Findependence Day: How to achieve Financial Independence — while you’re still young enough to enjoy it
Findependence Day is a financial primer that uses classic fiction structure to impart core financial concepts to young people just embarking on the working world and raising a family.
Findependence is a contraction of Financial Independence, so Findependence Day is the moment far off in the future when your income from all sources exceeds the income you could get from a single employer. Henceforth, you work because you want to work, not because you have to.
The financial concepts roll out in the order of a normal human “life cycle,” proceeding from saving for college, graduating, landing a first job, enrolling in an employer pension plan, getting married, buying a first home, saving for retirement, raising children and then the cycle begins as you save money for the education of your children.
The thrust of the novel is to impart enough major concepts that if all of the suggestions were implemented, you would achieve financial independence while you’re still young enough to enjoy it. Thus, in the book, a young couple named Jamie and Sheena want to reach their Findependence Day at the relatively young age of 50.
This is not a get-rich-quick book but a get-rich-slowly book. It takes 20 or 30 years to achieve financial independence and the book follows the couple over 22 years: hence the “financial Pilgrim’s Progress” description of one reviewer.
The book begins when Jamie & Sheena are 28 and featured guests on a financial reality TV show. Humiliated by their credit card debt before a nationwide TV audience, Jamie vows his Findependence Day will be the day he turns 50. But Sheena won’t buy into the “guerrilla frugality” habit needed to save money. Their disagreements over money escalate, as Jamie stakes everything on the big score when his hobby website attracts a big social networking site. Betrayed by his business partner, his world falls apart, threatening his dream of early financial independence.
My new Financial Independence blog now live at MoneySense.ca
Further to the weekend’s post here and as promised, my first MoneySense blog on Financial Independence has just been published. Click here to view and note that three copies of Findependence Day are up for grabs — but only two days remain to take advantage of it. After that, you’ll need to procure a copy via this web site.
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New Financial Independence blog coming at Moneysense.ca
Jon Chevreau at MoneySense
Apologies for a hiatus blogging here but the new position as editor of MoneySense magazine has not permitted a lot of blogging. Since joining five weeks ago, we have put out the June issue of the magazine, now available on newsstands and the iPad.
I’m happy to report that I will soon be blogging at MoneySense.ca, though it’s unlikely the frequency will be anything like the old Wealthy Boomer blog housed at the Financial Post.
The new blog will likely be titled simply Financial Independence, which is of course the ongoing theme of this site here at FindependenceDay.com. One of the things I’ll be doing on the blog is reviewing any books that touch on this theme: publishers and book publicists take note! My email at the magazine is jon.chevreau@moneysense.rogers.com.
By the way, the first piece I’ve written for the print edition of the magazine (June issue on news stands now) is the Editor’s Note at the front. There I note what this site often sets out: the difference between “Retirement” and “Financial Independence.” It also introduces a new writer to the magazine: Preet Banerjee and announces acting editor Dan Bortolotti is now our Editor at Large. Dan’s cover story on “Renovate your portfolio” presents three low-cost ETF portfolios of the “Couch Potato” genre he and the magazine are famous for.
Change a life for 20 bucks
MoneySense publishes seven issues a year and costs about $20 a year to subscribe, or less if you’re a Rogers customer. I’d say that’s pretty good value. Click here for details on how to subscribe or better yet, provide a gift subscription to a loved one. (Change someone’s life for 20 bucks!)
In addition to the new blog, I continue to “tweet” (@JonChevreau) and Moneysense.ca will also start scrolling my Twitter feed and other feeds associated with the magazine.
Lots of other stuff to come!
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The real “Jamie” reaches his own Findependence Day in Italy
Tony Coletta
In recent weeks, I’ve been in touch with an old college friend who originally hailed from Italy and ultimately returned there to raise a family. Perhaps I had him in mind unconsciously when I created the “Jamie” character in Findependence Day, although of course as with most works of fiction, characters tend to be composites of real people and an author’s vivid imagination.
Either way, I was surprised not only to hear from Tony Coletta — aka “the real Jamie” or at least the inspiration for the character — but also to discover he had ordered the book, subscribed to MoneySense Magazine, and that he has already reached his own personal Findependence Day.
Tony sent me an email describing how his post-Findependence Day has transpired very much like that of his fictional counterpart in the novel. He also gave me permission to publish his description here and to run a photo of him.
So thanks, Tony, for sharing:
My Findependence is coming along just like you describe it in the book. In other words I keep doing exactly the same things as before but with a different attitude.
If I don’t get any work for a week, a month and sometimes even a couple of months, I don’t worry about it. I spend my time with the family or simply studying, exploring new ideas, preparing presentations and papers for conferences etc..
I take long vacations, usually all of July and August and go often to the beach.
Best regards
Tony
Vito Antonio (Tony) Coletta
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Budget 2012: Older boomers dodge OAS bullet
While the pre-budget hype was that Canadian baby boomers were going to have to delay their retirement after Thursday’s federal budget was unveiled, their Findependence Day has not been severely postponed for anyone who is now 54 years old or older as of March 31, 2012.
