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It’s time for the best articles we’ve found around the internet in the last month to help you save more, invest smarter, and retire sooner.

This month’s articles explore how to generate income in retirement from your portfolio and Social Security.

We also explore ideas on how to give yourself the best chance of success with your investments, and look at the positives and negatives of relocating.

The FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement has been gaining steam in mainstream media. Our selected articles address some of the misconceptions about who is pursuing FIRE and the fallacy that FIRE will solve all your problems.

We finish on a more upbeat note, exploring the true value of financial independence and ways to avoid some of the potholes that trip people up in the pursuit of FIRE.

Enjoy this diverse collection of insights and opinions that will help you retire sooner, happier, and more securely.

Creating Retirement Income

You’ll need a strategy to take money from your portfolio to produce retirement income. Glenn Ruffenach writes Why the 4% Rule is Just the Starting Point. The article cites several frequent contributors to our “Best of” round-up, as well as Darrow’s Flexibility Scale for Choosing Your Safe Withdrawal Rate.

Another big piece of retirement income for many retirees is Social Security. Allan Roth had an “aha moment” when he ran the numbers to Calculate When to Take Social Security.

Investing Wisely

Draw down strategies are important, but first we need to learn to build and manage a portfolio.

Dick Young writes The 6 Basic Investing Principles That Will Make You a Winner.

Ben Carlson advises Don’t Take Asset Allocation Advice from Billionaires.

Moving On

A popular topic among blog readers is moving to a new location after retiring. It’s a topic that’s front of mind for me, two months after making a cross country move. Scott at Making Momentum provides excellent insights with 9 Life Lessons & Realizations From Moving Across the Country. He writes of moving to start his career, but the lessons are timeless and spot on.

Who Pursues FIRE?

Tanja Hester tackles stereotypes and misconceptions that FIRE is limited to white, male, engineer types with The False, Persistent Myth about FIRE and Tech Bros.

Is Early Retirement All It’s Cracked Up to Be?

Another misconception is that life will be magically better once we achieve early retirement.

Sam at Financial Samurai writes The Negatives of Early Retirement Life Nobody Likes Talking About.

And for those who think mini-retirements or semi-retirement are magic bullets that eliminate the mental and financial challenges of traditional retirement, Chris Durheim bares all in Where My Mini-Retirement Mental Breakdown Led Me.

The Positives of Financial Independence

Despite the downsides, there is more good than bad that comes with achieving financial independence. Mark Trautman wrote Learning the True Value of Financial Independence.

We’ll close with Susan Bruni who taught me a new term, JOMO. It’s the Joy of Missing Out as she explains in My Jane Muir Hikes – Finding Your Own Pace and Path to FI.

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