Life in Early Retirement

My 10-Day Detox Cleanse… Was It Worthwhile?

My 10-Day Detox Cleanse… Was It Worthwhile?

10 Comments / Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement / /

A detox cleanse?? What is this, some sort of health blog now?! Nah, that’s only a small portion of what I like to talk about. However, one of the things I continue to strive for is to better myself. And with that comes improving my health, which really isn’t much fun, to be honest. Who are these people who enjoy working out and eating all the right foods?! Nonetheless, my goal is to live a long and healthy life, and […]

My 10-Day Detox Cleanse… Was It Worthwhile? Read More »

2 Helpful Books That Are Great in Completely Different Ways

2 Helpful Books That Are Great in Completely Different Ways

Leave a Comment / Here's Why I'm Liking..., Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Product and Service Reviews / /

I’ve always loved reading ever since I was a kid. I actually had a relatively big toy box that I kept in my bedroom closet. It was obviously meant for storing lots of toys, but I filled it completely with nothing books instead. I read so many books all the time and loved it. Yeah, I’m a nerd, but who cares? Over time though, life got in the way. Once I got to high school and college, reading what I

2 Helpful Books That Are Great in Completely Different Ways Read More »

3 Powerful Keys to Living a Healthier, Wealthier, Happier Life

3 Powerful Keys to Living a Healthier, Wealthier, Happier Life

8 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Taxes and Financial Planning, Travel and Vacation / /

In 2018, we finally told our family and friends that we were moving to Boquete, Panama in 2019. That was a mixed bag of support and in some cases a big old dumpster fire. Obviously, there was some sadness that we were moving away to another country. But what was more interesting was that a lot of the feedback we got was about how dangerous it would be with drug cartels, human trafficking, and excessive violence. Here’s a little secret…

3 Powerful Keys to Living a Healthier, Wealthier, Happier Life Read More »

6 Years of Early Retirement: What I've Learned About Life, Money, and Happiness

6 Years of Early Retirement: What I’ve Learned About Life, Money, and Happiness

16 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Blogging, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Motivation, Panama, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

Today is the anniversary of my last day of work six years ago. At the end of the workday on December 31, 2018, I became free in a sense. That was the day my early retirement began. If you’ve dreamed about early retirement for a while like I did leading up to this, there’s a little surprise in store that you might not know… It’s not going to be exactly the way you envisioned. That’s because when we daydream or

6 Years of Early Retirement: What I’ve Learned About Life, Money, and Happiness Read More »

Traveling the World: 121 Days, 9 Big Adventures, and 6 Cruises Throughout the Globe

Traveling the World: 121 Days, 9 Big Adventures, and 6 Cruises Throughout the Globe

19 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Spending / /

Things certainly have escalated quickly at the Route to Retire household! We started with the plan to take a couple of vacations over the next year and suddenly we’re traveling the world for 121 days! We seem to have this problem – almost a sickness – where we get an idea and tend to go overboard with it. Instead of visiting the country of Panama for a month or two, we lived there for three years (so worth it!)! The

Traveling the World: 121 Days, 9 Big Adventures, and 6 Cruises Throughout the Globe Read More »

Free Cruises with Just a Little Leg Work… Living Like Rock Stars!

Free Cruises with Just a Little Leg Work… Living Like Rock Stars!

14 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Saving, Spending / /

Back in May, I wrote a post called The Next Mission… Free Cruises Through Casino Status Matches! It was all about how we stumbled upon a way to get free cruises and what we planned to do to make it happen. Well, here we are several months later and I realized it’s time to update you on how it’s going and what’s next. It’s actually been a cool little adventure figuring out what we need to do and then taking

Free Cruises with Just a Little Leg Work… Living Like Rock Stars! Read More »

Beating Seasonal Depression: 4 Simple Yet Powerful Strategies I'm Using This Winter

Beating Seasonal Depression: 4 Simple Yet Powerful Strategies I’m Using This Winter

26 Comments / Health and Fitness, General Thoughts, Life in Early Retirement, Travel and Vacation / /

Ugh, summer’s officially over. I do love the fall here in Ohio – the changing of the colors makes everything beautiful outside. However, that means it’s time for the weather to begin shifting, which always gives me that looming feeling that winter is right around the corner. And that leads to the winter blues…. seasonal depression… or the more technical term, seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Whatever you want to call it, I’ve learned that I have an extremely hard time

Beating Seasonal Depression: 4 Simple Yet Powerful Strategies I’m Using This Winter Read More »

Time Is Precious: Rekindling Relationships Is Now a #1 Priority

Time Is Precious: Rekindling Relationships Is Now a #1 Priority

11 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement / /

Around 14 years ago, one of my closest friends told me he had been diagnosed with colon cancer. I was shocked by the news but he didn’t seem any different and I knew he’d be just fine. After all, he was in his mid-thirties like I was and it was just a hurdle to overcome and life would be fine again. But then it wasn’t. As the months progressed, he got worse and worse and the chemotherapy and radiation didn’t

Time Is Precious: Rekindling Relationships Is Now a #1 Priority Read More »

Why a Part-Time Job Might Be the Next Chapter in My Early Retirement

Why a Part-Time Job Might Be the Next Chapter in My Early Retirement

42 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Blogging, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Motivation, Self-Employment, Taxes and Financial Planning / /

Life is interesting. And that’s a good thing. How boring would it be if every day on this planet was the same? For about a decade now, we’ve made some choices that have swung our days into some crazy adventures. There’s no doubt this took us out of the realm of monotony. Between retiring at the age of 43 at the end of 2018 and then moving to Panama for a few years starting in 2019, we got a lot

Why a Part-Time Job Might Be the Next Chapter in My Early Retirement Read More »

Lights, Camera, Exhaustion: I Worked as a Movie Extra for 6 Grueling Yet Awesome Days

Lights, Camera, Exhaustion: I Worked as a Movie Extra for 6 Grueling Yet Awesome Days

16 Comments / Life in Early Retirement / /

You probably know that I’m a big advocate of trying out new and sometimes adventurous things. Not only can it be fun to learn or do something completely different, but it helps you to find new passions, learn what you like and dislike, and make some new cool memories along the way. So when we were on our road trip this past year and I learned there was a call out for those wanting to be a movie extra in

Lights, Camera, Exhaustion: I Worked as a Movie Extra for 6 Grueling Yet Awesome Days Read More »