We tend to judge our decisions by outcomes. In her book Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, Annie Duke points out the faulty logic of thinking this way. We love things to fit in neat little boxes. But life is far more nuanced. Nearly all decisions have to …
Staying Strong in Retirement
April 15, 2019 By
Retirement planning exposes some cruel ironies of life. Most young people have an abundance of time and health in their school/training years, but little money to take advantage of these non-financial assets. Most of us enter our adult years with our health as we shift our focus to careers and family during our peak earning …
Reasons to Live: Finding Your Purpose after Retirement or Financial Independence
April 1, 2019 By
What, exactly, is the point of retirement? With all our focus on the mechanics of saving and investing, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Is financial independence really your goal, or is your ultimate purpose something that lies beyond the dollars, something that wealth enables but doesn’t deliver on its own? In …
Staying Healthy and Mobile In Retirement
March 11, 2019 By
I’m passionate about helping people use their money to live a better life. I’ve written hundreds of blog posts and recently finished a book manuscript to these ends. But I have no formal training in investing or financial planning. I’m also passionate about helping people improve their health and fitness to live a better life. …
4 Things I Gave Up to Retire Early
March 4, 2019 By
Every significant accomplishment in life requires trade-offs. It’s the law of cause and effect. If you want to be an Olympic athlete, you’ll be training while others are relaxing. If you want to be a doctor, you’ll be grinding through medical school and long hours of residency while others are sleeping. If you want to …
Financial Autopilot
February 18, 2019 By
In an era of two income households struggling to make ends meet, my story sounds extreme. I retired from my career as a physical therapist at the age of 41 while my wife cut back to part-time work five years earlier at age 35. Some might think we spent a lot of time thinking about …
Building Your Work Optional Life
February 11, 2019 By
Tanja Hester and her husband, Mark Bunge, retired in December 2017 at the ripe old ages of 38 and 41. Hester, author of the award winning blog Our Next Life, is releasing a new book, “Work Optional: Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way,” to help others create their own early retirements. As a long time reader …
Does FIRE Make Life Harder?
December 10, 2018 By
I was an avid reader of financial independence, retire early (FIRE) blogs on the path to my own early retirement. They served as inspiration and education. However, I found them to be an echo chamber. Each tries to outdo the next in an effort to show you how to optimize your life. Then you can …
Are Health Care Sharing Ministries A Viable Alternative To Health Insurance For Early Retirement?
November 19, 2018 By
Like many Americans planning early retirement, our family’s biggest challenge is obtaining affordable health insurance. We’re searching for an affordable, long-term solution to bridge the gap from employer provided coverage to Medicare. My recent research shows purchasing Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliant insurance on the marketplace presents several challenges. For those who have variable income, …
Navigating ACA Tax Credits to Purchase Affordable Health Insurance
November 12, 2018 By
A massive challenge for Americans planning to retire early is determining how we’ll obtain affordable health insurance. The earlier you want to retire, the more challenging it is to determine how much you need to bridge the gap until Medicare eligibility at age 65. Health insurance costs increase faster than the rate of inflation. Medical …
Pretirement: What Is It and Why Should You Care?
October 15, 2018 By
Pretirement is a term being proposed to describe a phase of life between career and retirement. Pretirement is a process that takes place over years, even decades, versus a single decision to retire. It is characterized by cutting back on work earlier in life, but continuing some work indefinitely. Why do we need this new …
How Accurate Should Your Retirement Calculation Be?
October 1, 2018 By
You run out of money. That’s the fundamental event that most retirement calculators try to predict. If there’s a strong probability that your money will last your lifetime — congratulations — you’re financially independent! But, if not, then you need to keep working, or generate retirement income, or curtail your lifestyle. There are many possible …
A Week In The Life of a FIRE Household
September 17, 2018 By
My journey to financial independence and retiring early (FIRE) started largely because I was burnt out on my career. This led to an oversimplified solution. If my career was the source of my unhappiness, I should pursue the opposite: retirement. In the process of planning for early retirement, I realized retirement with no work and no …
Retire With Abundance
June 11, 2018 By
The following is an interview with ESI from ESI Money, a blog about achieving financial independence through earning, saving, and investing (ESI). It’s written by an early 50’s retiree who achieved financial independence, shares what’s worked for him, and details how others can implement those successes in their lives. He is also the author of …
Exploring the Pros and Cons of Retiring Before Your Spouse
April 23, 2018 By
I recently made the decision to retire early. My wife did not. She continues to work the same number of hours at her same job. Our path enables me to be free of a job I was burnt out on, improves family dynamics, and allows us to live with financial abundance. No decision is without …
Deciding to Retire With High Market Valuations And Low Interest Rates
April 16, 2018 By
A combination of high stock valuations and low interest rates creates a challenge for investors contemplating where to deploy their capital. This environment is especially scary for those approaching retirement, worried about retiring at the wrong time. Many contemplate working one more year. Despite recent market volatility, stock valuations sit near all time highs. Higher …
Leaving a Prestigious High-Paying Career in Your Early 40’s
April 9, 2018 By
The following is a guest contribution from blogging friend Physician on FIRE, an anesthesiologist transitioning to early retirement. Physician on FIRE focuses on issues facing high earners looking to retire early. His writing combines technical investing and tax planning insights with an emphasis on living purposefully and giving back. I invited him to share his …
Debugging Your Retirement Calculations
March 5, 2018 By
“When a thing is done and past, even fools are wise at last!” —Homer Hindsight is 20/20. The further you go in life, the easier it is to look back and understand the results of your earlier decisions. Nowhere is this more true than in personal finance. Relatively small changes in your work, your purchases, …
What If You Can’t Retire Yet?
February 12, 2018 By
Can I Retire Yet? It is pretty safe to assume that if you are reading this blog you have an interest in answering that question. There are common themes that cause people to start asking. Many of us feel the tension of never having enough time for the things we want to do while working. …
Launching 2 New Retirement Calculators: Behind the Scenes
February 8, 2018 By
If you’re an Android user, please take a minute to download our new Free retirement calculator from the Google Play Store. This simple, easy app gives you a quick snapshot of your retirement situation. You’ll get answers in minutes. Or, if you’d like a full-blown financial planner in the palm of our hand, try out …
The Fundamental Problem With Retirement Planning
January 22, 2018 By
I recently read “The Personal MBA” by Josh Kaufman. The book describes universal principles that can be applied to any business. As a student of personal finance and retirement planning, I saw many parallels between business principles described in the book and principles of managing my own personal finances. I kept thinking of JD Roth’s …
