Get Paid to Get Laid Off - How to Engineer Your Layoff

Get Paid to Get Laid Off – How to Engineer Your Layoff

11 Comments / Product and Service Reviews, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

If you’ve been working long enough, you’ve probably been a part of or know of a company that has needed to layoff some of its employees at one point or another. It’s never a pretty situation for anyone – obviously, the employee doesn’t like ’em, but most managers and bosses hate having to go through this ordeal as well. In Sam Dogen’s book, “How to Engineer Your Layoff,” he talks about how to take a grim situation like a layoff and actually […]

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Should You Buy Disability Insurance?

8 Comments / Insurance, Estate Planning, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

When I used to think about disability insurance, it used to be a “yeah, yeah…” subject for me.  In fact, if you asked me a year ago if I should buy disability insurance, I would have told you that I was already covered. Here’s the problem… I’m really not. I’ll talk about the “why not” part shortly, but first, let’s dig into what disability insurance is all about…   What is disability insurance? Disability insurance is intended to help cover you in

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Panama Vacation Booked... Check!!

Panama Vacation Booked… Check!!

26 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Panama / /

Well, we’re making it happen… we just finished booking our Panama vacation. I’ve heard all kinds of good things about the country for retirees and it’s really piqued my interest… enough so that we’ve been digging into the idea for quite a while now. We’ve learned quite a bit more about the country since I wrote my post “Is Panama the Right Place to Retire?“ a year and a half ago. We’ve been reading everything we can find out about the country

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Long-Term Food Storage Needs to be Part of Your Plan

Long-Term Food Storage Needs to be Part of Your Plan

14 Comments / General Thoughts / /

Why in the world are you finding a post on long-term food storage on a blog that focuses on finances?  Isn’t this a topic you would only find on the survival sites out there? Possibly, but I want to shake things up a bit. And here’s why: planning for your financial future should take into consideration the pitfalls of life that can hit you at any time… and that includes the possibility of running into a situation where food and water become a

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Protecting Your Assets

Protecting Your Assets

8 Comments / Estate Planning, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Insurance, Investments, Real Estate / /

So, you’re going down the right path on the road to financial freedom slowly but surely, but you want to make sure that you’re protecting your assets in the meantime?  Well, hopefully, this post will help you with some ideas! I’ve noticed that as I’ve started to build up my assets, my needs have started to morph as well. I now have rental properties, multiple LLCs, and growing and expanding savings, investment, and retirement accounts.  And, as the accounts continue to grow,

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Why I Ended My Costco Membership

Why I Ended My Costco Membership

28 Comments / Spending / /

Once upon a time, there was a guy who wanted to save money and heard that buying in bulk would help him with that.  So he bought a Costco membership to reach that goal. It was glorious!  He saved a ton of money, enjoyed loads of free samples, and took advantage of all the amenities it had to offer. There were unicorns, pixies, pots of gold, and all sorts of other wonderful things that don’t really exist anywhere but here. All this

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2017 Personal and Financial Goals

2017 Personal and Financial Goals

14 Comments / General Thoughts, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Investments, Motivation, Real Estate, Saving, Travel and Vacation / /

Well, it’s 2017, which means it’s time to take stock of how your previous year went, but more importantly, you should set your sights to the future and get your personal and financial goals put in place for the year. Here are my plans for the year… My 2017 Financial Goals   Buy another rental property Buying rental property is an important stream of passive income that I’m working on building.  Currently, we own a couple of rental properties – a single-family house and

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Saving for Kids - Thoughts to Consider

Saving for Kids – Thoughts to Consider

10 Comments / Kids, Investments, Saving / /

When it comes to saving for kids, there are a ton of different options out there.  Should you start a separate account for them somewhere and if so where? Mrs. R2R and I have a 6-year-old daughter and we’re starting to think through this whole problem right now. Here’s what we’ve figured out so far…   First things first Before you do anything for your kids, you need to make sure to get your own finances in order.  If you have

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Year End Review

Year-End Review

14 Comments / General Thoughts, Debt, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Real Estate, Saving, Spending / /

Well, this is it – the last post of the year.  I hope all of you had a great holiday and are looking forward to the new year!  I thought this would be a good time to do a year-end review and look back at what I got accomplished throughout the year (and what I didn’t!). Let’s start with the 8 Financial Goals we had set at the beginning of the year for ourselves… 1) Build back up our online savings

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The Line Between Frugality and Deprivation

The Line Between Frugality and Deprivation

16 Comments / Spending, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

The Line Between Frugality and Deprivation A lot of people on the quest for financial independence aim to trim their expenses.  This works great… until it doesn’t.  Sometimes the line between frugality and deprivation becomes blurred.  It’s possible to cut your expenses too much where you can make yourself miserable. I was listening to a great podcast that the Mad Fientist put together from a Q&A at Camp Mustache which had Pete aka Mr. Money Mustache, Paula Pant from Afford Anything, Doug Nordman from The Military

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