early retirement

Tanja Hester’s Work Optional hit bookshelves a few weeks ago with a promise to guide us there “the non-penny-pinching way.” Is it really possible …

My trip to South America had a new name! It wasn’t a holiday, it was a Mini Retirement! And I was thrilled by the idea of making them a regular part of my life, so I set about redesigning my lifestyle and my work. I promptly quit my job. And in 5 years I took 5 mini-retirements, totaling 22 months off. In between those periods of mini-retirement, I would do consulting gigs in the mining industry, and I would also tinker with my start-up, which later became my business.

Now the question that might be rising in your minds right now—and it’s a logical one!—is, how does someone in their late 20s afford to take more than a third of their time off work? How do they afford a roof to sleep under? Or a car to drive? How do they afford to eat? It’s a really important question.

I know that everyone who says the word ’empower’ and talks about ’empowering women’ means it in a positive way. Or at least, I hope most people do. But there’s something about that—we were talking earlier about ‘words matter’—that suggests someone granting power. That someone else has that power, and they’re deigning to give us a little piece of it. And that’s something that’s always felt weird to me. I think the thing for us to do is not to sit here and wait for someone to say ‘you may have some power.’ It’s to f— seize that power!

There’s a lot of connections between say, people who are in the extreme debt repayment space in the personal finance arena, and F.I.R.E. folks. It’s just that their energy and focus is just on a different end result. And I thought that I would talk a little bit about why I was reluctant to be called a ‘F.I.R.E. blogger’ but why I felt like it was important to be identified as a person who is ‘F.I.R.E.-focused.’

Now, it is no surprise that most rich people are reviewing their goals and making goals. Author Thomas Corley, Rich Habits, found that 62% of all rich people not just set goals but they review them every single day. When is the last time you reviewed your goals?

BART’s Chief Transportation Officer Roy Aguilera says it’s possible because Zhang never refuses extra work and picks up much of the overtime hours offered.

Choose a job you love and you will never work a day in your life.’ It’s a nice saying, no? It gives off such a sense of control.
Too bad it’s completely false.

It’s so clear how these principles can affect an entire generation of African Americans. We consider the wealth gap to be a crisis, and we’ve seen firsthand how transparency around money has changed our marriage for the better, and improved our financial outlook. And raising a son in a debt-free household changes the way that we parent, it changes the choices that are available to us.

Looking at the math, he’s absolutely right — my response to spending impulses (hobbies, clothing, electronics…) determines whether I spend my life doggy paddling and gasping for air or become an olympic swimmer.

The mundane choices we make every day reverberate years into the future.

You can become a control freak with your money. But at some point, you have to understand that you cannot control everything. Use your precious energy and time for things that you can actually control. Leave the other stuff for the universe to figure out.

The results are staggering. The spending and earning lines move further apart from each other every year by a bigger amount. That’s a gap that’s improving by leaps and bounds.

I’m going to educate you on the cold hard facts about why planning to work into your late 60’s or 70’s will not work – and what you can do about it.

In 2016, Sergio and Shannon sold 90% of their belongings and embarked on a year-long travel adventure that spanned 3 continents, 18 house sits, 23 countries and 60 cities, all while only spending $16k. Now, nearly two years later they’re still traveling and house sitting full time!

As a fellow social justice warrior, I do love my career in the non-profit sector. Sure, I don’t make a lot but I love helping others. I believe it’s my life’s mission to help youth who have or have had similar circumstances that I did growing up. As corny as that sounds, it’s what I fully believed and still do to this day. I’m happy at my day job, and unlike so many others. I don’t actually hate Mondays.

We like to mix things up on Fridays here at the Middletons, and instead of just giving you a few pieces of the best …