- Multi-currencyJuly 17, 2026 · 6 min read
What currency conversion actually costs you
The fee you see when you convert money is rarely the real cost. The real cost is the spread, the gap between the mid-market rate and the rate you are actually given, and it is designed to be invisible.
Read → - FIRE basicsJuly 10, 2026 · 7 min read
How long until you're financially independent?
You know your FIRE number. The next question is how long it takes to get there. The answer is set by three levers, and one of them matters far more than the size of your paycheque: your savings rate.
Read → - FIRE basicsJuly 3, 2026 · 7 min read
How to calculate your FIRE number (the honest version)
Your FIRE number is annual expenses times 25. That's the easy part, and where most calculators stop. The honest version pins down three inputs nobody agrees on: which expenses, in which currency, funded by which money.
Read → - FIRE basicsJune 30, 2026 · 8 min read
The 4% rule, for people who don't retire in America
The 4% rule was measured on a 30-year US retirement funded in one currency. Retire early, retire abroad, or hold money across currencies and at least three of its assumptions stop holding. Here's where the safe withdrawal rate breaks, and what to use instead.
Read → - FIRE basicsJune 23, 2026 · 8 min read
Types of FIRE: Coast, Barista, Lean, Fat, and the one you actually want
Coast FIRE, Barista FIRE, Lean FIRE, Fat FIRE, regular FIRE: what each one means, the number behind it, and how to tell which fits your life. A plain-language map with the math for each.
Read → - CouplesJune 16, 2026 · 7 min read
FIRE for couples in different currencies: the math nobody else does
Joint ownership splits, FX attribution, per-member FI numbers, expense share. The four math problems every couple with international finances runs into, and why most FIRE tools break on them.
Read → - CouplesJune 9, 2026 · 7 min read
Three goals. Two of you. One pile of money.
Every couple eventually wants more than one thing at once: a house, a child's education, a sabbatical, an emergency fund worth the name. The math of allocating across goals is the thing nobody teaches, and where most joint financial plans fail.
Read → - Geo-arbitrageJune 2, 2026 · 8 min read
Geo-arbitrage isn't moving cheaper. It's moving runway-aware.
The standard geo-arbitrage pitch ("move somewhere cheap, retire faster") is half right and dangerously simplified. The honest frame is runway: how many months your liquid assets carry you in any country, at that country's real cost of life. A worked example across Norway, Portugal, and Thailand.
Read → - Safety netMay 26, 2026 · 7 min read
Your emergency fund is in the wrong currency.
The "three-to-six months of expenses" rule assumes one place, one currency, one kind of emergency. For people whose lives cross borders, the currency your safety net is in matters more than the size of it.
Read → - FIRE basicsMay 19, 2026 · 8 min read
Coast FI in Norway: what your number actually is
Coast FI calculators built for the US give Norwegian savers the wrong answer. Here's why folketrygden, occupational pensions, NOK assumptions, and Norwegian inflation all reshape the math, with a worked example for a 32-year-old in Oslo.
Read → - Cash & interestMay 12, 2026 · 7 min read
When your savings account becomes a job.
Once your interest income clears a certain threshold, it stops being passive and starts being a thing you have to manage: tax, currency, rate-shopping, and the question of when a low rate is costing you more than the convenience is worth. A practical frame.
Read → - Net worthMay 5, 2026 · 7 min read
Net worth is one number. Here's the four-pillar version.
A dollar in your emergency fund does not do the same job as a dollar compounding toward FI. The single net-worth number hides every meaningful financial decision underneath it. Here's the framework that doesn't.
Read → - Multi-currencyApril 28, 2026 · 7 min read
Your savings rate is half FX. Here's the version that isn't.
The savings rate is the single most-quoted FIRE metric and the most broken for anyone with money in more than one currency. Here's why your reported number is lying, and the three-term decomposition that tells you the truth.
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