As expected, the Old Age Security eligibility age will rise gradually from the current 65 to 67 but this doesn’t start to happen until 2023, according to the just-released budget. When you add the 11-year notification of this change to the six-year phase-in between 2023 and 2029, I’d agree with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty that Canadians [or their financial planners] have “ample time to make adjustments to their retirement plans.”
For younger people born on or after Feb. 1, 1962, OAS eligibility will be age 67. Technically, boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 but in my view, if you were born between 1962 and 1964, you likely didn’t grieve over the JFK assassination and can hardly be considered a true baby boomer.
Delaying retirement: OAS takes a leaf from deferred CPP benefits
“A welcome read both north and south of the 49th parallel.” — review in Richmond News
Certified financial planner Richard Vetter has reviewed Findependence Day in the (BC-based) Richmond News, judging it to be a “welcome read” both for citizens of Canada and the United States. The review, found here, points out that the common sense advice of two “very unorthodox financial planners” in the novel is often “contrary to what the financial industry is trying to sell them.”
Here’s an excerpt from the review:
The book is a great response to these challenging times and helps us to understand that there are few challenges that we cannot logically plan our way through …. The book necessarily spends a lot of time teaching some important financial lessons, but it ends up giving us a vision of what a life well-planned can look like.
Vetter is a CFP and Chartered Life Underwriter with WealthSmart Financial Group.
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My Last Wealthy Boomer blog — for now
Friday was my last day at the Financial Post. Two final columns ran in the paper on the weekend, then that will be it.
One of them was highlighted today as the last installment of The Wealthy Boomer blog, here.
The other is here. It’s not yet clear what the fate of the blog will be. It won’t continue as presently constituted as a micro site at the FinancialPost.com [at least not written by me] but it may be reincarnated at some point on another platform.
Some readers have asked whether the column in the paper will continue. Not with any frequency: it was a full-time job producing those columns and blogs and I’ve now taken on a new full-time job, effective April 9th: as the editor of MoneySense magazine.
It’s possible that I’ll do an occasional (perhaps monthly) column for the Post once I make the transition but for now we’ll just have to see.
Oh … about the photo in the farewell blog. It was taken earlier this month at the National Post. If it seems a bit “leaner and meaner” than previous head-shots, that’s because last Halloween my wife and I embarked on a two-pronged regime of The 17-Day Diet and regular exercise. The result is The Wealthy Boomer is also the Lighter Boomer, by about 25 pounds.
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A personal career change: I join MoneySense in April
On Friday, I announced I am leaving the Financial Post after 19 years to become the editor of MoneySense magazine, effective April 9. I’ll remain at the Post until March 23. You can read the announcement at the MoneySense web site here.
At this stage, it’s not clear how or whether the Wealthy Boomer blog will continue. If it does, it probably won’t be in the current form but in the meantime I may blog a little more on my own site here, which of course exists chiefly to market the book, Findependence Day, and to discuss the philosophy surrounding it.
It’s my belief the financial sections of most newspapers, financial blogs, financial TV shows and personal finance magazines are all talking about basically the same thing: some may term it retirement but I prefer to view it as financial independence. Those who have read the book know the distinction that is made between the two terms throughout the book.
In short, as discussed on the Youngandthrifty review flagged here in the previous blog, it’s all about building wealth to the point you are working because you WANT to, not because you perceive you HAVE to.
Such a late-career change happening while I’m on the cusp of reaching my own personal Findependence Day [I'll be 59 by the time I start the new job] raises some interesting nuances on the whole philosophy, which I’m exploring in an essay I’m composing and which ultimately will be the basis for another book. If it’s ready later this weekend, I may post it here.
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Youngandthrifty review of Findependence Day
The book has received a good indepth review from the Youngandthrifty blog, which had previously likened Findependence Day to “The Wealthy Barber” on speed.
Click here for the review and a chance to win a copy.
Note that I’ve raised my age for my own personal “Findependence Day” up three years to age 64. Details to follow on the weekend.
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Video: Pay down debt or save for retirement?
Here’s the second of three installments of a video interview I did with BrighterLife.ca’s Kevin Press. It’s about three minutes and focuses on the theme of “guerrilla frugality” from the book, Findependence Day.
Click here to view.
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Boomer & Echo Review: When is YOUR Findependence Day?
I was a bit slow to pick up on a nice review of the book by the Boomer & Echo blog the other day. You can read it here as well as a score of comments from others who have read the book, most of them fairly positive. “Wealthy Barber on speed!”
Speaking of Findependence Day, I’ve decided to raise my own personal FD from the previous age 62 to age 64. I’ll explain why in another blog but it has nothing to do with the government’s trial balloon to raise the OAS eligibility age gradually from 65 to 67.
Speaking of government, today it was announced that the federal budget will come down March 29th.
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