Jim @ Route To Retire, Author at Route to Retire

Estate Planning 101 – Getting Your Affairs in Order

3 Comments / Estate Planning, Insurance, Investments, Product and Service Reviews, Real Estate / Jim @ Route To Retire / September 3, 2021

I just finished reading a book called Estate Planning 101 by Vicki Cook and Amy Blacklock. If you haven’t gotten your affairs in order yet, this book can really help get you on track. You can check out the book here. Let’s be honest – estate planning isn’t the most exciting topic. That said, it might be one of the most important subject matters you ever focus on. I dug into this quite a bit in 2013, a few years […]

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Play the Hand You’re Dealt To Live the Life You Dream

16 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Investments / Jim @ Route To Retire / August 31, 2021

If you sit on the sidelines and continue to fold instead of playing the hand you’re dealt, you’re never going to get ahead. This is true in poker, but it’s also true in life. It’s time to stop just going through the motions and work on making your dreams come true. I reflect on how much we’ve progressed the last decade or two and I’m amazed and proud of us. Seriously. I retired a couple of years ago at the

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We Don’t Need More Money… But I Want It!

42 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Investments, Life in Early Retirement, Saving, Spending / Jim @ Route To Retire / August 24, 2021

The guiding principle of the Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) movement is to get to the point in life where you have enough and don’t need more money to cover your expenses. Once you pull that off, you’re golden. You’re now financially independent and never have to work another day in life again… if you don’t want to. It sounds great, right? And for someone that pulled it off at the age of 43 a couple of years ago,

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Tigo Just Made International Travel Easier

12 Comments / Panama, Spending, Travel and Vacation / Jim @ Route To Retire / August 17, 2021

Tigo made a new change recently and it’s something that can make life easier for those on some of their cell phone plans. If you do a lot of travel back and forth between different countries like we do, you might be familiar with the SIM card juggling you need to do (unless you have a dual-SIM phone). In the U.S., you can use a service such as Google FI or T-Mobile to give you free roaming in other countries.

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Switching to Ezoic Increased My Ad Income by 628%!

16 Comments / Self-Employment, Blogging, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Product and Service Reviews / Jim @ Route To Retire / August 3, 2021

I switched the ads on my website from Google AdSense to Ezoic a few months ago and I have to say that I’m astounded by the results! Seeing an increase in ad revenue of over 7x what I was making before is pretty crazy. Let’s start with this though – I’m not a big-time blogger. If you think this site was the catalyst for us to reach early retirement… yeah, not so much. The money we’re talking about is still

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A Travel Trick for Last-Minute Delayed or Canceled Flights

16 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement / Jim @ Route To Retire / July 20, 2021

Delayed or canceled flights are in no way a fun part of travel. These events can be a real headache in your plans that might already be stressful to you before this curveball. And, although they can usually be dealt with without too much of a problem when there’s a fair amount of notice, that’s not always going to be the case. Sometimes a delayed flight can ruin your connecting flight completely. And last-minute canceled flights can throw your plans

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Our Travel Perks Are Drying Up and That’s Big $$$!

11 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Spending / Jim @ Route To Retire / July 13, 2021

Between free flights and hotels, zipping through security and customs, or relaxing in airline lounges, travel perks can be such a wonderful asset. And without a doubt, I love every bit of ’em! Over the years, we built up a nice stash of these things just by being strategic in our credit card spending. They’ve not only helped to make our travel more comfortable but also a lot cheaper or completely free. Well, it’s been a few years, but our

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An Example of the Cost of Healthcare in Panama

27 Comments / Panama, Health and Fitness, Insurance / Jim @ Route To Retire / July 6, 2021

The cost of healthcare in the United States is insane. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and say that the whole U.S. system is essentially broken. As a country, we pride ourselves on trying to be the best in the world. But healthcare is one of those areas where the U.S. has not only fallen short but it’s gone off a giant cliff that seems impossible to climb back up from. If you look at the rest of

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Our Moving Plans Changed Again… and That’s OK

16 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Panama, Travel and Vacation / Jim @ Route To Retire / June 29, 2021

Moving plans are generally immensely stressful. Trying to coordinate everything to fall into place as smoothly as possible can be extremely complex. Depending on your scenario, it could involve a lot of juggling. Maybe you have to hire a real estate agent to sell your home and coordinate house showings around your work schedule and home life. Make sure to keep your house immaculate while strangers traipse through it without you even being there. Don’t forget about the pain of

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What I Did During My First Week Off in 6 Years!

12 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / June 22, 2021

It took a lot for me to not write a blog post last week. After not missing a single week for over 6 years, it’s just became ingrained into my weekly routine. So my first week off gave me a little bit of a strange feeling. I generally write the following week’s post sometime later in the week. However, I don’t usually get it completely done in one sitting. I might start a post on Thursday and work on it

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