Some of personal finance is about numbers and strategies. Much of it, however, has to do with mindset. I read lots of articles about personal finance, and only remember to save some of them. I thought it was time (or past time) to share: here are a few that struck my fancy.
Fritz at The Retirement Manifesto makes me think about what I am going to with my time, once I get to retirement, with Don’t Look Back (You’re Not Going That Way). Instead of focusing on asset allocation for retirement, he writes about fine tuning our time phase allocation. Which is to say, how much of our attention is on the present, the future, and the past. An interesting concept, and one that I think merits a second look.
Your time phase allocation changes as you age: certainly, a baby should be thinking more about the present than the past. Your financial needs also change over time. Tom Welsh wrote Five Lives at Humble Dollar, a nice summary of your financial outlook changes over your adult life.
Follow Your Dreams…But What Dreams? is a thoughtful piece from Ditch the Cave about how one’s goals and dreams may change over time. Or how getting what you want isn’t always what you need.
Sometimes your dreams get crowded out by your job. In fact, leaving some breathing space to recover your dreams is often why people start to think about FI (financial independence) or FIRE (financial independence/retire early). This pithy article likens our personal imbalance in life to the difficulties countries have had when their currency becomes too strong due to one strong sector. See A Poisoned Chalice at Humble Dollar.
Sometimes people don’t even know what their dreams are, or have no idea how to pursue them. Follow along as Lego Darth Vader asks What Are Your Big Rocks? at Cutting Through Chaos.
Or we can look to Ted and Neo in this older (classic?) post to help us with Building a Vision of Life Without Work (courtesy of Living a FI).
Ms. Mod of Modest Millionaires is trying to recover some of her dreams, after being worn out by full time work. She is taking a sabbatical to test Coast FI. This sounds like a great plan, but City Frugal has his own take on Coast FI: An Excellent Fallback but a Terrible Target.
The FI Physician had a nice post on The Goldilocks Effect, Or, Bad Retirement Advice, in which he details all? (many of) the ways generic advice can not be helpful to YOU.
This post at Burning Desire for Fire has lots of advice which, generic or not, is applicable to just about everyone. It is a sobering reminder of the importance of shooting for financial independence and having an emergency fund, even you think nothing bad will ever happen to you.
This piece on Generational Responsibility at FreedomFIter has stuck with me for a while. Possibly because she articulates my thoughts about our duty to the next generation so well.
I hope you will enjoy reading some of these posts as much as I did. Did you have a favorite?