A somewhat unexpected advantage of a career in investment banking is that you typically work so much over the holidays that going back to work (Monday for me) just doesn’t feel as bad or depressing as for people with “normal” jobs.
That being said, I did manage to catch a nice breather over Christmas and New Years – and hopefully, so have you.
It felt good to finally clear a long list of admin items that have been hanging over my head for a while.
Spend some quality time with the family – and relax with a quality book once the kids were asleep.
I was also a frequent visitor and the gym and managed to go out for some really nice dinners with my wife and our friends.
Once I’ve had a chance to decompress, I was able to take a step back and think about my plans for the upcoming year – and beyond.
I won’t bore you with the details, but for the first time ever, I wrote out a detailed vision of the life I would like to live when I am 45.
It’s the sort of exercise I always looked on with skepticism, but somehow, writing out a detailed plan felt great – and much more substantive than what I used to do in the past.
Thankfully, many of the components my dream life are already in place, but there’s still work to do. Well, what would life be without a challenge?
Finally, on an administrative note, you may have noticed some design changes on the blog.
Our old theme was getting a bit clunky, so I replaced it with something much simpler, faster, and mobile-friendly. Would love to hear any feedback you may have in the comments (and pls excuse any bugs in the interim!)
In the meantime, happy Saturday all – and enjoy the links!
From Yours Truly
20 Personal Finance Charts To Help You Build Wealth In 2022 – also marks the first (but hopefully not the last!) a post of mine has gone viral
Building Wealth
Yes, You Can Beat The Market – Best Interest
There’s No Speed Limit In Life – Nathan Barry (great Twitter thread – and you can also follow me while you’re at it!)
Is This The Greatest Bull Market In History? – A Wealth Of Common Sense
2022 Stock Market Forecast: Uninspiring Upside – Financial Samurai
and most importantly:
How To Live A Rich Life – Ramit Sethi
Early Retirement
If you are only going to read one post from today’s roundup, make it this one.
ERN is one of the most credible personal finance bloggers out there and his SWR series is worth a book of its own:
Ten Things The “Makers” Of The FIRE Movement Don’t Want You To Know – Early Retirement Now
Crypto Corner
Part of my holiday plan was to continue educating myself about the broader crypto / Web3 space.
Thankfully, there was an excellent report published by Messari just before the break which made for some very informative and entertaining reading. In other words, highly recommended:
Crypto Theses For 2022 – Messari (free but requires registration)
The Top Sectors Of Web3 in 2022 By Revenue – Tom Tunguz
Who Owns Web3 – The Pomp Letter
Lifestyle Design
Endless To-Do List? Here’s How Not To Waste Your Life – Financial Times
A (Broken) Playbook For Happiness – Rad Reads
100 Ways To Slightly Improve Your Life Without Really Trying – The Guardian
All Around
A Jury Finds Elizabeth Holmes Guilty Of Fraud – The Economist (also check out this book)
Recommended Books
Let me start with a fiction book I picked up over Christmas – and couldn’t put down until I finally finished it 48 hours later:
Dark Matter: A Mind-Blowing Twisted Thriller – Blake Crouch
and here are two others to get your year off to a great start:
Grit: The Power Of Passion And Perseverance – Angela Duckworth
The 5am Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life – Robin Sharma
Have a wonderful weekend all!
Note: the above post may contain affiliate links. You can read up about our affiliate policy here.
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Banker On FIRE is an M&A (mergers and acquisitions) investment banker. I am passionate about capital markets, behavioural economics, financial independence, and living the best life possible.
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Love Blake crouch. Have you read the wayward pines series? The TV series was worth a watch too
No, I haven’t come across Blake before but want to read more.
Have checked out wayward pines – on the reading list now! Appreciate the recommendation
Happy new year BOF!
Personally I think the new theme looks great on the iPad and makes the site much easier to read/navigate.
Although I’ve only really starting taking personal finance seriously the last 18 months or so I always love your posts. They always reinforce my confidence in what I am doing so thank you for that!
Im now at the point where I’ve reduced my salary down to the basic tax rate level by salary sacrificing 26% of my pretax salary and still able to commit a decent 3 figure sum into an ISA every month.. Your previous chart post has me dreaming of a bright future if things roughly follow some of those charts!
Keep up the great work.
Cheers Dan. Appreciate the feedback and really happy to hear of the great progress you are making on your journey.
I have to admit, it always feels a bit uncertain in the first few years. But then, you notch up a few good years of saving, compounding kicks in on top, and all of a sudden you’ve got plenty of wind in your sails.
You’re not far away from that point now.
Hold on, just so i understand, via increased salary sacrifice you are sticking an additional 20k (ish) in your pension to get you back into 20% tax bracket and ensure you do not pay tax at 40%? Sounds great in terms of saving rate but aren´t you afraid that it will be a long time until you can touch that, unless you are in your 50s? I feel I am in the opposite boat, enough in pensions and properties for the long term but nowhere near enough of a equities ISA bridge to allow me to retire, I am 41 now.
That’s how I read it, yes – and it’s very similar to what I did early on.
Once there’s enough in the pension pot (which sounds like your situation) you can turn to ISAs / taxable accounts to build up a bridge.
Chances are, they’ll keep squeezing pension allowances further over time so might as well strike while the iron is hot!
A post about the framework / mental model you used for your Life at 45 exercise and how you expect it to drive your near term actions would be very interesting and valuable even without the ‘boring detail’. There seem to be many late 30s / early 40s folks, essentially FI having surfed this epic wave, trying now to figure out how to maximize fulfillment. We have won two bonus decades of freedom if we play our cards right.
Thanks Nomad, let me give it a think.
To be very honest, it wasn’t much of a framework. Just me sitting down in a quiet cafe and writing out what my life looks like in 4.5 years.
The day-to-day. The weekends. The holidays. The jobs/activities (or lack thereof). The people I deal with – and the ones I don’t.
Might not be enough for a post but let me sleep on it.
Agree with your broader point too. Massive difference retiring at 45 and 55, or even in your early 50s…
That would be a good post! I’ve been trying to figure out how to better maximize my life as well, as I’ll be turning 45 in 2022.
I plan to go on a great personal and professional adventure this year. It’s all about the thrill of the journey IMO!
We’ve all done so well with our investments, to not enjoy some of the returns would be a shame.
Thanks for highlighting my post BOF!
Sam
Cheers Sam, I really enjoyed your outlook.
By the way, I am also prioritizing real estate in 2022 and plan to put roughly $500 – $700k of equity to work by buying $1.5m – $2m worth of property.
Q1 will be busy on a variety of fronts but really want to kick back a little bit more once the warmer weather rolls around.
Just sent an email about a bug with the new theme. Not sure what’s going on, but hopefully it helps.
Thanks a lot – well received. Will take a look.
Cheers
D
Another +1 for Dark Matter. Apparently, Apple TV are planning a TV series based on it.