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You Can’t do Everything: How I’m Prioritizing What to Start, Stop and Continue in Retirement

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9 min read. Personal, Goals, Blog, Canonical. 9 Comments

As I mentioned in my post last week, I’m officially leaving my job. I’m optimistic about our financial situation in this change, but the day-to-day change will be a larger concern. I’ll be moving from a structured life, with a job setting guard rails and times to be at specific places into an unknown schedule where I am setting the agenda.

I’m excited to do this, but I also know I don’t want to overwhelm myself with too much pressure. Pressure to get specific things done, pressure to accomplish goals, to make Minafi profitable (not a priority), pressure to relax. All of that pressure is internal, and how I balance my days will determine how I adjust in this time of change.

Luckily, I have a strategy that I love using to brainstorm in the face of change.

trail zion

Start, Stop Continue

Start, Stop, Continue is one of my favorite exercises. It’s one I’ve used at jobs for years – sometimes in groups and sometimes just me to help organize my thoughts.

The activity itself is relatively simple. Take a sheet of paper and turn it on its side. Draw 3 headers at the top of the page labeled “Start”, “Stop” and “Continue”, with a divider between them. It should look something like this.

start-stop-continue

Next, find a quiet place alone where you can spend about 15 minutes. Whenever I’ve done this activity, it’s been important that this time is uninterrupted – not just sitting in front of the TV casually brainstorming. 

The next step is to determine what the subject will be for this activity. Picking a prompt sets the stage for the questions. For this one, here’s the prompt I went with:

What do you want to [Start, Stop, Continue] doing if you had all the time in the world?

Prompt for this Activity

If that doesn’t resonate with you, feel free to tweak it.

Next, sit down and set a timer for 5 minutes. In that 5 minutes, you’ll write down as many things as possible that you want to start doing if you had all the time in the world.

These aren’t commitments! Write whatever comes to your mind. If you’ve always dreamed of learning a foreign language, write it down. If you’ve always wanted to learn an instrument write it down. Anything that’s new that you’re not doing now but want to start doing – write it down.

At the end of this 5 minutes you might have a lengthly list. That’s OK!

Next, allocate 5 minutes for everything you want to stop doing if you had all the time world. What work would you stop doing? What self-imposed stress would you stop? What time-imposed stress would be loosened? What commitments would you want no longer prioritize?

This doesn’t mean you CAN stop doing, just that you’d want to stop doing it. Some of the most impactful ideas in this section when I’ve done this activities were dreaming big and going to the root of problems – even without any idea on how to solve them.

Stop is the hardest one for me. If you’re constantly optimizing your life, there may be far fewer items in this column. That’s OK!

Lately, allocate 5 more minutes to list everything you want to continue doing if you had all the time in the world. What activities do you love doing today and want to continue? What things are effective, or productive that you want to continue? What’s great for your mental health and personal wellbeing that would beneficial to continue? Are there things that help other people you want to continue?

My Results from Start, Stop Continue

I did this activity myself back in October after I’d made the decision to leave my current role. At that time I wasn’t sure if I’d transition into a new role or take a break. This activity helped me understand what’s important – so I can focus on that next.

Here’s what I came up with.

Note: There are a lot of things on my list. I’ve done this activity before, so I’m familiar with it. I also spent more than 5 minutes on this, and have done so over multiple sessions. If your list isn’t this long, that’s one potential reason why.

Behaviors to Start

  • Start waking up around 8:00 AM (or whenever Mrs. Minafi wakes up).
  • Start trying new forms of exercise – skiing, rock climbing, long-distance running, yoga.
  • Start increasing my morning writing session from 1 hour to 2 hours.
  • Start organizing more time with friends (game nights, dinners out/in, bars).
  • Start planning and cooking multi-serving meals (breakfast burritos, curry, etc).
  • Start buying more food in bulk from places like Costco.
  • Start writing more about my experience going through the transition to not working.
  • Start setting boundaries between side projects and personal life.
  • Start organizing lunches out with friends, coworkers and Mrs. Minafi.
  • Start eating more fruits and other healthy snacks.
  • Start cutting my own hair (Sometimes at least. I used to do this). Mrs. Minafi has vetoed this in favor of a more handsome husband with good haircuts.
  • Start reviewing our household spending after each month instead of each quarter (so we can see trends faster).
  • Start having monthly spending chats with Mrs. Minafi where we discuss the spending for the past month and set goals for the new one.

