Boos and Yays // Plus Friday Shoutouts and Thanks
Today we’re sending the love to those who inspire us. Happy Friday!
Guest Post by Eat the Financial Elephant // The Weight of Your Decisions
Today we have a guest post from Eat the Financial Elephant on the weight of your decisions — both in finances, and in backpacking.
What we want to do when we grow up // Becoming more useful in early retirement
we don’t really know what we want to do when we grow up. but we think early retirement will finally give us the time and breathing room to find out. and we know for sure that we’re about to get a lot more useful to society, not less.
Not Quite a Shopping Ban, But Not Shopping
that impulse buy was a reminder that, even if we’re living way below our means, we still have to improve our habits if we’re going to be able to live within our early retirement allocations in a very short two and a half years’ time.
Guest Post at Eat the Financial Elephant // Our Dirtbag Dreams // Reaching the Summit
Today we’re guest posting over at Eat the Financial Elephant about our dirtbag dreams, and how reaching the summit of a mountain is a lot like reaching financial independence.
living for today — and tomorrow
it’s natural to be future-focused, when you’re spending a lot of your mental energy planning for something in the future. the only problem: the future is never guaranteed.
The Best Bad Money Decisions We Ever Made
today we’re sharing the story of some very, very bad money decisions we made once upon a time. some very bad money decisions that we couldn’t be happier about.
in early retirement, what’s to stop us from getting old too fast?
bloggers working toward early retirement love to ponder the big questions: how will we spend our time once we’re no longer shackled to jobs we don’t love? what else will we do for fulfillment? where all will we travel? how long do we need our money to last? […]
the power of compounding — in our incomes
people in the pf world talk a lot about the power of compounding over time, and we want to talk about how this power has been made evident to us most of all: in our incomes.
when your finances don’t fit into the standard box // lies the financial industry tells us
once we started planning in earnest for early retirement, we quickly realized: financial calculators all take a one-size-fits all approach. but what if your finances don’t fit neatly into this one-size-fits-all box?
getting comfortable with risk
the whole idea of early retirement of course feels like a risky proposition. but here’s the thing, to misquote the princess bride: life is risk. anyone who says differently is selling something.
how blogging has changed our finances and our hearts
we started this blog because we crave that connection with other folks who are doing what we’re doing. what we didn’t expect is how much blogging would change our finances, and our hearts.
learn to camp, and save lots of money over traditional travel
we’ve realized in recent years that the world is divided into people who think of themselves as campers, and those who don’t. and the latter group may find the very concept of camping intimidating for a whole host of reasons. we’re here to tell you non-campers that it’s much easier than you think, it’s not as dirty as you might imagine, there are ways to make it plenty comfortable, and you can really take camping to any level you want, starting simple and working up to more advanced forms.
on not following a budget
for us, trying to follow a line-by-line budget feels both overly restrictive, and too much like a diet in which you’re tracking calories. it’s not sustainable. following a budget makes us constantly want to cheat, or wonder when the diet is over. but we’re doing just fine without a budget!
planning for early retirement means living a double life
we have told some people our early retirement plan, but not others, and sometimes we feel like it’s exhausting living this double life, trying to keep straight who we’ve told and not told. it’s like trying to keep straight an elaborate lie.
moving on from badass
the word “badass” gets thrown around a lot in personal finance/financial independence circles. that’s not the full story. all of us who are working toward or have achieved financial independence have one big thing in common. we’re lucky.
how we travel on the cheap
when we travel now, we do just about everything we can to keep expenses low, so that it doesn’t set us back in our early retirement savings, and so that we don’t get used to “travel inflation” that would make it hard to adjust once we’re on our early retirement budget. here’s how we travel without setting ourselves back financially.
when you’re not naturally frugal // are we doomed?
it often feels like the folks touting the frugal lifestyle are themselves naturally frugal. but what if you’re not naturally frugal? is there hope for you?
retiring in a high cost of living area
we frequently see articles about great places to retire based on cost of living, and we think to ourselves, “wow, if we sold our house and moved to one of those places, we could retire now.” but we decide again and again to stay put.
early retirement is a marathon, not a sprint
we like to remind ourselves that early retirement is a marathon, not a sprint, and the worst thing we could do is burn ourselves out early in the process by being too strict or restrictive. the key is knowing yourself, and what you need to be successful and stick with something.
