Good morning!!

Lot’s of wonderful beautiful things to share with you today!

#1. I’m giving out a bunch of new $$$ books on the blog!! Covering everything from savings tips to hustling hacks to making yourself rich to my personal favorite – bettering yourself with each passing day. All you have to do is tell me which one you want in the comments of the post and you’re entered! More here

#2. The 401(k) Champions contest is now open for the year! Where you answer a brief question about your love of 401(k)s in essay form, for a chance to win one of three $1,000 cash rewards. Last year ALL THREE winners came from my audience here, so hopefully the trend continues and YOU are one of the lucky winners this year ;) Enter here –> 401kchampion.com

#3. I have a new obsession: yoga! Been meaning to try it for years, then one day last week I decided to just muster up the courage and start and I’ve now gone 8 times in one week, lol… I guess when I like something I really go ALL IN 😂 Look for a blog post on it soon, but if it’s something that’s been on your mind lately too – make it your mission to try it out this weekend once and for all! You never know what’ll go on to change your life #Namaste

#4. My 11 yr old has his first cell phone 😬😬 I wanted to wait a couple more years, but apparently in 6th grade they’re basically required, ugh… BUT! We found a place that lets you use all the main communication features of a smart phone without all the *internet access* (ie a phone that just calls and texts and does a few apps like games, but can’t get on social media/etc) so that made us a bit more comfortable… Even though of course this is also easily solved by picking up an old school clamshell phone!, but apparently that’s “not cool” so at least it now *looks* like my kid has a bad ass smart phone and no one has to know it doesn’t do any of the juicy stuff, lol..

The company is called Gabb btw if you’re in a similar position (I’m not affiliated with them at all): Gabb.com. Costs us more than it does our *own* phone plans! ($30/mo vs $20/mo w/ Mint Mobile!) but hey – it does the trick and has been working out pretty well over the weeks!

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Okay that’s all the news for this week… When you’re done with the above, check out some of the articles below that I’ve hand-picked for you – especially that first one. It’s where the title of today’s newsletter comes from which cracked me up as much as it did inspire me 😆 👍

Your friend in adulting,

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Favorite articles this week:

Tomorrow Is Not Your Friend @ MiniHabits.com — “It’s natural to think of tomorrow in an opportunistic way. Tomorrow is a new day and a fresh start… but so was today! Remember when you thought so yesterday? Since we only live in today and it accurately predicts what we’ll do later, tomorrow is relatively worthless. And that’s not all. Tomorrow’s mere presence seems to lead us into poor decisions. Not only is it not your friend—tomorrow is your enemy!” (shout out to Apex Money for finding this gem)

Why Getting Fired and Dumped Were the Best Things to Happen to Me All Year @ A Lawyer and Her Money — “We don’t talk enough about the kind of person you become when you are pursuing your goals. We don’t talk enough about how the person you marry, the person you work for, and the people you associate yourself with – all these people affect who you will become, who you are currently becoming.”

Lifestyles of the Monks and Irish @ The Best Interest — “A group of monks rowed 12 miles out to sea (no motors, mind you) to a steep, barren, half-mile diameter rock completely exposed to the elements. Then, in the words of Eamon, our island guide, “They spent their lives hauling rocks and praying.” Fun!”

The 4 Types of Leverage to Supercharge Your Income @ Of Dollars and Data — “If you want to supercharge your income, you have to use leverage. Whether we employ labor, raise capital, craft content, or write code, each form of leverage offers its own unique benefits and challenges.”

The Magic Loop @ Lenny’s Newsletter – “The Magic Loop is a process through which any employee may systematically grow at a company. It is reliable in its results, with a simple core of five basic steps. In this post, we first present the Loop in its most straightforward model. We then follow up with variations, optimizations, and special circumstances that users will find over time.”

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Quote of the Week:

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” – Mahatma Gandhi

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Good morning fiscal friends!!

Been a fun couple of weeks over here…

First, I find a handful of rolled coins in my safe that I had long forgotten about (!!), and then I use said rolls (+ $100 more) to pick up a new long board to add to my family of boards!

Take a look at this beauty…  It’s a surfboard on wheels!!! Lol…

[That middle board is pretty big in itself, so comparingly this new one is a behemoth!]

[$80 worth of change found – woo!]

I also finally put together two bigger than usual posts that I’ve been working on that I hope you’ll like…

The first is the story on how I became addicted to juicing this past month (veggie juice!!! A game changer!!) and the other on how I figured out a bunch of coins I was evaluating for a client WERE FAKE!! $500+ worth! (Never fun to realize)

• You can learn more about my new juicing habits here (you need to watch the doc featured in it!): I’ve turned into a juice freak!! 🥦🥬🥕
• And you can read all about my counterfeit detecting here: An 1895 Fake Morgan and More!!

