Wandering Money Pig - A journey of early retirement and FIRE (financial independence retire early)

  Looking up stocks! Welcome back!  This post will cover brokerage accounts, which is the fifth topic in a series of financial tools to master.  Brokerage accounts are used by many early retirees of the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement to get them by until the official retirement age of 59 1/2.  Sometimes it’s used exclusively as their only retirement vehicle.  If you’ve missed any of the previous posts on ‘financial tools to master’ series, please see the links at the bottom of this page. What are brokerage accounts? A brokerage account is an investment account that allows you to buy and sell things like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, money market funds, etc.  There are many brokerages like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Vanguard, E-Trade, Robinhood, etc., that you can choose. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but I would recommend researching these to figure out what works for you.  I recommend ‘discount brokerage firms’ like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, e

  Money growing over time Albert Einstein: “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.  He who understands it, earns it...he who doesn’t...pays it. This quote is one of my favorites of all time.  It sums up the basic tenet of investing which allows early retirement to work by growing money over time.  It also underscores an important lesson which is also important to grasp, which is, don’t owe money to anyone , as compounding interest will make your life absolutely miserable, as money you borrow will get bigger over time! I, along with my wife, are one of many adherents of FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement, and we can proudly say we’ve seen the power of compounding interest first hand.  What is compounding interest? Compounding interest is the addition of interest to the principal sum (loan or deposit), basically adding interest on interest.  This happens when interest is reinvested rather than paid out, thereby the interest earned next pay period is the su

Valley of Fire State Park, near Las Vegas, NV I’ve been to Las Vegas a total of six times so far, and my wife, a total of four times.  During the days of COMDEX that was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, I had the pleasure of visiting the desert oasis twice on business, and four times on pleasure! The first time I went there, I was totally blown away at how busy the Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) was.  There’d be tons of people walking around, with street vendors and performers of all creeds and nationalities.  There were high rise hotels and casinos that built Las Vegas, glittering at night and luring souls to hand over their hard earned money.  All that glittering at night was similar to where I grew up (New York City), in that the desert city never sleeps! Las Vegas is a transient city and is constantly evolving.  It seems each time I visited Las Vegas, things would change dramatically.  There’d be more buildings, more restaurants, and more people on the Strip.  Unfortunately, t

  Cedar Island Boating Access Area, North Carolina  My wife and I’s early retirement is all thanks to the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement.  My first encounter with FIRE movement was around 2010 when I was browsing the internet with search topics like   ‘how to retire early’, ‘done with rat race’, and ‘retiring on $200000’.   Let me first set the scene back in 2010... I had neither $200k nor any real ability to retire early back then.  My retirement account balance was under $10000 and I honestly didn’t understand how early retirement could even be within reach.  In my hopeless state, I was just hoping to find something out there that can lead me on the right path to financial independence. I first encountered Jacob Lund Fisker of ‘Early Retirement Extreme’.  I read his story of his early retirement in which he lived on $7000! per year, which means he needed about $175k total net worth (value of all assets minus liabilities). This was my eureka moment!  This was what

  Money growing over time! Welcome back!  This is the fourth installment of ‘financial tools to master’ series.  In this post, I would like to discuss the importance of retirement accounts and how they can help in your path to early retirement. My first encounter with a retirement account was at my first job selling Toyotas/Pontiacs.  ***For benefit of those who don’t know what a Pontiac is, it was a brand of cars that General Motors sold.  It was discontinued around 2009.  My supervisor at the time mentioned it, but frankly I had no idea what it was.  Not knowing much about the 401k, I declined to open an account.   After I changed my job from selling Toyotas/Pontiacs to Acuras, I opened up a 401k account.  My colleagues at the Acura dealership were instrumental in getting me interested in a retirement account like the 401k.  They would show me how much they were putting away each pay check.  They were showing me how it worked.   Just because I opened an account didn’t mean I understo

  Budgeting! Welcome back!  I’m a recent early retiree who is a follower of FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement.  I started this blog (Wandering Money Pig) to share my personal journey of preparing for early retirement and living early retirement.   I felt basic lessons about money / finance were sorely lacking in our educational system.  I wanted to give someone basic knowledge of finance in the simplest way I know how.  I’m no professional, but through avidly reading about finances and applying what worked for me, I’ve managed to figure out how to retire early.   I, myself, did not really know much about finance until the middle of my thirties.  I encourage anyone to learn as much as he/she can and to get interested in finance, as this is the way I was able to retire early.  I hope to share what has helped me in my journey to become financially independent.   This third topic of budgeting is really important to master.  How much you spend is half of the equation to