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Our 6 year anniversary of our early retirement: A journey of FIRE (financial independence retire early)…

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August 2026 marks my wife and myself’s 6 year anniversary of our early retirement.  Has it already been 6 years?  Wow… It seems like yesterday.  I handed in my resignation in July 2020, worked another 5 weeks, then said goodbye to my boss and the company I had worked for since 2007, on August 17, 2020.  We then had couple of weeks to sell/donate/get rid of most of our belongings, empty our home, then leave the place we called home for the previous 14 years. My wife deserves most of the credit for working frivolously, getting our townhome ready for sale, getting rid of our stuff, putting down new floors in the kitchen, and doing countless hours of miscellaneous work, in the months leading up to our last day in Pennsylvania, August 24, 2020.  We still remember going to our home closing on August 24 (by 9:30 a.m.!) to sign our closing documents, then heading towards our new life, as retired nomads. We spent the roughly 10 hours driving to our brother‘s place in Nor...
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Spending 17 nights in Homewood Suites by Hilton: I really like living in hotels! A journey of FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement…

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  In the early years of my wife and myself’s journey of early retirement, we primarily used long term rental platforms like Airbnb or VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner) for our lodging needs.  Because we technically don’t own or rent a permanent place of our own, this made sense. Living as nomads doesn’t mean we move from one place to another frequently.  Thanks to these aforementioned long term rental platforms, we’ve been able to stay a month, sometimes few months, in a rental property of our choosing. We’ve lived the life of “ slow travelers ”, meaning we stay at one place for a long time, seeking to explore a particular area in depth, and also so we can live a semblance of a so called “normal” life, where we have a semi-permanent place to rest our heads each night.  We enjoyed our early years of our early retirement, as we got to “live” in a particular area, trying to experience what life is like as a local. We explored local parks (and sometimes parks 100+ miles ...
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2 nights/3 days exploring Fort Lee, New Jersey and Harriman State Park, New York

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  When my wife and I lived in New York City, visiting Fort Lee, New Jersey , was a fairly common occurrence, especially if you’re Korean-American.  With so many Korean owned businesses including many awesome restaurants and cafes in the area, it made sense to get our Korean food fix just over the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee. Although the bridge toll was always on the expensive side, we liked the slower pace of life in Fort Lee compared to the always hectic life on the other side of the bridge in Flushing, Queens , which also has a huge Korean community.  One other draw of Fort Lee, maybe just as important as the slower pace, was the seemingly more upscale look & feel of Korean owned businesses there. It just felt like more money was spent in Fort Lee to spruce up those establishments compared to more homey, had seen better days feel of those in Flushing.  Last, but not least reason for us visiting Fort Lee was that it made sense to stop over on the way ...
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