The Financial Samurai Podcast

Your 401(k) is part of the three-legged stool for retirement. The other two legs are your after-tax investments and your ability to make side income. You can't count on Social Security or a Pension anymore. If they are there, great. If not, you never counted on them in the first place. Check out this post with all the latest 401(k) charts and graphs. 

This is my favorite time of the year because it's a time where we can all look back and be grateful for all that we have. I'm truly grateful to all of you for listening and sharing the Financial Samurai podcast and articles all these years. Your feedback is what keeps running Financial Samurai so much fun! Here's a related post about how I think most of our success is mostly luck. 

If 70% of Americans are overweight and median retirement savings balance is way less than $100,000, perhaps spending time cooking at home to save money and be healthy is not the proper way to go. Let's look into all the reasons why ordering food delivery or going out to eat will help boost your health and wealth. Roughly 82% of Americans mainly cook at home. Check out the health charts here.

Preschool can range from $800 - $2,500 a month, depending on where you live and the amount of care you need. Despite the cost, I'm here to argue that if your child enjoys preschool, it is worth every single penny and more! You can read the post for more details here. 

If you're thinking about buying a primary residence or an investment property, now looks like an enticingly good time. I'll share with you a dozen reasons why buying physical real estate can make sense. Obviously, do your own due diligence as well before putting your money to work. Here's the post with some great charts and graphs. 

For those who still don't believe you can negotiate a severance package, a guy got a 10-figure severance package despite helping blow up his company. Let's learn how he did it and some good lessons to help the rest of us get that money! How To Negotiate A Severance is now it its 3rd edition. You can get $10 off with the code: saveten  

Here are five of the most common financial blindspots people have on their road to financial independence. If you can recognize them, you will better plan for the future and increase your chances of being financially free one day.  Post mentions: Common Blindspots On Your Road To Financial Independence How AOC And Other Congressional Members Can Afford To Raise Kids In Washington, DC  

From staying in an abusive relationship, to joining a Twitter mob that bullies others, to not speaking up against corporate and political malfeasance, things stay bad for a long time because people are too dependent on money. Whether money is a need or a want, it ruins a person's ability to stand up for what they know is right. Related posts: Once You Have F You Money, It's Hard To Tell Others To F Off! An Inside Look At Communist China Weighing The Pros And Cons Of A Divorce  

If you are a business owner who is burning out and wishing to cash out, here is some perspective of someone who did. He sold his baby for $2.8 million and regrets his decision every day.  Read the post here.Subscribe to the private Financial Samurai newsletter here. Sign up for the Financial Samurai Feedly RSS reader here. 

Everybody can retire when their investment income is enough to cover their basic living expenses. But when it comes to retiring early (before 60), there are different levels of difficulty. The hardest type of early retirement is retiring early while raising adolescent children. Once you have children, you suddenly realize that retiring early without children is like going for a walk in the park. It seems so easy, you wonder why more people don’t get on board! In this episode I discuss subjective and objective reasons why retiring early with children is nearly impossible, followed by some potential solutions. Read more here, https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-to-retire-early-with-kids-a-nearly-impossible-task/ 

Don't make my mortgage refinance mistake that has so far cost me $1,005 in extra interest! Trying to refinance today is a real PITA. It's a bummer because I pride myself on calculating all variables to make the best financial decision.  To read the post and hear a funny joke, click here.

You can take advantage of kinks in the system every day to improve your wealth and quality of life. Don't just sit back passively and wait for your investments to make you wealthy. Also take some action.  Practice identifying arbitrage opportunities to prosper. See the post here. 

Every week, there are a lot of funny things that make me scratch my head and wonder WTF. But it is precisely these funny things that make me so positive and bullish for you and me. Here are three examples that make me go "hmmmm."

Does 1 + 1 = 2 in your marriage? Not according to the government. If you're trying to figure out what combined net worth to shoot for as a couple, here are three frameworks to think about. Don't get mad if you're not there. Get motivated! To read the post and see the charts, click here. 

After reaching my goal of publishing 3X a week for 10 years, I've decided to focus a little bit more on entrepreneurship. The formula of 90% fun / 10% business that got me this far isn't going to take me where I want to go. Once I became a father in 2017, the pressure was on to earn more to take care of my family since my wife doesn't have a full-time job.  To read the post, click here. This podcast is more like a post-mortem of the post. 

As mortgage interest rates tumble, the housing market is becoming more interesting. Inventory is already up in many of the nation's once hottest housing markets, but the average credit score for qualified mortgage borrowers is also at an all-time high. Due to these factors, I don't see a recession as bad as the one we experienced between 2008-2010. Read the post and check out the graphs here.    

Don’t quit before giving your effort a chance to produce amazing results. If you can do one hard thing for 10 years in a row, I'm sure good things are going to happen. Here are some personal thoughts on how you can get to the 10 year mark and achieve your dreams as well. Let's do this! To read the post, click here. 

Getting ahead is very competitive in America. Thanks to living in a capitalist society, we're driven by money, fame, and success. As a result, not everybody can win.  Based on my experiences as a high school tennis coach for the past three years, I realized one of the best life hacks for Americans is to take advantage of Canada. If you have children and want to retire early, this episode is for you.  Read the episode here. 

America is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The top 1% have gotten really rich, but the middle class have fallen seriously behind. Let's look at the data from the latest Survey of Consumer Finances by the Federal Reserve and see where we're at.  To read the post and check out all the great graphs see: The Median Net Worth Of Americans Today To subscribe to my Feedly RSS feed click here.

Here's my method to always get the lowest mortgage rate possible, no matter the interest rate environment. I've refinanced multiple mortgages multiple times in the past 10 years. During this time, I've probably saved over $100,000 in interest expense. To read the post, click here.