I recently listened to an incredible podcast episode where Tim Ferriss (author of The 4-Hour Workweek, serial entrepreneur, all around badass) interviewed Peter Adeney (AKA Mr. Money Mustache).

Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss is one of the most productive humans I’ve ever heard of. I would put him right up there with Elon Musk. The 4-Hour Workweek isn’t about laziness. Quite the opposite. In a nutshell, it’s a book about productivity. The book teaches you how to do a typical week’s worth of work in 4 hours. It’s certainly inspiring, but halfway through the book you start to realize that Tim Ferriss is a freak of nature that can and will accomplish anything he wants. He’s not doing 4-Hour workweeks to lounge around, he’s doing it so he can do it with 9 other 4-Hour workweeks on other projects, whether its kickboxing, cooking, angel investing, podcasting, you name it.

Mr. Money Mustache

Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) is a household name for people who are interested in financial independence, early retirement, and/or frugality. He’s famous for blogging about living frugally and “retiring” at 30. I put “retiring” in quotes because his definition does not mean you don’t work. It means that you don’t HAVE to work. In his case, he quit his software job and began blogging and investing. MMM and his family (wife and son) spend about $25K a year and live a perfectly happy and comfortable life. Its inspiring in a completely different way.

Who is Right?

While it might not seem like it on the surface, these two guys have a really similar message, and they touch on it in the podcast. The message: You should optimize your life. But what does that mean?

The 4-Hour Workweek can be summarized by the phrase: “Work smarter, not harder”. A lot of people work jobs that say, “Work for 40 hours a week”. But according to Tim Ferriss, you should focus on the extremely productive work tasks for much less time. Think about it. If you worked 4 hours one week instead of 40, you’d get much more than 10% of the work done. Because you would prioritize and cut out things that don’t give you the most productivity for your time (like meetings, chit chat, or constant email checking).

MMM has a similar philosophy, but instead of time spent vs. productivity, it’s money spent vs. happiness. It’s not really about extreme frugality, but more about getting the most happiness from your buck. Instead of chasing diminishing returns by ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, you should spend money on the most important things to you that bring you the most happiness. For example, I’ll should rethink buying the new Nintendo knowing that I could instead pay for basketball leagues for the next 5 years, which will bring me much more happiness. It’s a no-brainer.

Click the image above for a fantastic article on Money and Happiness from 8000 Hours.

There is something with this philosophy of optimizing your life, whether it’s for money, time, working out, or eating. I’m sure there are countless ways to do this, and I’m curious for more.

If any of this sounds interesting, click below to listen to the podcast!

I’ll leave you with a quote from MMM in an interview in the New Yorker, after his bicycle was stolen. I think it really ties in the two philosophies quite well.

This was the first theft in many, many years of very carefree living. The Craigslist replacement value of that bike was probably about $500. What value do I place on a decade of the fearless freedom of leaving shit happily unlocked and not worrying about it? How about the value of my time saved in not spending my life fumbling with an enormous keychain? 90 seconds a day for ten years is 91 hours, or at least $4500 of my time at $50 an hour. I was still coming out way ahead.

It’s no surprise to anyone that money is one of the main reasons couples argue. And I’m 100% sure that adding a child to the mix won’t make it any easier. With my wife busy growing our child, I’ve really been looking for something I can do that will make our lives easier. For that I’ve latched onto our personal finances.

One thing I’ve never quite nailed down is how to create and maintain a shared budget. We’ve tried a bunch of different things: Mint, Google Sheets, and betterhaves. But they’ve all had some flaws that I think contributed to their decline in usage.

I think I’ve finally found one that we’ll stick with for quite some time: Goodbudget.

Goodbudget is based on an envelope budgeting system, which means you create an envelope for each category of spending, fill it with money, then use that money for your expenses. So you focus on expenses, and don’t have to worry about tracking income, which helps a lot.

