Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE)

How I Got Over $181,000 of Free Money for Retirement

How I Got Over $181,000 of Free Money for Retirement

22 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving / By / June 21, 2020

I had a thought recently that made me wonder how much free money for retirement was given to me during my last job. My former employer was always generous in taking care of employees through the 401(k) plan offered. So just how much of our net worth could be attributed to that facet of saving? I dug up my old 401(k) statements and expected the need to spend a lot of time breaking things down and then adding up all …

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Life Insurance in Early Retirement… Cancel or Keep It?

22 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Insurance / By / June 18, 2020

I just paid the $335 annual premium again for the term life insurance policy we have in place on Lisa… same as I do every June. Then every January we pay the $673 annual premium on the term life insurance policy on my head. We’ve paid $1,008 out of our pockets every year since 2010. That’s over $10,000 spent on something we haven’t gotten anything out of at all. Our 20-year policies expire in the year 2030 so that’s another …

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Is This Stay-at-Home Thing a Taste of Early Retirement?

28 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement / By / May 1, 2020

Stay at home.  Those might end up being the most spoken words of 2020. This COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic has caused a whirlwind of change in an instant.  Businesses have had to figure out how to adapt quickly or close, unemployment has reached record numbers, and social gatherings have all but disappeared. On top of all that, a large number of people have suddenly become telecommuting employees.  And many surprised parents became homeschooling teachers at the drop of a hat. Some people …

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Early Retirement with Kids Is Wonderful... but Frustrating

Early Retirement with Kids Is Wonderful… but Frustrating

24 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Kids, Life in Early Retirement / By / April 15, 2020

Reaching early retirement in 2018 at 43 isn’t something that a lot of the population is interested in or trying to pull off.  But change that to being in early retirement with kids to raise and that puts us in even more of a niche. We have one child, our daughter Faith, who’s a great kid.  She’s 9 but acts like a really short adult most of the time.  That probably makes life a little easier for us and we …

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The Recession - The Ultimate Test for Early Retirees

The Recession – The Ultimate Test for Early Retirees

30 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments / By / March 24, 2020

Well boys and girls, like it or not, we’re soon to be in a recession – if we’re not there already. The COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic appears to be the black swan event that became the catalyst for the downfall of one heckuva long bull market. To try to contain the virus and flatten the curve, many businesses were ordered to shut down temporarily.  In many places, bars, wineries, breweries, and restaurants (sometimes with the exception of takeout or delivery) were forced …

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Only You Can Change Your Life… Seriously!

20 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Motivation, Panama / By / March 2, 2020

Only you can change your life.  Only you can change you. I was jogging back from the gym the other day and it reminded me of something.  I absolutely hate going to the gym.  I’ve talked about it before, but I do – I hate it. So then why do I do it? Because I want to be a better me. That’s it.  That’s the only reason.  It would be so much easier to sit on the couch and drink …

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Is FIRE the Finish Line or Just the Beginning?

22 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Self-Employment / By / February 11, 2020

Looking back on my own path to financial independence, I treated the whole thing like a race in my mind.  Reaching the finish line was the utmost important goal. As I continued to make more money every year through raises, I saved more and more.  But the other side of the equation is cutting expenses… and cut expenses we did! In my mind, if it wasn’t a necessity, I really had to think about if it made sense to spend …

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FI and Early Retirement… Could It All Come Crashing Down?

22 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Spending / By / January 21, 2020

I’m not going to lie – being FI (financially independent) is a truly awesome feeling.  To realize that you don’t need to work again if you don’t want to takes such a massive weight off of your shoulders. But if you take it to the next level and throw in early retirement, you’re now solely depending on whatever you’ve put in place to sustain that financial independence. That’s scary.  No, I mean, that’s really scary. If you continue to work, you …

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Guest Interview on Financially Alert

Guest Interview on Financially Alert

2 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Guest Posts / By / January 14, 2020

Michael Quan started his blog, Financially Alert, right about the same time as I started Route to Retire (early 2015). The big difference is that Michael was already financially independent when his blog came out.  He crushed it and retired from the corporate world at 36 in 2012… how cool is that?! I think we’ve followed each others’ journeys since our sites came out.  We finally had an opportunity to meet at the FinCon personal finance conference a couple of years …

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Make Your Money Work for You Instead of Vice Versa

12 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving / By / January 4, 2020

I think I first heard the mantra of “make your money work for you” when I was a kid.  I’d also guess that it was my grandfather who preached it.  He was able to retire in his mid-40’s before the term FIRE (financial independence / retire early) was even coined. But it took me years to really understand what that meant.  And even once I thought I got it, I still assumed it was just some pipe dream that only …

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