“Paying off my mortgage gives me peace of mind.” Sounds smart, right? It’s actually one of the most expensive emotional decisions you can make. Here’s why paying off your mortgage early makes you poorer (and less free). A 30-year fixed mortgage isn’t a ball and chain. It’s one of the best financial tools available: ✅ Fixed terms for decades ✅ Predictable payment ✅ Inflation eats away at its real cost Time and debasement work in your favor. Prepaying your mortgage locks up capital in bricks. That kills: ❌ Growth ❌ Flexibility ❌ Freedom And for what? A feeling. Let’s look at the math. Have $100K? Option 1: Pay mortgage at 5% “return” Option 2: S&P 500 (~10% historical) Option 3: Bitcoin (conservative 20%) After 10 years: 🏠 $163K 📈 $259K ₿ $619K “Peace of mind” could cost you $500K! And it gets worse: Broad money supply (M2) grew 7% annually over the last decade. Your “guaranteed” 5% return is actually a -2% real loss after inflation. “But it makes me feel safe.” Nope. You’re trading one risk for another: ✅ Less debt ❌ Less liquidity Need cash? You can’t peel off a piece of siding. You’ll refinance or sell...often at the worst time. Smart money = options. Keep the mortgage. Invest the difference. That gives you: ✅ Bigger portfolio that compounds ✅ Liquid reserves to cover mortgage if life happens More liquid assets = more security. FIRE + bitcoin is about freedom and optionality. You don’t get that by locking up cash for your feels. You get it by keeping your wealth working and outpacing debt. Poorer isn’t safer. This week’s FIRE BTC issue breaks down the full math and mindset shift: 👉 Why “peace of mind” is a costly illusion 👉 Why a mortgage is your friend 👉 How to build security without killing flexibility Read the full post + subscribe here:

🧘 Peace of Mind

FIRE BTC #40 - Why paying off your mortgage early makes you poorer

Quantum FUD will keep a lot of people poor

I just financed a $30 purchase on Amazon. $6/month over 5 months. ALWAYS TAKE 0% FINANCING! Follow me for more tips on building generational wealth.

I spent $1k on a burger and fries 🍔🍟 Read the full newsletter post below and don’t forget to subscribe for free!

🍔 My $1,000 Burger and Fries

FIRE BTC #31 - Steak n' Shake now accepts bitcoin

🚨 You’re not as financially free as you think. 🚨 You cut expenses. Saved aggressively. Executed the FIRE plan. But there’s a catch most people never talk about: Your freedom still depends on a system you don’t control. Most FIRE portfolios are rooted in fiat. That means inflation risk, tax code changes, and permissioned access to your wealth. It's a fragile foundation. You don’t own the system you’re relying on. 401(k)s, brokerages, IRAs, real estate — they all depend on rules, policies, and access controlled by someone else. And those rules can change. In 2020, RMDs were paused. Since then, Congress has added withdrawal penalties, emergency access clauses, and shifting contribution limits. These aren’t theoretical risks — they’ve already happened. It's a sober reminder: Your financial independence is only as strong as the system allows. Bitcoin offers an alternative. It’s self-custodied, borderless, and supply-capped. Sovereign. With bitcoin, you control the asset — not a brokerage, not a bank, not a government. And beyond resilience, bitcoin adds asymmetric upside. While index funds return ~7% annually, bitcoin is still early in its adoption curve and globally misunderstood. Even small allocations can meaningfully accelerate your path to FIRE. This doesn’t mean abandoning what works. But it does mean being honest about where your plan might break — and upgrading the foundation to something stronger. The FIRE strategy is about freedom. But if you still need permission to access your wealth… Are you really free? I unpack all of this in my latest issue of FIRE BTC: 📶 Financial Independence, Upgraded — Why bitcoin belongs in your FIRE plan — How it adds both resilience & acceleration — What most FIRE portfolios are missing 🔗 Read and subscribe here:

📶 Financial Independence, Upgraded

FIRE BTC Issue #30 - Taking financial freedom to the next level

Here it is… Steak n Shake accepts BTC. Seamless experience and the burger and tallow fries were GREAT! 🍔 Paid with 100% sovereign sats from my lightning node at home (and immediately replaced them) using @ZEUS

My buddy has $270,000 sitting in a bank account earning 0.00%. 😱 He thinks he's being safe. I told him he’s guaranteed to lose. FIRE BTC Issue 23: "Cash is Trash" is live. 👇 Here's what I'd do instead: firebtc.substack.com/p/cash-is-trash

Buying $12,000 per year ($1k per month) at a modest 14% annual CAGR for bitcoin is $276,000 after 10 years. Do this for another 10 years, your stack is worth $1.25m. Do it for another 10 years, your stack is worth $4.9m. Anyone can do this. The lesson? START TODAY.

