Education

2 Helpful Books That Are Great in Completely Different Ways

2 Helpful Books That Are Great in Completely Different Ways

Leave a Comment / Here's Why I'm Liking..., Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Product and Service Reviews / /

I’ve always loved reading ever since I was a kid. I actually had a relatively big toy box that I kept in my bedroom closet. It was obviously meant for storing lots of toys, but I filled it completely with nothing books instead. I read so many books all the time and loved it. Yeah, I’m a nerd, but who cares? Over time though, life got in the way. Once I got to high school and college, reading what I […]

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Phase 1: Powerful Strategies to Earn College Credits While Homeschooling

Phase 1: Powerful Strategies to Earn College Credits While Homeschooling

24 Comments / Education, Kids / /

You don’t know what you don’t know. That’s the case with a lot of things in life. That’s why knowledge is power. Knowing that something is even possible to do gives you the upper hand to make better decisions. Ten years ago, when I learned that early retirement was something that was legitimately possible to do, we made changes to make it a reality. Before then, I just assumed that you needed to be some kind of billionaire for that

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Why a Part-Time Job Might Be the Next Chapter in My Early Retirement

Why a Part-Time Job Might Be the Next Chapter in My Early Retirement

42 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Blogging, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Motivation, Self-Employment, Taxes and Financial Planning / /

Life is interesting. And that’s a good thing. How boring would it be if every day on this planet was the same? For about a decade now, we’ve made some choices that have swung our days into some crazy adventures. There’s no doubt this took us out of the realm of monotony. Between retiring at the age of 43 at the end of 2018 and then moving to Panama for a few years starting in 2019, we got a lot

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Roth IRA Withdrawals for Early Retirees: Tracking What's Accessible Now

Roth IRA Withdrawals for Early Retirees: Tracking What’s Accessible Now

8 Comments / Taxes and Financial Planning, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments / /

I retired at the age of 43 at the end of 2018 so I could spend more time with my family and choose how I want to spend each day. It’s been amazing so far and I’m looking forward to the years to come. Strangely, you need this thing called “money” to be able to pay for your expenses in life. They getcha coming and they getcha going, don’t they?! 😉 Fortunately, we were prepared for that and socked away

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Why Our Daughter Chose Homeschooling for High School… and Why I’m Secretly Happy About That

Why Our Daughter Chose Homeschooling for High School… and Why I’m Secretly Happy About That

14 Comments / Kids, Education, Life in Early Retirement / /

We’re now on the third and final loop of our 9-month monster RV road trip – it’s about time! This is the leg of the journey we’ve been looking forward to from the onset… the trip out west! We’re hopeful that we saved the best for last. We had a lot of fun doing our road trip out west in 2020 and the one we took in 2022 – and those were just sleeping in the back of a Honda

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AI Chatbots: My Sidekick for Getting Sh*t Done

AI Chatbots: My Sidekick for Getting Sh*t Done

12 Comments / Here's Why I'm Liking..., Education, Life in Early Retirement, Product and Service Reviews / /

Depending on how much you keep up with technology, you may or may not have a decent understanding of what AI chatbots are (AI being artificial intelligence). Heck, you may not have even heard the term before. But you may have heard of ChatGPT as it’s been in the news quite a bit over this past year. For a while, the phrase “artificial intelligence” usually had at least one mention of ChatGPT. I still enjoy reading about, learning, and experimenting

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The Surprisingly Boring Career Path That Brought Us to Financial Independence

The Surprisingly Boring Career Path That Brought Us to Financial Independence

23 Comments / Motivation, Debt, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Real Estate, Saving, Self-Employment / /

There tends to be a stigma in society that you need to own a company, become some big real estate mogul, be a celebrity, or just come from money in order to find your way to financial independence. So then we like to come up with excuses reasons as to why we can’t do that ourselves… “If I was in that position, it would be easy! No way I can do that because of xxxxxxx [insert whatever rationalization you want

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10 Secret Library Resources That Can Save You a Ton of Dough!

10 Secret Library Resources That Can Save You a Ton of Dough!

25 Comments / Saving, Education, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Spending / /

You might have noticed that I didn’t write anything last week. Last year, I “gave myself permission” to take time off from blogging periodically. That’s not an easy thing for me. In the year and a half since I wrote that post, I’ve only skipped a few weeks of writing… it’s hard to let go! I enjoy writing for the blog but I sometimes struggle by making it more of an obligation than a fun hobby. Nevertheless, it was nice

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Atomic Habits – The Powerful Keys to Making Changes That Stick

Atomic Habits – The Powerful Keys to Making Changes That Stick

14 Comments / Motivation, Education, Health and Fitness, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Life in Early Retirement, Product and Service Reviews / /

When I reached early retirement at the end of 2018, I gained the one big gift I was looking for in life… more time and freedom. That’s a true blessing, my friends, and I try not to squander it. I strive to use some of that “super power” to push myself to become a better person – both physically and mentally. Change is hard, but I like it. It’s easy just to continue rolling forward while doing the same old

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Taking Stock – A Breath of Fresh Air on the Path to Financial Independence

Taking Stock – A Breath of Fresh Air on the Path to Financial Independence

4 Comments / Product and Service Reviews, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

Several months ago, Jordan Grumet asked me if I’d like to read an advance copy of his new book, Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life. I met Jordan at the personal finance conference FinCon a number of years ago. He was such a likable guy, interesting to talk to, and very insightful. That could also be why he’s run a successful podcast for years now. It’s called the Earn &

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