what’s best on paper or what’s best for your soul?
in planning for our early retirement, we often think about the question of whether the best decision on paper is also the best decision for our souls, or whether the two might be different.
net worth progress
it’s pretty amazing how much motivation a goal can provide, and the chart is proof that having a goal — even if it was abstract back in 2011 — has worked mightily well for us.
saving money, conserving resources
something that’s super important to us is not just to save money for our retirement goals, but to conserve resources as well. fortunately, saving money and conserving resources can easily go together, and we’ve put together this list of the best ways we are achieving both.
liebster award and more oversharing
fervent finance tapped us with a liebster award (thanks!) and asked us to answer some questions. here goes…
choosing our financial independence day
our marriage is the most important thing to both of us, and we have always believed that no job is worth jeopardizing that. so we made a decision: even if we hadn’t hit our goal numbers, we will retire in december 2017.
will money become a source of tension?
in retirement, our income will go way down. we’ve budgeted and planned and made a slew of spreadsheets, and in theory we are okay with that. but will money become something that stresses us out, or — worse — that gets between us?
why the urgency?
we’re going to try to break through the anonymity barrier today, to share why this whole early retirement vision feels so crazy urgent to us. why we’ve already made some big sacrifices to make it a reality, and are prepared to make more.
rejecting helplessness, embracing self-reliance
we’ve noticed something: the higher up people get in their careers, they more they seem to embrace making themselves helpless. seeing that has helped cement our view that we need to act differently in our own lives.