🤢 Montezuma's Revenge FIRE BTC Issue #19 - Greed comes back to bite ----------------------------- I just got back from a resort in Mexico. Beautiful weather, great food, all-inclusive — my kind of vacation. I even got to play a round of golf down there. All the while, it was cold and dreary at home. Perfect timing to get away. We had smooth travel home. No issues getting to the airport, no flight delays. All good. Then it hit me. “Montezuma’s Revenge”, a.k.a. “traveler’s diarrhea”, is commonly experienced by Americans traveling to Mexico and is caused by exposure to unfamiliar bacteria in the local food and water. Needless to say, this type of sickness is not fun — I’ll spare you the details of what I experienced. Montezuma’s Revenge is symbolic for retribution after overindulgence. When you’re living it up in a beautiful place like Mexico, and the margaritas are flowing like the salmon of Capistrano (lol Dumb and Dumber reference), it’s easy to get a little careless. Sometimes things seem like they’re on easy mode — everything’s going your way. Like when bitcoin goes from $20k to $60k to $100k within the course of two years and you’ve been stacking hard to reach your FIRE goal. It’s working, and you’re feeling good. You’re pretty freaking smart, eh? So you think, “I’m good at this, and I bet I can outperform bitcoin.” I’m here to tell you: That’s the margaritas talking… Here are a few things that are sure to give you financial diarrhea and slow down your path to FIRE. ----------------------------- 🔧 Buying bitcoin on leverage Leverage can be a great thing for your finances if done correctly. In fact, I always look for ways to use the debt-based fiat system we live in to my benefit. What I mean by “buying bitcoin on leverage” is using margin-style, callable debt at high levels. Some exchanges offer 5:1, 10:1, 20:1, or even 100:1 leverage on bitcoin. Any of these options are hugely risky, and you are virtually guaranteed to lose your money. Avoid at all costs. A safer way to buy bitcoin on leverage might be to borrow against your home or against your bitcoin stack. Just be very careful. When the market is ripping, this can feel very easy. But if your timing is off, you’ll be feeling a lot of stress. I’ve touched this stove before… 🕰️ Timing the market I’m not a good trader. My timing is pretty terrible. I know this because I’ve spent way too much time, energy, and money trying to be good at trading. I don’t think I’m alone. You’re probably not a good trader either. Thinking you can time the market by selling at the top and only buying at the bottom will most likely lead to you owning less bitcoin than you otherwise would. Missing the best 10 days of bitcoin price movement each year puts you in a losing position. You can’t afford to do this. The old adage, “Time in the market beats timing the market”, is true for 99% of us. This is core to the FIRE approach. 📉 Trading other assets to get more bitcoin There’s always another sexy trade out there trying to grab your attention and your capital. Here are a few recent examples: The Magnificent Seven Memecoins XRP (talk about diarrhea…….) MSTR (Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy) Of course, some of these have more merit than others. The Mag Seven has been a powerhouse in the traditional finance world, driving most of the gains in the stock market. However, all of these have underperformed bitcoin over the long term. I’m a MSTR believer and I own some. But trying to trade MSTR, especially with options, in an effort to end up with more bitcoin, will like lead to less, not more. There was recently a LOT of hype around this trade. I’m not immune to it… Memecoins and XRP should be considered outright scams and should be avoided at all costs. Good luck trying to get the timing right or have the inside knowledge needed to dump on the pump. Just stay humble and stack sats. ----------------------------- Montezuma’s Revenge is inspired by the historical episode of the Spanish Conquistador, Hernán Cortés. When he met the Aztec Empire in the 1500’s, its ruler, Montezuma II, thought Cortés might be a god and showered him with gifts, including gold. But instead of satisfying the Spaniards, this only fueled their greed for more. Montezuma’s attempts to appease them backfired, and his empire was eventually conquered. Centuries later, though, foreigners continue to receive the payback for Cortés overstepping his bounds in the form of Montezuma’s Revenge. It’s easy to be tempted to overindulge when things are good. We are all susceptible to it. This is where having a clearly laid plan to achieve your financial goals comes into play. I’m feeling better now, but this recent sickness, and the recent volatility in the bitcoin market, gave me a firm reminder to resist the temptation to overindulge. ----------------------------- That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this content, make sure to subscribe to the FIRE BTC newsletter so you'll get each new issue delivered to your inbox.

