New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Hello, friends. It has been a l-o-n-g time since I've written online. Well, that's not entirely true. I've been writing a ton at Facebook. In fact, it's as if Facebook has become my personal blog. But that's about to change. Everything is about to change. Let's talk about it. As you're well aware, 2022 was one hell of a year for me. It was a year of death and destruction. That sounds like hyperbole, I know, but it's not. It felt as if my world were crumbling around me. After my mom died in October, I made a vow. I was ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Howdy, friends! This summer, I'm traveling to Ecuador to participate in my fifth chautauqua on financial independence. You should consider joining me. These Ecuador chautauquas — which are unrelated to the European chautauquas — are always a fun, educational, and bonding experience. Clarification: At some point, chautauqua founders Cheryl Reed and JL Collins parted ways. Now JL runs the European chautauquas — which are on hiatus — with Katie and Alan Donegan. Cheryl continues to run the unrelated Ecuador gatherings ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Hello, my friends. I hope this new year is treating you well. It's been excellent for me so far. Soon I need to announce the 2023 Ecuador chautauqua about money and meaning, but before I do I'll give a brief update on what I've been up to. Deciding to extend my sabbatical from Get Rich Slowly indefinitely has been liberating. The moment I committed to this, it was as if a heavy load were lifted from my back. I'm able to pursue other passions now without regret. I don't feel guilty. I don't feel like I need to give mys ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Last night, for the third Wednesday in a row, I ventured to the Whiteside Theater in downtown Corvallis to watch an old movie. Two weeks ago, it was National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Last week, it was It's a Wonderful Life. And yesterday was Star Wars. The place was packed! So fun to watch a favorite film in an old theater with a couple of hundred other fans. I've also been watching many movies at home lately. I finally have the time. According to Letterboxd, I've seen seventeen films in December. I watched nine ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! A memory came to me this morning while I was walking the dog, a memory of those days when I was fresh out of college and just beginning to work for my father at the box factory. A salesman had come knocking on our door. This was strange since the box factory was (and still is) located in a rural area. But somehow this guy had found us and he was there to make his pitch: He was a salesman who trained salesmen. (And, presumably, saleswomen although this wasn't part of the spiel in 1992.) Dad, amused, introduced this fel ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! My mother died Monday night. She was 74. Earlier this week, I began writing a memorial for her. I know I haven't talked much about Mom here at Get Rich Slowly, but she probably played the biggest role in molding me into the person I am today. After writing 2500 words, I realized I have a lot to process. And maybe Get Rich Slowly isn't the place to publish a tribute to her. I don't know. In any event, I'm taking some time off. For the next few weeks, I'll be dealing with the logistics of Mom's memorial service and her ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! I am 53 years old. Never in my life have I allowed myself to buy a car I truly love…until now. This is the story of how I allowed myself to make a huge purchase just for the joy of it. And it wasn't even a purchase I'd intended to make. Let me explain. During the peak of the pandemic (early July 2020), I paid $35,990 for a used 2019 Mini Countryman SE All4. The Countryman — which I call a “Maxi Cooper” — isn't a bad car, but I regretted buying it almost immediately. I'd intended to replace my 2004 Mini Cooper with a n ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! I've changed the way I shop over the past few years. And although the shift has been subtle, I've found that I'm much happier with the things I buy. In the past, my approach to shopping was simple. If I wanted a new thneed, I would go to a store (or, with the advent of the internet, a website) and choose from the available thneeds. I'd look at the store's selection (or the website's selection) and pick the one best suited for me. If the thneed I wanted was particularly expensive or important, I might expand my search ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! It's always fun to unearth some esoteric piece of personal-finance history. I know there are only a few nerds out there who care (hello, Grant Sabatier!), but those of us who care really care. Two years ago, I published an article exploring the history of financial independence in which I noted that the earliest reference I can find to the notion of financial independence comes from an 1872 book called Money and How to Make It by H. L. Reade. And it wasn't until the 1950s that the concept of early retirement (at least ..read more

New here? You may want updates via email or RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! This article is difficult to write. It's an admission that I failed. And it's not like I failed once, but failed repeatedly over the course of several years. And it's not that I really failed failed, you know. It's that I failed myself. I failed to live up to my own expectations. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning. Goody Two-Shoes I grew up Mormon. Among other things, this meant that nobody in my family consumed recreational drugs of any kind. Mormons have a strict prohibition against such ..read more