Category: Financial Independence Page 2 of 6
I've officially been retired for fourteen days. My employer and I agreed to a five week notice period, the first two were pretty busy and the last three had minimal actual work and helped ease into early retirement, so all in its been roughly a month without paid work. Sitting here on our third trip in a month, I was reflecting on my way too early thoughts about early retirement: Travel Traveling without worrying about vacation days is wonderful. Sitting…
I've had the pleasure of talking to a lot of people about income, expenses, and life when I announced my retirement at 36. I also keep getting questions and feedback through the blog and realizing the ability I have to help people. The majority of the people who've reached out are young professionals. Maybe they've recently discovered financial independence or are in the middle of their journey and trying to figure out the right balance of saving and spending. The…
I turned in my early retirement notice and live tweeted it! Background I've always wanted to be financially independent. Late in my teenage years I figured out that having money is better than not having money. In my early finance classes, I would run some compound interest caluclators in college and figure out how much I needed to save so I could retire by 40. We were pretty frugal in our 20s and income accelerated in our early 30s, which…
The first quarter of 2019 was a great quarter, not just because I delivered my retirement notice, but also because the market rebounded from its year-end levels! The US Stock Market Index is within 5% of its all-time high and we all experienced one of the best recoveries from a bear market in the history of the US Stock Market. I’m sharing the details of our portfolios for others that may like to do some additional tinkering. Most of our…
I created an interesting social experiment this past Monday at work. I went and disclosed to my boss on Friday that I would be quitting on Monday and not only quitting, but turning in a retirement notice. He's only a few years older than me and we debated if we should or should not use the term retirement. Some people would appreciate it while others may not. I had debated this earlier and even posted the following poll on Twitter.…
I've looked at a bunch of credit reports. Part of my job over the last fifteen years required reviewing credit reports. Specifically between 2004 and 2018, I reviewed hundreds of credit reports a year as part of loan decision and annual reviews. This included looking at credit scores, individual line items, lifetime payment history, and providing an analysis on an individual's score. Patterns started to emerge, patterns I didn't realize until I moved into a management role and found myself…
Today is the fourth installment in a round of posts in the midst of turning in my notice. For further reading, here are the first three installments: Part 1: Frequently Asked Questions Part 2: Opening Doors for Others Part 3: What about a Sabbatical? Early Retirement/Quitting: At this point, who knows this is coming? I’ve let a couple of people in on my plans. The list doesn’t make it very far past one hand and I've been very cautious with…
In the third installment of the eminent retirement posts, I want to address my thoughts around taking a leave of absence/sabbatical instead of retiring early. I have seriously considered requesting a one year absence as recently as a few weeks ago. My through process may be helpful to others faced with this same decision. Part 1: Frequently Asked Questions Part 2: Opening Doors for Others Why I considered a Leave of Absence: Avoiding the uncomfortable explanation others: Having a job…
I am approaching the final week before I turn in my letter of resignation and make my plans public. I will publish updates as this evolves, but I wanted to start with reflection of something I realized in my last two years of working: Focus on opening doors for others. There were a few specific moments in my career where others opened doors for me: One co-worker was integral in supporting me to a hiring manager that helped me get…
March 2019 is going to be a busy month! We are two weeks away from the news being out about the change. I'll be posting more often to chronicle the recent adventures leading up to exiting my employment. I wanted to begin this series with a Frequently Asked Questions, inspired by someone who just went through leaving his job forever (thank you Steve). Who is your blog's target audience / who do you most relate to? Everyone's story is unique. …