Behaviors to Stop

  • Stop identifying myself by my job role, accomplishments or work.
  • Stop waking up at 5:45 AM.
  • Stop creating todo items for the week.
  • Stop grazing on whatever food we have available.
  • Stop working on Minafi (or any side project) as often at night.
  • Stop setting quarterly goals.
  • Stop paying to get my haircut (sometimes at least). Mrs. Minafi has vetod this in favor of a more handsome husband with good haircuts.
  • Stop going on social media during the day (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit).
  • Stop trying to optimize every day and instead be OK with progress.
  • Stop setting unachievable expectations for myself.

Behaviors to Continue

  • Continue writing first thing in the morning.
  • Continue exercising (at least) 3x a week.
  • Continue not watching TV during the day (unless it’s Olympics, World Cup, CrossFit Games or another time-limited TV).
  • Continue going for at least one hike every week.
  • Continue not drinking alcohol when I’m alone.
  • Continue alternating who takes Lily for walks in the morning/afternoon.
  • Continue spending time learning new things.
  • Continue having date nights with Mrs. Minafi.
  • Continue playing video games for fun.
  • Continue programming a lot.
  • Continue going to sleep before it’s too late at night (1 AM-ish).
  • Continue going to the coffee shop close by to program and work on side projects.
  • Continue not having children (our personal choice!)
  • Continue learning more about web and visual design.
  • Continue learning more about data visualization.
  • Continue learning more about SEO and growing an audience.
  • Continue learning more about Vue.js for front-end development.
  • Continue tracking my time.
  • Continue focusing on habits over goals.
  • Continue learning Japanese with Duolingo.

What To Look For

Take a look at your list. Does one category look a bunch longer than the others? I tried this same exercise about a year ago with very different results. My “Start” category was crazy long. My continue section was relatively short. When I looked at most of those things in “start”, they were almost all things I could do while employed. Almost nothing was blocked by only having a few hours a week work on them.

For example, “Start learning Japanese” was on there. After some experimentation with a scheduling, I realized I could spend the bus/train to work taking a level or two each day. It only took 5-10 minutes, but it was slowly building up that habit. 

Even those this list is assuming you had all the time in the world, there’s likely a lot you could do towards it now. This is similar to my personal goals. When I created that list I realized that the majority of things on the list could be worked on while I was still employed.

How To Prioritize Each

How you prioritize each is up to you. I have 13 things in “Start” and almost every one of them is a habit I want to train. Depending on your list, there are a bunch of ways to organize these. I’ve tried a few techniques myself:

  • Prioritize them from 1 to N ordered by most important.
  • Warren Buffett’s 25/5 Technique
  • Grouping them into categories for Adopt, Trial, Assess and Hold. These are used by Thoughtworks on their technology radar. It helps to know which habits you’re strong on and which you’re just trying to train yourself on.
  • Theme them based on topic. For example, group all “learn” ones or all “cook” ones together. Items within these categories are likely at odds with each other. If you want to learn Piano and Japanese, you’ll improve your odds of success if you pick one to start with.
  • Create a “first step” for each item. If you were to take action on each thing, what would you do next?

The worst thing that can happen as a result of this is nothing. That you have a bunch of things you want to try, or start/stop doing but you make no active change. With that in mind, I think a good step is to pick 1 thing on the start list that you can work on this week and give it a shot!

Rate and Chart Them

One way to organize these is to rate each one across different dimensions. You’ll want to define which dimensions make the most sense for you. The dimensions that I found useful for this exercise were:

  • Difficulty
  • Mental Benefit
  • Physical Benefit
  • Financial Benefit

For the above 4 dimensions, I put them into a Google Sheet and ranked them from 1-100. I started with a score of 1-5. What’s important is the ranking. The goal of this scoring is to be able to easily see which items would be the best bang for their buck.

After years of being a Product Manager, I have an unhealthy obsession with prioritization. Of course that means that I graphed these results. Here’s a look at what came out of this.

