Motivation Archives - Page 3 of 9

Alcohol Tracking – I Spent Hours Creating This Spreadsheet I Hope to Use Very Little

13 Comments / Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation / Jim @ Route To Retire / February 22, 2022

I love beer. I do! And if you know me, alcohol tracking probably wouldn’t be something you would think I should waste my time with since I’m not a huge drinker. But it’s a fun little experiment I’ve decided to do regardless. Did I mention that I love beer? Even a glass of lemonade on a hot day just doesn’t quite have the same refreshingness that an ice-cold beer seems to provide. Nevertheless, I know it’s not good for me […]

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Holy #$%*… I Just Hiked up Volcán Barú!

32 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Health and Fitness, Motivation, Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / February 1, 2022

Volcán Barú, a volcano that stands 3,474 meters tall (that’s 11,398 feet!)… and I just hiked to the top and back in less than half a day. I’ve heard of people doing this since the day we moved to Boquete, Panama in August 2019. Even so, I just thought the idea was a little crazy. But then we did the 4×4 tour to the top with our friends, Steve and Courtney, back in October. On the drive down, our guide

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Strength Training – One of a Few Big Workout Changes I’ve Made

2 Comments / Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation / Jim @ Route To Retire / January 18, 2022

That’s right, baby – I’ve now switched my workouts from bodybuilding to strength training. That’s just one of the changes that have come up for me in my fitness track this past year. Welcome to another workout update! Over the past few years, I’ve tried to provide you with status reports and some other facets of working out that have been helpful to me that I thought were worth sharing: Although I post about fitness a few times a year,

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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 / 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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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 / Jim @ Route To Retire / December 7, 2021

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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Looking Back From Your Deathbed… Be Alive Now!

13 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / Jim @ Route To Retire / November 30, 2021

Picture yourself on your deathbed looking back on your life… A few fun vacations, some great nights out with friends, or maybe some great memories with a loved one or kids. Whatever comes to mind, I’m sure there will be some great memories that’ll make you smile. But now dig a little and try to think about what you’ve regretted not trying or doing more of in life. Maybe it’s the simpler things like sitting back and watching a couple

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Aren’t You Bored in Retirement? The Truth Comes Out!

20 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Motivation / Jim @ Route To Retire / November 2, 2021

Bored in retirement. For some reason, that seems to be a concern many folks have with retirement, particularly early retirement. The “easy” part’s done. You’ve saved up enough money that you’re able to leave work on your terms. You’ve hopefully used a free retirement planner like the one in Empower (formerly Personal Capital) to give you the confidence you need on that front. With the money equation out of the way and retirement here, you’ve gained the freedom of choice.

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I’ve Decided to Hike up an Active Volcano…

12 Comments / Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Panama / Jim @ Route To Retire / October 12, 2021

The thought of hiking up an active volcano might seem out of sorts for me, but it’s now something that’s going to happen in a few months. First off, I skipped another week of writing (I’m getting pretty good at this!). But I do have a good excuse – we had guests for 8 days. Our friends Steve and Courtney Adcock visited us for about a week in Boquete, Panama and we had a rocking good time! As I write

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Money Growing Up – I’m Not Taking a Paycheck This Month

24 Comments / Motivation, General Thoughts, Self-Employment / Jim @ Route To Retire / September 28, 2021

Every family is different. And every family’s financial situation is different. Growing up in my family was unique as well. “I’m not taking a paycheck this month” were confusing words we’d hear periodically from my mom. We never fully understood what that meant or why at the time but we knew we’d be tighter on money for a little while. We weren’t poor but we were far from rich as well. Looking back, I would have thought we were lower-middle

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Play the Hand You’re Dealt To Live the Life You Dream

14 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Investments / Jim @ Route To Retire / August 31, 2021

If you sit on the sidelines and continue to fold instead of playing the hand you’re dealt, you’re never going to get ahead. This is true in poker, but it’s also true in life. It’s time to stop just going through the motions and work on making your dreams come true. I reflect on how much we’ve progressed the last decade or two and I’m amazed and proud of us. Seriously. I retired a couple of years ago at the

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