self-reliance – Our Next Life

Want Adventure AND Security? Just Change Your Timeline

By Tanja Hester on January 23, 2017 • ( 127 Comments )

I never took a break between high school and college, or between college and starting my career. And so for years, I thought I’d missed my chance to do something awesome, as though that’s something only young 20-somethings can do. But seeing people in our mountain town piecing together lives of adventure in all different ways made us realize: we haven’t missed out on anything. In fact, we’re probably doing this the better way, because our life of adventure will be built on solid financial footing.

The Power of a Low Income in Early Retirement

By Tanja Hester on October 31, 2016 • ( 106 Comments )

Today, a post about the under-recognized benefits of spending less in early retirement, because spending less means earning less, and earning less means a whole bunch of benefits. (Psst: the biggest one is insulation from Obamacare price hikes.) Let’s take a deep dive into the many benefits that come with earning a low income in your early retirement years.

Living Simply with Plenty of Stuff // Why We Never Plan to Downsize Radically

By Tanja Hester on July 29, 2015 • ( 58 Comments )

the movement to live simply is all around us. minimalism. tiny houses. the push to reject consumerism. the urban homesteading movement. slow food. we’re all in on simple living, but that doesn’t mean we’re minimalists.

Bucking Tradition, But Not All Tradition // Finding Our Early Retirement Guard Rails

By Tanja Hester on July 8, 2015 • ( 26 Comments )

we like the thought of doing something different, and bucking tradition. it makes us feel like we’ve figured out some secret. but we’re still down with tradition in some pretty big ways.