Finance Xpress

Halloween isn’t just about ghosts, ghouls, and overpriced costumes that disintegrate after one use. For financially aware adults, the real chills come from spreadsheets, surprise bills, and market meltdowns that turn your net worth chart into a horror movie graph. After over three decades of studying, working through, and writing about financial ups and downs, […]

The post The 8 Scariest Financial Situations You Can Find Yourself In appeared first on Financial Samurai.

Despite finally having the permission to live it up in retirement, I still find it hard to spend money on things I don’t truly need. A big part of building wealth has always been about endurance and suffering. The more we can withstand—long hours, delayed gratification, and the occasional investment blowup—the greater our odds of […]

The post How to Endure Suffering to Build Greater Wealth and Resilience appeared first on Financial Samurai.

A poor millionaire sounds like an oxymoron, but they definitely exist. Roughly 6% of U.S. households are millionaires, yet many of them still don’t feel rich. A poor millionaire is someone worth over $1 million but unable to access much of their wealth. In other words, their net worth is highly illiquid. A layoff, bear market, or […]

The post Poor Versus Rich Millionaires: Liquidity Is The Difference appeared first on Financial Samurai.

If healthcare in America weren’t so egregiously expensive, more people would retire earlier and live better, happier lives. We’re one of the few countries in the world where affordable healthcare is tied to employment, making financial independence that much harder to achieve. Given the high cost of coverage, before you decide to retire early by […]

The post Millionaire Early Retirees Probably Shouldn’t Get Healthcare Subsidies appeared first on Financial Samurai.

S&One of the key conclusions from doing a deep-dive analysis of my IRA with Empower, is that I should be able to live it up more in retirement. In fact, we should all be able to live it up more in retirement based on a higher recommended safe withdrawal rate by Bill Bengen, one of America's […]

The post Permission To Live It Up In Retirement Granted: The New 5% SWR appeared first on Financial Samurai.

After doing my first free Empower financial professional review back in 2013, I decided to do another investment portfolio review with them. Given the portfolio review is free for anyone with over $100,000 in investable assets, and my financial situation has changed so dramatically since then, I figured, why not spend a little time to uncover […]

The post How Empower’s Free Financial Review Helped Me Rethink Retirement appeared first on Financial Samurai.

If time is truly more precious than money, then spending money to buy back your time is the wisest trade of all. Here's an example of overcoming my frugality to live a better life. Perhaps one of the main reasons I initially didn’t want to go on a family vacation to LegoLand and SeaWorld was […]

The post Spending Money to Save Time Is the Best Use of Funds appeared first on Financial Samurai.

On October 8, 2025, we decided to go on a family vacation I was decidedly unexcited about. That entire week was supposed to be my time to attend the Fairfield Challenger tennis tournament every day with my buddy Richard. September and October are tennis paradise months in the Bay Area, with multiple tournaments and ideal […]

The post Vacations Just Aren’t As Great Once You Retire Early appeared first on Financial Samurai.

1999 is back, and I’ve missed it. Ever since then, I’ve been chasing that next 50-bagger, the kind of life-changing winner that helped me come up with the down payment for my first property. But he's been elusive. I still remember sitting on the international trading floor at Goldman Sachs at 1 New York Plaza, […]

The post It Feels Like 1999 Again: Time To Party Without Blacking Out appeared first on Financial Samurai.

So you’ve read my post on the growing importance of Identity Diversification and now you’re wondering what it actually takes to prove your ethnicity and heritage. Doing so can help you better navigate the shifting socioeconomic winds of society and, in some cases, even improve your odds of getting into school, landing a job, winning […]

The post The Cost To Prove Your Ethnicity And Heritage: Hawaiian Edition appeared first on Financial Samurai.

It’s been several months since we returned from Hawaii, and surprisingly, my FOMO about the AI tech boom has faded. Sure, I still don’t have a job paying me gobs of money as AI CapEx surges higher, but that’s OK. Instead, I’ve allocated enough money to AI investments to where I no longer feel the […]

The post The Main Way To Save Your Children From AI Is To Invest In AI appeared first on Financial Samurai.

The government has shut down again, this time mostly over healthcare subsidies. We’ve seen shutdowns before, and we’ll see more in the future. As frustrating as they are, shutdowns remind us that uncertainty is the only constant. Instead of just surviving, I want to show you how to thrive during and after one. Out of […]

The post Turn a Government Shutdown Into an Opportunity to Thrive appeared first on Financial Samurai.

As long-time investors, we all understand the importance of diversification when it comes to growing wealth. Bear markets and corrections are inevitable, which is why putting everything into a single asset class is not wise. But what about applying that same principle to our identities? What if “Identity Diversification” could help grow not just our […]

The post Identity Diversification May Be As Important As Investment Diversification appeared first on Financial Samurai.

Deciding whether to pay off a mortgage early—or how long to keep one—is ultimately a personal choice. In this post, I’ll share my perspective by drawing on both real-life experience and some numbers to frame the decision. In 2022, my wife and I finally paid off the mortgage on our Lake Tahoe vacation property. That […]

The post The Ideal Length Of Time To Hold A Mortgage Until Paying It Off appeared first on Financial Samurai.