🤢 Montezuma's Revenge

FIRE BTC Issue #19 - Greed comes back to bite

Alright @npub1xa8a...y7md my friend, help me out. Sats will follow as a thank you!

🤑 Borrowing against your bitcoin? From today's issue of FIRE BTC, here are my abbreviated thoughts on leveraging your BTC stack 👇 When pursuing FIRE, we spend years stacking assets like stocks and bitcoin to reach a savings portfolio goal to sustain our ongoing expenses. Once obtained, the standard and most simple way to live off your portfolio is to sell these assets slowly, at about 4% per year (the 4% rule). Is there another option? Maybe. An exciting and interesting idea is to borrow against your bitcoin instead. Borrowing against the assets you own to buy more assets enables you to take advantage of unavoidable dollar debasement. Doing so allows you to access dollars now, while delaying the sale until the end of the loan term. The hope is that bitcoin’s value continues its relentless march higher, above and beyond the rate of fees and interest needed to service the loan. A few thoughts and best practices: 🔸 Before taking on any debt, make sure you have a plan for the interest payments. This could be from other income sources, selling a small portion of the bitcoin, or paying interest from the loan proceeds. 🔸 Just as important as paying the interest is being able to maintain the margin requirements for the loan. You don’t want to be a forced seller at a low price, so it’s imperative that you have a plan to maintain the collateral position of the loan during price drawdowns. 🔸 Look for fiat financing first. The fiat world is built on debt, and there are plenty of other options available for loans that will likely have better terms than a bitcoin-backed alternative. 🔸 Be conservative. Consider borrowing against your bitcoin only after its value is large enough where you only need to leverage a small portion of your overall stack to meet your needs. 🔸 Understand your counterparty risk. Borrowing against your bitcoin means giving up full control over it. Whether from malicious intent or mismanagement-turned-bankruptcy, many people have been burned because they did not understand the counterparty risk they were exposed to. 🔸 The banks are (probably) coming. When the banking industry comes to play, they will bring massive amounts of capital for lending against bitcoin, which should drive down rates and make loan terms more competitive. I’m an advocate for leveraging the fiat financial system to get wealthier more quickly. I believe bitcoin will usher in a world less reliant on debt. Until then, we might as well embrace it. Want to read the full post? You can find it here 👇

🤑 Borrowing Against Your Bitcoin

FIRE BTC Issue #12 - My thoughts on leveraging your BTC stack

Don't forget to subscribe for weekly content on how bitcoin is FIRE friendly!

Would you defend democracy if the democratic process votes to end democracy?

Prominent voices in the financial world are concerned that the inflation monster may have not yet been slain. This week's issue of FIRE BTC explores how inflation can put your FIRE plan at risk. Check it out here 👇

👶 Will Inflation Eat Your Baby?

FIRE BTC issue #5 - How inflation could put your FIRE plan at risk

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? We're about to find out.

One more trip to $58k then game on

ETH is down 55% from last cycle highs

I hope Trump isn't using a brain wallet for his bitcoin.

How will you feel if the chop-solidation lasts another year?

My gameplan for the next financial crisis: 1. Market panic 2. Bitcoin price crashes 3. Rates to zero 4. Max out HELOC 5. Smash buy bitcoin 6. Move to cold storage 7. Congress/Treasury/Fed print $17 trillion 8. Bitcoin goes to $6.15 million

I've been using @primal for my primary nostr client. I'm trying to update my Primal lightning address and getting this error. What am I doing wrong?