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

  Seneca Rocks, WV John Kruk:  “People in West Virginia do have cars.  We have indoor plumbing.  We even use knives and forks.” As a kid, one of my favorite songs I listened to was John Denver ’s “ Take me home, country roads .”  The lyrics of that song made an impression on me as a kid growing up in the mean concrete jungles of New York City. I longed to drive those West Virginia country roads with its Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah River as soon as I possibly could.  It would take all of 31 years before I would set my foot (well, my car actually) on West Virginia roads, on our way towards Memphis, TN. Our drive through the state via I-81 wasn’t very noteworthy.  It had some nice views of the mountains and farms, but it was rather underwhelming that first and brief drive through the state. All that perception changed with our first actual overnight stay in West Virginia, and not just a drive through.  For the month of October 2021, we booke...

  Be ambitious to reach your financial goals! Oscar Wilde:  “Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.” Our early retirement enabled us to travel a month or longer at a time with our Pomeranian dog, Toby.  Since August 2020, we’ve visited various destinations on the eastern parts of the United States, and we look forward to doing just that in the foreseeable future. In this post, I’d like to share my thoughts and experiences on ambition and why it is vital to reach your goal of financial independence and retiring early.   Around 2010 or so, I encountered the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement by chance.  I was searching online for search terms like ‘retiring early’, retiring on 200k’, and ‘how to end the rat race’. I came upon two that struck a chord:   Jacob Lund Fisker (Early Retirement Extreme) and Peter Adeney (Mr. Money Moustache)....

  Driving on I-80 westbound, Pennsylvania  Welcome back! This is the eleventh installment in ‘ a series of financial tools to master ’.  The topic we will be covering is avoiding scams .   For those of you that have missed any of the previous series, please see the bottom of this post for links. I had my first ‘introduction’ to the world of scams at an early age of 14.  I was looking to get rich quick at that age so I can brag to my friends and family.  I discovered a scam that asks for a tiny sum, a processing fee, to enroll me in sweepstakes/games to make money.  It sounded awesome! Little did I know, this was a scam to get more of these processing fees from naive, unsuspecting individuals, like me... After taken along for the ride one too many times, I finally said enough’s enough after few months.  I promised myself that I wouldn’t fall prey to these scams ever again!!! Well, that promise didn’t last forever... I got involved with a pyramid sc...

Hammocks Beach State Park, North Carolina  Part time work or gig economy may become more prevalent in the foreseeable future, as more companies look to shed workforce and/or replace with a more ‘mobile’ (on standby) workforce.  How does someone who’s a part time worker or a gig worker supposed to retire? In this post, I’d like to discuss financial independence and retiring early for more than 1/3 of US working population who are part time or gig workers.   Let’s first define the term: A part time worker or a gig worker is defined as someone who works under 30 hours per week at one job.  In many cases, someone may be working multiple jobs.  Worker’s hours may be over 30 hours or even 40 hours depending on how busy the work gets.  This is in contrast to a full time worker who typically works 40 hours per week for one employer.   Most part timers will not have access to benefits like the 401k (or health insurance).  Instead, part timers need to figur...

  Myrtle Beach, SC Ralph Waldo Emerson:  “Life is a journey, not a destination.” On February 4th, a Friday, my wife and I were binge watching a new Amazon Prime TV series  Reacher .  What’s even remotely interesting about this statement is that we were doing this on a typical workday.  In our previous life (working 40 hours per week like most people), the idea of binge watching would only be possible during long holiday breaks between Christmas until New Year’s Day. During that week (or more like 8-10 days when counting the weekends), we would chill at home, and veg out, doing absolutely nothing but watch movies or tv shows, with snacks by our sides.  That used to be our annual ritual during the holidays.  We would catch up on movies we had missed, or rewatch some of our favorite movies/tv shows.  What we remember the most about those carefree week off from work is that we loved that we were doing absolutely nothing at all, without worrying about ...

  Beautiful Snowshoe, WV My wife and I (and our Pomeranian Toby) were very lucky to have spent a month in the beautiful state of West Virginia during the month of October.  When we planned our month long trip to the Mountain State , we were just hoping it would be during the fall foliage.   We had heard from our friends and acquaintances that October is the best month for fall foliage in the Mountain State.  Armed with this knowledge, we set about exploring and experiencing all that West Virginia has to offer! The drive down from our parent’s home in New York City was epic.  Every country road we took was beautiful, accentuated by colors of the rainbow.  Thanks to gorgeous weather on October 1st, we got to see  fall foliage in its perfect splendor.   Every country road on our way to Snowshoe Mountain Resort has curves and you’d be hard pressed to find a straight road for even a mile.  If you know me at all, I love driving all these undulatin...