What stands out from this exercise is a look at exactly what I should focus on that would provide the most impact on a mental & physical health level. If I were optimizing for difficulty or financial situation then the results would be different.

The most impactful things I can start/stop become crystal clear from this exercise:

  • Start waking up at 8:00 AM
  • Start planning and cooking multi-serving meals (breakfast burritos, curry, etc).
  • Start trying new forms of exercise – skiing, rock climbing, long-distance running, yoga.
  • Stop identifying myself by my job role, accomplishments or work.
  • Stop waking up at 5:45 AM.

All of these new behaviors have a positive impact on both the mental and physical level. The “Stop identifying myself by my job role, accomplishments or work” one is perhaps the most difficult one of all. After decades of drilling this into my mindset, it’ll be a big mindset shift. The stress of that thought has physical impact as well.

Mental Wins

Beyond the wins that are both mental and physical, there are a few things that are bucketed into just one category.

  • Stop setting unachievable expectations for myself.
  • Start organizing lunches out with friends, coworkers and Mrs. Minafi.
  • Start setting boundaries between side projects and personal life.
  • Start organizing more time with friends (game nights, dinners out/in, bars).
  • Stop trying to optimize every day and instead be OK with progress.

All of these are ones I’m going to try to watch closely. With so many changes at once, taking mental health seriously is important.

Physical Wins

In the last year since moving to Salt Lake City I’ve put on about 10 pounds. Considering that I now live in a utopia of outdoor activity it’s a bit of a surprise to be honest.

I can trace that weight gain to a few things: Not caring about what I eat at all, having unlimited food, snacks, and drinks at work (which I’d gladly eat) and upping our alcohol consumption compared to past years.

I enjoy exercise, getting out to nature and cooking, so improving my fitness doesn’t feel like I’m losing out. If anything it helps give more energy and creativity to help with everything else in life.

This is part of why almost everything physical in the chart is also above the fold. Physical activity improves mental health. I can’t think of a day when I went hiking, to the gym or skiing where I came back feeling mentally worse.

There aren’t too many “leaning physical health” items, but these two bubbled to the top:

  • Start eating more fruits and other healthy snacks.
  • Stop grazing on whatever food we have available.

Having fruits and other healthy snacks on hand as well as cooking food in bulk can help to improve my diet. It’ll be a big change from having a candy wall and a ton of snacks at work I’ve been eating lately.

Weekly Review 

I’ll be honest, after about 3 days I completely forgot most of what was on my list. Unless you revisit them and review, you’re unlikely to be affected by this exercise. 

What I did next was set a weekly checkin to look at these and see how I’m doing. I don’t write anything down or journal at this time – just read and think. Occasionally I’ll reorder these based on new information, or delete something that I’ve realized doesn’t make sense.

This continuous review keeps these top of mind.

Have you ever tried start, stop, continue? Do you have any other activities you use when entering into a period of change? Have you tried this activity? Feel free to share what you want to start, stop or continue in the comments.

It’s Official: I’m Leaving My Job. What’s Next?

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9 min read. Personal, Financial Independence, Blog. 72 Comments

🚨 Big life decision update. 🚨

After almost 8 years at Code School and Pluralsight, I’ve decided to part ways. It’s been one hell of a ride from a small group that could fit in a hot tub (or a ping pong room) to a 1,400 person publicly-traded company.

I honestly can’t put into words how amazing the experience has been. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on things I’m interested in with passionate, caring, growth-minded friends. The amount I’ve grown in this time has been character-defining for the type of person I want to be in this life.

adam observation peak zion
Me at the top of Observation Point in Zion National Park last month.

Just look at these two heartfelt write-ups from the experience from earlier this year for what I mean:

There would be too many people to mention to list everyone who’s contributed to making this experience awesome. 8 years means a lot of people – many that have moved on to other amazing things, others I see every day.

I’ll still be around at my current job for another 2 weeks before my last day on December 14th. I’ve been working to transition my role to someone new with my manager for the last 3 months, so hopefully, everything can go smoothly.

I gave 3 months notice for leaving my position. I did this because I genuinely do like where I work, and want the best for my coworkers. It hasn’t all been public knowledge, so I haven’t shared it here (although I might’ve spilled the beans to a few people in person at FinCon).

