General

Henry’s Investing Series

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With today’s post, I wanted to introduce the outline for my forthcoming Investing Series. I knew when I started writing that I ultimately wanted to educate in addition to documenting my journey to FI. As I continue along my journey, I am reminded daily through my conversations with friends, family, and co-workers of the general lack of investing knowledge out there. Without a background in business, finance, accounting or related field, many HENRYs are never exposed to personal finance principles, much less investing principles. For this reason, many people are confused or even intimidated by investing, so they choose to […]

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The Pursuit of Happiness

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I did not intend for my next post to be about happiness since my last post was about the hedonic treadmill and indirectly the pursuit of happiness through material possessions. However, as I have been spending time developing the structure for my upcoming posts on the mechanics of investing, my mind has continued to drift back to the “personal” side of personal finance. Specifically, I keep thinking about the future and being financially independent.  What will financial independence look like? What will I do that I have always wanted to do? How will I choose to spend my time?  What

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Chasing Rainbows: The Hedonic Treadmill

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If you have not heard of the hedonic treadmill, you are not alone. A lot of HENRYs, including myself prior to discovering financial independence and FIRE, are unfamiliar with the concept. For this reason, I wanted to get into a little of the behavioral psychology side of personal finance in today’s post. Let’s start by highlighting a couple of statistics that I think are important to the discussion. U.S. adults with a net worth of $100,000 or more are more likely to carry credit card debt than those with fewer assets. In fact, those with a net worth between $100,000

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Henry’s Hierarchy of Financial Goals

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When it comes to your financial life, there are a lot of things pulling at your wallet. That is why it is important to understand your financial goals and their relative priority to one another. For this reason, today I wanted to do a deeper dive into common financial goals and my opinion on where they should be prioritized in the overall scheme of your financial life. I created the visual below to outline common financial goals and their priority. I also have taken a deeper dive into each goal in further detail. Tier 1: The Basics Tier 1 of

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The Importance of an Emergency Fund

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As a HENRY, there is absolutely no reason why you should not have an adequately funded emergency reserve. Your above average income allows you the bandwidth each month to build and maintain an emergency fund to manage life’s unexpected expenses. Yes, we can get into the nuances of the purpose, size and location of your emergency fund. However, you MUST have an emergency fund and it SHOULD be adequately funded. It does not matter how much money you make; if you cannot handle a large unexpected expense or a sudden job loss as a HENRY, you have a problem. For

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Calculating Your FI Number

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If the goal is to save enough money that at some point you hit a critical mass that is capable of sustaining your lifestyle in perpetuity, you first need to determine how much money is “enough money.” Without knowing this, you do not have a tangible goal to achieve financial independence. For that reason, I want to explore safe withdrawal rates, the 4% rule and calculating and understanding your financial independence (FI) number. Withdrawal Rate Withdrawal rate is simply defined as the amount you take out of your portfolio each year expressed as a percentage of your total assets. The

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The Eighth Wonder of the World

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As you begin to understand what your life costs, the opportunity costs and what you truly value, you will likely begin to evaluate your spending differently. You will no longer see a purchase, especially large purchases, as solely a financial decision. You begin to evaluate these decisions in terms of your time. There is the actual time required to pay for something (i.e. earned income required to physically pay for it) as well as the opportunity cost of the purchase (i.e. forgone investment income). As a HENRY, you can likely afford most anything you want. However, you cannot afford everything

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What Does Your Life Cost?

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At the most basic level, you have to understand what your life costs. Since I am a HENRY and I am writing to an audience of HENRYs, I assume you have at least some basic understanding of what your life costs monetarily. You likely know how much you make and what you spend, at least on some level. You may not necessarily concern yourself with all the details, but you probably know where you fall on the spectrum below: You spend more than you make (i.e. you are going into debt) You spend everything you make (i.e. you are not

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The Principles of FIRE

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Today I wanted to dive into the principles of the FIRE movement in more detail through the lens of a HENRY. The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement centers around achieving financial independence in order to retire early. Saving is driven by increasing your income, decreasing your expenses or a combination of both. In doing so, you save enough money that at some point you hit a critical mass that is capable of sustaining your lifestyle in perpetuity.  When this occurs, you can retire early because work is no longer a requirement. In short, work becomes optional. For me personally,

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Finding Fire

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Life is often a series of inflection points. Some are large, obvious and impact your life in ways that ultimately ripple through generations to come. Others may be smaller and less obvious, but they can have a lasting impact none the less. Today, I wanted to share a couple of important inflection points in my life that have ultimately lead me to becoming a HENRY (High Earners that are Not Rich Yet), discovering FIRE and ultimately deciding to make chasing FIRE a part of my life. Inflection Point 1: Hard Work & Understanding Your Value “Hard work beats talent when

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