I guess we are not retired anymore. Just when my wife and I were adjusting to our new life of leisure, our bliss has suddenly been interrupted by the clarion call of the workplace! No, I’m not working. I have quite a few friends and former colleagues that continue to be suspicious about my FIRE escape – and maintain their POV that I will be … Continue reading Going Back To Work?!
While I keep up with a lot of my former colleagues, I haven’t actually been on the MegaCorp campus and in the buildings since I left on April Fool’s Day. That changed this week as I went to lunch with a friend on Wednesday (thanks, DC!) and had a chance to come into the office as a “VISITOR” and say “Hi!” to my friends during … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Visiting MegaCorp
Before I early retired, I used to tell people that it is a great big interesting world and I am looking forward to soaking up a lot of it. Since I am quite an Olympic fan boy, it has been great to be home during the day and watch the Olympic sports you don’t typically see in prime time. Even though I was traveling a … Continue reading Gold Medal Olympic Watching in Early Retirement
When we first got married, Mrs.FireStation worked at a bank and she would talk about how frustrated customers could be at times. They would come in the bank – often overdrawn and not understanding why – and get all upset when she would try to help them sort things out. As you can imagine, it wasn’t a great environment to work in as people were … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Crazy Money
I early retired in April at age 49. I was just a couple weeks short of my 50th birthday and so I felt like I was ‘buying’ an extra 10 years of my life (without work). With a reasonable degree of success in my career I decided to put TIME ahead of banking more money and more material things. So far things have been … Continue reading What Does 10 Years Of Early Retirement Cost? Can You Really Do It?
I distinctly remember my high school Sociology teacher commenting that research showed that older people tend to have a more negative view of the world because they spend a disproportionate amount of time watching the evening news. Since the evening news tends to focus on what is wrong in society, it made sense that the more you watched it the more negative you might … Continue reading Early Retirement and the 24-Hour News Cycle
When I published my 200th post on MrFireStation.com, someone asked me to write about some of the FINANCIAL FAILURES that we encountered on our way to achieving financial independence and retiring early (FIRE). I will write about these over the next few weeks and cross-reference the posts in case someone wants to read about all of our mistakes at once! Today’s mistake has to do … Continue reading Financial Failures On The Way To Early Retirement – Stock Options
We are just back from our wonderful trip to Japan, where we spent the last two weeks. We got home last Thursday afternoon and are finally adjusting to the difference in time zones (14 hours). You can see from the pictures some of the sites we saw in Tokyo & Kyoto. We were very busy, but it was an amazing cultural immersion! The jet lag … Continue reading Relaxed Return From First Early Retirement Trip
When people have asked “What are you going to do in early retirement?” – I’ve often answered that it is a great big wonderful world filled with things I am interested in learning about and trying. We are just back from our summer vacation to Tokyo & Kyoto and I am amazed at how much of the world we know so little about. There is … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Big Wonderful World
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
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