The Best Posts of 2016

December  is one of my favorite times of the year. Cookies! Hot chocolate! Intense bouts of financial planning and introspection! As everyone pulls through the last few days of work in anticipation of the winter break, I present the best posts from 2016.

Posts About Retirement

What It’s Like Being Retired: A Week In The Life  –  One of the more recent posts in the What It’s Like Being Retired series. Includes a calendar of an actual week in the retired life.

What It’s Like Being Retired: 2AM Pancakes  –  Sometimes it’s about getting a good pancake.

Life As Art: Less Is More  –  One of the bigger happiness boosts I’ve gotten since retiring and how to apply it in working life.

Foundational Posts

The Four Step Blueprint to Retirement  –  The single most popular post on the blog, this covers the four variables that drive your retirement timeline and talks about what order you need to tackle them in for the fastest progress.

What Percent Are You? – Find out what percentile you rank in income. 

Teardown: How Much Do You Need To Retire?  –  Part of the Teardown series. My definitive post on how to calculate how much you need to retire. It talks through the research backing the assumptions I recommend for your calculation and walks you through three scenarios that will help you triangulate to your Goal Number.

Teardown: How to Build an Airtight Retirement Budget  –  The companion to the piece above. If you find the idea of how to calculate your whole future life overwhelming, this will walk you through it step by step.

Teardown: The Metrics You Need To Track For Financial Takeoff  –  I walk through what numbers I track in my life and the (free) tools I use to do it. This post has a picture of a rocket ship, which makes it particularly awesome.

Spending Posts

How Overblown Details Are Fleecing You of Cash  –  One of my absolutely favorite posts. This explains almost 100% of my regretted purchases.

How to Retire in a High Cost of Living Area  –  Some of the ways I save while living in NYC.

Proof Through Data: The Holidays Are a Mediocre Time To Purchase  –  I talk about “holiday deals” and the site I use year-round to ensure I’m getting a good deal on my purchases.

Investing Posts

Teardown: The Only Two Ways To Grow Your Money  –  A high level way to approach all your investing choices.

Interest Rates: A Breakdown In Your Retirement Strategy  –  A very short article that explains how interest rates play into the usual retirement strategy and how you should be changing your outlook.

Mortgage or All Cash For a House?  –  Why I think everyone should have a mortgage on their house in this environment, even if they can afford not to.