Kids Archives - Route to Retire

Boost Your Child’s Credit Score With This Simple Trick

Leave a Comment / Kids, Debt, Spending, Taxes and Financial Planning / By Jim @ Route To Retire / March 21, 2023 March 18, 2023

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been trying to give my daughter the hook-up on her credit lately. Yes, Faith’s only 12, but that’s even more of a reason to work on it now – this will put her on the right track so she’ll be starting out strong. A few weeks ago, I discussed Freezing Your Child’s Credit: Why It’s Critical and How To Do It. This was the first step I wanted to do to make sure she …

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Freezing Your Child’s Credit: Why It’s Critical and How To Do It

8 Comments / Consumer Protection, Debt, Kids / By Jim @ Route To Retire / February 14, 2023 February 11, 2023

If you haven’t frozen your credit yet, I’ll be harping on why you need to do that shortly. However, this article is about freezing your child’s credit and why it’s just as important, if not more important, than freezing your own. Lisa and I have had our credit frozen since 2017. It wasn’t hard to do (it’s even easier now) and it’s quick and easy to thaw it temporarily when applying for new credit. That last part’s important because we …

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The 10 Most Popular Posts of 2022

4 Comments / Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Panama, Spending, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / December 27, 2022 December 21, 2022

Last year, I wrote a wrap-up post with the 10 most popular posts of the year. It was an idea I borrowed from my friend Fritz over at The Retirement Manifesto (with his permission, of course). I liked that idea so much that I’m running with it again this year. And guess what – Fritz did it again as well and beat me to the punch! If you’re interested (and you should be!), you can check out his post appropriately …

Entitled Kid Syndrome… Our 4-Part Preventative Strategy

18 Comments / Kids, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Saving, Spending / By Jim @ Route To Retire / November 22, 2022 November 20, 2022

“Wow, that’s one entitled kid for sure!” Words you don’t ever want to hear about your child. We’re blessed to have saved enough money to be able to enjoy early retirement. As a millionaire family that doesn’t live extravagantly, a lot of the money stress tends to subside (though not completely). It’s been wonderful to be able to spend my days with my wife and daughter. In fact, being able to be a bigger part of my daughter’s life while …

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Our Summer Road Trip So Far Includes a Flood, Wildfires, Freezing Temps, Blistering Heat, Strong Winds, and a Thrown-Out Back!

Our Summer Road Trip So Far… Mother Nature’s Vengeance!

8 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Health and Fitness, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Spending / By Jim @ Route To Retire / June 21, 2022 July 17, 2022

Yeah, there’s a lot going on there, right? Looking at a title like this, you might feel convinced that our summer road trip has been a bust. I can’t argue with that line of thinking. There’s not one thing on this list that sounds positive at all. So you might be surprised to know that the first two weeks of our summer road trip have actually been a ton of fun. And two of Mother Nature’s natural disasters made us …

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41 Fun Activities We Did in Panama

12 Comments / Panama, Health and Fitness, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / April 12, 2022 April 10, 2022

In just a few days, our time of living in Panama for over 2 ½ years will be coming to an end. It’s bittersweet in so many ways, but today I thought it would be fun to look back at so many of the fun activities we did during our time here. Whether it was sleeping in a lodge in the jungle, spending time at nearby beaches, or just walking around the town of Boquete and admiring the beauty around …

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The 2 Big Reasons We’re Moving Back From Panama… and What’s Next!

10 Comments / Panama, Geoarbitrage, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Self-Employment, Travel and Vacation / By Jim @ Route To Retire / March 29, 2022 February 14, 2023

I’ve been regularly putting my entire life out there publicly on this blog since 2015. So when someone is surprised to find out we’re moving back to the U.S. from Panama, I’m sometimes confused for a second… doesn’t everyone follow our journey on this site every week? Of course not! Though you should be! 😉 When friends ask us about why we’re moving back, I usually fill them in. And when blog-reading friends ask us why we’re moving back, I …

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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 February 21, 2023

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 …

How and Why To Open a Custodial Roth IRA at Vanguard

72 Comments / Investments, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Kids / By Jim @ Route To Retire / April 6, 2021 September 27, 2021

I recently wrote a post called Teaching Kids About Money – Valuable Lessons Instilled. As I was in the process of writing it, I got motivated to open a custodial Roth IRA for my daughter, Faith. If you’re new to this blog, Faith is 10 years old (11 in a few months). When you hear that, you might be thinking, “What the @#$% does a 10-year-old need with a retirement account?” or “Um, Jim, don’t you need to have earned …

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