Self-Employment

Rekindling the Eye of the Tiger - Escaping Mediocrity

Rekindling the Eye of the Tiger – Escaping Mediocrity

39 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Self-Employment, Travel and Vacation / By /

We all know that life’s got its highs and lows. When you’re riding one of those highs, life can’t get any better. You feel that all your hard work has paid off and you’re sitting on top of the world. But when those lows come, they can be like a sucker punch that takes you completely by surprise. Occasionally, those times can make you feel there’s no way out either. As someone who tends to have higher-than-high and lower-than-low temperaments …

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Lisa’s Now a Secret Shopper… Is This Legit or Even Worthwhile?

Lisa’s Now a Secret Shopper… Is This Legit or Even Worthwhile?

14 Comments / Self-Employment, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Saving / By /

Have you ever heard of those mythical jobs where you’re hired to go into a store or restaurant as a customer and then report back and get paid? Generally, that person is known as a secret shopper or a mystery shopper. Yeah, well, here’s a little treat – they’re real. I had forwarded over a link to Lisa for a company called Market Force Information that acts as a liaison for this exact purpose. Sure enough, after Lisa dug into …

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The 2 Big Reasons We’re Moving Back From Panama… and What’s Next!

10 Comments / Panama, Geoarbitrage, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Self-Employment, Travel and Vacation / By /

I’ve been regularly putting my entire life out there publicly on this blog since 2015. So when someone is surprised to find out we’re moving back to the U.S. from Panama, I’m sometimes confused for a second… doesn’t everyone follow our journey on this site every week? Of course not! Though you should be! 😉 When friends ask us about why we’re moving back, I usually fill them in. And when blog-reading friends ask us why we’re moving back, I …

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Should I Get a Job Now as a Hedge for Tomorrow?

Should I Get a Job Now as a Hedge for Tomorrow?

26 Comments / Saving, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Self-Employment / By /

Get a job???? Isn’t this a site focusing on financial independence and the option to retire early? Easy, tiger – no need to come out fighting right off the rip. Don’t get out your pitchforks to tell me that we didn’t retire with enough money. This is more of a hypothetical than anything. I’m confident that we have enough money to last us the rest of our lives. Our net worth has actually grown dramatically since I retired at the …

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Doing Your Own Taxes and Planning… or Die Trying!

Doing Your Own Taxes and Planning… or Die Trying!

10 Comments / Taxes and Financial Planning, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Real Estate, Self-Employment / By /

I’ve bounced back and forth over the years in preparing my own taxes or having a CPA handle the job. If you’re using TurboTax, H&R Block’s software, TaxSlayer, TaxAct, or some other software when doing your own taxes, you’re already familiar with how they’re relatively easy to use (except when they’re not). But if you’re trying to do financial planning along the way that might affect your taxes, running solo can be a struggle if you don’t know the ins …

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

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

24 Comments / Motivation, General Thoughts, Self-Employment / By /

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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Switching to Ezoic Increased My Ad Income by 628%!

Switching to Ezoic Increased My Ad Income by 628%!

16 Comments / Self-Employment, Blogging, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Product and Service Reviews / By /

I switched the ads on my website from Google AdSense to Ezoic a few months ago and I have to say that I’m astounded by the results! Seeing an increase in ad revenue of over 7x what I was making before is pretty crazy. Let’s start with this though – I’m not a big-time blogger. If you think this site was the catalyst for us to reach early retirement… yeah, not so much. The money we’re talking about is still …

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Net Income on Our Duplex Last Year… Negative $7,400!!

18 Comments / Real Estate, Investments, Self-Employment, Taxes and Financial Planning / By /

I might not be the smartest businessman, but I keep thinking that a negative net income in regards to your rental property for the year is not good. And just over $7,400 in the red makes it so much worse! Ouch, what the hell happened?! This duplex was supposed to be another stream of income that would help level out the bumps from rockiness in the stock market over the coming years.  Last year though, proved to be a particularly …

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Is FIRE the Finish Line or Just the Beginning?

22 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Self-Employment / By /

Looking back on my own path to financial independence, I treated the whole thing like a race in my mind.  Reaching the finish line was the utmost important goal. As I continued to make more money every year through raises, I saved more and more.  But the other side of the equation is cutting expenses… and cut expenses we did! In my mind, if it wasn’t a necessity, I really had to think about if it made sense to spend …

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Book Review: Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence

Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence

2 Comments / Product and Service Reviews, Debt, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Geoarbitrage, Investments, Real Estate, Saving, Self-Employment, Spending, Taxes and Financial Planning / By /

I don’t normally write book reviews on this blog, but I’m making an exception for the new Choose FI book.  I was expecting my opinion to sway one way with the book but my impression after reading it went in a completely different direction. Chris Mamula is the author of Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence (along with coauthors Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa).  If you’re not familiar with Chris, he retired in 2017 at the young age of …

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