General Thoughts

Holy Schnikes! Another Change of Plans for Us!

Holy Schnikes! Another Change of Plans for Us!

19 Comments / General Thoughts, Travel and Vacation / /

Another day, another change of plans!  This slight change is going to add to our already exciting adventure! As most of you already know, we’re moving to Panama this summer.  I retired from my job at the end of 2018 and we’re getting closer to making this happen. In the meantime, we have two reasons we’re waiting so long to leave: We need to wait for our daughter to finish out her school year. We have a vacation planned with […]

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Finding Balance in Early Retirement with Kids

31 Comments / Kids, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Life in Early Retirement / /

Finding balance in life is tough.  Between your regular job, chores, time with spouses or people you’re dating, and going out to play with friends and family, time is limited. The fact is that we all only have 24 hours per day… 168 hours each week. Then you throw a kid into the mix… ha!  Good luck!  It’s like a turbulent hurricane of confusion every day.  And the frenzied mess doesn’t scale well either.  With each additional child you have,

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What Did We Just Do?!! Thoughts from a New Retiree

28 Comments / General Thoughts, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement / /

So, I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about for my first post as a new retiree.  I have all these things on my mind, but I’ve been struggling to figure out just the right topic. And that’s when it hit me… why not just talk about some of the random thoughts that have been floating around my head this week? Maybe some of what’s going on in this noggin of mine could

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What I’ve Learned Throughout My Final Year of Work

36 Comments / General Thoughts, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement / /

Well, that does it… I’m officially FIRE (financially independent / retired early).  12/31/18 was my last day of “working for the man” hopefully for the rest of my life. Whoa.  Hang on – I just need a second to process that. Damn, that feels good to think about!  Woo-hoo!!!! Ok, thanks for that – I really needed to get it out of my system.  The idea is still a little surreal and will probably take a while to make it

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No One's Asked - Here's Why You Should...

No One’s Asked – Here’s Why You Should…

26 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Motivation / /

No one’s asked.  Not a one.  Not one single person in my entire office. I’m now just days out from my retirement – December 31, 2018, is my last day of work.  I gave my notice in early summer and we kept it low-key in the office for a little bit while we worked out the game plan. However, I officially made the announcement to my engineers in a meeting on August 13.  And as many of you know, the

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A Moment to Exhale... So Now What?

A Moment to Exhale… So Now What?

22 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Travel and Vacation / /

Well, we’re finally over the hump.  We actually had a moment to exhale.  We sold the house and moved into an apartment.  Everything should start to get easier and easier as we get closer to the big move to Panama next summer. I started this post while at the airport on our way to Miami to get our cruise kicked off.  We booked this trip at the beginning of the year thinking we’d have nothing going on at this time.

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Money Throughout My Life

Money Throughout My Life

17 Comments / General Thoughts, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Saving / /

Money.  We all know its importance or you wouldn’t be reading this post. Whether you like it or not, it’s what the world runs on.  You could opt out of playing the game and become a hobo, but there are very few of us that can live happily ever after in that position. You can’t let money rule your life, but it’s important to understand its role.  Once you can control your capital instead of it controlling you, you’re one

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FinCon… It’s Really All About the People

32 Comments / General Thoughts, Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

I’m writing this post on the airplane coming back from Orlando.  I just got finished another great FinCon conference. Not only that, but I’m writing it while on the plane the old-school way – pen and paper.  Sure, I’ve had to rewrite the whole thing to get it online because I bailed on bringing my laptop to the event.  But I care about you guys so much that it’s worth the effort… you’re welcome. This is the second year I

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The Hardest Part of the Path to FIRE is…

18 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / /

The path to FIRE (financial independence / retire early) can be a long and sometimes arduous path.  Each of us runs into our own obstacles and stumbling blocks along the way. One piece of good news is that, unlike the early trail-blazers that went down this path, there’s now a wonderful community on the big old Internet.  If you look past the get-rich-quick garbage out there, you’ll find a lot of supportive and helpful folks who want you to succeed. Another

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The Next Steps in Our Early Retirement Plans

The Next Steps in Our Early Retirement Plans

22 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts / /

I thought I’d take a step back from my normal posts to update everyone on our status – where we’re currently at and the next steps in our early retirement plans. My regular readers know that I’m leaving my job at the end of this year and we’re moving to Panama next summer (2019).  It seems like an eternity away, but it’s really not a lot of time. So the good news is that the adventure is almost ready to

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