I want to share my financial independence (retirement?) journey through posts on this blog. How I got to financial independence. What I do with it. What I have learned (and continue to learn) that could help others reach and enjoy their financial independence. And in the process to learn even more from the feedback I hope to get.
Some of my posts will be about money management. About what I call frugality without sacrifice. About how I manage to lead a pretty nice basic lifestyle for less than $18,000 gross a year.
Some of my posts will be about my investment "adventures." About how my $400,000 stash yields me $28,000 to $32,000 a year in passive income. And about the risks that involves.
And some of my posts will be about what I do with my free time and my surplus money now that I have (or think I have) full control of my time and money to do something with it.
My core money management strategy is frugality without sacrifice — what I call playing the frugal game. Cutting the waste and getting more for my money every time I spend any of it. I know that sounds like a "duh" statement. But I’ve been amazed (and you might be too) at just how much money can fall through the cracks when one takes one's eye off the frugal spending ball.
My investment strategy is based on creating and maintaining a high yield stream of dividend and interest payments. That also means that my strategy is more high risk than a lot of people are willing to accept. But it works for me. And many of my posts will be about how and why that is so.
I put a good deal of my time into investing and money management so that I can have the financial freedom to do what I want. But actually taking the time to do fun things is something of a problem for me. If left to myself (so to speak) I have a strong tendency to either let my time go to doing more chores (since there's always more) or to plop down to watch a DVD movie. And that's not how I really want to spend what’s supposed to be my free fun time.
So I am continuing to develop scheduling and routine-setting tactics to "force" myself into actually using my time to hike, take trips, write these posts, do serious history reading, and develop some real hobby-interests. And I'll be writing posts about how that is working out.
In short, it is very important to me to feel that I am in control of my life, to have goals, and to actually accomplish them. When all of that comes together, I feel good about my life and about myself. I'll be writing these posts to help me stay on that course.
Along the way, I hope some of what I've learned and what I will continue to learn helps you in your quest for financial independence. And I'm pretty sure I too will learn a lot from your responses to my posts.
How are you doing with your journey to retirement or actually living it? Please post a comment and let us know.
Sharing My Retirement Journey
December 13th, 2013 at 01:10 pm
December 13th, 2013 at 04:46 pm 1386953195
I am looking forward to reading more about your investing strategy, and how you became financially independent.
December 13th, 2013 at 06:50 pm 1386960659
Right now I'd say I'm behind where I need to be on retirement, but not nearly as behind as I was 5 or 6 years ago, so I'm gaining ground at least!
December 13th, 2013 at 09:23 pm 1386969822
December 13th, 2013 at 11:22 pm 1386976959
Welcome to Saving Advice.
I am looking forward to reading more about your investing strategy, and how you became financially independent.
------------------------
Thank you, Petunia. I've got a post almost ready to publish entitled "My High Yield, High Risk Investing Strategy." It should be up within a week. And I'm working on that sidebar bio.
Retired To Win
December 14th, 2013 at 02:22 am 1386987753
December 16th, 2013 at 10:04 pm 1387231484
You seem concerned about what you are going to do with your time after you retire. Believe me, unless you park yourself in front of the boob tube all day, you're going to find there's more to do than there is time to do it in. In my case, this got to the point that I had to actually schedule free time into my day and week or I would not get any! I've got a post on that drafted. I'll try to get it published soon.
Thanks for the comment!
Retired to Win
December 16th, 2013 at 10:09 pm 1387231798
Like I just told Petunia, I've got a post coming up on my investing strategy.
As far as what I'm reading right now... I just finished last night "Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg" by Timothy B. Smith. Prior to that, I read "Lies the Government Told You" by Andrew P. Napolitano. I just started reading "Mortal Fear" by Robin Cook.
Thanks for asking!
Retired to Win
April 30th, 2014 at 02:47 am 1398826058
I don't think we can retire in two years even with out savings but I do believe I have e convinced my DH we can downshift to lower earnings and still retire early. If we stay put we would ridiculously be able to retire in 10 years by 45 with an ex easier amount of money. But why? I think we should downshift and work longer but with less stress for another 20 years. Plus this way we have less years to worry about medical insurance and touching savings.