When I made up my mind to leave, I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do it. Should I give 2 weeks notice? Should I try to get a severance or payout of some kind? What does the handoff look like for projects I’ve invested so much of myself in?

I read through all of Financial Samurai’s book, How to Engineer Your Layoff (although I didn’t add that one to my Goodreads list right away). It helped frame the conversation and open up some ideas on how to approach a job transition in a way that’s more win-win for both the employee and the employer. There were some tactics discussed there which might have made me more money, but at the cost of relationships. 

To preempt the same few questions, here are some answers for you:

Why Are You Leaving?

There’s no “one thing”. People are great, the company is great, money is great. The biggest difference is I’ve struggled to wake up every morning feeling as excited as I used to be. I want to find something else where I can feel that way again. I don’t think I’ll ever find something quite the same, but I do want to try looking and see.

Over the last few years, I’ve been in a lot of roles. I was an engineer (full-stack web), Engineering Manager, Engineering Director, Course Author, Technical Director, Course Director, Product Director and a Product Manager. All of them were chosen out of necessity for what work needed to be done – and I’d happily fill the role to try something new. In that time I got a ton of exposure to many different areas of a growing business and learned what parts I enjoy the most. 

The roles I enjoy the most are at the intersection of programming, content and product creation. I love doing all 3 of those. Having the ability to ping back and forth between them when I’m tired of one area and need a break helps them all stay fresh.

Working at a small company you wear a lot of hats. Working across all three of these areas isn’t uncommon – especially in the ed tech sector.  The larger a company grows, the more narrow roles often become, with experts in each. Those like me who want to be deep in the creation have trouble – as we don’t scale as well. Ultimately this is good – as it means things will live on with the right people in the right roles. Unfortunately it means some people who eschew mastery are left looking for other challenges.

The Financial Side of Leaving

We’ll obviously have a big shift in cash flow thanks to this change. It’s going to be… difficult.. seeing my account balances go down rather than up as we draw from them.

Part of leaving on this schedule is due to the stock grants I have. With roughly $1 million in stock, there’s a question of what I do with it. It’s a high enough amount that just selling it outright doesn’t make sense for tax purposes. Holding onto it while continuing to be employed leaves me at the mercy of blackout dates for when I can buy or sell company stock too.

This put me in a bind. Either I could stay and only sell during active trading windows, or leave and have more options open to me. Being an employee also restricts some protective measures that aren’t available if you’re an employee of a public company (like protective puts).

All of this to say that by leaving now I might make more money than if I stay. Time will tell.

I’ll be writing much more about this in the coming weeks. Why not join my mailing list to be notified?

What will you be doing next?

I’m not leaving for another job – or looking for one. I’ve been extremely fortunate with finances (which I overshare here on my blog, so you might know already), and am in a position where I don’t need to work (maybe forever? Markets and time will tell on that). For now, I’m aiming to pursue other passions and see where they take me.

No, but what will you actually be doing?

Well, it’s December so that’s obvious:

  • Finishing Red Dead Redemption 2
  • Rewatching LotR
  • Rewatch all of the HP movies
  • Skiing
  • Realizing skiing is really just a day of cardio in the cold
  • Repeat in January

But really, I’m not sure long-term. I’ve been thinking a lot about what my perfect week would look like. This exercise helped highlight what I want to do and put them in very realistic terms. Time is finite – even if you’re not working. Even if there are a ton of things I want to do, it comes down to what do I want to do first. For me now, that includes some time unwinding, followed by time creating things.

I want to try growing Minafi into a business. I want to program more. I want to cook more. I want to hike more.

I’m hoping to slow down a little and be able to do this while also being present more and spending more time with friends. I want to play more board games. 

One thing I do know is that I want to write more here on Minafi. I also want to explore more about how I can bring unique value to the investing space that only I can bring. In other words, how can I use my skill set and interest in programming, content, and product to create things that resonate and are memorable?

Minafi Must be Raking it in!

Believe it or not, most FIRE blogs don’t make money – Minafi included. I share how much money Minafi COSTS me each month on my income & expenses page if you’re curious. Right now it’s just an expensive hobby costing a few thousand a year (after hosting, services, travel, education and more).

