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There is a lot going on in the world of finance, investing, and living your best life on the path to financial independence and in retirement. I found an abundance of outstanding content this month to help make sense of it all.

I normally try to limit these “Best of” posts to 10-12 entries. This month, I cut out a lot of great content and still ended up with about double that.

So let’s jump right in….

Current Events

Our society is politically polarized. Sadly, each day this seems to be more true.

The policy of this blog has always been to tackle politically charged topics that impact our personal finances such as health care policy, inflation, interest rates, monetary and fiscal policy, tax legislation, etc. However, we always have focused on covering these topics from the perspective of helping you make better decisions based on the way things are, rather than sharing our personal views about how things “should be.”

Mike Piper shares a timely message about Politics and Personal Financial Planning that sums up my personal philosophy better than I could do it myself.

Piper also addressed another timely concern amidst challenging market conditions, writing How to Invest with a Looming Recession.

Michael Batnick shares Twenty Lessons Learned during the recent market downturn.

Timeless Lessons

From timely to timeless lessons, Tim Ferriss interviewed an 89 year-old polymath who shared amazing wisdom from a life well lived: Edward O. Thorpe, A Man for All Markets — Beating Blackjack and Roulette, Beating the Stock Market, Spotting Bernie Madoff Early, and Knowing When Enough Is Enough.

Hidden Benefit of Being a Saver

One timeless lesson that readers of this blog are familiar with is the importance of living below your means. Nick Maggiulli put a new spin on this for those still in accumulation mode, writing You’ve Been Thinking About Inflation All Wrong.

Diagnosing the B.S.

My original professional passions in life were health, wellness, and exercise. My current passion is personal finance. 

As someone with a fair amount of knowledge of both of these important topics, it is maddening to see the amount of B.S. that is presented as truth. The next two articles were written by physicians diagnosing B.S.

Peter Attia tackles a misleading headline by asking and answering, Does walking 10 minutes per day extend your life? (Hint: No)

James Dahle presents a technique that is often presented as a reason to use robo-advisors or pay an advisor to manage your investments, writing The Case Against Tax-Loss Harvesting.

If you don’t fully understand tax loss harvesting, read this one carefully. Rather than building a straw man argument as many people do to make a point, Dahle presented the most generous argument FOR tax loss harvesting.

He uses his own marginal federal plus state tax rate of 42% as a high earning physician and successful online entrepreneur. The ho-hum benefits he reports are even less impressive for me and most other people who make less income.

Frustration With the B.S.

The next selection was written by Allan Roth. I found it a little disheartening as Roth is a consumer advocate and personal role model for me as I write the next chapter of my professional life around impact rather than money.

This article contains important insights to help you protect yourself against an often predatory financial industry from someone who is trying to change it. Roth writes Striking Out.

Are You Full of B.S.?

Michael Kitces and Carl Richards discuss whether the most important role of a financial advisor is being the person in your life who can call you on your own B.S. Aligning Client Capital to Goals (Which Are Only Clarified Over Time).

After listening, it is worth considering if you have an advisor, friend, mentor, spouse, etc. who fills that role in your life.

Understanding Bond Funds

Rick Ferri interviewed Nick Gendron and Josh Barrickman. They provide a look under the hood of what you actually own with total bond market index funds on Episode 45 of the Bogleheads on Investing Podcast. I learned a lot from this conversation.

Retirement Income

David Lau and Wade Pfau were guests on the Animal Spirits podcast to discuss Rethinking the 4% Rule.

Jeff Horwich explores The complex economics of growing old.

Unique Crypto Risks

David Stein examines recent stablecoin failures and gives insider insight to how subpar financial products are promoted: Why Most Money Fails.

Taylor Locke examines the irony as Ethereum co-founder says every ‘average smallholder’ impacted by Terra’s stablecoin crash should be made whole, cites FDIC’s $250,000 as ‘precedent’.

Riley Adams examines recent disclosures exposing how Coinbase Brings Another Cryptocurrency Risk to Light.

Outdoors Meets Personal Finance

A favorite writing theme of mine is sharing how lessons about topics like risk, achievement, and sacrifice from outdoor and adventure sports translate to personal finance. So this seems like a fun place to finish.

Gloria Liu interviewed Mr. Money Mustache who encourages you to Embrace Your Inner Dirtbag.

Dave at Accidental Fire thinks Financial Independence Is The Summit, But the Climb Is More Important.

Blog Business

This month, I invested some money in the blog. My goals were to improve reader experience by making the site:

• Load faster on all devices and
• Look better on mobile devices. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t communicate well with the team doing the tech work. I mailed out last week’s post when the site was down for a few minutes.

If you tried to open last week’s email and the new post wasn’t available, I apologize. Here is a link to the post Will I Owe Taxes When I Sell My Home?

The updates to the site are now done. If you find anything is not working or displaying correctly on the website, I would appreciate feedback either by leaving me a comment below or sending an email to chris@caniretireyet.com. Thanks for your patience and support!

A Little More Blog Business

I want to share an increased credit card sign up bonus on one of my favorite travel rewards cards. The links below are affiliate links and if you sign up for a card through the links, the blog will earn a commission while you earn free travel.

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card is a great card for those new to using credit card rewards due to the value, flexibility, and ease of redemption. They recently increased their sign up bonus offer.

You will earn a bonus 75,000 Miles if you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first three months after opening your Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card account. The bonus Miles are worth $750. You also earn unlimited 2 miles per dollar on every purchase, and 5 miles per dollar on hotels and rental cars booked through Capital One Travel.

You can redeem miles for any airline or hotel as well as rental cars and more. The card has a $95 annual fee.

Have a great start to your summer. Hopefully this card will help you to travel more while spending less!

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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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Disclosure: Can I Retire Yet? has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Can I Retire Yet? and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. The site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Other links on this site, like the Amazon, NewRetirement, Pralana, and Personal Capital links are also affiliate links. As an affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases. If you click on one of these links and buy from the affiliated company, then we receive some compensation. The income helps to keep this blog going. Affiliate links do not increase your cost, and we only use them for products or services that we're familiar with and that we feel may deliver value to you. By contrast, we have limited control over most of the display ads on this site. Though we do attempt to block objectionable content. Buyer beware.