Route to Retire ...the path to financial independence

Why I Like Overdrawing My Checking Account

Once upon I time, a young man we’ll randomly call “Jim” was in college and barely had a dollar to his name… Ok, fine – that young man was me – dang it, you ruin everything! Anyway, like a good number of college students, overdrawing my checking account wasn’t too uncommon. In fact, it actually wasn’t uncommon for me to blow out my balance on a periodic basis for a year or so after graduating college as well. Eventually, though, I started to make some good progress on my finances over the years and overdrawing my checking account became a pretty rare occurrence, if it happened at all. Over the past year or so though, I’m back to overdrawing the account again. And

My Fantasy Week When I’m Financially Free

Most of us who are working to become financially free, spend a lot of our days daydreaming what it would actually be like to be financially free. I think the initial dream for a lot of us is to just sit on the beach all day sipping piña coladas – mmm, that does sound good! But, once the dream starts to become more real, it’s pretty likely that the piña coladas are only going to be a small part of the plan. In all actuality, what we think will be a regular week in the life of financial independence, will likely be quite different. For instance, a lot of bloggers talk about how they anticipated slowing down and relaxing once they quit their jobs, but it just

The Secret Ingredient to Making Money With Real Estate Rentals

Let’s be honest, the idea of making money with real estate is intriguing. Even if you haven’t gotten into the real estate game, you likely know or have heard that rental properties can be a great investment. There are some great advantages to owning rental property, but is there really a secret ingredient to making money with real estate rentals? There’s definitely an essential secret sauce, but here’s the deal – it’s not really that much of a secret. In fact, you’ve probably heard it before… You make your money when you buy your rental property. And by that I mean, if your end game is to be making money with real estate rentals, your calculations need to be correct out of the chute or you’re probably

What I’ve Learned About Blogging Over the Last Two Years

I started the Route to Retire site in May of 2015 and quickly learned that blogging is an interesting endeavor. Like most new bloggers, for the first few months, I would just write and publish and wonder “is anyone even out there?” The analytics showed a nibble here and there, but really… nothing. It took a number of months, but eventually, the traffic started to grow. The comments on my posts began to slowly trickle in – and that was the most exciting part. Now, a couple years into it, I have a good number of visitors coming to my site every day and I’m enjoying the discussions that I get to have with my readers (that’s you!). All in all, it’s been a great ride so far,

Cutting Expenses is Great, But Here’s the Problem…

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and we may receive a referral fee (at no extra cost to you) if you sign up or purchase products or services mentioned.In an effort to help in cutting expenses, I just changed our cell phone provider. Here in the part of Ohio where I live, Verizon is the logical choice for a phone provider as they are the most prominent and basically lack any dead spots. I’ve been with them since the beginning – from GTE Wireless, to the transition to Alltel, to the transition to Verizon. It just made sense. However, although the pricing is Ok, it’s not great. Last week, I just moved us to Total Wireless. We’re still using the Verizon backbone and their Bring

My Funding Strategy for Investment Accounts

I’ve had friends that have asked what my strategy is for funding my investment accounts. In other words, what order do I recommend contributing to various retirement accounts? This topic’s definitely going to vary based on your own specific circumstances. Things like employer matches and tax-advantaged accounts make a difference in which accounts make the most sense for you to fund before others. Depending on what your game plan is and what options are available to you can make all the difference in which investment accounts to fully fund first. Regardless, I thought I would share the strategy I’m currently using for our own investment accounts. Before we get rolling though, please note that I’m not a Certified Financial Planner, or

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