Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) Archives

What the FIRE Movement Means to Me

I recently came across a question in the FinCon Community Facebook Group relating to the FIRE movement (financial independence / retire early). It was asked by Jeff Rose, creator of the Good Financial Cents site. If you’re not a member of the FinCon Facebook group, you likely won’t be able to access this link. However, the question asked was “Who disagrees with the FIRE movement and why?” The post drew quite a number of comments that spanned all sorts of opinions and it made for some interesting reading. Some comments I nodded my head to while others I disagreed with. Regardless, it got me thinking about my own path in life. FIRE was a very important component of my life

The What-Ifs of Moving to a Different Country

Recently, my friend Lisa from the Mad Money Monster blog wrote about the “what ifs” on moving to a different country. It was appropriately titled The What Ifs of International Geoarbitrage And Early Retirement. There’s a lot of talk on the Internet, particularly in the personal finance community, about the idea of geoarbitrage. That’s the strategy of moving to another location, domestic or abroad, to take advantage of the lower cost-of-living and move ahead financially or possibly retire early. It was a great post! I love it because it raises a lot of questions that many people are thinking when they even consider geoarbitrage. And she wasn’t trying to say whether or not moving to a different country is good

One of the Absolute Best Facets of Early Retirement

A lot of you have been following FIRE (financial independence, retire early) blogs as you continue down your own path toward financial freedom. And the numbers to reach FI (financial independence) are important, but what about the early retirement side of things? Some of you will continue to work and just want FI to ensure a secure retirement. If you love what you do, that’s the best scenario you can have. Congratulations! But others of you want to get out of the workforce to gain more freedom. You want the flexibility to have the choice of what you’ll do every day. That could be anything from just spending more time with your kids all the way up to learning a

Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence

I don’t normally write book reviews on this blog, but I’m making an exception for the new Choose FI book. I was expecting my opinion to sway one way with the book but my impression after reading it went in a completely different direction. Chris Mamula is the author of Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence (along with coauthors Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa). If you’re not familiar with Chris, he retired in 2017 at the young age of 41 (beat me by two years!). He also spends a lot of time writing at the Can I Retire Yet? site. I met Chris at the FinCon conference in 2017 – such a nice guy! We didn’t get a chance

Flexible Travel Can Yield Huge Benefits

One of the facets of early retirement I was looking forward to the most was flexible travel. I knew that we’d be able to save some money by not having to be so rigid in our plans. I didn’t realize the extent of how beneficial it could be though. We’ve been retired for less than eight months now and what we’re already experiencing is awesome! Between cheaper flights, hotels, and cruises, the price is definitely right. Then you throw in that the destinations are generally less crowded and that makes things even better. Mix in a little more hassle-free travel along the way like smaller lines through security screenings and life becomes a real winner! Vacations step up their game

Did These Flip-Flops Lead Us to Financial Freedom?

People hear that my flip-flops are now over 12 years old and love to say, “No wonder you were able to retire!” But are my old shoes the reason we were able to reach financial freedom? You might decisively be thinking that’s silly, but let’s talk about this a little more before you jump to a conclusion. I think we all know that my shoes aren’t going to be the reason we were able to retire early. But, I can also tell you that these flip-flops could really be a symbol representing part of what made it possible. Being able to save more money means you’re either making more money or you’re spending less of it. In our case, one

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