Yesterday was one of those perfect days of early retirement. A beautiful 76-degree day, tennis in the morning with my brother, $5 matinee in the afternoon with my son, a short nap, and a delightful alfresco dinner with my wife and some good friends at the village wine bar. I drove the convertible around all day and didn’t feel hurried a bit. And, of course … Continue reading Not Watching Time
I read a few versions of this story online recently and thought I would share a cleaned-up version of it. It highlights both the incredible cost of small bad habits to our journey toward financial independence and retiring early (FIRE) and the self-righteousness that some “geniuses” apply to other people’s decisions – forgetting that personal finance starts with the word PERSONAL. The example here is … Continue reading Parable of Saving: Where’s Your Ferrari?
Our son is working part-time this summer and is off to college this fall. He is pretty good with his money at this point of his life and shows a lot of interest in frugal living and how money works. I like to think that I am helping teach my son about financial independence & the opportunity to retire early (FIRE) by setting a good … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Price / Value Equation
It is better to have money than not to have it, but the revelation of how much money we have or don’t have is always a bit awkward. This is why most often people keep their financial matters quite private, but when you’ve retired early people deduce that you have certainly won the money game. It’s not so much of a problem with family & … Continue reading Awkward Questions – What Do You Do? Nothing Really.
To start with, the 30 Day Decluttering Challenge we embarked on for the month of May, required an extra full 15 days of June. That said, it is complete! And we over-delivered the number of items that needed to be decluttered by a wide margin. The challenge started last month with this POST. The goal was to eliminate a set number of things each day … Continue reading Decluttering Challenge – Complete! (Late)
When it comes to trips, I agree with the saying that the journey is as much fun as arriving at the destination. Likewise, there is something fun about thinking about your future and imagining how you might want it to look. The visioning part of any effort is where we fall in love with our goals and are free to imagine anything we want to … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Up Your Imagination
The one thing, as much as anything, that consumes people’s thoughts when they think about early retirement is money. How’s the market doing? How are my savings doing? Will I have enough? Have I estimated well enough? I was no different over the last 25+ years as we saved for early retirement. I have a spreadsheet that goes back to 2002 (14 years!) in which … Continue reading Money Money Money?
It is amazing to me that this is the 200th post I have made on MrFireStation.com since launching the site 18 months ago. I started the blog as a way to capture my journey to early retirement and share the experience with others. I hoped to meet some like-minded strangers and have a place for close friends to get the low-down on my secret escape … Continue reading 200th Post
I often tell people that my decision to retire before I turned 50 is either the smartest or stupidest decision I ever made. I am not sure which it is yet. The fact is, there often is a razor thin line between absolute brilliance and utter foolishness. Only time will tell which side of the line you are falling on and by then it is … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Taking Life’s Risks
My mind has been thinking back to school days lately. Three weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit my old elementary school in Michigan for the first time in over 38 years. This past Friday, our son graduated from high school with a big ceremony at the Cathedral and and enjoyed his all-night senior party at school. He went to the same high school … Continue reading Summer Break – Class of 2016
MrFireStation 