Hope your week has been just as eventful!

More great articles worth your time down below – particularly the first one 🙏

XOXO,

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Articles I enjoyed around the web this week:

The Beginning, Again @ Love Bomb Team — My boy Nate reboots his old weekly missions!! “Change the world in just 10 minutes a week!” Come join us! :)

Finding Hope @ Humble Dollar — “I quickly learned that my wife had been hiding accounts, credit cards and a post office box from me… I discovered that we had a combined debt of $200,000, not including our mortgage. I was embarrassed that I was so out of touch and let things get so out of control.”

What Would Sunshine Do? @ No Sidebar — “Sunshine is the best me that I can be but she isn’t the best. She still makes awkward small talk with strangers and creates way too many dishes when cooking dinner. She tries her best though and that is what is most important to remember.”

The Many Flavours of FI @ Money Flamingo — “Financial Independence is a fantastic concept and a very worthwhile goal. However, the truth is that the plain vanilla version (aka standard FIRE) isn’t an ideal fit for everyone…This has led to the birth of many new “types” of Financial Independence that reflect the different values and priorities, life circumstances and financial objectives within the broader FIRE movement.”

17 Questions That Changed My Life [PDF] via Tim Ferriss — “Reality is largely negotiable. If you stress-test the boundaries and experiment with the “impossibles,” you’ll quickly discover that most limitations are a fragile collection of socially reinforced rules you can choose to break at any time.” [Thanks to Apex Money for finding this one!]

Does all the financial advice you need still fit on an index card? @ Wallet Hacks — “Over ten years ago, Harold Pollack interviewed Helaine Olen and famously said that the best financial advice for most people could fit onto an index card… I was curious: How does it look after ten years? Does it still fit in a world where people shell thousands on an NFT or cryptocurrency? What about when interest rates are the highest it has been in decades?”

Time to FIRE Spreadsheet 2023 (Template for Google Sheets & Excel) @ Accidentally Retired — “There are many amazing retirement simulators out there like Empower’s and CFIREsim This is not one of them. In my Time to FI Spreadsheet, you plug in a few things and you’re done! It’ll give you a general idea of your “Time to FI” and you can begin to eye potential retirement dates.”

Change Your Environment, Change Your Life @ Rich In What Matters — “An area of my friend’s life that had felt stagnant now felt revived, all thanks to changing her environment. An uncluttered space shifted her outlook to a more positive space.”

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Morning!

If you’re reading this right now, it means I have Covid.

On the plus side, I’ve had nothing but time to read and write and think so there’s lots of great articles for you to gander down below 😁

I’m also feeling MUCH better than I was in the beginning (thanks Paxlovid!) so things aren’t looking too bad over here… Another cple of days and I can re-join society again – woo!! (Isolation is truly the worst… I literally stream Coffitivy 24/7  just to feel like I’m around people still, haha… (all it does is stream “coffee shop sounds”!! Genius!)

Pre-covid, however, I stumbled across 3 new life hacks for me and blogged about it here: 3 Random Life #Hacks. It covers mowing lawns, trash can ease, and remembering stuff when you’re naked 😏

Maybe you do some of these too??!

In other news, huge shout to Pat Flynn for totally making my kids’ year this week… You may remember him from his old school blog, Smart Passive Income, from a decade ago, but unbeknownst to me he started getting into Pokémon too and is apparently a pretty famous YouTuber now!

I had no idea. Until last week when I heard a voice that sounded awfully familiar on a video my boys were watching, and when it panned to the guy’s face I saw my old buddy Pat there! I screamed “I know that guy!” and my kids promptly LOST IT, haha… They couldn’t believe that I not only knew him, but even more impressively that we were friends! (*loose* friends, I should say… if we were that close I’d have known he was a famous YouTuber!! ;)) I DM’d Pat this, and he thought it was hilarious and told me to secretly shoot him my address and he’d send them over something special in the mail.

A few days later a big ol’ package landed on our doorstep and included not only a BRAND NEW box of Pokémon cards that were just released (!!!) but also came with three autographed cards from him and a nice letter thanking them for watching his show!! So nice!! They were mindblown and it’s all they’ve been talking about for days now :)

So thank you, sir!! You made 3 little boys (and their dad) super happy!

You can find Pat, and his Pokémon antics, @ DeepPocketMonster – it’s exceptionally good.

And that’s it for this week! Thanks for reading, and beware of the Covid!!!

