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

  Castle in the Clouds, New Hampshire  My wife and I had prided ourselves on the fact that we had visited just about every New England state, except for Maine and New Hampshire.  All that changed in the summer of 2022, when we were fortunate enough to experience both states during our 2 months long stay in Maine. When we used to ski up in Vermont while we made our home in New York City, we considered driving over to New Hampshire, just so we can say we visited the state.  That never materialized as winters in Vermont can be brutal, cold, and with lots of snow!  We got lazy, and frankly too comfortable in the comforts of our warm condo in Vermont after a day of skiing. My wife was the one who brought up the idea to visit New Hampshire, to visit her ex-coworker, who retired in the state.  I was, of course, happy at the thought!  I had never met her and her family, so I was looking forward to making new friends and seeing the state for the very first time. We planned for 2 night/3 day tri

  Montreal, Canada  As a relatively recent early retirees as of August 2020, my wife and I have been living on a fairly tight fixed income every month.  Thanks to our adherence to the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement, we’ve been able to get by (and enjoy ourselves) for the past two years or so, traveling the United States as well as Canada. Admittedly, our second year of our retirement did end up costing us more money compared to our first year of retirement, thanks to rising inflation and macroeconomics.  The AirBnB rental, for example, cost roughly $300 more on average, the second year. In these times of weird economic conditions, where inflation is incredibly high, all asset classes are getting hammered, but people are still going on ‘ revenge travel ’, we’re having a hard time trying to make sense of all these economic data coming in from all sectors, like real estate, stocks/bonds, and energy. In my lifetime, I’ve never seen used cars  appreciate  in value, yet

View from our AirBnB, Tupper Lake (NY), April 2022   Dalai Lama:  “Once a year, go some place you’ve never been before.” My wife and I have been using AirBnB (and Vrbo once) to book our long term stays for a month or longer since our early retirement in August 2020.  We are currently living without a permanent home, as we sold our home of 14 years that month, to coincide with our retirement. We are what most people would refer to as nomads, traveling to new places for 8 months out of the year, while staying with our family for the rest of the year.  Since our early retirement, we’ve used AirBnB/Vrbo for long term stays at Ocean City (MD), Atlantic Beach (NC), Claysburg (PA), Ellicottville (NY), Indiana (PA), Altoona (PA), Murrells Inlet (SC), Tupper Lake (NY), Stratton (ME), and Canaan (VT). We’ve been very fortunate AirBnB/Vrbo is in existence, for if they weren’t, we would have to find long term stays the good old fashioned way, which is booking motels, hotels, or vacation rentals.