This has been a weird year. I think most would agree. Most of the past year, most of the world has been under the thumb of the Covid-19 virus.
It is as if we have been invaded and occupied by a foreign power. Our freedom of movement has been curtailed by the pandemic. Our abilities to act freely have been restricted by the virus.
For the most of us, the ability to survive depends on our keeping healthy. We may not like how the virus has reduced our freedoms. But to suvive we must avoid getting infected, and await a vaccine.
Attitude
Much of what I write about is attitudinal. Namely, one of the major keys to financial independence is using one’s own attitude properly. All too often, some see financial freedom as unattainable. Mired in debt, and never expecting to see the end of it, means one will never get free of debt. If one expects to be in debt forever, so it will be. However, if one can expect that one can get out of debt, and live free, then it can be done.
Getting out of debt is the financial equivalent of getting out of jail. Once out of financial jail, there are two things to focus on: staying out, and improving one’s situation.
During this year, we have reviewed several times how to improve one’s financial life:
1. Build an Emergency Fund
2. Spend Less Than You Earn
3. Save and Invest The Difference
And Some Other Things
While financial freedom is the main thrust of this blog, there are other things that are written about.
The corrosive aspects of politic’s purpose and why people are attracted to it, and how sometimes we must participate in it.
Some things are self-evident. Here are four of them.
A reminder that this blog is not an early retirement blog.
That corporate insiders exploit company share buybacks was confirmed by SEC Commissioner Robert J. Jackson Jr. in a speech given in June 2018.
Blog Anniversaries
The first year of the blog here was reviewed here and the second year was reviewed here.
Smile If You Dare is Three Years Old, and that’s not nothing.
Which post in this last year did you like best? Let me know here.
The illustration is from Der naturen bloeme (The Flower of Nature) by Jacob van Maerlant, published in Dutch in 1350. It contains illustrations of ‘homines monstruosi’, strange races that were said to live in distant lands. Among them are cannibals and cyclopses, and people with only one leg and feet so large that they could be used as a parasol. Courtesy National Library of the Netherlands.
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