Buy a bicycle that makes you want to ride it. If you get to the point where you no longer want to ride it, trade it in for another one that you do.
I can't overstate how important it is take care of your mental and physical health. In fact, I would say that this is far more important than buying a house. Your mind and body are your primary home.
I miss riding a bike. I used to ride or [inline] skate or skate[board] everywhere as my primary modes of transport.
My oncologist told me that my osteopenia and osteolytic lesions mean that I must never ride a bike again, or skate, or even jog, in case of pathologic fractures.
If you have any suggestions, they’d be welcome.
No suggestions because I'm not your doctor and have no idea what would or would not be a potential risk. Just wanna say that damn, that sucks. I really feel for you.
You should definitely ask a qualified expert. I would think swimming might be a good option though. As well as being good exercise it can also be really pleasant and relaxing to just float and play in the water.
Always follow yourdoctors advice. There is a lot of snake oil out there that sounds good but will kill you.
To put a finer point on it, riding a bike is incredibly important for all sorts of economic and lifestyle reasons, not just for your health.
Or at the very least avoid car ownership and overuse:
When you use a 3500-pound car to transport your 150-pound self around, 96 percent of the weight of that clump of matter is the car. You’re moving 25 times more junk around than you need to, and thus using 25 times more energy to do it.
Imagine that you’re hungry for lunch, so you go to a restaurant. But you don’t just order yourself a blackened salmon salad for $15.00. You order twenty five salads for $375.00! Then, you eat one of them, and leave the other 24 blackened salmon salads, $360.00 worth of food, to get collected by the waiter and slopped unceremoniously into a big black garbage bag. All that fine wild-caught Alaskan Salmon, lovingly seasoned and grilled. All the fine crumbles of feta cheese, the mango salsa, diced green onion, shaved peppers, rich zingy dressing, and everything else the chef worked on for hours – plopped into the slimy garbage bag. This is exactly what you are doing, every time you drive!
Of course, a lot of people, especially in North America, don't really have an alternative, and they'll be financially and bodily worse off for it.
It’s time for this silliness to come to an end. You must ride a bike. We all must. It’s not a weird fringe form of transportation that only people in Portland and Colorado do. It’s just simply the way we all get around for moderate intra-city distances.
Ah yes, because we all live in areas where everything we need to access is a moderate intra-city distance away.
I am seriously waiting for the cold season to end so I can ride my bike again.
Your body. Eat healthy, drink water, remove stress, workout at least 30 minutes a day, and sleep regularly
remove stress
Just use blackhead strips all over the body, or is it something that a large dose of Metamucil will fix?
Best to join a dismissive depression meme community and self diagnose as medication resistant
CDC calls for a little less, 75m of intensive exercise a week and two full body workouts a week (At a minimum)
Don’t skimp on the things that connect you to the ground and invest in good quality ones. Shoes, bed, couch, office chair, and tires.
Don't forget food and liquid. That stuff keeps your face from connecting with the ground.
And there are some liquids that in excess might increase the chances of your face connecting with ground. Probably best not to skimp on those either.
S&P 500 is pretty solid.
Historically, it has been. Right now is shaky. SPY was over 600 and now having a hard time at 589.
I concur on this one. Open a Roth IRA and put it towards an S&P 500 mutual fund with low fees. I use Schwab because it's free to open an account and deposit money.
I've read somewhere that S&P 500 capitalization is driven up by the IA hype ?
S&P takes the 500 most profitable companies in the US and builds an index off of that. S&P usually goes about 7% return but markets are very bullish on AI. It's similar to the dotcom bubble so definitely not without risk.
Currently nvidia is driving the S&P up but nvidia might crash one day like cisco did back then.
Healthy relationships with people. This costs a lot of time and energy, but well worth it in the end.
Bikes and retirement aside, I'd recommend knowledge - career skills, but also handiness skills. If you can do simple repairs like replacing a door, changing the flap on a toilet, painting, preventative stuff like changing your air filters, simple electronics (replacing a light switch), etc you'll save thousands on repairs as a homeowner. Today there's almost nothing that you can't find an in depth video tutorial on, but if you really don't feel comfortable with basic tools most community colleges have cheap classes as do some hardware stores. Volunteering, even just to help friends with their projects, can be an amazing way to learn too.