For us, a 5 envelope system makes sense right now:

Home

Things like our mortgage, tax, bills. The tough part is adding enough extra to account for any maintenance needed (replacing light bulbs) or capital expenditures (fixing a leaky roof). Owning a home is great, right??

Johnny and Lauren

We each have our own envelopes, for things like poker night, starbucks, shopping, etc. Obviously there are some gray areas in this envelope, but this should be stuff you can buy without justifying to your partner… as long as you stay under budget for the month.

Baby Sully

It’s good for us to get used to budgeting for Sully #3. And we’re starting to buy some big ticket items that Baby Sully will need. The tricky part here is that this expense will definitely increase in the future, and it’s hard to estimate just how much that will be.

Fun

Every envelope system needs an ‘Everything Else’ category. This is ours. This is for stuff like vacations, dates, bar tabs, etc. Things that are fun, but not 100% necessary. If an unanticipated expense comes along, this budget might need to get cut in order to meet budget. But I hope it doesn’t, because I love fun.

We’re in our first month of usage, but we really like it so far. Here’s what we love.

It’s Free!

They have a free tier, which is just enough for our needs.

• 1 account (we share)
• 2 devices (our cell phones)
• 10 envelopes (we use)
• 1 year of history

They also offer a $5/month Plus tier for users that need more.

Both Mobile and Web Options

• The iPhone option is simple and elegant.
• The web option is great when I’m at the office or on my laptop and don’t want to give myself a thumb cramp using my phone.

Scheduled Transactions

• We automatically refill our envelopes on a monthly basis, but you could do this on a weekly or even daily basis if it fits your style.
• Things like mortgages, cable bill, or Spotify subscriptions are the same each month and can be deducted automatically.

It just works!

• We’ve run into zero issues so far.
• We’ve had issues in the past with budgeting apps not syncing correctly.
• Some budgeting apps can get overly complicated and things can get lost.

Overall, Goodbudget is not an app that has every single bell and whistle you’ll find in budgeting software. It has a focused purpose and does that really well. And it’s purpose just happens to fulfill exactly what our family has been looking for.

After an incredible weekend of March Madness, we’re down to The Sweet Sixteen!

There were plenty of upsets and close games to get excited/worried about, and I was really curious how the reality lined up with expectations. So I took a look at Sweet Sixteen by Conference.

Below, you’ll see each of the main conferences with each of the following:

• Number of teams on Selection Sunday (I left out the 23 1-bid conferences)
• Projected # of teams in the Sweet Sixteen (Assuming the 1 through 4 seeds all made it)
• Actual # of teams in the Sweet Sixteen

Theres a few key insights I took away from this chart.

• The ACC really underperformed. Louisville, Duke, and Florida State were all shocked by upsets in the round of 32. That said, UNC is still alive and kicking as a #1 seed, which means theres a solid chance for the ACC to claim the championship. However, UNC’s region is still stacked with the top 4 seeds: Kentucky, UCLA, and Butler.

• The SEC exceeded expectations. South Carolina really made it?? Not only did they take down a really hot Duke team, before this year the Gamecocks had not won a NCAA tournament game in 44 years. With Kentucky rollin’ forward in the South, and South Carolina/Florida in the East region (which seems wide open) I think there is a really solid chance we’ll see at least 1 SEC team in the Final Four.

• Watch out for the Big Ten. Wisconsin has made some incredible runs the past few years, so maybe it shouldn’t have been as big of a surprise when they (as a #8 seed) knocked off the overall #1 seed, Villanova. Is it ironic that the lowest seeded team to win the NCAA tourney was a #8 seed? And that team was the 1985 Villanova Wildcats? I think so.

Lifehacker has some interesting content from time to time, but my favorite is the How I Work series.

This week they interviewed Luis von Ahn, co-founder of Duolingo and (re)CAPTCHA. He’s a personal badass in the software enterepreneurship world and someone I look up to.

He had some really solid advice:

If you get asked to do something that would take place down the road (say you get asked to speak at a conference that’s a year away) and you wouldn’t want to do it if it were taking place next week, then don’t do it. This advice has helped me evaluate the opportunities that I truly want to dedicate my time to and those that I don’t.

