The Voluntary Life

Latest Episodes:

224 Ancient Vs Modern Ideas Of Liberty Oct 19, 2015

Show notes

Benjamin Constant was a French classical liberal writer who lived through the French revolution and the reign of terror. Assessing what had gone wrong with the revolution, he came up with a distinction between two conflicting ideas of "liberty" that had influenced the people involved— an ancient concept of liberty and a modern one. His distinction is still useful today and can help make sense of the incompatible ways in which different people talk about freedom. Show Notes:

The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns by Benjamin Constant (1816)

223 A Guide To Passive Investment Portfolios Oct 05, 2015

Show notes

Portfoliocharts.com is a brilliant, free resource for passive investors. It provides a comparison of all the main passive investment portfolios using funky charts to visually explain the data. The site was created by Tyler, an early retiree with a background in mechanical engineering. Tyler created the site for fun as a personal project, but I think it is the best guide to passive investing portfolios on the web. In this interview, Tyler gives his own take on passive investing and talks about how to use the portfolio charts site. He explains some interesting results from his analysis and shows how they challenge common myths about portfolios. Show Notes:

Portfolio Charts Website
@portfoliocharts
I'm not a financial advisor and your money is your responsibility.

222 Early Retirement Lifestyle Part 2 Sep 28, 2015

Show notes

This episode is part 2 of the interview with Justin from Root of Good. Justin talks about how the goal of early retirement differs from mainstream ideas of "success". He provides suggestions for those interested in pursing early retirement. Show Notes: Root of Good Jack Ma Interview

221 Early Retirement Lifestyle Part 1 Sep 24, 2015

Show notes

There are many practical steps required to reach financial independence, but there are also some interesting psychological challenges to early retirement. Who would you be without your job? What would you do all day if you never had to work? Justin retired at the age of 33. He writes about financial independence at the Root of Good blog. In this interview, he gives his take on the psychological side of financial independence and describes his early-retirement lifestyle. Show Notes:

220 What To Expect From Investing Sep 16, 2015

Show notes

Many people find getting started as an individual investor daunting. This episode is about how little I knew about investing when I got started. I describe what I came to expect from investing as I learned more about it. If you are starting out in investing, I think hearing my experience will be relevant for you. Show Notes

Fail-Safe Investing: Lifelong Financial Security in 30 Minutes by Harry Browne
Where Are the Customers' Yachts by Fred Schwed
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle
Previous TVL Episodes on financial independence
I'm not a financial advisor and your money is your responsibility.

219 How To Do A Monthly Financial Review Sep 04, 2015

Show notes

It took me a long time to work out how to stay on top of my finances. After a lot of trial and error, I developed the habit of doing a monthly financial review. This is what enables me to confidently manage my finances without having to think about money all the time. In this episode, I explain how you can implement your own monthly financial review. Topics covered include:

Habits to set up when implementing a monthly review, including dedicating adequate time (about 4 hours per month) and making a detailed checklist or task list to use.
Key questions to consider when designing your monthly financial review system, such as whether to use an online finance app or one that runs on your own computer.
Stages of the monthly financial review to implement: downloading finance data, cleaning data, inputting data, reconciling, and analysis (budget, investments, and net worth calculation)

Show Notes:

Some software options for your checklist: Evernote and Omnifocus
Some finance apps: iBank, Mint, Personal Capital
Software for automating renaming and moving of files: Hazel
TVL Episode 181 on budgeting and net worth calculation

218 Choosing A Job-Free Lifestyle Aug 26, 2015

Show notes

In previous episodes of this podcast, I've explored different ways to live a job-free lifestyle. I've interviewed extreme savers, unjobbers, lifestyle entrepreneurs, and startup entrepreneurs. Many listeners have raised an important question about these lifestyles: how do you choose between these different strategies for quitting the rat race? How do you decide which job-free lifestyle you want to pursue for yourself? This week's episode discusses this question and provides suggestions for how to choose a job-free lifestyle. Show Notes

217 Panama: Our Adventure Begins Aug 19, 2015

Show notes

This episode is a discussion with a special guest— my wife Hannah Braime, who is the host of Becoming Who You Are. We've just moved to Panama and we love it here already. In this episode we talk about all the preparations involved in our move, the start of our travel lifestyle, and our first impressions of life in Panama. Show Notes:

216 Financial Independence Strengthens Your Moral Backbone Aug 03, 2015

Show notes

A listener shared these reflections with me: "I like to think I'm a moral person but many times in my career (and in the careers of friends), I've been forced to choose between unethical behavior and possibly losing my job. I handled this on a case by case manner, where I had to weight the importance of the unethical behavior, the likelihood of me being punished, the odds of me successfully elevating the issue to a superior, how much the unethical behavior would actually hurt the injured party, etc. In other words, my response was ambiguous and led to a lot of sleepless nights." The listener went on to explain that achieving financial independence strengthened his or her moral backbone and make it easier to say no to bad people at work. This is a brilliant insight and highlights one of the great benefits of financial independence. In this episode I share some suggestions about how you can use entrepreneurship, extreme saving and unjobbing to make it easier for you to do the right thing.

215 Extreme Decluttering Jul 28, 2015

Show notes

"Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough." Charles Warner Over the last three years, I've reduced my possessions to only those things that will fit inside one suitcase and one hand luggage bag. My wife and I decided to pursue extreme decluttering, in order to make a lifestyle of long-term travel more practical. Decluttering was easy at first, but got harder the more extreme I took it. My possessions were not just serving practical needs, but emotional ones too. I had to work out how to address those needs before I could get rid of my stuff. Decluttering also forced me to acknowledge mistakes I had made in the past— mistakes I preferred to avoid thinking about. Overall, extreme decluttering has been a fantastic learning process. I feel much freer because of it. I think that you can benefit in a similar way by decluttering, even if you don't want to reduce your stuff in such an extreme way as I did. Show Notes:

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected