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 …
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 …
FI and Early Retirement… Could It All Come Crashing Down? Read More »
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 …
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 …
Make Your Money Work for You Instead of Vice Versa Read More »
It’s time to share some life lessons I’ve gone through in my first year of early retirement. Exactly one year ago today, I was at the office on the last day I would ever work in my career again. It was New Year’s Eve, 2018 and it was the day before my retirement officially began at the sweet age of 43. My career in IT started back in 1999 and lasted almost 20 years. I started as an unexperienced Systems …
5 Life Lessons from Our First Year of Early Retirement Read More »
Doing a Roth conversion can be the key to a successful FIRE (financial independence, retire early) strategy. That’s definitely the case for us. By doing some financial planning, this one move is allowing us to access money in our pre-tax retirement accounts with no penalty and the ability to pay little to no tax when it happens. Today, I’m going to take you through some more details on what a Roth conversion is and why it’s so valuable. I’ll also …
The Roth Conversion Strategy Guide for Early Retirees Read More »
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 …
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 …
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 …
One of the Absolute Best Facets of Early Retirement Read More »
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 …
Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence Read More »
