Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) Archives

We’re on a Bus to Costa Rica Right Now! Here’s Why…

14 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Spending / By Jim @ Route To Retire / April 19, 2022 April 17, 2022

You read that right… I’m typing this entire blog post while on a bus to Costa Rica. We took a taxi from our home in Boquete, Panama to David (also in Panama). Then we got on a Tracopa bus around 9 am that’s taking us all the way to San José, Costa Rica. By the time it’s done, we’ll have been on this bus to Costa Rica for probably 8-9 hours. You might think of this as a grueling day, …

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The Rent vs Buy Dilemma… Does It Matter?

26 Comments / Real Estate, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Life in Early Retirement, Saving / By Jim @ Route To Retire / April 5, 2022 April 5, 2022

One of the most debated topics in the personal finance space revolves around the question of rent vs buy. On one side of the fence, you have the folks marching to the beat of, “You’re throwing money away when you rent… when you buy, you have something to show for it down the line.” And on the other side of the fence are those that say, “Yeah, but renting can cost a lot less money with excess to be invested… …

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For a Better Life, Turn Your “I Can’t” Into an “I Can”

8 Comments / Motivation, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / By Jim @ Route To Retire / March 22, 2022 March 19, 2022

It’s a little surreal for me to reflect on my life and see how far we’ve come. By far, I feel we now have a better life than I could have ever imagined. We’re financially independent and no longer report to “the man.” We’ve taken advantage of our early retirement freedom to spend more time being a part of our daughter’s life as she grows up, We’ve all stepped out of our comfort zone and have been living in Panama …

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Should I Get a Job Now as a Hedge for Tomorrow?

26 Comments / Saving, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Self-Employment / By Jim @ Route To Retire / March 8, 2022 March 6, 2022

Get a job???? Isn’t this a site focusing on financial independence and the option to retire early? Easy, tiger – no need to come out fighting right off the rip. Don’t get out your pitchforks to tell me that we didn’t retire with enough money. This is more of a hypothetical than anything. I’m confident that we have enough money to last us the rest of our lives. Our net worth has actually grown dramatically since I retired at the …

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Is This Down Stock Market Problematic as an Early Retiree?

25 Comments / Investments, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Spending, Taxes and Financial Planning / By Jim @ Route To Retire / March 1, 2022 March 1, 2022

A down stock market? Is that true? Yeah, unless you haven’t been paying attention, the market’s been on a not-so-fun ride lately in the direction that most folks tend to fear. Most of last week was a stressful week for investors. By the end of the day Wednesday, 02/23/2022, all gains in the S&P 500 since 06/21/2021 had been completely erased. Thursday and Friday produced a pretty big uptick but not enough to compensate for the downward spiral the beginning …

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Stop Counting Pennies and Focus on the Dollars

33 Comments / Spending, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Saving / By Jim @ Route To Retire / February 8, 2022 February 3, 2022

I have this problem where I’m always counting pennies in my head. Not literally, but rather that I’m always conscientious of all our spending… to a fault. Don’t get me wrong, being mindful of what you’re spending is a good thing. If you don’t know what you’re spending, it can become very difficult to get ahead. The problem, however, is that counting pennies isn’t as important as focusing on the bigger money. In other words, saving a few extra dollars …

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Why Early Retirement Isn’t Just About Escaping a Sh*tty Job

20 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / January 11, 2022 January 7, 2022

It seems that more and more folks in the FIRE (financial independence / retire early) community are jumping on the bandwagon of bashing the idea of early retirement… because early retirement now somehow conveys a negative connotation. I even heard some of my favorite hosts talking about this recently on a very popular podcast. The message was basically that early retirement is bad and if you don’t like your job, early retirement isn’t the answer – find a job you …

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The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2021… That Aren’t Fritz’s

6 Comments / Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Kids, Panama, Real Estate / By Jim @ Route To Retire / December 28, 2021 December 28, 2021

I was trying to decide what to write for this week’s post. Then I ran across my friend Fritz’s recent post, The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2021. That seemed like the perfect way to end the year… so I stole his idea! Ok, I didn’t really steal it. I reached out to Fritz to see if he’d be ok with me writing a post of my own like his… and he was just fine with the idea. See? We …

Doing Your Own Taxes and Planning… or Die Trying!

10 Comments / Taxes and Financial Planning, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Real Estate, Self-Employment / By Jim @ Route To Retire / December 14, 2021 January 17, 2022

I’ve bounced back and forth over the years in preparing my own taxes or having a CPA handle the job. If you’re using TurboTax, H&R Block’s software, TaxSlayer, TaxAct, or some other software when doing your own taxes, you’re already familiar with how they’re relatively easy to use (except when they’re not). But if you’re trying to do financial planning along the way that might affect your taxes, running solo can be a struggle if you don’t know the ins …

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Selling Everything We Owned Has Been Truly Liberating

24 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Geoarbitrage, Motivation, Panama, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / December 7, 2021 January 24, 2022

Selling everything and just taking off and leaving is a dream a lot of folks have… even if it’s just a fleeting thought. To actually do it though sounds crazy. Who would do something like that?! Yeah, we were those people. We got rid of just about everything we owned and headed to Panama in the summer of 2019. At the time, we were just going through the checklist of moving preparation to make it happen. One of the biggest …

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