Happy Sunday everyone!
As of this morning, we are eight weeks away from the end of the year.
If you want to be absolutely precise, it’s eight weeks and five days. However, I always discount the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
It’s one of the truly quiet weeks in banking (unless you’ve got a deal on, which sadly happened to me more than once).
And so it feels like the best possible time to relax and unwind after putting the proverbial pedal to the metal for the preceding 12 months.
Thus, it always surprises me when, a few hours before or after the bell strikes midnight on December 31st, my social media feeds start filling up with all kinds of lists and resolutions for the year ahead.
“100 things I will accomplish this year!”
or
“New life starts tomorrow! 7am Body Pump class, here I come!”
Now, I’ve got nothing against the concept of resolutions. As it happens, I have my own list as well. Stored in a handy iPhone note, with three to five key items I look to accomplish each year.
I just think that waiting until December 31st to recap your year is a highly suboptimal strategy.
You can’t really cross any more items off the list – and you don’t have the time to properly think through your plan for the following year.
As an aside, I had just three items on my list for 2021.
One was to buy another property, which I crossed off back in April. Another one was more of a personal nature, also ticked off around the same time.
And the third one, which was to take my family back to my old country, will sadly go unfilled this year thanks to Covid.
And now, it’s time to plan ahead.
In the least shocking turn of events, top of my list for 2022 is to buy yet another investment property.
With that in mind, I am currently refinancing one of our other properties to release some cash in a tax-efficient way, which should land in my bank account by December.
In the meantime, my agent and I have started refreshing our views on a couple of target markets, cold calling brokers, and screening potential acquisitions.
Come January, we will be firing on all cylinders, ready to pounce at the right opportunity.
My second resolution for 2022 is to get a new job – or negotiate a meaningfully better deal with my current employer.
Part of is my desire to move over to the next episode. But even if I end up doing more of the same, I like to practice what I preach.
November is a fantastic time to lay the groundwork for a Q1 move. Not so much in January, when the budgets have been set, promotions announced, and everyone is walking around with a massive hangover.
My final, and probably most important resolution for next year is to finally repay some of the health debt I’ve accumulated over the past decade.
This year, I’ve felt that the piggy bank is finally running dry.
And so, say hello to regular physio, a significant reduction in alcohol consumption, and some proper cameos at the gym.
Much as I hate to admit it, hitting the ground running in 2022 won’t happen by itself. It takes planning and preparation.
As it happens, November is a great time to get started.
Have a wonderful day all! I’m off to the gym, followed by some trick-or-treating.
From Yours Truly
The Biggest Opportunity Of 2021
How To Lose Your Job In 10 Years
The Most Important Chart In Investing
Building Wealth
An Introduction To Expected Value – The Escape Artist
Risking, Fast And Slow – Dollars And Data
Why Don’t Rich People Just Stop Working? – The New York Times
Traders Bet Ethereum Will Benefit From ETF Boost In 2022 – Financial Times
Wealth Management Money Is Coming For Crypto – A Wealth Of Common Sense
Early Retirement
An F In Retirement – Mike Drak via The Humble Dollar
Lifestyle Design
No Such Thing As Enough Money – Incognito Money Scribe
Americans Are Overworked And Over Work – Buzz Feed News
Seven Reasons To Cut Down On Alcohol – Money Mage
New Blogger Feature
I haven’t done a new blogger feature in a while, primarily because I am really focused on spotlighting high-quality blogs which truly add value for their readers.
Well, Banker on Wheels ticks all of these boxes – and then some. A finance pro sees a finance pro from afar, and Mr. BoW is as credible as they come.
I could link to a number of posts but the one you may want to check out first is his most recent Sunday Ride collection. And once you are done, you may want to read about his experience Cycling The Tibetan Heartland.
All Around
A Tale Of Two Sundays: The Outsized Impact Of Experience – Collaborative Fund
Recommended Books
As usual, some top-quality reads to cap it all off:
How Money Works: The Facts, Visually Explained – by DK
Super Thinking: Upgrade Your Reasoning And Make Better Decisions With Mental Models – by Gabriel Weinberg
The 80/20 Principle: The Secret Of Achieving More With Less (Updated 20th Anniversary Edition) – by Richard Koch
Happy weekend all!
