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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
how we’ve saved our stash
some of the ways we’ve saved what is by any measure a lot of money. not enough to retire yet, even at the modest level we’re shooting for, but still objectively a lot.
why we don’t talk numbers
one of our favorite personal finance sites keeps a running tally of bloggers’ net worths. while we love seeing how others are doing, we don’t share our numbers, and we have a few good reasons why we don’t.
travel now or travel later?
maybe it’s how old we are, and how long we’ve worked without a break in demanding professions, but work-filled travel doesn’t sound like fun. fortunately, we believe that by working hard for a few more years, we’ll be in a position to make this dream happen in real life.
the perfect day
we’ll wake up on our own, with no alarm, when we feel rested. we’ll take our time sipping morning coffee, engaging with each other instead of staring at screens. we’ll happily get outside.
a two-part retirement
we’re going to live like cheapskates for the first 18 years of our retirement, and then if the markets cooperate, we’ll live a little larger in our later years, once we can tap our 401(k)s. for us, this plan is perfect. live cheaply when you’re young and resilient.
evolution of a dream
we have a very specific dream in mind: an end date for work, a place where we plan to live, and a plan for travel. but we didn’t just wake up with this dream, with the details filled in. it’s been an evolution.
banking for the future
we advocate taking a fanatical approach to banking airline miles. most airlines require five coast-to-coast roundtrips to earn a free domestic ticket. if you take those trips on different airlines, they add up to essentially nothing. it’s only by concentrating your travel on one airline that you get the benefit.
