Each month we share the best resources we’ve found to help you save more, invest better, and retire sooner.

Popular topics are building wealth, DIY investing, creating retirement income, managing risk, and limiting your tax burden to enable you to use your money to build the life you want.

Early retirement frees up the time to ponder topics that tend to get neglected during careers. So while this is first and foremost a personal finance blog, we also share articles about traveling and seeking adventure, finding happiness, enhancing health, improving relationships, and creating meaning and purpose in life.

I hope you enjoy and get great value from our selections for this month’s Best of the Web. . .

Kitces on FIRE

Michael Kitces’ in depth reporting and analysis of the most current strategies and research in financial planning make his Nerd’s Eye View blog mandatory reading for those planning their own retirement.

This month he wrote The Problem With FIREing at 4% And The Need For Flexible Spending Rules.

Also from the Nerd’s Eye View blog, Jeffrey Levine wrote Options For Allowing Family Members To Help Manage Accounts In The Event Of Diminished Or (In)Capacity.

The Psychology of Drawdown

Mike Piper notes that bucket strategies are psychological strategies, not financial ones in Simplifying a Retirement Bucket Portfolio.

Mark Trautman provides a case study of the change in psychology from saver to spender with Portfolio Drawdown Anxiety — Discussions At Camp FI.

Staying the Course

A big part of managing the emotions of investing are blocking out irrelevant noise as Ben Carlson brilliantly demonstrates with Gathering Investment Lessons From the Headlines.

The only thing that is certain with investing is that nothing is certain. This is demonstrated by the wide variation of perspectives on value investing among investing experts. From Abnormal Returns, Blogger wisdom: the death of value.

Funding A Life of Adventure

My wife and I were always driven to save money by a desire to build a life with more time to seek adventure in the outdoors, coining the term dirtbag millionaires along the way to describe our lifestyle. That mixing of adventure and finance is also what initially drove me to Darrow’s writing on this blog after finding him through his guest post, What Big Wall Rock Climbing Can Teach Us About Wealth Building, on the Financial Mentor site years ago.

This month, I made my first deliberate attempt to spread the idea of financial independence to the naturally frugal outdoor community in a fun interview with Mason Gravley on the Adventure Sports Podcast episode titled Using Financial Independence to Fuel a Life of Adventure. Check it out and if you enjoy my interview, download some of my other favorite episodes for the car ride to your summer adventures, including interviews with rock climbing legend Tommy Caldwell, author of the book Vagabonding Rolf Potts, and micro-adventurer Alastair Humphreys.

The Softer Side of Finance

I was originally motivated to seek financial independence and early retirement to provide the freedom to seek adventure in the outdoors. This provides a great transition for switching the focus from technical finance issues to some great articles exploring why you are taking all the time and effort to save, invest, and plan for retirement in the first place.

Nick Maggiulli writes The Most Important Asset.

Jonathan Clements writes That’s Enough.

ESI Money shares 10 Small Joys of Early Retirement.

J.D. Roth writes Identity Economics: Who are you? And how does it effect your spending?

And an audio selection from the New Retirement podcast: Jim McCarthy — A Simple Guide to Happiness.

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[Chris Mamula used principles of traditional retirement planning, combined with creative lifestyle design, to retire from a career as a physical therapist at age 41. After poor experiences with the financial industry early in his professional life, he educated himself on investing and tax planning. After achieving financial independence, Chris began writing about wealth building, DIY investing, financial planning, early retirement, and lifestyle design at Can I Retire Yet? He is also the primary author of the book Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence. Chris also does financial planning with individuals and couples at Abundo Wealth, a low-cost, advice-only financial planning firm with the mission of making quality financial advice available to populations for whom it was previously inaccessible. Chris has been featured on MarketWatch, Morningstar, U.S. News & World Report, and Business Insider. He has spoken at events including the Bogleheads and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants annual conferences. Blog inquiries can be sent to chris@caniretireyet.com. Financial planning inquiries can be sent to chris@abundowealth.com]

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