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Portfolio Rebalancing - Get Your Asset Allocation in Line

Portfolio Rebalancing: Get Your Asset Allocation in Line

8 Comments / Investments / /

I’ve never done a portfolio rebalancing on my resting investments.  As I’ve made money moves over the last few years to get prepared for early retirement, that’s helped me to rebalance accordingly at those times. However, this was my first shot at actively doing a portfolio rebalancing just because it was time. All the smart financial folks out there will tell you that rebalancing is an important part of maintaining your investments.  The problem is that those folks don’t usually […]

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FI and Early Retirement… Could It All Come Crashing Down?

22 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Spending / /

I’m not going to lie – being FI (financially independent) is a truly awesome feeling.  To realize that you don’t need to work again if you don’t want to takes such a massive weight off of your shoulders. But if you take it to the next level and throw in early retirement, you’re now solely depending on whatever you’ve put in place to sustain that financial independence. That’s scary.  No, I mean, that’s really scary. If you continue to work, you

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Would You REALLY Work Out Once You’re Retired?

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

I hate to work out. When talking to gym-addicts, they love to tell me things, “oh, you’ll learn to enjoy it over time.”  I chuckle. I don’t think so.  I hate knowing that it’s time to go work out and I hate the actual workout. “Yeah, but you feel so much better once you’re done, right?” Um, no.  I’m glad it’s over, but no, I don’t feel better or refreshed at all. Look, I’m just keeping it real.  I do

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Make Your Money Work for You Instead of Vice Versa

14 Comments / Investments, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Saving / /

I think I first heard the mantra of “make your money work for you” when I was a kid.  I’d also guess that it was my grandfather who preached it.  He was able to retire in his mid-40’s before the term FIRE (financial independence / retire early) was even coined. But it took me years to really understand what that meant.  And even once I thought I got it, I still assumed it was just some pipe dream that only

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5 Life Lessons from Our First Year of Early Retirement

14 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement / /

It’s time to share some life lessons I’ve gone through in my first year of early retirement. Exactly one year ago today, I was at the office on the last day I would ever work in my career again.  It was New Year’s Eve, 2018 and it was the day before my retirement officially began at the sweet age of 43. My career in IT started back in 1999 and lasted almost 20 years.  I started as an unexperienced Systems

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Our Return Trip to Panama – How We Saved Thousands

14 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / /

This return trip to Panama is well overdue.  We had a blast, but we’re whupped and ready to get back home (we’re finally starting to get comfortable calling Panama “home”). We spent over a month in the U.S. enjoying time with friends and family.  Then we took a roundtrip Caribbean cruise out of Miami. Who’da thunk that we’d be ready to go home after so much fun?!  But we really are – it’s time to enjoy the holidays together and

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Uh-Oh… Our Retirement Expenses Are Higher than Expected

20 Comments / Spending, Geoarbitrage, Life in Early Retirement, Panama / /

Retirement expenses are a tough one to plan for in life. You can budget for what you think your expenses will be, but you really don’t know if they’ll be more or less.  The biggest reason is that your life will likely be dramatically different at the time. This is probably even more on par the younger you are when you leave the workforce because you’re likely not going to be resting on your laurels.  Not only would you be

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The What-Ifs of Moving to a Different Country

16 Comments / Geoarbitrage, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Panama / /

Recently, my friend Lisa from the Mad Money Monster blog wrote about the “what ifs” on moving to a different country.  It was appropriately titled The What Ifs of International Geoarbitrage And Early Retirement. There’s a lot of talk on the Internet, particularly in the personal finance community, about the idea of geoarbitrage.  That’s the strategy of moving to another location, domestic or abroad, to take advantage of the lower cost of living and move ahead financially or possibly retire

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The Biggest Secret the Library Offers to Enrich Your Life

The Biggest Secret the Library Offers to Enrich Your Life

18 Comments / Education, Motivation / /

Oh, the times they are a-changin’.  I don’t think Bob Dylan was talking about the library in his early ’60s song, but boy oh boy, libraries are much different than they were when I was a kid. Of course, you have the obvious stuff like digital card catalogs and the ability to use the computers if you need Internet access.  Heck, I even used them over the past year during those unusual times I needed to print something (I haven’t

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10 Reasons Not to Live in Panama

10 Reasons Not to Live in Panama

52 Comments / Panama, Life in Early Retirement / /

Life’s not all a bed of roses here in Boquete.  I thought today that I’d share some reasons not to live in Panama. So far, living here has been a wonderful experience for me and my family.  It definitely was an adjustment (and still is occasionally), but just being a part of a life that’s so different than we’re accustomed to is both interesting and amazing. A couple of weeks ago, I talked about The 7 Reasons I Love Living in

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