Are We Too Scared For Slow FI?

I think it’s gotten pretty clear that I love to talk about slow FI (financial independence) on the blog. Slow FI resonates with me more than any other aspect of FI I’ve seen. Coined by The Fioneers, slow FI is a mindset related to taking a slower path to FI, using the financial freedom we gain along the way to FI to live our best lives now. But for many of us, how we may want to live our best lives now feels strange. It’s likely different than what “everyone else is doing”. It goes against the grain. It’s vulnerable. So, the question I’m going to be mulling over today on the blog is, are we too scared for a slow FI lifestyle?

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Takeaways From My One-Year Blogiversary!

I can’t believe it, but it’s officially been one year since I published my first post on this blog. Where has the time gone? It feels equally fast and like I’ve been doing this forever.

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Be The Editor Of Your Own Life

This past summer, I read and very much enjoyed the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. From this book, I learned a fun fact about the Oscars. I learned that since 1981, every film that has won Best Picture (which many argue is the most coveted award of the whole show) has also been nominated for Best Film Editing. The 2 awards are strongly correlated. In short, you could say a good movie is well edited.

The same can be said for life. Imagine if your life was your version of a Best Picture. To live your best life, it is also important to be really good at editing that life.

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My Why For Slow FI: Health, Connection, and Contribution

As another month comes along and the days and weeks keep rolling by, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my “why” for my financial independence journey. After setting my goals for the year, but now considering a work change and feeling unsure about how to handle the golden handcuffs, I’ve found the thing that helps the most is to remember my why. For a long time, my why has been hard to articulate. It’s been more of just a feeling, a knowing beneath the surface. But I think I’m finally ready to put it into words.

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My Vacation Recovery

Hey there, friends! As I posted last week on my Instagram page, I didn’t release a blog post last Friday because I was on vacation. I didn’t want the hassle and stress of trying to release a blog post on vacation. So I didn’t! It was freeing.

What I did do was decide to take a recovery day on the tail end of my vacation. I had great intentions to write a complete blog post on that day, to be able to release it today as usual. However, the universe had other plans in mind. So today, I bring you instead a short blog post with some pictures from our vacation and some musings on my first experience with a “vacation recovery day.” Because that’s all I’ve got in me this week. And I’m letting that be ok. I hope you enjoy!

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What Did You Love To Do As A Kid?

Whenever I’m in a situation where I’m explaining to someone that I plan to (sooner rather than later) downshift when it comes to work, they are immediately baffled. Almost every time, without fail, I get some version of the same question: “but what would you do with yourself if you weren’t working?!”

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Letting Go Of Perfection

Can you believe it’s already February?! Where did January even go? I hope everyone’s February is off to a good start!

Since the start of the New Year, I’ve been writing a lot on the blog about my goal process and how I reflect on goals from the previous year before I set new ones. Because of this, I’ve found myself reflecting on my journey with perfection: how it has affected me, how it’s changed, and how it’s made me who I am.

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Why I Said Goodbye To Facebook…And Why I Returned

Since I didn’t release a blog post as usual last Friday, I’m coming to you mid-week with a bonus post!

As I wrote in my last post, I am prioritizing friends and family this year. My mom fractured her tibia (the larger of the two bones in the leg) right before the holidays. Since she lives alone, my brother and I have been taking turns staying with her and helping take care of her while she recovers. One of the benefits of my remote job is that I can work from anywhere! So, I spent last week in my childhood home helping my mom, and it brought me so much joy. This is what financial freedom is all about for me.

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This Year I’m Prioritizing Friends and Family

Ah, January. A long month with 5 whole weekends in it. The month right after the holiday season. Some may think of it as a let-down month. Others may subscribe to the Blue Monday way of thinking (did anyone else not hear about Blue Monday until this year?). And even others yet may be so focused on their New Year’s Resolutions that they don’t have time to be down. For sure, January is one of the harder months for me, especially living up in cold, dark Vermont at this time of year. And although I’ve never gotten into setting resolutions, I do set yearly goals, and I just happen to do them in January or late December because that’s when I find I have the most time to reflect. With a busy holiday season, this year I got to setting my goals a bit late, and I was surprised by what I discovered.

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How Slow FI Has Influenced My Anxiety

I have wanted to write a post about my anxiety for awhile now, because it is such a big part of my life, but it felt vulnerable and never felt like the right time. Plus, as a personal finance blog, I didn’t want to write about something too non-personal-finance-related. However, if you’re a regular reader of the blog, you know my posts aren’t much about my numbers and are more about the lifestyle that the principles of slow FI (financial independence) allow. And so much of what slow FI is all about is more than just money. Then, I had a bit of an a-ha moment with my anxiety over the holidays that I felt was worth sharing. And I decided it was time. If you’re interested in hearing more about my journey with anxiety and how slow FI has influenced it, I hope you’ll read on.

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