Recommendations

I wrote a post about my rec­om­men­da­tions what feels like for­ev­er ago. In fact, it was less than 2 years ago but that’s basi­cal­ly for­ev­er in blog time. I real­ized a lot has changed since then so def­i­nite­ly time for an updat­ed list of rec­om­men­da­tions from me!

Promote All the Things!

Last time I wrote this post I was pret­ty anti-adver­tis­ing/af­fil­i­ate links. It was­n’t real­ly a prob­lem then as I did­n’t have much traf­fic or asso­ci­at­ed costs. Now that I’m get­ting con­sis­tent traf­fic and big spikes, I had to go up a tier in host­ing which costs more. I’m also leav­ing my cushy job with steady pay­checks and need to turn this into an asset on my bal­ance sheet instead of a liability.

2 years ago, I also did­n’t have any life chang­ing prod­ucts I was com­fort­able rec­om­mend­ing. Now I hap­pi­ly use and rec­om­mend sev­er­al. Peo­ple have also asked me how they can sup­port me to encour­age me to keep writ­ing here. Click­ing links for prod­ucts I love is def­i­nite­ly a great way to do so!

It was a shock to real­ize I can run this blog with affil­i­ate links AND still do all the great things like meet peo­ple and share my stories.

I’m less sold on ads at the moment. I have a few offers to place ads, but I don’t think the costs out­weigh the ben­e­fits yet. I’m hop­ing to increase my traf­fic more and gain access to a pre­mi­um ads net­work, but I have a bit more grow­ing to do before I can get approved for that.

My pledge to you is this: I will only rec­om­mend ser­vices I use, that pro­vide val­ue to me, and that I would rec­om­mend to my clos­est friends and fam­i­ly members.

TL;DR: Some affil­i­ate links, no ads, same great content

Services

Setapp: Setapp is a col­lec­tion of pre­mi­um apps for Macs. In my Opti­miz­er post I talk about some soft­ware I start­ed using to help opti­mize my time. All of that soft­ware is avail­able in Setapp. I like it because I can try dif­fer­ent apps out with­out hav­ing to buy them and waste mon­ey. Gues­timer, Ulysses, and HazeOver are the apps I use the most.

Google Fi: I’ve writ­ten a post (or two) about how much I love Google Fi, but allow me to espouse that love a lit­tle bit more. Hav­ing access to 3 car­ri­ers at once is amaz­ing. I have cov­er­age unless I’m in the absolute mid­dle of nowhere. With their for­eign data cost­ing the same as domes­tic data, I even have ser­vice over­seas! My favorite thing is the price though- I’ve aver­aged a $35–40 month­ly bill since switch­ing, which is at least $60 than what I paid with Ver­i­zon. Use my link to get $20 off your first month and I’ll also get $20. Win Win!

OnTra­jec­to­ry: A fan­tas­tic pro­jec­tion tool to play with. You can put in any num­ber of vari­ables and see how your future tra­jec­to­ry will change. Easy to under­stand, yet cov­ers almost any sce­nario you can think of. See how a change in income impacts your net worth, or look into see­ing what hap­pens if you need to take a required min­i­mum dis­tri­b­u­tion from an IRA at age 70. So many vari­ables, so lit­tle time!

Con­vertK­it is amaz­ing. I tried out sev­er­al dif­fer­ent email clients (I even attempt­ed to cob­ble some­thing togeth­er on my own which I end­ed up not using) and I did­n’t like any of them. Con­vertK­it is easy to use and offers tons of dif­fer­ent fea­tures. I can pick and choose who gets my emails, see who is open­ing my emails, and even see who’s click­ing my links!

Site­Ground: My web host. I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly rec­om­mend it to some­one just start­ing out (it’s a bit more expen­sive than oth­er hosts out there) but I do rec­om­mend it to peo­ple with estab­lished blogs who are look­ing for more sta­bil­i­ty. My site has nev­er crashed and I’ve had sev­er­al LARGE spikes in traf­fic. Sup­port is easy to con­tact and very respon­sive for any issues. 10/10, would host again.

Books

The Sim­ple Path to Wealth: Writ­ten by The God­fa­ther of FIRE him­self, JL Collins. I once gave a copy of this book to the guy sit­ting next to me on the plane #truesto­ry. I can’t rec­om­mend this book enough! Check out my review of the book I wrote when it was released here.

