Jim @ Route To Retire

Strategies We’re Using in Our Early Retirement Planning

14 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Geoarbitrage, Investments, Panama, Self-Employment / /

Early retirement planning.  You’d think the closer we get to our FIRE date, the simpler things would become. I mean really – I’m leaving my job in just a few months so as I continue to train my replacement, my workload should start to diminish over time.  Plus, we’re downsizing to an apartment soon (if we could ever sell our house!). What else could there be, Jim?  How much early retirement planning do you really need?  Didn’t you already get these […]

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Why Is It So Uncomfortable to Say I’m Retiring Early?

38 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

The idea of retiring early is something that most folks in the personal finance and FIRE world understand.  When I tell people in the community that I’m retiring early at the age of 43, they say “good for you” and move on. Nevertheless, when friends or family ask me what we’re planning to do once we move to Panama (that is after they get past the idea that we’re moving to Panama!), it gets a little weird. Ok, it gets

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Travel Rewards - 12 Free Flights Earned in 9 Months!

Travel Rewards – 12 Free Flights Earned in 9 Months!

18 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

You ever see those offers from the credit card companies with the big juicy sign-up bonuses?  They might be offering 50,000 points or miles in travel rewards for spending maybe $3,000 in the first few months. If you’re like I used to be, you get those offers in the mail and just tear ’em up and pitch ’em.  Those jerks aren’t suckering me into their little trap of overspending my hard-earned money for a lousy plane ticket or hotel stay!

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The Hardest Part of the Path to FIRE is…

18 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / /

The path to FIRE (financial independence / retire early) can be a long and sometimes arduous path.  Each of us runs into our own obstacles and stumbling blocks along the way. One piece of good news is that, unlike the early trail-blazers that went down this path, there’s now a wonderful community on the big old Internet.  If you look past the get-rich-quick garbage out there, you’ll find a lot of supportive and helpful folks who want you to succeed. Another

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The Next Steps in Our Early Retirement Plans

The Next Steps in Our Early Retirement Plans

22 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / /

I thought I’d take a step back from my normal posts to update everyone on our status – where we’re currently at and the next steps in our early retirement plans. My regular readers know that I’m leaving my job at the end of this year and we’re moving to Panama next summer (2019).  It seems like an eternity away, but it’s really not a lot of time. So the good news is that the adventure is almost ready to

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Is FIRE Possible Without Knowing Your Numbers?

Is FIRE Possible Without Knowing Your Numbers?

29 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / /

Growing up I was always good at math.  I pretty much ran circles around the other kids in the class in elementary school and had no problems throughout high school as well.  Knowing your numbers back in those days was a whole different ball game. Then college happened.  Some of the classes were easy peasy, but then there were subjects like business statistics and macro/micro economics.  I think my grades in those tougher classes accurately reflected my understanding at the

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The 3 Things Scaring Us the Most in Our FIRE Plans

The 3 Things Scaring Us the Most in Our FIRE Plans

14 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

By now, many of you are already familiar with our FIRE plans (financial independence / retire early). I’m leaving my job at the end of 2018 at the age of 43 and then we’re planning to move to Panama in the summer of 2019.  The gap is so that we can let our daughter finish out the school year before we move. The whole idea sounds pretty straightforward, but that’s going to be a lot of change happening within a

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Would an Extra $5 Million Sway Your Plans?

14 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / /

Would you stay in the country for an extra $5 million?  That was the question posed to me by my mom last week. “If I hit the lottery and gave you $5 million to come back from Panama after one year, would you do it?” Obviously, she’s not thrilled with our plans to leave the country and move to Panama next year.  Leaving family and friends is always the toughest part of moving. Her thinking with this hypothetical question was

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Guest Millionaire Interview on ESI Money

Guest Millionaire Interview on ESI Money

4 Comments / Guest Posts, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

I got to do something really cool recently – I got to be a part of the Millionaire Interview series that John at ESI Money puts together. I met John in Dallas, Texas during FinCon17 and we shared a lot of good laughs during the trip. The funny thing about FinCon is that you can go there not really knowing anyone and leave there with friends you feel like you’ve known all your life. As a side note, there’s still time

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Working Toward FIRE is Not About Sacrifice

28 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Motivation / /

Recently, I was taking a walk with a coworker (something I do on a regular basis now).  While we were walking, we were talking about my plans to retire at the end of the year.  He then said something I thought was interesting… “You guys deserve it – you’ve sacrificed a lot to get where you are.”  Sacrifice? Obviously, his intent was good (he’s a great guy!), but it’s a bit shortsighted.  And unfortunately, it’s a common mindset that many

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