defiders

Hi everyone - just wanted to post here and share a bit about my story. The long and short of it, my wife and I hit Coast FI back in 2020. At the time I was burned out at work, and we made the decision to downshift and start coasting. We were 29 and 28 at the time and our daughter had just been born.

We leaned into flexibility and freedom for about 3.5 years. I worked flexibly to cover our living expenses, and we saved some along the way (my freelance income quickly exceeded our expesnes and we invested the extra.)

Life was good and we've got some fond memories of that slow period of life.

Then, we decided we wanted to grow our family, move cities, and upgrade a few things (bigger home, a

Hey all - I have a friend in the Cary area that will be hosting an Investing 101 Educational Event at the Cary Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday April 28th at 5:30pm. She is a Certified Financial Planner (very legit) and just an all around good human.

I just saw her share this on LinkedIn and figured I would share it here as well for anyone that is interested and would find value in it.

Link to register is here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/investing-101-educational-event-tickets-1987350371459

Hopefully this post is allowed, but I wanted to share as I used to work with her at a previous firm and she does

For most homeowners, our homes are our biggest asset. How will the shrinking great salt lake impact the values?

The lake ended 2025 at its third-lowest level since 1903. 800 square miles of lakebed exposed. The Strike Team says we need 800,000 acre-feet of additional water per year to recover by 2055. Between 2021 and 2025, we’ve delivered about 400,000 total. Not per year…..total.

Most water conservation bills in the 2025 session didn’t even get debated.

Here’s the part that keeps me up at night. A Stegner Center analysis compared our situation to the Salton Sea in California. That lake is way smaller, in a way less populated area, and its collapse produced a $7 billion hit to surroundin

I was just listening to a recent interview that Tom Lee did with CNBC and, long story short, the interviewer is like “wow it’s a dark time for you right now over at Bitmine huh Tom?”

And Tom’s response was essentially:

Yeah I mean our entire company is designed to track the price of ETH and it is down so you would expect us to be down. But here’s the deal: we have no leverage.

We hold roughly 4.3 million ETH earning around 3% per year and another $600 million in cash in a money market fund earning 4% per year.

So we’re essentially printing $1 million per day with our holdings.

And that right there is the whole lesson. Everyone’s looking at the price chart and panicking. Meanwhile Tom Le

I was just listening to a recent interview that Tom Lee did with CNBC and, long story short, The interviewer is like “wow it’s a it’s a dark time for you right now over at bitmine huh Tom?”

And Tom‘s response was essentially:

yeah I mean our entire company is designed to track the price of ETH and it is down so you would expect us to be down but here’s the deal: we have no leverage.

We hold roughly 4.3 million Eth earning around 3% per year and another $600 million in cash in a money market fund earning 4% per year.

So we’re essentially printing $1 million per day with our holdings.

Tom Lee gonna be alright folks.

On the one hand, you’ve got super low unemployment, a strong tech market, low crime, and a very attractive place for businesses to relocate to.

But on the other hand, you’ve got some of the most unaffordable real estate in the country relative to wages, very high rates of teen suicide, some of the worst air quality in the country (and sometimes even the world at certain times), and tons of plastic surgeons per capita.

Wtf???

Hey everyone,

My wife and I are starting to explore a potential move to Appleton and I was hoping to get some honest thoughts from people who live there (or have lived there).

We’re currently in Salt Lake City, Utah, and have three young kids (5, 2, and 8 months). We have family who spend the summers in Green Lake so pretty familiar with the general vibe of the area I think.

We care a lot about good public schools, easy access to outdoor space, and a community that feels welcoming for young families. Housing affordability is also a big part of the equation. Salt Lake has gotten insanely expensive, especially in the neighborhoods we’d want to be in long term.

For work, I’m a financial adv

This is the shittiest part about being an investor.

If ETH were at $5k right now, people would be dreaming about the chance to buy at $2,000 or $2,200. They’d be saying things like “man, if it ever goes back there again, I’m loading up.” But because it’s actually sitting around $2,200 today, people are talking about selling everything, rage quitting, and exiting the space entirely.

That disconnect is exactly why doing well as an investor is so freaking hard. The psychology is brutal. Your brain tells you the thing you wanted at higher prices is suddenly garbage just because it’s cheaper. And frankly, this game is not for everyone. Period.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that the

Hey everyone,

My wife and I are starting to explore a potential move to Cary and I was hoping to get some honest thoughts from people who live there (or have lived there).

We’re currently in Salt Lake City, Utah, and have three young kids (5, 2, and 8 months). A few of the things that are really drawing us to Cary are the milder winters, the greenways, parks, and overall family-friendly vibe. Downtown Cary also looks like it has a lot of character and feels like a place we’d actually spend time, not just drive through.

We care a lot about good public schools, access to parks and outdoor space, and a community that’s welcoming for young families. Housing affordability is also part of the e

Here’s a fun one:

Wife and I started coasting back in 2020. At the time we had: $300k in investments at age 30 (we had set our coast target retirement age at 65 and figured we’d have around $2.5m at that point)

When we first started coasting, we were pretty frugal. Spending around $60k/year, I was earning about the same working minimally. Life was chill, did that for about 3.5 years.

Here’s the fun part: ended up deciding we didn’t want to stay in the same LCOL area we were in, and wanted to grow the fam (and the lifestyle with it).

Long story long, I hopped back into the full time workforce (wasn’t out for long so really didn’t skip a beat).

Bought a bigger home in a higher cost of

I've been coasting for ~2 years now and I feel it's one of the best decisions I've made. But, it was a huge decision and came with some serious fears of the unknown.

I'm curious what scares you most about coasting to financial independence?

My hope is that if we can put our fears out there into the world, we can come together as a coast FI community and help each other overcome those fears. Because odds are, if you've got a fear/question, someone else in this group has an answer.

I want to put together a coast FI manifesto and would love to get your input. In your opinion, what's core to coasting?

Hey, fellow coasters—I wanted to come and share the excitement that I was just featured to tell my coast FI story on the Fioneers blog.

In the interview I talk about how I was able to start coasting and why it made sense for me and my situation. Here's the link if you're interested in checking it out: Working (A LOT) Less After Reaching Coast FI