This week I’ve been very focused on writing a new eBook titled “Ten Steps to Become and Stay Financially Independent”.
Motivation
As I mentioned last week, I’ve been thinking for a while about creating something like a “top X tips” list for getting to Financial Independence (FI) and as well as a “top X tips” list for STAYING FI.
I have seen many listicles/articles on how to become FI, but I can’t recall ever seeing a list / eBook / blog post anywhere that covers both how to become FI and how to STAY FI.
In fact, when I google “top tips for staying financially independent” or “how to become and stay financially independent”, all I see are listicles/articles for how to “become”, “achieve”, “reach”, “gain”, “get closer to” (and many others) FI. Nothing about how to maintain FI.
So I wanted to help change that! Because if you get to FI, obviously you want to make sure you stay that way if at all possible!
Length
Initially it was going to be just a simple list, maybe one or two pages long.
But of course that didn’t happen. I couldn’t hold back from writing a lot more, which will surprise no one. So eventually it became an eBook!
Though after googling average eBook lengths, I suspect it falls more into the category of a “Mini” eBook since it’s under 5000 words (barely). So hopefully that makes it easier for folks to read.
Format
At this point I’ve got all the content generally in place (with a bit more editing to go), so the big remaining task is formatting.
Initially I was going to use Canva to format the content, but after digging through the various templates I found, I wasn’t able to find anything that really matched what I was looking for.
So I think I’m just going to use some simple formatting techniques within Google Docs to see if I can get it formatted reasonably well. I’m pretty dang familiar with Google Docs, but I know it’s limited in terms of formatting abilities.
If I can’t get Google Docs to do what I want, I may trying using Canva to create a new format from scratch, or I might try some alternatives such as Vectr or Penpot Desktop.
Delivery
I expect the “mini eBook” will be ready to go in the next few days.
Once it’s done, I’ll be sending it out to everyone currently on the mailing list.
I’m also going to add a form over there in the sidebar where you can plug in your email address and thus have the eBook emailed to you.
What’s Next
After I get this eBook done and delivered, I’ll turn my attention to the future work I’ve listed out in the last couple posts.
I’m torn on what exactly I’ll tackle next – so many options! Perhaps I’ll tackle the stand-alone TPM withdrawal tool idea I described last week, which can run the TPM method for a single year and output exactly what accounts to withdraw from, with the exact amount to withdraw from each account. We’ll see.