P.S: Attention New Bloggers:
if you are a personal finance blogger who hasn’t yet been featured on Greatest Hits, I would like to hear from you.
Please send an email to bankeronfire at gmail dot com with a blog post you would like to submit for consideration.
The key criteria for inclusion are as follows:
(i) Content that will be interesting or beneficial to the readers of this blog (I hope you will forgive me for reserving judgment on this one)
(ii) Your blog must be at least 6 months old, with regular posts. Too many bloggers flame out early, and I don’t want the readers here to follow a bunch of dead links.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Note: the above post may contain affiliate links. You can read up about our affiliate policy here.
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Your are very right about planning for 2022. I like to plan my planning for 2022 from October 2021 gives me enough time to graze on my plans and set for the new year.
I think a good point is to set a few main goals for the year. I mean maybe just three or four projects and plan the big spends. So there are no surprises and I won’t be dipping into the credit card. I will be sending my money into the future and spending only the money I have. I gained some tips from the great budgeting book called “You need a budget” by Jesse Mecham and spending time with the family gets planned in for holiday planning with work.
For the first time I will be starting 2022 debt free and I need to mitigate the risks. I have been watching Squid Games I don’t want to be receiving that mysterious card LOL. Life does not go in straight line and I need to plan that it in.
It’s a bit like people who are always late. Through no fault of there own they think if I leave at time they will arrive at this time if all the dots are aligned perfectly but anything can happen. Where as those who are often not late plan in all the possible things that can happen and plan in a little extra time for just in case.
So my point is to factor in the unexpected.
Take Away: Have buffer for what can go wrong, quite often a journey is not a perfect straight line. There can be curves. That is be prepared for the unexpected. Just like that for most projects. It’s important to be realistic
Yes that’s a very good analogy.
As with anything in life, don’t count on everything going perfectly according to plan.
And if it does, you will be surprised on the upside!
This is a great post because it allows for a realistic look on executing habits and shows that it isn’t necessary to wait til New Years to set new goals and execute on them.
For me, my goal setting is a mixture between Atomic Habits + Slight Edge. I’d work backwards from the goals I want to achieve and come up with the minimum amount of habits I need to be able to accomplish all my goals.
Then, each month, I’d review my habits. If I wanted to start a new habit, I’d start with the bare minimum. Say I wanted to exercise, I’d do it for a minimum 5 minutes a day (but I can do more if I want). The next month, 10 mins/day. The month after, 15 mins/day. I keep ratcheting the intensity up until I feel like I’ve hit a threshold where maintaining the same amount of intensity will be sufficient to reach my goals eventually.
My theory is that with enough habits, which I view to be the building blocks of achieving my goals, I can be more likely to do everything I want to just by almost mindlessly executing on my habits/routines daily.
I’d also gamify it and reward myself (especially at the beginning of building a habit) every time I complete the habit I’m trying to build. This way, I’m motivated to build the habit and after a while it just becomes second nature.
It’s a great system you’ve got there – hands down probably the best one you could come up with
I am always surprised when people go in guns blazing in January, only to get exasperated and give up a few weeks later.
Much better to start slow and build up a habit until it becomes an integral part of your day!
Do you think it’ll be possible to negotiate something with your company to work on a part time basis on an industry that’s as busy as investment banking? I would imagine that is one of the few industries where that isn’t really all that possible.
Sadly impossible with banking.
The only way to pull it off is to line up a senior advisory role where you essentially monetize your rolodex – but that won’t happen until you are in your 40s or 50s.
We kind of had the same goals for 2021. Although we were able to travel and had increased our pay, the property we acquired had not cash flowed the way we thought it would. I am blaming it on rushing just to get it done. I must get into planning earlier as well. Best of luck to your 2022 goals!
Thank you.
I find that properties often underperform the first year as there’s always some catch-up maintenance involved or you get unexpected issues with tenants. To account for that, I build quite a contingency in the first-year numbers.
Hopefully it performs in line with expectations next year.