Back in 2012, I thought I had finally conquered financial FOMO after walking away from a well-paying finance job. But after having children, I’ve noticed more and more relapses. If you’ve found yourself battling the desire for more money than you truly need, this post is for you. Ever since returning to San Francisco from| Financial Samurai
This type of post only surfaces during a bull market, when greed tug at us the hardest, making satisfaction elusive. Ever since making my first public equity investment in 1996, I’ve been hooked, wrestling with the constant mental tug-of-war over how to be at peace with my investment decisions. Maybe you fight the same battles.| Financial Samurai
After a week of reviewing the tax-free exclusion rule for selling a rental property, I decided not to sell. I’d already used my $500,000 tax-free exclusion amount and would need to wait at least two more years before I could potentially use the full amount again. Most importantly, I’m on a mission to boost my| Financial Samurai
To celebrate Millionaire Milestones: Simple Steps To Seven Figures making the USA TODAY national bestseller list, I want to share how you might feel and what you might do as you hit various levels of wealth (net worth). Perhaps by sharing, I'll motivate you to save and invest more aggressively. We'll start with reaching your first| Financial Samurai
In Spring 2025, I sold one of my properties and will successfully exclude $500,000 in capital gains, tax-free, thanks to the IRS Section 121 Exclusion. For those unfamiliar, this powerful rule allows homeowners to exclude up to $250,000 in capital gains if single, or $500,000 if married filing jointly, from the sale of a primary| Financial Samurai
On July 3, the House narrowly passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) with a 218–214 vote. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the bill will add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the budget deficit over the next 10 years. Trump signed the bill the next day on July 4. To help pay for it, OBBBA| Financial Samurai
I’m convinced that if you wake up just one hour earlier every day for the next 10 years, you’ll not only accomplish far more, but also build significant wealth and unlock countless opportunities in life. Conquering the magic of the morning—while most are still asleep—will give you a massive edge. I’m reminded of this truth| Financial Samurai
When my son was born in 2017, I decided to focus on being a stay-at-home dad (SAHD). Every early childhood development book I read emphasized that the first five years are the most critical for a child’s growth. So I figured, why not spend that time with him? It wasn’t a difficult decision since I| Financial Samurai
There is more wealth out there than you think. But the government and media sometimes likes to trick us into believing there is not. Government data says the median net worth in America is around $200,000. Meanwhile, the media keeps highlighting financial struggles, convincing us there’s a looming retirement crisis. But what gets overlooked is| Financial Samurai
As I watch my stock portfolio tank, I take solace in knowing that my real estate portfolio continues to chug along despite the chaos, fear, and uncertainty. With mass government personnel cuts, new tariffs against Mexico, Canada, and China, a heated Oval Office exchange between President Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky, and sharp words from| Financial Samurai
Creating an investment game plan is a crucial part of building lasting wealth. Without one, you're likely to accumulate far less over your lifetime. When the S&P 500 briefly corrected by 20% in 2025, we officially entered another bear market. Historically, bear markets have lasted about two years on average, but this one was shorter| Financial Samurai
Well, folks, after 16 years of diligently writing three free posts a week, I’ve finally decided to erect a paywall. Originally, starting in 2009, my goal was to provide free financial insights for 10 years to help people achieve financial independence sooner. Success! I’ve always believed that if you’re lucky enough to learn something valuable,| Financial Samurai
One adjustment I'm making to my net worth asset allocation is reducing exposure to closed-end venture capital funds while increasing allocation to open-ended venture capital funds. Closed-end venture capital funds follow a traditional model: you commit capital, fund capital calls over several years, and rely on the general partners to make great investment choices. I| Financial Samurai
I first heard about Mr. Money Mustache getting a divorce when he publicly mentioned it on Twitter in December 2018. The MMM divorce came out of nowhere given Pete Adney (MMM) had been regularly highlighting how wonderful his lifestyle was in the media. It’s great MMM is open about the divorce and has hosted a| Financial Samurai
Want to learn how to become a millionaire by 30? Here’s my story on how I reached a million dollar net worth in my late-20s. It involved a lot of luck, a lot of effort, and a lot of risk. I believe all Financial Samurai readers will eventually become millionaires due to disciplined saving and| Financial Samurai
The reason why the terms 'starving artist' or 'starving writer' exist is because they are true. It is very difficult to make money in the arts. However, if you want to be a professional writer and not starve, let me provide you with some insights. For background, I've written over 2,500 articles on Financial Samurai| Financial Samurai
