The human
I'm Conal, in my late fifties.
I'm still building.
I live in Saskatoon. I work in commercial construction — real buildings, real crews, real winters — and I run an environmental consulting firm. I've spent my working life building things: companies, trading systems, tools, and relationships across Western Canada.
I'm also a trader. I run income strategies — the wheel, cash-secured puts, covered calls — that pay me monthly instead of asking me to hope. I built my own trading terminal because the ones for sale annoyed me. I study macro — debt, currencies, Bitcoin — the way some people study hockey stats.
So why a "learn how to retire" site, and why now? Because in your late fifties, you can see the whole board. I've watched smart, hardworking people win the money game and lose the only prize that mattered. I've watched the comfortable path — save cash, trust the pension, retire at 65 — get quietly demolished by math. And I've learned a few things about building income engines that I wish someone had taught me at 35.
Freedom2030 is me thinking in public. It's the curriculum I wish I'd had, the theses I actually hold, and the arguments I'm still having with myself. The frog is in charge of morale.
The full text
The Freedom2030 Manifesto
- We don't tell you what to buy. We teach you how to think about freedom.
- Retirement is not an age. It's the day your income stops needing your hours.
- Freedom has four planes: Place, People, Money, Ideas. Win all four or you haven't won.
- Own your income. Rent nothing you can own — especially your thinking.
- Think in decades, act in weeks.
- The system won't save you. The math can, if you learn it.
- Time is the currency. Everything else is conversion.
Honest limits
- I'm not a licensed advisor. Nothing on this site is personalized financial advice. It's education — frameworks, concepts, and my own thinking, out loud.
- I have biases, and I'll disclose them. I own what I write about. When I explain an income strategy, it's one I run myself — which makes me informed and also not neutral.
- I can be wrong. The theses have "honest tension" sections for a reason. If the evidence changes, the thesis changes. Watch me do it here.
- Health notes stay general and doctor-first. I'm not a doctor either. Talk to yours.
The brand board
One frog. Four planes.
The whole visual world of this site came from a single collage: the dapper frog, the gold-and-blue FREEDOM posters, the watch that says time is the currency, and the four plane icons — hourglass for Money, ship's wheel for Place, figures for People, lightbulb for Ideas.
The newsletter
New essays, thesis updates, and the occasional frog memorandum. Launching soon — email me and I'll put you on the list by hand.
Email the frogjoy@freedom2030.ca · goes live with the domain
Just want to talk? joy@freedom2030.ca