From the “Financial Advice Index Card”:
1. Max your 401(k) or equivalent employee contribution.
2. Buy inexpensive, well-diversified mutual funds such as Vanguard Target 20xx funds.
3. Never buy or sell an individual security. The person on the other side of the table knows more than you do about this stuff.
4. Save 20% of your money.
5. Pay your credit card balance in full every month.
6. Maximize tax-advantaged savings vehicles like Roth, SEP and 529 accounts.
7. Pay attention to fees. Avoid actively managed funds.
8. Make Financial Advisors commit to the fiduciary standard.
9. Promote social insurance programs to help people when things go wrong.
I disagree with #2. All of the target date funds tend to have 1.5-2% returns and are largely intended for people that aren’t looking at alternatives. Almost anything is better.
I’ve got some Vanguard funds and I like them. $VTTHX for example
I second this, wife put money to save for kids when they're older and it over performed by quite a bit. I forget how much since she also sneaks 1k in here and there but an initial 10k plus the bits she added are now 24k after a couple years.
I've posted this on lemmy once before, but assuming you've maxed your 401k or other retirement, my go to strategy has been to buy a few shares of VTI every paycheck. If there was anything left over, or I couldn't afford VTI, I'd buy SPYG. I've been doing this for a very long time and it has paid off well for me. I'm not rich enough to stop working, but if I lost my job for a while, I'd be fine.
Then on a personal level, join a local sport. In my area there are a bunch, indoor soccer, flag football, volleyball, rock climbing, etc.... This gets you cardio without having to force yourself to go to the gym.
Max out HSA if you have one first, then move on to 401k and a Roth or traditional IRA if you don't qualify for the Roth. Then you do a backdoor Roth until they close the loophole.
My work gives us an hsa of like $3,500 a year, but it rolls over and never maxes out. Does this mean I'll never be allowed to move to step 2?
Fill up contributions to your HSA, your 401(k) up to the employer match, your IRA, and then the rest of your 401(k), in that order. (YMMV if you're self-employed or in the public sector and have more unusual tax-advantaged investments instead.)
By the way: I suggest asking your question at [email protected] ["FIRE" = "Financially Independent, Retire Early"].
A vasectomy/bisalp
Invest in yourself!
don't hold any debt on anything that is not an investment and even then be careful what you consider an investment and make sure the return will consistantly outdo the debt in the long run. if you have no debt make sure to have at least 3 months of bills saved.
I'm assuming you are young - under 30. If older my advice will be different.
save 10% for retirement and spend the rest of your income 'now'. Save for a house and other big things but make sure you have fun with life. don't buy so much of a house that you can't do whatever you enjoy after paying for it. Take vacations now. climb mountains now if that is what you want to do - at 50 you will likely be forced give up mountain climbing. I strongly recomnend you get married and have kids (this isn't for everyone but I still recommend it)
make sure you have a good long term disabilitty plan. insurance costs are based on how likely you are to need it. If someone offers you a deal on insurance run away as it is a scam. If someone trias to sell you expensive insurance it might be expensive because odds are you need it so listen carefully (there are expensive scams and some insurance you won't need but others do so I don't say buy, just listen)
several of those I graduated with are dead and I'm not retired yet - several of us have been unable to work for medical reasons (treatable but the treatment takes time). I've knowen a fair number who planed to enjoy retirement but either their health kept them in or near a hospital once they reached that age; or they died just after retireing. so 10% saved for retirement and then find something in life you enjoy for the rest and spend it. If you are older and didn't start with 10% then you may need to save more., if you save more than 10% make sure it is because you couldn't think of anything to spend it not that you are a miser who saves every last penny.
Edit: you should have some emergency savings. Emergencies happen when the s&p is down so this should be short term 'safe' investments. 6 months should be enough.
This is why I don't agree with the moneybro Redditors who seem to want you to put every penny into investing for retirement or working aggressively to pay down student loans or your mortgage...leaving little money to use for day to day enjoyment.
We have absolutely no idea how long we will live. I think there's a healthy balance between investing for the future and enjoying the now.
You need enough of a nest egg in case you live to 130 - but odds are you will live to just under 80 like everyone else so that should be the majority of your planning. (unless you have a specific family history/genetics).
International index funds for long term safe savings, hand-picked stocks for short term crazy gambling. Dividend stocks for medium term capital income.
Your happiness