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| Financial Samurai
Everybody should have a net worth target to shoot for by age, work experience, and income. Net worth targets will help you stick to your financial plan and motivate you to do more. With net worth targets, you will likely build way more wealth than if you had zero net worth targets. Too many people| Financial Samurai
The 60/40 portfolio is a classic investment portfolio consisting of 60% equities and 40% fixed income. If you are within five-to-ten years of retirement or are in retirement, a 60/40 portfolio is a common recommendation. Thanks to a low or negative correlation between stocks and bonds, soon-to-be retirees or retirees have been encouraged to hold| Financial Samurai
I'm a fan of both stock dividends and rental property income, my two favorite sources of passive / semi-passive income. When younger and less wealthy, rental property income may be preferable. As you age and accumulate wealth, you'll likely appreciate stock dividend income more for its simplicity. However, stock dividend income's main drawback is that| Financial Samurai
If you don't have your health, no amount of money is worth it. As someone who has been writing about early retirement and the FIRE movement since 2009, let me emphasize the health benefits of early retirement in this post. There are many benefits of early retirement. Full control of your time is often the| Financial Samurai
The best way to get rich is to turn funny money into real assets. By turning funny money gains into real assets, you increase your chances of holding onto your gains. But what is funny money? Funny money is money that is built upon far out assumptions that may never come true. Funny money is| Financial Samurai
Are you looking for a 401(k) savings guide? This post will go through how much I think you should have in your 401(k) by age in order to have a comfortable retirement in your 60s and beyond. My goal is for all of you to become 401(k) millionaires before your retire. I've been retired since| Financial Samurai
When I was 23 I got lucky, very lucky. I went fortune hunting and ended up making a lot of money. A $3,000 investment turned into $155,000 in two months. The stock was VCSY, a Chinese internet company with a homepage consisting of a simple dial pad. I had no idea what the company did| Financial Samurai
Dollar-cost averaging is the act of consistently investing in a particularly security over a set interval of time. Whether you know it or not, you are likely dollar-cost averaging every time you get a bi-weekly or monthly paycheck. For example, at the beginning of the year, you may elect a fixed percentage of your pre-tax| Financial Samurai
It's safe to assume the vast majority of you reading Financial Samurai want to be rich. I trust those of you who've been reading this site between 2009 and 2012, when I was writing heavily about investment strategies, have indeed become much richer. The compounding forces since then have been enormous. We are probably one| Financial Samurai
Passive and active investing are two ways to make investment returns in the stock market. Since my first job in finance, I've always actively invested some of my funds to chase unicorns. The question is: what is the best split between passive and active investing in the stock market? If you are only a passive| Financial Samurai
Zillow recently released an intriguing study that outlines the income needed to afford a 'typical home' in different cities. The study considers a 10% down payment and utilizes the Zillow Home Value Index to determine the median home price in each city. A 10% down payment is lower than my recommended 20% down payment based| Financial Samurai
Curious to know the ideal net worth for retirement? As someone fake retired in 2012 at age 34 with $3 million, let me tell you. $10 million sounds like the ideal amount of money to retire with. With $10 million, you can easily generate between $300,000 - $500,000 of low-risk investment income. I was talking| Financial Samurai
To have a top one percent net worth is an impressive achievement. Your net worth is literally higher than 99 percent of the population. However, what is a top one percent net worth amount exactly? Further, it's probably more appropriate to shoot for a top one percent net worth by age, not the overall top| Financial Samurai
If you're wondering about active versus passive investing performance, you've come to the right place. Overall, it's better to be a passive index investor because it is very hard to outperform various stock market indices long term. The vast majority of active equity and fixed income fund managers underperform their respective indices. One of the| Financial Samurai
Your net worth composition will likely change the wealthier you get. The wealthier you get, the generally more conservative your net worth allocation. However, wealthier people also have more of their net worth in business equity as you'll see below. For example, my net worth composition in my 40s looks nothing like it did when| Financial Samurai
After 12 years of FIRE (financial independence retire early), I went back to work. Unfortunately, I only lasted four months. Here's my story of what went wrong. I purposefully waited months to release this post to ensure I was thinking logically and not emotionally. From the end of November 2023 through March 2024, I re-entered| Financial Samurai