I love that. It’s so simple.

I had the pleasure of seeing Luis speak once. One of his many talents is speaking about insanely complex concepts in a very easy to understand way. This is no different.

Click the image below to read the rest of the interview if you’re interested.

Lately I’ve been thinking more and more about the future. Planning a wedding, getting married, and merging finances with your partner will do that, at least in regards to your financial situation. But aside from money, having a baby on the way has me re-evaluating what I want to do with my life. Not just right now, but many years into the future, both professionally and personally.

One philosophy has been on my radar for years, but I never realized (until recently) that it’s actually possible. That philosophy is Financial Independence and Retiring Early (aka FIRE 🔥).

Financial Independence means that you have enough wealth to live without having to work. And the key is the “independence” part. If you want to watch the entire Netflix catalog, start a business, travel, or keep working, you can! The key is that you have the choice. This is what most of us are working toward with our savings, 401Ks, IRAs, etc. But the Retiring Early part highlights the fact that you might not need to wait for 65 to do it.

You might be thinking “Yeah obviously if I had a buttload of cash I could retire.” But stay with me. I’m not saying it’s easy, just possible with the right mindset, even without winning the lottery.

My goal with this post is to help you understand how possible it is for you. At the end of this, you’ll have an estimate of how many years it will be before you can retire. Hopefully it’s sooner than you expect. If not, maybe it will help you figure out what you could do to get closer to FIRE.

We’re going to use two financial calculators to come up with our retirement estimate.

To continue, you need to know:

1. Your salary/annual pay
2. Your annual expenses OR annual savings

I’ll follow along with a made-up example of a guy named Bob:

• $50,000 salary
• $1,500/month expenses
• No contribution to 401k
• No savings

1. Calculate your Income after Taxes

You know how much your job pays you a year, but it’s not always easy to figure out what your take home pay is after Uncle Sam takes his cut. Head over to Smart Asset to use their Income Tax Calculator.

Mandatory

• Enter your annual salary into ‘Household Income’.
• If there is anything you don’t know, just leave the default value.

Optional

• Change ‘Location’ and ‘Filing Status’.
• Enter values in the ‘Advanced’ section. Note that 401K contributions will lower how much tax you pay.

That’s it! Look for the ‘Income After Taxes’ value. This is an estimate of your take home pay after taxes and we’ll use that in Step 2. In my example, Bob’s $50K salary is down to $36,456 after taxes.

2. When can you Retire?

Now the fun part! Head over to Networthify to check out their Early Retirement Calculator.

Mandatory

• Enter the Income After Taxes value from Step 1 into ‘Current Annual Income’.
• Enter EITHER ‘Current Annual Savings’ OR ‘Current Annual Expenses’.
  • You only have to enter one and the other is auto-calculated.
  • Current Annual Savings should include any retirement contributions.

Optional

• Enter your ‘Current Portfolio Value’
  • This includes any savings, retirement accounts, etc.
• Click ‘Show More Options’ if you are curious.
• Click ‘Show Assumptions’ for some explanation.

That’s it! You’ll be shown how soon you can retire. In Bob’s case, he’s saving 50% of his take home pay, and spending the other 50%. Based on that savings rate, Bob can retire in 16.6 years. Not too shabby for a man with no savings and no retirement contributions.

At this point, tinker around with the calculators. See what happens if you cut your expenses by 10% and get a 15% raise. You’ll be surprised at how some simple changes in your lifestyle can bring you years closer to retiring early.

The math isn’t complicated. What is complicated is figuring out what you want right now AND down the road. Do you want children? Do you need that bigger house in the nicer neighbourhood? Or do you want to downsize to a studio apartment? Are you interested in switching careers to make more money? Can you become a 1-car family?

Too bad there aren’t any calculators for the tough questions. But I hope this helps you think critically and financially when considering those questions.

Thanks for reading!

