Deciding to retire early, just before I turned 50, certainly makes me a bit counter-cultural in terms of expectations for how long one works. I have estimated before that only about 1 in 20 workers (5%) in the United States retire at 50, and the average age of retirement is sixty five. Since we are traveling right now in Japan (I am writing this on … Continue reading Changing Japanese View of Retirement
The whole Fire Station Family is out spending our money on good times this week. We are on our summer vacation (to Tokyo & Kyoto) and not thinking this trip is money spent foolishly at all. We each have our priorities that we budget for and travel is a big one for us. Check out this post from last year on our early retirement travel … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Good Times
There are people working all around us, of course – every day 24×7. Especially during the workweek, but there are also many people working on the weekends. That said, even after just three months of early retirement you start to not notice them as much. Many jobs are ‘out of site’ – people that work in office buildings, folks that work on the road, and … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Road Crews Reactions
This post is part of the MrFireStation.com series called Life After FIRE … For MANY years, when we would go to church the weekly program would announce what the Retired Men’s Group was doing that month. It sounded FUN. They were golfing, they were listening to an expert on a local business or project, they were raising money for a good cause,or they had a speaker … Continue reading Life After FIRE – Fitting In
With Independence Day, it is hard not to see the parallels between what the Founding Fathers fought for as a nation and what we all fight for in our lives … FREEDOM. As it says in the Declaration of Independence, we “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ——” These are the … Continue reading Freedom – For Our Nation, For Ourselves
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
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
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
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