Kids

How and Why To Open a Custodial Roth IRA at Vanguard

How and Why To Open a Custodial Roth IRA at Vanguard

74 Comments / Investments, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Kids / By /

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 …

How and Why To Open a Custodial Roth IRA at Vanguard Read More »

Teaching Kids About Money – Valuable Lessons Instilled

Teaching Kids About Money – Valuable Lessons Instilled

14 Comments / Kids, Debt, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving, Spending / By /

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 …

Teaching Kids About Money – Valuable Lessons Instilled Read More »

A Christmas Story in Panama… Back in Lockdown!

A Christmas Story in Panama… Back in Lockdown!

16 Comments / Panama, Kids, Life in Early Retirement / By /

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 …

A Christmas Story in Panama… Back in Lockdown! Read More »

Making Plans for the Future – Stay or Go?

Making Plans for the Future – Stay or Go?

35 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, General Thoughts, Geoarbitrage, Kids, Panama / By /

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 …

Making Plans for the Future – Stay or Go? Read More »

To Truly Reach for the Stars, Challenge Herd Mentality

To Truly Reach for the Stars, Challenge Herd Mentality

24 Comments / Motivation, General Thoughts, Kids / By /

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 …

To Truly Reach for the Stars, Challenge Herd Mentality Read More »

My Homeschooling Review After One Interesting Year

11 Comments / Kids, Education, Guest Posts, Life in Early Retirement / By /

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 …

My Homeschooling Review After One Interesting Year Read More »

Personal Finance for Kids... Here's a Way to Teach 'Em!

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

8 Comments / Kids, Education, Product and Service Reviews, Saving, Spending / By /

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 …

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

46 More Unforgettable Quotes from My Daughter [Part 2]

46 More Unforgettable Quotes from My Daughter [Part 2]

4 Comments / Kids, General Thoughts / By /

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 …

46 More Unforgettable Quotes from My Daughter [Part 2] Read More »

Early Retirement with Kids Is Wonderful... but Frustrating

Early Retirement with Kids Is Wonderful… but Frustrating

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

Reaching early retirement in 2018 at 43 isn’t something that a lot of the population is interested in or trying to pull off.  But change that to being in early retirement with kids to raise and that puts us in even more of a niche. We have one child, our daughter Faith, who’s a great kid.  She’s 9 but acts like a really short adult most of the time.  That probably makes life a little easier for us and we …

Early Retirement with Kids Is Wonderful… but Frustrating Read More »

41 Unforgettable Quotes from My Daughter - Part 1

41 Unforgettable Quotes from My Daughter [Part 1]

15 Comments / Kids, General Thoughts / By /

Quotes from your daughter for your blog post, Jim?  Um, isn’t this a little bit of a weird post? So, yeah… about that.  Truth be told, I’ve been struggling to figure out what to write about today. Recently, I’ve given you my 2 cents about the COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic.  I’ve also written about some random thoughts on how about how the pandemic is going in Panama and how we’re handling things.  I’ve even talked about whether the recession is going to …

41 Unforgettable Quotes from My Daughter [Part 1] Read More »