Meet the Fru­gal­Woods: Mr. and Mrs. Fru­gal­Woods were two of my orig­i­nal inspi­ra­tions when I start­ed my FIRE jour­ney. Now, you can read all about their jour­ney in their new book! Liz is an incred­i­bly tal­ent­ed writer. I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy and read it in one sit­ting. Don’t miss out March 6^th, 2018 when it’s released!

Broke Mil­len­ni­al: Need help get­ting your finan­cial life togeth­er? Know some­one who does? Get this book. My friend Erin lays it all out in her fan­tas­tic book! Be on the look­out for her sec­ond book on invest­ing com­ing out late 2018/early 2019!

People

Don’t get me wrong, my oth­er post on rec­om­men­da­tions has a ton of great peo­ple linked that I still fol­low to this day. How­ev­er, a lot has changed in 2 years and there are some new play­ers on the scene I want to give some love to!

Waf­fles on Wednes­day: A super awe­some cou­ple who are kick­ing butt, tak­ing names, and drink­ing nice craft beer while doing so. They cov­er their jour­ney to ear­ly retire­ment through entre­pre­neur­ial endeavors!

JD Roth: Orig­i­nal­ly of Get Rich Slow­ly fame, then of Mon­ey Boss fame, and now back to Get Rich Slow­ly! A pro­lif­ic and insight­ful writer on all things per­son­al finance.

The Mas­ter­mind With­in: Equal parts self improve­ment and per­son­al finance blog. Fol­low Erik’s sto­ry as he nav­i­gates side hus­tles and a blos­som­ing career!

Chad “Coach” Car­son: One of the sharpest investors in real estate I know! He mix­es his sweet South­ern charm with sto­ries of real estate invest­ing and geo-arbitrage.

Mil­len­ni­al Boss: Hus­t­la extra­or­di­naire. She’s crush­ing side hus­tles and her career. Also hap­pens to be my co-host on the Fire Drill Pod­cast! Catch us every Sun­day and Wednes­day on your favorite pod­cast platform.

Guy On Fire: A high income Mil­len­ni­al in DC who invests in real estate on the side. Def­i­nite­ly some­one to fol­low for wis­dom in all aspects of ear­ly retirement!

Mil­i­tary Dol­lar: Cur­rent active duty Air Force on the path to ear­ly retirement.

Our Next Life: New­ly mint­ed ear­ly retirees! They post thought pro­vok­ing arti­cles that address some of the deep­er themes of the FIRE movement.

The Mil­i­tary Guide: Advice post­ed on get­ting the most val­ue out of your mil­i­tary career from Doug Nord­man, an ear­ly retiree for the last 20 years!

She Picks Up Pen­nies: Ear­ly retire­ment from a teacher’s (and new mom!) point of view. She lives in the Chica­go area and gives great advice on everything!

Miss Mazu­ma: A pas­sion­ate flight atten­dant on the path to ear­ly retire­ment. She over­came los­ing every­thing in 2008 and loves to travel.

Physi­cian on Fire: A high income anes­the­si­ol­o­gist on the path to ear­ly retire­ment. Excel­lent advice for high income earn­ers! Plus, lives in Minnesota 🙂

Bud­get on a Stick: Awe­some fam­i­ly ori­ent­ed guy look­ing for finan­cial inde­pen­dence. Part of the Min­neso­ta FIRE group!

Apa­thy Ends: Great writ­ing by a fam­i­ly guy with a career. I relate sooo much to his posts about his career. Also part of the Min­neso­ta FIRE group (there’s so many and it’s awesome!).

Wealth Well Done: Tru­ly inspir­ing sto­ry of get­ting out of prison and rebuild­ing his life. You need to read his sto­ry! (also part of the MN FIRE group. Join us!)

Finan­cial Pan­ther: For­mer high­ly com­pen­sat­ed lawyer, now hap­pi­ly work­ing a low­er pay­ing job like the rest of us. He has an excel­lent out­look on side hus­tles. Did I men­tion he’s also part of the MN Fire group?

Tread Light­ly, Retire Ear­ly: List-cep­tion. Angela cre­at­ed a list of all the women blog­gers out there. Check it (and her awe­some con­tent) out!

Conclusion

Well, there you have it. A total­ly not com­plete and not exhaus­tive list of rec­om­men­da­tions from me. If you did­n’t make the list, please don’t feel bad. I’m already at 1300+ words and did­n’t want to go com­plete­ly crazy. If you’re not on the list, I still love you and think you’re doing great!

Please don’t feel oblig­at­ed to sign up for these things or get things just because I rec­om­mend them. If you think they’ll add real val­ue to your life, then do it! (and thank you for sup­port­ing the blog just by read­ing my posts!)