Fat FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) is being able to live it up in retirement without having to sacrifice your spending. If you are Fat FIRE, you can easily survive without a job because your investment income more than covers your best life's living expenses. You don't need to work part-time or do anything to| Financial Samurai
One of the reasons why I continue to save so much is that I'm a perpetual failure. I've made so many mistakes in my life that I need a financial buffer to constantly bail me out. A landmine-filled upbringing has also embedded in me the necessity to save. If it's not an investment mistake, it's| Financial Samurai
Savings is the foundation of good personal finance. This article will discuss how much savings to accumulate by age so you can achieve financial independence and retire comfortably. It's important to have savings targets at every age to keep you on track. When it comes to building wealth, you don't want to just wing it!| Financial Samurai
Although the Roth IRA is an important tax-advantaged retirement account, there are also disadvantages of the Roth IRA that are seldom discussed. For years I've been an opponent of the Roth IRA. After the government came out with its tricky way to let us all do a 'one-time' Roth IRA conversion from our traditional IRAs,| Financial Samurai
The best way to achieve financial freedom is to make more money. You can only save so much on a capped income. And one of the best ways to make more money is to side hustle! No longer should we just rely on a day job to thrive. I (Sydney, Sam's wife) have put together| Financial Samurai
If there's one generation wealthier than ours, it's the 'Bank of Mom and Dad' generation. Given that our parents have had, on average, three decades longer to save and invest, it's natural that they have accumulated more wealth. For adult children in need of financial assistance, finding a tactful way to approach their parents for| Financial Samurai
As someone who helped ignite the modern day FIRE movement back in 2009 when Financial Samurai began, I'm amazed at how popular the movement has come! There are so many different types of FIRE to fit different people's lifestyles. Today, we'll discuss what is Coast FIRE and whether it's the right type of FIRE for| Financial Samurai
U.S. Vice President Kamala Devi Harris and her husband reported more than $2 million in income on their 2018 federal tax return. The majority of their income came from her husband’s work as a partner at the law firm DLA Piper LLP. This article will go through Kamala Harris’ net worth. As a U.S. Senator,| Financial Samurai
If you're trying to figure out how much to spend on buying a house, the best home-buying rule I can offer you is my 30/30/3 home-buying rule. I came up with the 30/30/3 home-buying rule back in 2009 during the global financial crisis. Since then, many publications and industry pundits have promoted it since. If| Financial Samurai
Since 1999, I've been climbing up the property ladder to find the perfect house in a big city. What I've realized is that there's no such thing as the perfect house. There's a good-enough house or an almost-perfect house, but there's always at least one or two things missing to make a house ideal. Additionally,| Financial Samurai
Given our primary residence is likely one of our largest assets, buying responsibly is prudent. At the same time, living a better lifestyle by owning a nicer home as we get wealthier is also something many people desire. Therefore, let's try and figure out what our appropriate primary residence value should be as a percentage| Financial Samurai
There's nothing better than being free to do whatever you want. However, unless you're born with a multi-million dollar trust fund, you'll unfortunately have to work for your freedom. This article will discuss how you can retire early and never have to work again. You can follow my savings guide to increase your chances of| Financial Samurai
Ever since the global pandemic began, the private jet market has been booming. But as a financially savvy person, you might wonder how much does it cost to fly private? Further, are there any cost-efficient ways to fly private? Flying private is one luxury that can improve your life once you become rich. No more| Financial Samurai
Your financial independence number is the amount of money you think you need in order to be free. Unfortunately, if nothing changes in your life after reaching your financial independence number, then the number simply is not real. You need to accumulate more capital and generate more passive income. Some people continue to believe once| Financial Samurai
After taking my family on a nine-day vacation to Honolulu, Hawaii, my plan to relocate there is back in the cards! Since 2014, two years after retiring from my finance job, I've been contemplating moving back to Honolulu to spend more time with my parents. However, actually making the move has been much harder than| Financial Samurai
If you were to guess what the average new car price is nowadays, what would you guess? I guessed $25,000, since my Honda Fit is sweet for an economy car and only costs $19,600 new. Given I'm frugal, leaving a 20% upside pricing buffer seemed logical. Too bad I was way off! According to Kelley Blue| Financial Samurai
Starting at age 45 in 2022, I consciously started focusing on decumulating wealth. I realized that my life was likely half over, and I needed to start spending more to prevent dying with too much money. If I died with too much money, it would mean that I had wasted a lot of time and| Financial Samurai
