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

  North Carolina Museum of Art  Towards the end of October (2022), my wife and I headed to Raleigh from our parent’s place in New York City, to stay with our brother-in-law and his family.  There were two reasons for this:  1) our Chevy SUV was coming off of a lease, and 2) we were planning to do a cross country trip from North Carolina to California towards the end of November, once the car situation was taken care of. It made sense to buy the replacement vehicle in the same state we were domiciled in, namely North Carolina, and it also made sense to leave from North Carolina, as we were planning on visiting many cities, attractions, and national parks in the south, the southwest, and finally Southern California.   We were lucky in accomplishing our first reason for going down to North Carolina in that we managed to buy a new Mazda SUV in just one day, despite all the talk about lack of cars for sale, thanks to supply chain disruptions.  The car gods were definitely helping us that pa

  Be prepared in this age of cyber crime! Colin Powell:  “There are no secrets to success.  It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” One of the most frustrating things about life is dealing with all the side effects of being an adult.  Before I had a credit card, or a credit score, life seemed easier.  I didn’t have to deal with different credit card companies asking if I had recently purchased things I normally wouldn’t buy.  Before having a credit score, I never had to deal with a bank or a credit card issuer calling me to confirm my personal information when I did not request credit in the first place… I’m sure most people can relate to frustrations dealing with things like these once they started having credit.  In my personal experience, I’ve had three of my credit cards hacked.  In each of these instances, someone bought goods using my credit cards.   In the first case, someone charged $900+ worth of sneakers at a Foot Locker in Maryland, when I wa

  Do a yearly financial check up! George Washington:  “We must consult our means rather than our wishes.” My wife and myself’s journey towards financial independence and freedom started way back in 2010 or so, when I discovered the whole FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement.  Once I figured out we can retire early by reducing our yearly expenses and saving/investing, we finally had a goal we can actually achieve! My discovery was a true ‘eureka’ moment that changed our lives.  Rather than just wishing for early retirement, as it was simply a next-to-impossible task to accrue millions upon millions of dollars that we thought we needed for early retirement, we had a tangible and an achievable plan in place.   For those of you who have been following this blog (or any FIRE movement bloggers), it should be no surprise that the basics of the FIRE movement doesn’t change all that much.  These are things like: Budgeting :   To figure out how much is coming in vs going out, s

  Toby in Charleston, SC (2022) Pablo Picasso:  “I’m always doing things I can’t do; that’s how I get to do them.” December 2022 marks the second year anniversary of this blog “ Wandering Money Pig ”.  It’s true what people say about time.  It really flies, especially when you’re having fun.  I have a hard time believing it’s been two years since I started this blog. The first year of this blog covered everything I personally felt and experienced about the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement leading up to my early retirement, as well as my personal journey of early retirement.  If the first year was laying down the philosophy of my personal variation of the FIRE movement, including how and why I got into the movement, then the second year covered how my actual early retirement was going.   I traveled to so many places during the second year.  These places included Altoona (PA), Snowshoe (WV), Murrells Inlet (SC), Tupper Lake (NY), Stratton (ME), and Canaan (VT).  All o

  Get that job after doing a great interview! My introduction to the corporate world would begin relatively late, around my mid thirties.  Prior to that, I had worked in car dealerships and at a small start up company.  The corporate world is a whole new animal all together.   It has its own ecosystem comprising of upper management, who most worker bees consider godlike creatures, that everyone caters to.  It has mid level management, who has the unenviable and impossible task of placating the upper management and the worker bees.  And finally, there are the worker bees who are the ones in the trenches working, complaining, and trying to make the best out of the daily grind. Corporate world also has internal politics, as various departments may try jockeying for power, to get a more favorable office location, or bigger budgets! Despite all the chatter that corporations are heartless and only care about the bottom line, I found the company I had worked for, do care about people as well

  Yankee Stadium, the Bronx, New York My first recollection of seeing the  New York Yankees was in October of 1981, when my family emigrated to New York City, United States.  My dad was a fan of the team, so he turned us onto watching the playoffs and eventually the Fall Classic  ( World Series ) that year.  I didn’t know the team or any of the players at first, but I soon learned to embrace the team as my hometown baseball team. New York Yankees would face their familiar foe in Los Angeles Dodgers that World Series.  Two teams, as I would eventually find out, played in the World Series on several occasions, as recently as 1977-1978. The first two games were won by the Yankees, who would then go on to lose the next four games!  It was the highest of highs to see your home team win games, only to experience the lowest of lows to see your team lose the series just a week later.   I got to watch great players like Willie Randolph , Graig Nettle s, Dave Winfield , and Reggie Jackson , th