FI Anonymous

I wanted to add a quick post here to highlight two new features I've added to the page, and comment on some purchase activity from earlier today. As I mentioned in my Welcome post, I want to be absolutely transparent in terms of my financial position and holdings. On a monthly basis, I will be updating my personal financial statements here , and on more of a transaction by transaction basis, I'll be updating my stock portfolio here . I actually uploaded my portfolio last night, but made a couple purchases today so I made sure to upload the most up to date version after I got home from work. I further plan to comment on my trading activity going forward to give a bit of insight as to why I made each transaction. Today's activity was pretty small, but below is a summary of each transaction, and the reasoning behind each! Purchase - International Paper Co. (IP) - 3 Shares - Chase Brokerage (Taxable)  International Paper is a company whose stock I started picking up a

So I didn't let you in too far to my personal details in my first post (see here  for more on the reasons why), but on second thought, I think it would be helpful to someone reading this blog if I wrote a little bit more about myself. After some reflection, I realized that without any idea of who I am - my age, where I live, what I do, etc. - you don't have the proper point of view to decide whether anything I'm saying on here is even valid. For instance, with no idea of how old I am, or how long I've been in the workforce, someone would have no clue if I'm on my way to retiring given my asset balances and income levels. Have I been saving $100 a year? $1,000 a year? $10,000 a year? Or if you didn't know where I lived, you may think that my heating bill of $150 per month may be a bit outrageous depending on the temperatures where you're from. Am I really as frugal as I say I am? Or do I just love to keep my heat pumping out in the hot weather? I'm sure

If you're reading this, you probably have a few questions for me. Who am I? That's probably the big one. Well, I'm going to avoid this question a bit. Maybe you could have guessed that by the title of the blog. Why?  Did I guess your second question right? Well you're in luck on this one! There's a few reasons I'd like to hide behind the veil of my keyboard and screen. First, and probably most importantly, is that the things I plan on discussing in this blog probably wouldn't make my employer too happy. If you haven't guessed already, the "FI" part of the title stands for financial independence. Anyone familiar with the term should know that the end goal of being financially independent usually involves breaking the chains of the standard "9 to 5". I plan this blog to be my personal journal, a collection of my thoughts, plans, and experiences as I work towards a goal of eventually quitting my job, and becoming free to do as I