So, I’ve been getting rid of tons of my possessions as part of my goal to minimalize. Clothes, a foosball table, shoes, old postcards, you name it. It’s a super satisfying, liberating feeling. The things I keep are things that I love and use.

This mindset has got me thinking about my web browsing. There are some usual suspects out there that just waste my time, leaving me with little satisfaction (Facebook, Reddit, Google News). I’m not planning to stop using them (yet), but I thought it’d be cool to list out about my favorite websites from pure “bang for my buck” enjoyment perspective. Quality over quantity.

So while I might not spend a ton of time on each of these websites, they are consistently a great experience every time I go. Enjoy!

The Onion

Reading the daily headlines from The Onion is definitely the most efficient way to add some laughs to my day. Seriously, I’ve been reading this this thing for so long I even considered getting a print subscription back when they offered it. It’s consistently funny, whether it’s their off the wall photoshops of politicians or well produced video news casts. The cherry on top is how often they bring humor to terrible situations. Just take a look at their post 9/11 issue. Satire at it’s finest.

(Rap) Genius

If you’re like me, when you find a song you love you want to know everything about it. Who produced it, what does it mean, what was that word? And if you’re like me you spent tons of time reading incorrect lyrics and interpreted meanings authored by random strangers on the internet. That is, until Rap Genius arrived.

There is simply no better place to get lyrics, song meanings, or metaphors about a song. Their upvote/downvote annotation system is basically the perfect way to do this stuff, and is often a platform for the actual artist to explain their lyrics. I’ve even seen their annotation system used for journalism and publications… it’s just that good. Also, make sure you check out Rap Stats for some serious fun.

The Wirecutter

If you’ve found yourself on obscure internet forums researching the best type of toilet paper, The Wirecutter (and it’s sister site The Sweethome) is for you. You see, I can barely buy anything without a shining endorsement from internet people. The Wirecutter soothes my analysis paralysis with crazy in depth research. The stuff they recommend is typically expensive, but everything I’ve purchased from there has worked out for me. I really wish there was something like this for baby stuff.

Hacker News

Ah yes, my portal into the startup/tech world: Hacker News. If you’re interested in software, tech, startups, design, or anything similar, this is for you. Super basic in design, but very deep in community and content, it’s my best resource for staying tuned in to whats happening in the grander scheme. I make a point of reading this daily, and I think everyone entrepreneur and software dev should as well.

Urban Dictionary

You might be thinking, “seriously?” But this is 100% on my list. Everyone time I go to this site, I end up laughing so hard I’m holding tears back. You know that weird word/acronym that you see on Buzzfeed/Instagram/Snapface that makes you feel old because you have no idea what it means? Go look it up on Urban Dictionary, satisfaction guaranteed.

XKCD

XKCD is no doubt my favorite webcomic of all time, and probably the first one I ever read regularly. I think there are a lot of other nerds out that feel the same way. Drawings are just stick figures, but the themes of science, technology, and infographics create a unique read. If you’re at all interested in webcomics, give it a shot. I think I started reading it in college and have been an RSS subscriber ever since.

Cheers and thanks for reading!

I’ve just rolled a new theme to the site! It’s called whiteglass. It’s a minimal theme that was pretty easy to get setup. You might not notice many differences as it looks quite similar to the last theme (named Minima), but there are some key differences.

Feed style posts

• Scroll down to view more posts!
• No more clicking individual articles

Serif Fonts

• I’m no font snob, but I am liking this serif font slightly more than the sans serif used in Minima. At least for now.

Archives

• Because of the new feed style, Archives was created to show just the titles of each post, just like before.

Header links are Mobile Friendly

• About/Archives links wouldn’t show up for mobile users. Now they do.

By the way, if you haven’t figured it out already, I am using Jekyll to create this blog. Jekyll is a static site generator created by Tom Preston-Werner, one of the founders of GitHub.

I’ve started learning how to use it for this website. It’s been a positive experience so far, and I’m planning a future post about my thoughts on it. So stay tuned!