Tag: Travel

2022 FI Chautauqua in Ecuador

October 27, 2021 – Hi Everybody! Not a big blog post today, just a quick announcement: I will be heading to the 2022 Chautauqua in Ecuador as one of the invited speakers. The event will span an entire week: June 18-25 in 2022. So, if you want to spend a fun-filled week in a beautiful location with an opportunity to interact with like-minded FI and FIRE enthusiasts and four awesome FIRE thought leaders please consider joining us there!

Here are more details…

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Our Three-Year FIRE Anniversary

July 1, 2021 – Time flies! I can’t believe I already had my 3-year FIRE anniversary last month! Time to reflect and think back on the first three years of early retirement: travel, moving, “market timing”, dealing with the shutdown, and some other exciting news in the ERN retirement life. Let’s take a look…

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Happy FIRE-versary! Reflections after one year of early retirement

Time flies! I had my first anniversary in my new “job” already last month! June 1, 2018, was my last day at the office! I even got some social media notifications from people congratulating me on the “one year early retired work anniversary,” how awesome is that? I did write a post on the eight lessons after eight weeks of retirement, but I thought I should write an update about what I learned after reaching the one-year mark. So, let’s take a look at my eight new lessons after one year of FIRE…

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Where are they now? A Case Study Update with “Captain Ron”

From 2017 until early 2018 I ran a series of ten case studies for readers who volunteered to open their books and serve a real-world safe withdrawal rate guineapigs. The second case study in July 2017 was for Captain Ron (not his real name) who was planning to FIRE and enjoy early retirement with his wife on a sailboat! That title picture you see up there, that’s their actual boat! Sounds like a great adventure, not just the financial aspects but also the lifestyle changes are daunting! So, how did that all go? Captain Ron just sent me an update on how life has been, so Ron, please take over the wheel…

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We retired in September 2017 as planned and are really enjoying life. Financially things are great and we have adjusted to the sailing life, but that first year of cruising was a surprisingly difficult transition. More on that later.

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The 2018 ERN Family World Tour

My apologies in advance to all who were expecting an update on the Safe Withdrawal Rate Series. I posted?Part 24 last week with a promise to do an update this week. Well, I got distracted a little bit last weekend and the new simulations take some more time. Stay tuned until next week! What to do now? Less math, more travel! We’re planning our June-December 2018 ERN Family World?Tour and I thought now might be a good time to share our plans. The locations and dates are pretty much fixed already, though some details are still being finalized.

Let’s look at where the ERN family is heading for the second half of 2018…

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Guest Post: Why geographic arbitrage is so important to retire early and what you can do to about it

Today we feature a Guest Post from my blogging buddy Benjamin Davis. A very exciting and important topic: Geographic arbitrage! Benjamin holds a Ph.D. and decided to become a landlord to retire early. He writes on From cents to Retirement, a blog about early retirement and real estate investing. He also wrote the book My strategy to retire early and runs a real estate and investment consulting business in Portugal. His goal is to build a real estate portfolio with 100 units before he turns 35 and turn From Cents To Retirement into a reference blog for early retirement through Real Estate investments, while he inspires others with his own story. Take it away, Ben!

I was born in Portugal and divided my childhood between Portugal and Italy. I lived in Canada and Germany after that. My family is Canadian and Italian so you can imagine how much I have been exposed to different cultures.

When I decided I was going to retire early, I needed to select the country I was going to live in. I decided to move to a country that would allow me to take advantage of geographic arbitrage, which is defined as the practice of taking advantage of different prices and tax rates in different markets.

There are multiple reasons why I selected Portugal. It would be very easy to talk about the food, the weather, the overall quality of life, etc. But this post is to talk about the financial aspects of this decision. Continue reading “Guest Post: Why geographic arbitrage is so important to retire early and what you can do to about it” →

Our interview on “From Cents to Retirement”

My blogging buddy Ben Davis who runs?From Cents to Retirement?invited me to participate in his interview series. Ben lives and works in Germany and plans an early retirement at the age of 36 to become a real estate mogul in Portugal. Here’s the link to the interview. Like!

—>?Interview with ERN from earlyretirementnow.com?<—

Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Hike

Mrs. ERN, little Ms. ERN and I recently headed out to visit the great American West. We visited Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, (upper) Antelope Canyon, and Grand Canyon National Park, both North and South Rim. We got a good deal on the airfare by booking way in advance, we did the Priceline name-your-own-price deals for the various hotels along the way and paid?almost all hotel charges with the credit card reward points.

The trip was also a great opportunity to check off one item on my personal bucket list: Hike through the Grand Canyon from the North to South Rim. In one single day. Since I didn’t bring anybody else along for the hike (Mrs. ERN and little Ms. ERN took the rental car to the South Rim) I thought I will bring all of you ERN blog readers along for a digital ride. Not that any camera can really do the Grand Canyon justice, but I’ll try my best. Continue reading “Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Hike” →