Financial Panther

Financial Independence, Side Hustling, and Ebikes

Blog

Don’t Know What To Do With Your Life: Why Not Retire Early?

Last Updated on 28 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

One of my more financially interesting friends is my friend Jay (not his real name). While the rest of us are beginning or in the middle of our “real” careers, Jay still works as a bartender at the same restaurant he worked at while we were in college. He recently turned 30 years old, and if my calculations are correct, that means he’s been working as a bartender at the same place now for 8 years (longer if you count the summers that he worked there while in college).

Bartending always seemed like it was supposed to be a temporary stop. My friends and I all graduated college in 2009 – right in the midst of the financial crisis – and found ourselves unable to get any “real” jobs. I worked two minimum wage jobs and lived at home with my parents. My other friends did similar things. One friend worked at a sporting goods store. Another worked at a golf course. Some people worked at restaurants – typical post-college jobs that you’d expect a 22-year old to have to take after the worst financial meltdown in a generation.

Live Like A Student: Embrace Non-Traditional Ways Of Living

Last Updated on 32 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

If you had to ask me what the single most important thing you can do for yourself financially when you finish school, my answer would always be to live like a student. It seems so obvious, and yet, despite being so obvious, very few people actually follow this advice.

I live in a college neighborhood, so I see a lot of college kids when I’m out and about. Sometimes, I like to think about how weird their living situations are compared to your typical middle-class American. Most of these college kids live in rundown houses, usually packing four or more people into a house. It’s not uncommon for people to share rooms or live in tiny bedrooms no bigger than a closet. When I’m out doing deliveries, I’ll sometimes make a delivery to a dorm and am reminded that, for at least a year, most college kids live and sleep in a tiny dorm room with a person they’ve never met before!

Insight Card: A Step-By-Step Guide to 5% Interest

Last Updated on 707 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

One of the things I like doing is figuring out ways to get the maximum yield on my cash. Most people just accept whatever their bank offers them. The problem is that even your highest yielding savings account pays you just 1% interest these days.

What a lot of people don’t know is that there’s an entire world of super high yield savings accounts out there. These are savings accounts that pay way more than even your highest paying online savings accounts. The thing about these accounts is that you won’t find them at any normal bank. They’re sort of secret, and you can only find them “hidden” in prepaid debit card products.

Questions To Think About When You’re Setting Up Your HSA

Last Updated on 16 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

Earlier this week, we talked about the Health Savings Account (or HSA as it’s commonly called). The thing that always bothered me about HSAs are how confusing they are compared to a 401(k). I think this is part of the reason that a lot of people don’t really know what an HSA is or how it works. Almost everyone I’ve ever talked to has heard of a 401(k). But very few people in the regular world have heard of an HSA.

The problem with the HSA has to do with the fact that it requires a little bit more work to set up. 401(k)s, for the most part, are basically automatic at this point. Most employers opt you in by default, deduct a certain percentage from your paycheck each pay period, and put your contributions in a default investment option in your 401(k) – typically some sort of balanced fund or a target date fund.

Setting up an HSA, on the other hand, requires a little more work…

The HSA: The Perfect Retirement Account For Millennials

Last Updated on 24 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

Read enough personal finance blogs and at some point, you’ll probably stumble across someone writing about the “secret” retirement account known as the Health Savings Account (“HSA”). For those of us who are entrenched in the personal finance world, the HSA really isn’t all that much of a secret. Most of us who are into this money stuff know that it’s a pretty advantageous savings vehicle.

The thing that I think doesn’t get pointed out enough is how perfect the HSA is for millennials. By giving yourself access to an HSA, you get two awesome things. You gain an extra tax-advantaged account that can really help you maximize your savings. And you lower your monthly health insurance premiums at a time in your life when you probably have very low healthcare costs.

Job Spotter App Review: Earn Extra Money By Taking Pictures Of Hiring Signs

Last Updated on 80 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

Table of Contents What Is The Job Spotter App? How The Job Spotter App Works How Much Can You Make With The Job Spotter App? The Main Reason I Like The Job Spotter App: It’s Fun! Job Spotter Tips and Tricks Unfortunately, Job Spotter shut down in early 2020. If this app ever returns, I’ll […]

January 2017 Side Hustle Report

Last Updated on 25 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

Welcome to this month’s side hustle report! If you’ve been following along, each month, I document what I made using various sharing economy and gig economy apps. It’s pretty great to have a little bit of extra income coming in each month for things that I’m basically already doing…

Do You Use Work As An Excuse Not To Reach Financial Independence?

Last Updated on 46 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

I sometimes get into conversations with friends of mine who wonder why I’m trying to save so much money. When I tell them that I’m doing it because I’d love to be able to retire early, I’m often met with the same response: “I couldn’t imagine myself not working. I’d get too bored.”

I’m sure those of you on the path to financial independence have heard that same remark as well. It’s all well and good, mind you. There’s nothing wrong with working. If you like your job, by all means, you should keep doing it. Honestly, if I ever do reach financial independence, I’ll probably keep working too. Perhaps not in a traditional 9-5 job, but I’d probably do something that I find fun.

My problem isn’t with people who say they enjoy working. That’s totally fine. It’s that I find that people who tell me they like working often use that, not as a plan, but rather, as an excuse for why they’re not saving very much. Or they use it as a reason to criticize my own drive to save money.

Netspend Account: The Ultimate Guide to a 5% Interest Savings Account

Last Updated on 902 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

Most people don’t believe it, but even in today’s market, you can still earn 5% interest on money sitting in an FDIC insured savings account. It does require a little bit of legwork to set up, but once you’ve done it, the entire account is completely automated.

For most people, a 5% interest savings account is a perfect place to store your emergency fund. It’s where I store my emergency fund. And depending on how much you like to keep in your emergency fund, you could potentially have your entire emergency fund earning 5% interest per year.

Net Worth Report – Q4 (2016)

Last Updated on 42 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. Affiliate Disclosure.

I can’t really believe it, but this past weekend, I turned 30 years old. It’s sad to say, but my 20s are now officially over. I think I have to become a responsible adult now or something.

I’ve been casually tracking my net worth over the past couple of months, and back in October, I published my first quarterly net worth report. You can take a look at that post here. My plan is to continue these reports so that folks can see where I’ve been and where I’m going. It’s also not bad for me to have these numbers documented for my own records so that I can get a picture of where I’m going.

Here’s the current picture of my net worth:

Financial Panther © 2025 All rights reserved.