There has not been a single month where Minafi has been in the black since starting it. Part of that is because I love trying new services, learning what works, and exploring ways to grow a site. All of those things cost money. I’d love to get to the point where income can fund experimentation, education and maybe some of my month-to-month personal spending.

View from my computer at my office
A view from my desk in Orlando around sunset.

I’ve loved working at a startup – solving problems fast that provide value to people, shipping and iterating. All through my 20s and 30s, I’d come home from work energized about what I was working on. More times than I can count I’d just keep programming once I got home, creating something I could be proud of.

I can’t wait to use that energy to continue creating here on Minafi!

One point to clarify here too: I’m not leaving to work on Minafi. I’m leaving to do many things – with this passion being one of them. I have a feeling some weeks it’ll be my primary focus, while in others I’ll dive deep into another side project or passion.

I have an addictive personality. When I get into something I can’t let it go right away. I see this as a good thing! Coupled with time I’m interested to see what happens.

Does this mean you’re FI or RE?!

Maybe? Yes? No? Let’s take this one term at a time.

Does this mean I’m financially independent?

Here’s how I define FI:

Financial Independence: The point in which you don’t need to make money for the rest of your life.

My definition of FI

That seems black and white, but knowing you’re there is hard! Will your spending increase or decrease in the future? What about health concerns? Market returns? Family support? There are a million things that could go wrong that make it unrealistic (in my opinion) to ever confidently say you’re FI without a huge buffer or a solid cash flow.

I’d put my current financial situation as a solid in the maybe, but probably not column for this given our current and future spending.

  • Mrs. Minafi is currently continuing to work, so yes.
  • Given our yearly spending in 2018 (which may top $100k), absolutely not.
  • If we reduce our spending to $80k next year then maybe.
  • If we reduce our spending to $65k next year then probably.
  • If Minafi actually makes money someday then yes.
  • If Mrs. Minafi stops working then maybe.

We have somewhere around $2 million saved up now, but these last 2 years have been a killer on our budgets. Getting married, going on 2 honeymoons, fixing up and selling a house, moving across country and then traveling a bunch more apparently does that. I foresee (and hope!) that our expenses will level out and drop in 2019.

A big part of this is a major windfall recently that I’ll be writing more about in the coming weeks. For those following me on Twitter, it was also the day I lost my sunglasses.

If you were to ask how confident I am that I wouldn’t need to make money for the rest of my life, I’d say nearly 0% – as in I’m not confident in that at all. Sure, we might be sitting close to a 4% withdrawal rate on our savings based on our budget, but there are other things to take into account:

  • Stock markets are at a relative high as measured by the Shiller CAPE ratio
  • Our spending of $100k is too waaay high for our savings.
  • It’s unknown how much we’ll lower our spending in 2019.
  • I have some fo the worst timing in history.

As for timing, here’s what I mean:

Day i gave notice
My net worth over time as tracked from Personal Capital

Sure, my account value was that high, but I knew it was highly dependent on a very volatile company stock. Seeing my account value that high did get me to reflect more on what I want out of my career and my days. If anything that gave me more confidence to make life changes – even after the drop.

The same bad timing hit just as I decided for some reason to write about Bitcoin last year.

Day i wrote about bitcoin
Bitcoin price over time before my Coinbase review in December

All this to say that I suck at timing things. It’s also the reason why I favor minimal investing over trying to time the market. 

Does that mean you’re retired?

Everyone seems to have their own definition of what “retired” means. Here’s how I define it:

Retirement: The point at which the vast majority of your time is flexible and in your control.

My definition of retirement

You can be retired but not be financially independent. Take this conversation from Office Space:

Peter Gibbons: I’d relax, sit on my ass all day, I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well you don’t need a million dollars, to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he’s broke, don’t do shit.

Conversation from Office Space

My definition of retirement matches that. It’s a lack of obligations. It’s the availability to do things.

Everyone has their own definition. Here’s mine:

  • If you volunteer at an animal shelter a few days a week are you still retired? Yes
  • If you take a part-time job are you retired? No
  • If you write on a blog occasionally, are you still retired? Yes (even if it makes money)
  • If you’re working to turn a blog into a business, are you retired? No

My definition of retirement has a focus on intent. If you’re doing something for fun without a long-term commitment that sounds more like retirement to me. If you’re actively building something you’re not retired – you’re just living the dream of working on something you love!

