Saving Archives - Route to Retire

Guest Appearance on the ChooseFI Podcast

I’ve been wanting to be a part of the ChooseFI podcast shortly after it began. Jonathan and Brad launched the show at the end of 2016 and quickly took the FIRE community by storm! It’s a fantastic podcast helping to discuss the path to financial independence. They bring on various guests to examine different aspects and strategies of reaching FI. What’s really great though is that they also focus quite a bit on enjoying the journey along the way. I fell trap to missing that important piece for a little while during our route to retirement. The discussion tends to be very insightful and honest. Brad and Jonathan are open and talk not just about the positives but also the

How to Get a Million Dollars for Your Nest Egg

By early 2017, we had finally built our net worth up to over a million dollars. It was a great feeling to reach that milestone, but it didn’t really change things for us – we just continued to follow our plan. When I left my job at the end of 2018, we had a net worth of about $1.1 million and, thanks to the bull market still pushing ahead, it’s roughly $1.2 million right now. I’ve written a few posts talking about the relevance of the infamous $1 million number: $1 Million Net Worth… Now What? Is One Million Dollars Enough to Retire On? Being a FIRE Millionaire Doesn’t Mean You’re Rich Some folks look at that as an amazing

Why Not Keep Working and Saving? Are You Stupid?

I’m only 43 years old right now (Ok, fine – I’m pushing 44!). But this is still prime time to continue on with my career. If I were to keep working, I could build up an even bigger and more secure nest egg. So why don’t you do that? Why did you leave your job and retire early? Are you stupid or just lazy? Haha, talk about cutting to the chase! I actually love when others ask me questions about our plans because it gets the conversation going about financial independence. Personally, I don’t feel like everyone needs to retire early from their jobs. If you enjoy what you do, more power to you. But I do feel that financial

8 Financial Tips I Wish I Knew When I Was in My 20’s

My nephew recently started reading this blog and it got me thinking. What would be valuable information for him as a reader? What do I wish I knew when I was younger? He’s almost 20 years old and he just started a career in construction probably close to a couple of years ago. At his age, I know I wasn’t very smart financially. Don’t get me wrong – I thought I was, but looking back, I made some stupid decisions. So, like any old man, I almost feel obligated to pass along some of the knowledge I wish I knew back then to help him out. And yeah, 43’s not that old, but I’m not getting any younger! Do you

The Importance of Balance – Frugality vs. Overspending

Saving every penny and pushing frugality to its limit or spending every penny to live for today. How does the Route to Retire family handle their spending? Good news! After a lot of prodding, I think I might have been able to convince Mrs. R2R to do some occasional guest posting. Hopefully, you’ll see some more of these in the mix. She told me she’s hoping to write a post on the process she’s gone through in figuring out homeschooling for our move to Panama. Wrapping your arms around everything involved and choosing the right curriculum has provided her with some “fun” over the past few months. In today’s post though, you’ll get an idea of her take on some

After 20 Years on Quicken, I’m All-In on Personal Capital

I’ve been using the Personal Capital financial software now for the past few years. However, I’ve only been dipping my toes in with it… until now. Quicken’s been my go-to software for just over 20 years. I stumbled on it back in 1999 when I first started at the career I just retired from. I was hired in as an engineer to fight the scary Y2K bug and Intuit was giving away their Quicken 98 software for free as a fix to anyone running older versions. I decided to install the software just to toy with it. I entered in all my accounts and ended up being appalled at what I saw. I owed about $30k in credit card debt and just

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