gene says

    December 25, 2017 at 4:58 pm

    Holy smokes 7 posts average per week…I can’t even do half of that! Great work Sam!

    Reply
  15. Rudiger says

    December 25, 2017 at 3:46 pm

    Merry Christmas! It’s funny that “Scraping By On $500K A Year” went viral, but for all the wrong reasons, and sent Twitter into absolute hysterics. I guess that’s why the vast majority of people feel helpless; they can’t imagine someone making more than them is unhappy. Oh well! You can lead the horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

    Reply
  16. Mike @ Balanced Dividends says

    December 25, 2017 at 7:20 am

    Those are some impressive numbers. More importantly, each article/post is of high quality – an even more impressive, consistent accomplishment.

    Thanks for continuing to share your thoughts.

    Reply
  17. AAB says

    December 25, 2017 at 6:31 am

    Nice, good job. Which one was number one?

    Reply
    • Financial Samurai says

      December 25, 2017 at 9:05 am

      Scraping By On $500,000 A Year: Why It’s So Hard For Some To Escape The Rat Race

      The chart went viral on social media and then many media outlets picked up the post.

      Reply
  18. Precious @Lovenancials says

    December 25, 2017 at 6:25 am

    Awesome posts and congrats!

    I’ve found some to read now!

    Merry Christmas!

    Reply
  19. Joe says

    December 25, 2017 at 5:19 am

    You’re a machine! Great job in 2017. It’s amazing to see the high standard you’ve kept though the years.
    Happy holidays!

    Reply
  20. ESI Money says

    December 25, 2017 at 5:05 am

    Great job, Sam! Appreciate all your hard work!

    Merry Christmas!

    Reply

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