Kids Archives - Page 2 of 5

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 / Jim @ Route To Retire / January 11, 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 / Jim @ Route To Retire / 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

74 Comments / Investments, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Kids / Jim @ Route To Retire / April 6, 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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Teaching Kids About Money – Valuable Lessons Instilled

14 Comments / Kids, Debt, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving, Spending / Jim @ Route To Retire / March 30, 2021

Relying on schools to educate your kids about personal finance is generally not going to be a smart move… most schools don’t even have a curriculum to teach them the basics. When it comes to teaching kids about money, the onus falls on you. That’s good news because you have an opportunity to ensure that your children are learning the right information. Just as many parents haven’t been educated about personal finance, many teachers themselves haven’t been either. If you

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A Christmas Story in Panama… Back in Lockdown!

16 Comments / Panama, Kids, Life in Early Retirement / Jim @ Route To Retire / December 22, 2020

Once upon a time, a pretty awesome family was living in Boquete, Panama. They were getting ready to start their second Christmas story in this beautiful country. And then the Ministry of Health announced another scheduled lockdown over the next two holiday weeks. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. That pretty awesome family struggled with the mandate, let it spoil their holiday spirit, and became total Grinches for the rest of the year. The End. Oh, and

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Making Plans for the Future – Stay or Go?

35 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, General Thoughts, Geoarbitrage, Kids, Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / December 8, 2020

Life is funny sometimes. We made plans for the future, retired early, sold everything we had, and then moved to Boquete, Panama in 2019. What are the chances a once-in-century pandemic hits shortly thereafter and throws everything out of whack? The odds can’t be very high I would guess. I’ll tell you what – it’s been one helluva ride so far. The first six months were pretty awesome. We got settled in, had the opportunity to be on House Hunters

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To Truly Reach for the Stars, Challenge Herd Mentality

24 Comments / Motivation, General Thoughts, Kids / Jim @ Route To Retire / September 29, 2020

I had a little bit of a strange realization the other day. We tell our kids, friends, and other family members that we support their dreams. We tell them to reach for the stars and they can be or do anything they want to in life. But guess what – those are just some empty words. Even though we say to reach for the stars, those words can be meaningless due to our actions. We push our kids to chase

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My Homeschooling Review After One Interesting Year

11 Comments / Kids, Education, Guest Posts, Life in Early Retirement / Lisa @ Route to Retire / June 5, 2020

After a year of teaching Faith ourselves (mostly Lisa), she was nice enough to give us a homeschooling review. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Lisa and I were both blessed enough to retire from our jobs. I left my job at the end of 2018 after 20 years in IT. Then in 2019, we sold everything and moved to Panama with just two suitcases each. We decided not to get residency here yet until we’ve had a chance

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Personal Finance for Kids… Here’s a Way to Teach ‘Em!

8 Comments / Kids, Education, Product and Service Reviews, Saving, Spending / Jim @ Route To Retire / May 19, 2020

lt seems to be a relatively common discussion in the community here that we need some better education when it comes to personal finance for kids. The problem is that most schools don’t build this into the curriculum. Kids end up graduating from school more academically prepared but not financially prepared. That’s a huge problem. Personal finance for kids needs to be a pillar in our educational system. Not knowing even the basics such as the magic of compound interest

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46 More Unforgettable Quotes from My Daughter [Part 2]

4 Comments / Kids, General Thoughts / Jim @ Route To Retire / April 17, 2020

Hello, friends! I hope you enjoyed part 1 of the quotes from my daughter. Those quotes were from when she was between ages 2 through 4. It’s time to share another batch of lines that struck me as worthwhile to jot down over the years. These quotes from Faith are from when she was age 5 up until now (age 9). During these goofy times with the COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic, a lot of things are out of whack from what we’re

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