And that’s where I (and many others in the FIRE community) fall right now. We’re working towards FI not to RE, but to create something new. I enjoy creating and investing a large amount of my time to build things. I can’t wait to have even more time to do it!

Where all of this goes long-term only time will tell.

What do you think of my plan for the future? Do you have a different definition of FI or RE?

Is FIRE A Hero’s Journey?

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4 min read. Mindfulness, Financial Independence, Blog, Minafi, Canonical. 4 Comments

I grew up watching too much TV, going to the movies and reading more books than I can count. There is such appeal to the escape into another world with a nice clean ending. Our hero is drawn to action, encounters a problem, tries to solve it, stumbles, overcomes obstacles and eventually triumphs – the classic hero’s journey.

Most stories follow this same arc. It allows a build up, some suspense and an overall sense of relief when the task is accomplished.

Woman looking over path

Life isn’t like that. Phases of your life may be, but life as a whole is not. Without knowing it, I had been comparing the journey to FIRE to the hero’s journey – some part of me thinking of it as a destination to be reached. 

While the journey to FIRE might match this format, it’s not the only journey you’re on in life (well, unless you’re going for unhealthy FIRE).

It’s easy to see why. The Hero’s Journey approach has steps that correspond nicely with growth in any subject. Take FIRE for example:

  1. The Call to Adventure – When you first hear about FIRE from a blog, podcast, friend or news article.
  2. Refusal of the Call – “Wait, I couldn’t do that… or could I?”
  3. Meeting the Mentor – This is almost always reading Mr. Money Mustache, Our Next Life or J.D. Roth. With the growing amount of FIRE in the news and bloggers, this could be many different people.
  4. Crossing the First Threshold – Realizing the “Shockingly Simple Math” and calculating your own FIRE date.
  5. Belly of the Whale – Diving deep into budgeting (or mindful spending) and investing; a step it’s hard to imagine NOT doing after you’ve done it.
  6. The Road of Trials – The small series of tests to make sure you have what it takes. Opening a Vanguard account, spending more time with Google Sheets than is healthy.
  7. The Meeting with the Goddess – This is where the hero meets with someone and gains an item that helps them. In this case, I’ll just assume it’s Vanguard and $VTSAX.
  8. A Woman/Man as Temptress – The call to abandon your quest. Moving into a big house and lifestyle inflation fit the bill here.
  9. Atonement with the Father/Mother/Abyss – Confrontation with whoever holds the ultimate power in life – ie, talking with your spouse about what you both really want out of FIRE.
  10. Apotheosis – A point of greater understanding is achieved. You and your significant other are on the same page with more resolve than ever.
  11. The Ultimate Boon – Reaching your final goal. Financial independence is achieved!
  12. Refusal of the Return – A reluctance to share the “boon” with others for fear of being thought of as different. Feeling guilty that you’re not working, or that you’ve reached financial independence when so many have so much less.
  13. The Magic Flight – The journey back with the boon. Think Indiana Jones after taking the golden idol. Perhaps tax-loss harvesting your gains and resetting your asset allocation to prepare for retirement?
  14. Rescue from Without – Just as there were mentors needed to achieve the ultimate boon, there are mentors needed to bring them back to everyday life. Hi Vicky Robin and other FI bloggers who are already FI and sharing their wisdom!
  15. The Crossing of the Return Threshold – A return to a new normal with the knowledge gained, and perhaps sharing it with the rest of the world. This sounds like an excellent time to start a blog.
  16. Master of Two Worlds – Achieving a balance between the material and spiritual worlds. After moving away from your previous job, finding a new balance in life that makes you happy and fulfilled.
  17. Freedom to Live – Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death. By enjoying every day there is nothing to fear in life.

This is Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey template which has been an inspiration for Star Wars and other epic tales. The parallels to FIRE are clear (which is one reason why there might be so many blogs about it).