Yours in isolation,

PS: That $1 note up top was found in my change! “Ben T. Is #1″ is scribbled in red, and then I think “Love, Gigi“? Hopefully they got together in the end ;)

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Articles I enjoyed around the web this week:

Hold Fast @ Happily Disengaged — “I’m not sure why the wack trend in the FIRE community these days is to demonize frugality and saving discipline. A rush of books and figure heads have come out that have pushed this alternative FI thread that sacrificing and delayed gratification is somehow suddenly a bad thing.  Why the big change?”

My $1,000 Monthly Pension @ We Want Guac — “In my work towards financial independence, I have stumbled upon a monthly pension granting me $1000 every 30 days.  I didn’t really review this until I sat down with my financial officer.”

It Happened Out of Nowhere @ Millionaire Habits — “It’s funny what happens when we stop using pharmaceuticals to mask legit problems. We stop the “Everything’s fine” charade and start fixing shit. I bet on myself. It paid off. I quit my job nine years ago.”

Tesla: BOOM or Doomed? @ 1500 Days — “On a silly whim, I bought Tesla stock back in 2012 and held on for dear life. It’s been a crazy ride, but now I’m a Teslanaire.  I got extremely lucky. Like unicorn lucky. But never forget this:  Most companies will die.”

The Second Bowl of Cereal and Other Economic Theories @ Poor. Choices. — “Cereal is great, but only a psychopath would eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast.  In fact, I’m pretty sure Lord Voldemort ate cereal for breakfast. It’s in the 5th book. Look it up.  No. True cereal aficionados know cereal is the perfect afternoon or late-night snack.”

How to Avoid Type 2 Money Mistakes @ Wallet Hacks — “Type 1 money mistake is one that is clearly bad at the time you make it. Paying for a Netflix subscription but never using it. Type 2 mistakes are more pernicious. It’s harder to identify because it’s the type of error that hurts you far into the future, long after the decision was made.”

If Your Employer Refuses To Negotiate Salary, Try These 11 Creative Counteroffers @ Bitches Get Riches — “When an employer refuses to negotiate salary, they’re giving you leverage to ask for other things. Today, I’ll give you a few ideas for creative counteroffers that will make your life better and sweeten any job transition. Even better, I’ll suggest some simple scripts you can follow to maximize your chances that they’ll say “yes.””

Friedrich Nietzsche: Amor Fati and Rejection of Objective Truths @ Darius Foroux — “Combining Nietzsche’s “amor fati” (love of fate) with his concept of “perspectivism” provides a powerful mental model for dealing with the challenges of today. I call it “open-minded resilience.””

Never Look Down the Road Not Taken @ Of Dollars and Data — “After winning the NBA championship in 1980, Johnson was offered sponsorship deals from Converse, Adidas, and Nike. While Converse offered the most money, Phil Knight, the head of Nike, told Johnson that instead of cash, he could give him shares of Nike.  Johnson, not knowing much about stocks at the time, took the Converse deal. After all, money talks.  But, when Johnson ran the numbers years later, he realized that the Nike stock he turned down would be worth nearly $5 billion today, or 8x his current net worth.”

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Collaboration of The Week:

Santa Cruz + Pokémon skateboards!! AHHH!!! You literally OPEN THEM UP like packs of cards and get surprised by the board you get! And not only that – they have special golden ones you can “pull” that I’m sure will fetch a butt ton of money for those who find one, lol… They’re just like Willy Wonka’s golden ticket, only golden skateboards!! So rad!! 🤩

More here (they come out on the 13th) –> santacruzskateboards.com/pokemon

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Morning morning!!

Dedicating today’s newsletter to my man Freddy Smidlap who ran a fun (and feisty!) money blog for a number of years now, and then suddenly it went blank last week 😱😱

Fortunately for us superfans he’s alive and well and chillin’ on Twitter now (never know when things like this happen!) but the PF world lost a great voice in the space and just wanted to personally give him a shout and let him know he was loved…

You had a fantastic run, brother!! Kept it raw and real without letting the “game” of blogging change you! Don’t disconnect forever now please!!

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In other news, I wrote two new blog posts lately and then did a fun interview with a site called StriveHouse that does AMA’s with different founders across the globe (and then offers “cameos” with them, similar to Cameo.com – only with us boring biz owners instead of celebrities ;))

Here’s my one-on-one with them:

How J. Money went from a net worth of $50k to $1M in 10 years and built, sold, and re-acquired BudgetsAreSexy.com
[Page no longer around – looks like they folded?]

And then my two new posts to gander:

I Like Your Sexy income — A reminder that budgeting doesn’t have to be bland or boring! I include my own budgeting spreadsheet that got myself going all those moons ago that you can download for free in it…

The “Z” Collection — A highlight of the most recent coin collection I evaluated… Nothing too rare or juicy in it, but still fun to see 100+ year old pretty coins!

