Where this started
Early in my career, I worked for a nonprofit whose mission mattered to me. I paid too little attention to what the job was costing me financially. When that job ended, I had to find work and take a closer look at my finances.
I had treated the financial sacrifice as part of doing work I cared about. Eventually, I had to look at whether I could keep making that sacrifice. It is a question I still bring to discussions about work: can you afford to keep doing something, even when you believe in it?
Learning in public
In 2003, I started Consumerism Commentary. I published financial updates and explained my decisions, including the ones that did not work out. Putting the reasoning in writing gave me something to return to later. Readers could also point out what I had missed, which is one advantage of making your mistakes in public.
That personal money journal grew into an independent financial publication. Its growth and eventual sale changed my financial life. What began as a way to hold myself accountable had also become a business and a community.
Financial independence changed the question
Financial independence gave me more choice about how to spend my time. Deciding what to do with that choice became part of my work.
Being able to handle a setback, choose different work, or live without a paycheck each changes a person’s decisions. Understanding those differences is central to my work on financial independence.
Building for other educators
Creating the Plutus Foundation expanded my work from educating consumers myself to supporting a wider community of people who teach others about money. I continue to serve as its Founder & Executive Director.
Writing for an audience and having colleagues to talk to are different experiences. Through the foundation, we help financial educators meet one another, share their work, and find opportunities to develop it.
Returning to financial independence
I’m currently building MOMENTUM, a community where people can learn about financial independence and work on their next steps with others.
The MOMENTUM Financial Independence Toolkit lets people examine decisions using their own circumstances. The tools complement the explanations here by making assumptions and tradeoffs easier to compare.
Orchid Money, which I’m co-founding, is in development. We’re developing it to help people with the financial habits and decisions that need ongoing attention.
Outside money
Music education, drum corps, and photography are important parts of my life. I’m also interested in TV, linguistics, psychology, and cognitive psychology: how people pay attention, interpret what they hear, and make decisions.
They influence how I approach an explanation. In photography, what you leave outside the frame changes the picture. In writing, an omitted assumption can do much the same thing. I’m interested in what makes an idea understandable, where people interpret it differently, and what I might need to explain another way.
Professional bio
Harlan Landes is a financial independence educator, entrepreneur, and community builder. He writes and teaches about how people prepare for setbacks, make changes in work and life, and decide what to do when a paycheck becomes optional.
He began writing about his own finances in 2003 on Consumerism Commentary, which grew into an independent financial publication he later sold. He is the founder and executive director of the Plutus Foundation, which supports people who teach others about money. His experience reaching financial independence informs his work on the choices it makes possible and the decisions it leaves to the individual.
Harlan is developing MOMENTUM, a financial independence community, and building the MOMENTUM Financial Independence Toolkit to help people examine decisions using their own circumstances. His interests in music education, photography, language, and psychology influence how he explains ideas and thinks about learning.