Why are you on the Path to FI?
Why are you on the path to Financial Independence?
It has to be more than running away from a job you dislike or even hate.
You need to run towards something. Towards a life you can’t wait to live into.
You have to want something more than you want stuff.
The average American lifestyle just isn’t going to cut it. You’ll always be stressed financially, you’ll always be on that knife’s edge of financial insecurity.
As Jonathan would say, “you’re born to do more than pay bills and die.”
But FI doesn’t just happen, you must take intentional actions, day after day, year after year to get there.
So, as we start this 2026, I ask you to take 10 minutes and reflect on why you’re on the Path to FI and what your future FI life looks like.
Really feel into that and imagine living that life.
What are you going to do today to help make that life a reality?
That journey touches all areas of your life, but starts with something concrete and simple: Find one thing to cut or reduce out of your monthly budget this very month.
Small actions lead to big results, and no matter where you are on the Path to FI, you can make one change this month to get your financial life more optimized.
Annual Financial Checkup
A few years ago, Jonathan and I released Episode 358 of the ChooseFI podcast and even though we titled it the “Getting Started Audit” it just as accurately could have been the “Annual Financial Checkup” which I think we all need.
Give the episode a listen, as it’s a real back to basics look at your financial life and why it’s so important to do at least an annual review of your:
- Net Worth. List out all your assets and liabilities by account and then figure out your current net worth. I use a simple excel spreadsheet to log all this information.
- Paystub. Most of us never take this 5-minute review of our paystub to see what is truly being deducted every pay period. This is the perfect time to adjust your income tax withholding with HR if you’re getting too large a refund and want to have that money throughout the year.
- Expenses. Look quickly through your bank and credit card account statements to get a sense of what your life costs, what recurring bills you’re paying every month, and if anything significant has changed since your last financial checkup.
- FI Number. Once you’ve determined what your life costs (your annual expenses) you can determine your Financial Independence number by multiplying that number by 25 using the “4% rule of thumb” for safe withdrawals. If your annual expenses are $60,000, multiply by 25 to get a FI number of $1.5 million.
As always, pursuing FI is all about taking action! Do the work now and move forward confidently with your financial plan.
Get Everything out of Your Brain
I’ve long talked about my use of the app ToDoIst and how it changed my entire life for the better.
It’s hard to adequately describe how much mental space you free up when you remove all the ‘to dos’ from your brain.
There’s nothing special about this particular app per se, but what it really does is allow me to take every single thing I need to do out of my brain forever.
I’m never juggling the mental list of things I need to even remember to do, not less actually complete.
I trust in my process completely. When something comes up that I need to or want to do, I go straight to ToDoIst and enter it.
My favorites are recurring tasks that you can set on any cadence (every week, every 2nd of the month, every other year, etc.) so even when you check off the current ‘to do’ item, it automatically zips to the next time you have this scheduled as an open ‘to do’.
Since you often ask me for examples of things I have in ToDoIst for inspiration, I thought I’d copy a few random ones:
- “renew CPA license” every 5/15
- “car registration – Elantra” next due 5/4/2028
- “renew Brad passport” 8/1/2031
- “donate to U of Richmond” every 6/27
- “make sure new insurance cards are in cars” every 5/1 and 11/1
- “see if $300 Venture X travel credit has been used” every 7/1
- “charge toothbrush” every 2 weeks
- “Make HSA Contribution” every 1/5
ChooseFI Updates:
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Get email notifications of local events: If you haven’t joined your ChooseFI Local Group on our site, now’s the time! Create a free account here, and you’ll get email notifications of all local events in your area.
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ChooseFI App Is Now Live on iOS & Android! We now have an official ChooseFI app in both the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store! There’s truly never been a better time to join the ChooseFI local community, connect with your local tribe, and explore the growing collection of tools and resources we’re building into the app. Download for iOS here and Android here.
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Travel Rewards Credit Cards: I keep my Top Ten Recommended Cards page constantly updated, so it should always be your first source for travel rewards cards.
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ChooseFI Community Taking Action This Week
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This has been a huge year of 1% wins! We have been credit card debt free since August (my 40th bday gift to myself!). And we’ve redirected the debt payments to go towards investing & pay down our car. I’ve also made a plan for how we are directing the funds we use to pay for preschool starting June 2026. I’m very grateful for my friends on the FI journey who get it and have supported me through making big changes over the years!
— Ashley
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Negotiated a $100 discount on an Airbnb. Took less than 5 minutes of my time.
— Daniel
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My 1% better is that my husband and I recently paid off our mortgage! What an incredibly freeing feeling. We were able to pay it off in 10 years (15 years early!) meeting our goal of being mortgage-free before 40 (we are both 39 years old). We have always been great savers and paying down the mortgage seemed like the best idea when we first bought our house. We’ve only really started getting into investing over the past 6 years, so now it’s time to switch goals and focus more on that. FI here we come!
— Vanessa
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This week I am celebrating my seven year anniversary of discovering Choose FI when Brad and Jonathan were on a Motley Fool podcast (10/9/2018). Since learning about the FIRE movement from you guys, my net worth has increased from $470k to $2,250,000. I am so thankful I just happened to be listening to the Motley Fool episode you were on!
— Patrick
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I have had severe food allergies for years (shellfish, sesame, walnuts, and hazelnuts). They would impact all aspects of my life since cross contamination in the US food system is awful and the smallest amount of cross contamination would make me ill (think migraine combined with flu type of reactions). So for years I have made almost everything from scratch and am super careful about going out to eat. When traveling I would pack a lot of my own food just to be safe. This past summer I learned about a specialized type of acupuncture, SAAT, that works with the body to change the body’s immune system response. Turns out that are not that many practitioners of SAAT in the US. I found a practitioner about 3 hours from me and managed to get a next day appointment. Part of the process involved keeping needles in the right ear for a month. After the time is up the needles can be removed and allergens can be reintroduced. For this first round we focused on just my shellfish and sesame allergies. It has been a few months and I’m happy to say I can now have shellfish and sesame with ZERO reactions!!! This is a massive life win for me. The cost of acupuncture was $300 but the ability to eat without worry is priceless! I honestly feel like I won the lottery.
— Amanda
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My wife and I were recently able to save $40 a month on our internet bill without even changing our plan! Our promotional price of $60/month was coming to an end and our service was going to increase to $80/month, which was really a no-go for us. We leveraged the fact that a new and cheaper cellular internet service provider became available in our area and called our existing ISP with all intentions to cancel and switch providers. As service companies tend to be, they were pretty set on trying to persuade us to stay with them, and so we ended up negotiating down our price to $40/month without having to go through the hassle of changing plans or providers. Because the other company was going to be $30/month (granted we would be getting lower speeds), we just asked, “Can you meet us at $30/month?” They offered $30 if we had our own router, or $40 if we continued using their equipment. We happily took $40! That $40/month savings adds up $480/year, which to some may seem small, but it’s definitely a nice 1% better for us! Totally worth the 15 minutes on the phone and having a clear alternative option we would have been fine with.
— Erich
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