David Bartels

By far my most popular post was one I did in 2016 on Side Income Sources . I listed out several ways I had made some beermoney/extra cash online. In the couple years that followed my focus for generating side income shifted to credit card & bank account bonus churning. I highly recommend Doctor of Credit  and the r/churning subreddit if you're looking to get into that hobby. These days I have young kids and also generate side income mowing lawns so I don't spend nearly as much time in any of the endeavors listed above. That said, I'm not likely to pass up a deal if it's not too time consuming or if it involves a financial product I'm hoping to try anyway. I thought it'd be fun to do an updated version of my side income post 5 years later in a space that has become a prominent interest/hobby for me. Suffice to say that 2021 has been "The Year of Crypto" for me. The staying power of blockchain technology & decentralized monetary networks has bec...

In my last post , I gave some introductory thoughts on the concept of financial independence. I touched on what I would consider to be traditional thinking about when someone should retire. To close out the post, I asked why more people aren't retiring early. I claimed the short answer is that it's not easy. Other short answers that come to mind are that we can't afford it or that it's not the way we do things- we should remain a "productive member of society". Before I go any further, I want to give credit to the places that have been helpful as I've been learning about personal finance & financial independence. They've been instrumental & inspirational as I've developed some new ways of looking at the world: The Root of Good blog. I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this one but his post $150,000 Income, $150 Income Tax  was especially eye-opening to me. His monthly financial updates have also given insight into how a family with ki...

The idea of financial independence is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I recall coming across the term several years ago, before I paid too much attention to personal finance. I figured it sounded nice but was something reserved for the very wealthy. Either you inherited a lot of money or easily made six figures. A person in that situation, I thought, would then be able to save so much money in a short period of time that they would not longer need a job, therefore becoming financially independent. Since I had not inherited a large sum of money and didn't see myself making over 100k anytime soon, I wrote it off as unattainable for someone like me. Now, while an inheritance & large salary can certainly help in the path to financial independence, what I have come to learn is that they are not requirements, In fact, I don't even think either of those would be considered the number one contributor to achieving such a goal. At the end of the day I think it...

I've been thinking a bit lately about what direction to head with this blog. As I mentioned in my first post, I'm committing one of the bigger blogging "no-nos" here by not having a focused topic. But I'm still okay with that for now. For the most part this is mainly a place for me to experiment with writing and maintaining a blog. Other than a few Gmail contacts who get this emailed to them and a few twitter followers, the audience here is really just me. By the way, I'm finding out that html, while not necessarily difficult, can be very time consuming. The layout here is pretty bare bones but a few things I've experimented with have been a pain. I can't imagine the time that goes into some of the better looking blogs out there and can see why it's so worth it to hire design people. So, what keeps me coming back? I think part of me just wants to prove to myself that I can keep a blog going beyond 5-10 posts, that this won't end up just...