‘Til next time!!

UPDATE: Looks like Freddy now has a substack with all his old articles on it!! Ahhh!! Thanks for appeasing us, buddy! :) –> freddysmidlap.substack.com

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A few articles I enjoyed around the web:

Running Out of Life @ Lazy Man and Money — “At some point, you may find that you have more money than life.”

How to Inherit a Fortune @ Raptitude – “Imagine you’re having a hard day, and you get home to find that someone has left dinner for you… What good fortune. Some thoughtful person predicted that you might want a meal right right about now, and made sure you had one. Of course, this thoughtful benefactor could be you, just earlier. Last night, your past self recognized the value a ready-made meal would have for tomorrow’s after-work self, so he left one for you in the fridge. Now imagine that your past self didn’t only prepare a meal for you last night, but wrote a book a few years ago”

5 Big Lessons Popular Personal Finance Advice Gets Wrong @ Gen Y Planning — “Homeownership is often looked at with rose-colored glasses. We’re told time and time again that success means a white picket fence and a (large) mortgage. But we urge you to challenge the notion of homeownership and recognize that it is, in fact, not always the superior choice.”

Transforming Stuff into a Countable Number @ No Sidebar — “Many languages–including English–divide the stuff in the world into countable and uncountable nouns. Two cups of water are countable, but when we speak of the water in the ocean, that’s uncountable–an amount, not a number. Since the average American household is said to contain a rough estimate of over 300,000 items, it’s no wonder that, grammatically, we treat our stuff like it’s an ocean.”

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Hi friends!!

So remember that job I just got around board games?? That was super exciting and fun and gave my brain something new and productive to work on?!

Well, I just got laid off from it after only a handful of weeks, womp… 😭😭

But it’s not all bad – I had a blast the entire 53 days there! :) You can read about what happened here:

Did I just get LAID OFF from my new job?!

The funny part is that it wasn’t even the shortest job I’ve ever held either! It only ranks as #4 out of my 40+ gigs over my life 😂But if anyone’s looking for some extra consulting help, you now know someone who’s wide open! Haha…

In other juicy news, check out that shirt up top featured on Good Morning America recently!! Do you recognize it?? It’s from our very own Budgets line! Rocked by our very own Mindy Jensen of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast.

I love that she ordered it from us, and love even more that she wears it around anytime cameras are rolling :) Thanks friend!! You’re a true Mother Budgeter indeed!

Hope y’all are having a fantastic week over there! More favorite gems below to get the weekend started off right…

Cheers,

*Link to Amazon is an affiliate link

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Favorite Reads Around The Community

The Ugliest/Prettiest Coin Holder You’ll Ever See? @ Coin Thrill — Had to revive my old coin blog here ;) If you’re into collecting or need help with a collection, check it out or hire me to help here!

Categories of 1 @ Young Money — “Everyone is obsessed with being the best, but you can only have one “best,” regardless of the number of competitors…The key to winning your game, whatever it is, is to either be the first or be the only, and it’s far easier to be the only… Figure out what your category of one is, that thing that makes you unique, and leverage it.”

Atomic Accountability @ Raptitude — “People who know they’re serious procrastinators should always have a “nuclear option” at their disposal. By that I mean a button, a switch, a no-turning-back phone call that will put into motion an unstoppable force capable of smashing through your usual hesitations when nothing else works.”

Committing The Personal Finance Sin Of Auto-Renewing Subscriptions @ Impersonal Finances — “Forgive me Bogle, for I have sinned. Last month, I committed one of the seven deadly sins of personal finance: auto-renewing a little-used subscription without a thought or consideration as to whether I still use that service.”

How to Read: Lots of Inputs and a Strong Filter @ Collab Fund — “My reading strategy is to start as many books as I can but finish few of them.”

12,795 possessions! Meet the woman who photographed every single thing she owns @ The Guardian — “Barbara Iweins spent four years taking pictures of every object in her home, from her own clothes to her kids’ toys. She realised she could live without 99% of them.”

My Dad’s Early Retirement Dream @ Hope To Prosper — “When you have an audacious dream, you need to protect it from the doubters, who do not share your vision and will try to dissuade you.  You must have the courage to pursue your dreams, despite your own fears and doubts.  You have an obligation to your future self to become the person you have always dreamt of being.”

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Short Film of The Week:

The Neighbors’ Window @ YouTube — “The story of a mother who has grown frustrated with her husband and her daily routine. But her life is shaken up when two free-spirited twenty-somethings move in across the street and she discovers that she can see into their apartment.” [An Oscar winner that lasts about 20 mins! Thanks for the find Apex Money – so good!]

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