Six Months, 28 Posts, and a Newborn

I’m now about six months into launching The New Diligence, and 28 blog posts into my writing journey.

I’ve genuinely enjoyed the process so far, and I’m grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read and engage with my perspective on money, behavior, and the interesting ways the two interact.

Recently, though, this hobby has been set to extra hard mode.

My wife and I welcomed our beautiful daughter six weeks ago. She arrived four weeks early and has been dealing with reflux issues, which means sleep has been… unpredictable.

Many nights I find myself writing at 3:00 a.m., keeping an eye on her so mom can get a few uninterrupted hours of sleep without worrying too much about her daughter’s safety.

It would be easy to put this project on hold for a while. Truthfully, not many people would notice. The blog is still young and the audience is small.

Yet my years of working and conversing with wise retirees has taught me a thing or two about the importance of time. The people who are the happiest in retirement aren’t the ones who waited for life to calm down before pursuing the things they cared about. They’re the ones who found ways to keep those interests alive all along.

Life rarely gets less busy. If something is meaningful to you, you find the time.

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Too often we postpone the interests that bring us the most joy. We tell ourselves we’ll pursue them later, whether it be after retirement, when the kids are older, when work slows down, or when life is a little less chaotic.

However, many people eventually arrive at those later years wondering why they waited so long to claim those important parts of themselves in the first place.

So, while my free time has shrunk dramatically, my exercise window has nearly disappeared, and most of my sports hobbies are temporarily on hold… I’ve decided to keep writing.

It’s a small but deliberate choice to keep doing something that matters to me, even as my relationship with free time has deteriorated.
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Looking back over the past six months, here are a few of my favorite posts from the blog so far.

​If you have a moment, I’d love for you to take a read.

The Subscription Trap: How Consumer Psychology Is Quietly Sabotaging Your Financial Plan
How small recurring charges reshape spending habits more than we realize.

The FIRE Tradeoff: The Risk of Running Out of Life Before You Run Out of Money
Why optimizing life only for early retirement can sometimes miss the bigger picture.

The Psychology of Comparison: How Social Media Rewires Our Money Mindset
Why constant exposure to other people’s lifestyles can distort our financial expectations

Budgeting Sucks. Do It Anyway.

A blunt look at why budgeting works even if nobody enjoys doing it.

Present Bias: Why We Keep Choosing “Now” Over “Later”
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The behavioral tendency that makes saving, investing, and long-term planning so difficult.

Statistically, Your Investments Are Probably Too Conservative
Why many investors reduce risk too early  and how that can undermine long-term growth.