My favorite quote from Campbell is in reference to the last step:

The hero is the champion of things becoming, not of things become, because he is. He does not mistake apparent changelessness in time for the permanence of Being, nor is he fearful of the next moment (or of the ‘other thing’), as destroying the permanent with its change. ‘Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater renewer, ever makes up forms from forms.

Jopseph Campbell

I love this takeaway. It’s story of continual growth and change – not a finish line.

Every blog and story I read by people who have left their jobs (either because they are retiring or because they have other dreams) seems to hit on this same idea: that it’s only the beginning of a new chapter. They might have gone through this hero’s journey for FIRE, but they’re ready to start another one should the right call to adventure come. 

Minimalism is Learning to Accept Losses

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3 min read. Minimalism, Blog, Minafi. Leave a Comment

There’s an odd dynamic between maximizing returns and minimizing clutter in one’s life. I’ve been guilty of holding on to possessions far longer than I need them all the while saying to myself “I might need this someday” or “I don’t want to rebuy this”. This is a side of minimalism I don’t often see discussed.

When looking at Instagram pretty pictures or even ones I’ve posted, it may come off as perfection. Every item is used, every possession has it’s home. While that may be a goal you strive towards, to get there would mean discarding everything else in your life.

girl with balloon grafiti

There are many such tradeoffs when it comes to minimalism – and not all of them make sense. 

For example, the minimal investor in me favors a simple 3-fund portfolio. That’s an easy recommendation to make for someone who is starting, but what about someone who already has funds in the market? For that, many more considerations are needed that would depend on the overlap between where they are now and where they want to get to.

For both a person trying to slim down their possessions and someone trying to tweak their portfolio there are steps that can be taken today.

  • Not buying more of what you’re trying to move away from.
  • Starting to evaluate every decision through the lens of target approach.

If you start doing these two things today, then you’ll gradually shift to where you want to be.

What I love about this approach is that it’s not about what you can’t do, but about changing your behavior to focus on what will guide you towards what you want. Usually that doesn’t mean buying nothing. 

One rule I have for myself is for any purchasing decision is to wait price/$100 days before making it. This has prevented me from making some major purchases that I would have regretted. It hasn’t stopped me from buying things altogether though – or I wouldn’t have enjoyed countless hours playing Hollow Knight on my new Nintendo Switch.

Not Perfect

For this approach there are two things to accept:

  1. That things are not going to be perfect.
  2. That change is a process, not a destination.

As a perfectionist, this is a mindset shift I still struggle with. I want to do what I can to bring my surroundings to their ideal state immediately – but that’s not the best idea.

For me, after making these small changes to future behavior, there comes a point where action is needed to finish the job. For cases like investing, that action may be over the course of years or even decades.

Here are some things I’m still learning to accept:

Learning to accept that you’re going to part with things you have to rebuy later in life.

Learning to accept that even if I paid a lot for something, if I’m not using it (and don’t plan to use it) I should part with it.

Learning to accept sunk costs are a part of life.

Learning to accept that I’ve made poorly thought out purchasing decisions in the past (and that I’ll make them again in the future).

Learning to accept that if you want a diversified portfolio you’ll sometimes sell funds at a loss, or a less-advantaged time than I would otherwise.

Learning to let go of the past and past mistakes.

Learning that every day and every decision is a chance to start anew.

The Definitive Guide to Tax-loss Harvesting and Avoiding Wash Sales

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12 min read. Blog, Investing, Taxes, Minafi, Canonical. 10 Comments

Tax-loss harvesting sounds like some terribly difficult strategy. In reality, it’s an extremely simple concept, and yet the timing and rules around severely limit your possibility to use this strategy to lower your taxes.

I’ve been investing at Vanguard for about a decade in diversified index funds, and even there I’ve been able to tax-loss harvest a number of times to reduce my taxes.

In this guide, I’m going to lay out what tax-loss harvesting is, how you can perform one, and how to avoid a wash sale while doing it (how’s that for a thesis statement!).

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Buffett’s 10/10/10 Rule For Making Financial Decisions

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4 min read. Mindfulness, Blog, Minafi, Canonical, Personal. 2 Comments

Training yourself to make good financial decisions happens one thought at a time. I consider this as “building the decision muscle”. With every decision you pose to yourself you have an opportunity to grow this muscle or let it atrophy.

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