Its hard to believe that I’ve been writing this blog 2-3x a week for over 3 years. I started it more than a year before I retired and now that milestone is two years in the rear view mirror. I’ve enjoyed sharing this journey and appreciated all of the recent positive comments, messages, tweets, and emails readers passed on during the ‘Two Year FIRE Anniversary’ … Continue reading Birthday From From MegaCorp Past
Many people worry about losing connections with people as they they make their FIRE escape into early retirement. Social connections are necessary in the workplace and people sometimes fear that they will be sitting home alone watching cable news when they stop working. That might have been the case at one time, but social media has undoubtedly been a game changer for millions. I’ve long … Continue reading Social Media & FIRE Lifestyle
This is the second of two posts that detail the eight dimensions on this ‘Life Wheel’ that I developed just before early retiring from MegaCorp two years ago. It is a long answer to the most common question I get these days: “What do you do to stay busy?” Last week, I covered the first 4 sections of the wheel in this POST. Today, I … Continue reading FIRE Second Anniversary – Life Wheel Update (2)
A friend of mine’s daughter got married last summer and I was shocked to hear that the wedding was costing $35,000. It turns out that is close to the average cost of a wedding in 2016 according to a website called, TheKnot.com. I don’t remember how much our wedding cost 28 years ago, but while it was a beautiful day, we certainly didn’t break the … Continue reading Financial Analysis: How Many Years of Work Does A Wedding Cost?
I retired much earlier than most people. I was 49 years old, just two weeks short of my 50th birthday. As I talk with people about early retirement, I find that most people don’t really know how early is ‘early’. The average retirement age in the USA is 62. That’s a bit higher than it was a few years ago, it’s also a bit lower … Continue reading Are You Retiring ‘Early’?
We had the joy of spending a few days in Tennessee earlier this week with good friends of ours who used to live in Minnesota. No surprise, when we arrived from the Bold North, we brought snow with us! People we talked to in Tennessee said it was the first snow they had gotten this entire winter. Our friends moved here a few years ago … Continue reading Where To Live In Early Retirement?
If you ask my wife what her favorite kind of music is, she will say “LIVE music”. More than the genre, any music performed in person sounds so much sweeter and powerful. We’re on our second trip of the year with a stop in Music City USA – Nashville, Tennessee. If country music isn’t what you usually listen too – and it isn’t for us … Continue reading FIRE Travel – Nashville, Music City
There’s something about the term ‘millionaire’ that still captivates people’s imagination. Even as Forbes released their annual list of the world’s ‘billionaires’ (spoiler alert: Jeff Bezos, $100B), people are still excited about accumulating 1/100th of that amount. I’ve noticed that many of my top read articles over the last three all have ‘millionaire’ in the title. Maybe as the world’s richest move into billionaire territory, … Continue reading Aspiring Millionaires In A Billionaire World
One of the things I most like about the freedom that comes with a FIRE lifestyle is the opportunity to engage in cultural events on multiple levels. While the Olympics is happening halfway around the world, I have the time to do a lot of winter sports-themed activities, rather than just watch on TV. For the Opening Ceremonies last week, my wife and I researched … Continue reading FIRE Winter Olympic Games
There are a few songs that can serve as an anthem for the journey to financial independence and retiring early. “Take This Job & Shove It” comes immediately to mind, as does “Bang On The Drum All Day”. Those songs are about escaping the drudgery of work, but I think the most appropriate song for my FIRE mindset might be John Lennon’s 1980 “Watching The … Continue reading Watching The Wheels
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