With the election over and Trump winning, the political mudslinging and dirt-digging has subsidies. But there was a time when being childless and loving cats was a big debate. Republican VP-elect JD Vance said this during a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson: 'It doesn't make any sense that we turned our country over to people| Financial Samurai
The proper asset allocation of stocks and bonds by age is important to achieve financial freedom and stay retired. If you allocate too much to stocks the year before you want to retire and the stock market collapses, then you're screwed. If you allocate too much to bonds over your career, you might not be| Financial Samurai
Recently, I temporarily went broke because I improperly managed my private investment capital calls. Because this happened, I thought I'd discuss some straightforward solutions to ensure you always have liquidity. If you are a new private fund investor or plan to invest in more private funds to diversify your investments, please learn from my errors.| Financial Samurai
Do you want to be a great investor? If so, then you need to learn how to connect the dots to make profitable investments nobody else can see. By investing in long-term trends, you can become a great investor. By properly allocating your assets in a risk-adjusted manner, you can also become a great investor.| Financial Samurai
Everyone with children should contribute to a 529 plan. It is a tax-efficient way to save for college since none of the gains are taxable if used for approved college expenses. Today, it costs about $200,000 in total for four years at the most expensive public colleges and about $400,000 for four years at the| Financial Samurai
In the second half of 2023, I significantly impacted our passive income, causing our household to technically lose its financial independence. Prior to this, we had been financially independent since 2012, when I left my banking job. My goal now is to regain financial independence by December 31, 2027. To achieve this, I need to| Financial Samurai
In 2023, my passive income took a significant $150,000 hit, representing a decrease of 39%, following the purchase of a new house we didn't really need. It was funded by proceeds from selling public stocks and bonds. The decision to buy the house with cash was agonizing, as we didn't need a nicer home. It| Financial Samurai
Recently, I received a capital distribution from a private real estate fund, and it couldn't have come at a better time. The experience brought me both joy and relief, prompting me to share it in the hope that it might inspire you to invest more for your future. After purchasing a new home in 2023,| Financial Samurai
In 2007, I had a dream of taking my future family on a ski vacation. I was an avid snowboarder and my wife enjoyed the tranquility of Lake Tahoe. After receiving a good bonus, I bought a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo at Everline Resort in Palisades. Our son came ten years later, but we didn't go| Financial Samurai
Lately, I've been pondering why I have less admiration for men who claim to be retired but have a working spouse. Is it fueled by envy? It's possible, considering I wouldn't mind if my wife were the breadwinner, easing some of the financial strain on me. The sentiment is akin to observing several of my| Financial Samurai
With negative cash flow, I've embarked on a mission to trim unnecessary expenses from my budget. In times of surplus cash before my home purchase, I hadn't scrutinized my expenses for years. It's not that I was lazy about budgeting; instead, I've always embraced the 'pay myself first and spend the rest' strategy. Each month,| Financial Samurai
For those of you who are looking to upgrade homes, let me tell you a sad truth. I climbed to the top of the property ladder with my latest home purchase, and after five months, I felt no happier. Whenever someone would congratulate me about my home purchase, I felt nothing. What's there to celebrate| Financial Samurai
Living paycheck-to-paycheck is an unpleasant financial experience. Not only does it mean needing to spend everything you have to make ends meet, it may also create an ongoing feeling of despair. Never feeling like you’ll ever get out of the rat race and retire is demoralizing! You might even have to get into debt to| Financial Samurai
After publishing my post on no longer being financially independent, several media outlets picked up the story and thousands of comments on their respective platforms ensued. The main criticism was that my expenses were way too high and that I am greedy. As a result, I thought it would be useful to discuss the impact| Financial Samurai
My family and I could have been set for life. Instead, due to my inability to beat back real estate FOMO, I blew up our passive income. And because our passive income is now much lower, we are no longer financially independent. Desire is the cause of all suffering. Due to my desire to own| Financial Samurai
Everybody wants to become a millionaire. Unfortunately, not everybody's chances of becoming a millionaire are the same, partially because the playing field is not even. This article looks at historical data on your chances of becoming a millionaire by race, age, and education. Getting to at least one million dollars in net worth is a| Financial Samurai