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Sharing My Retirement Journey
Old 11-08-2013, 12:53 PM   #1
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Sharing My Retirement Journey

Sharing My Retirement Journey

I want to share my financial independence (retirement?) journey through posts on this forum. How I got to financial independence. What I do with it. What I have learned (and continue to learn) that could help others reach and enjoy their financial independence. And in the process to learn even more from the feedback I hope to get.

Some of my posts will be about money management. About what I call frugality without sacrifice. About how I manage to lead a pretty nice lifestyle for less than $18,000 gross a year.

Some of my posts will be about my investment “adventures.” About how my $400,000 stash yields me $28,000 to $32,000 a year in passive income. And about the risks that involves.

And some of my posts will be about what I do with my free time and my surplus money now that I have (or think I have) full control of my time and money to do something with it.

My core money management strategy is frugality without sacrifice -- what I call playing the frugal game. Cutting the waste and getting more for my money every time I spend any of it. I know that sounds like a “duh” statement. But I’ve been amazed (and you might be too) at just how much money can fall through the cracks when one takes one’s eye off the frugal spending ball.

My investment strategy is based on creating and maintaining a high yield stream of dividend and interest payments. That also means that my strategy is more high risk than a lot of people are willing to accept. But it works for me. And many of my posts will be about how and why that is so.

I put a good deal of my time into investing and money management so that I can have the financial freedom to do what I want. But actually taking the time to do fun things is something of a problem for me. If left to myself (so to speak) I have a strong tendency to either let my time go to doing more chores (since there’s always more) or to plop down to watch a DVD movie. And that’s not how I really want to spend what’s supposed to be my free fun time.

So I am continuing to develop scheduling and routine setting tactics to “force” myself into actually using my time to hike, take trips, write these posts, do serious history reading, and develop some real hobby-interests. And I’ll be writing posts about how that is working out.

In short, it is very important to me to feel that I am in control of my life, to have goals, and to actually accomplish them. When all of that comes together, I feel good about my life and about myself. I’ll be writing these posts to help me stay on that course.

Along the way, I hope some of what I’ve learned and what I will continue to learn helps you in your quest for financial independence. And I’m pretty sure I too will learn a lot from your responses to my posts.

Alex in Virginia
 
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Old 11-08-2013, 01:04 PM   #2
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Looking forward to reading this thread Alex. Good start.
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Old 11-08-2013, 02:12 PM   #3
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I also look forward to hearing more about your journey....thanks for the update.
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Old 11-08-2013, 03:14 PM   #4
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Hi, pb4uski and Singletrack...

Thanks for your good wishes.

I'm working on a couple of posts and wondered whether y'all would be more interested in some more detail on my investing approach or on my frugal budgeting process? Or something else?

Let me know if you have a preference.

Thanks,

Alex in Virginia
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Old 11-08-2013, 03:16 PM   #5
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Is there some reason you don't just create a blog?
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Old 11-08-2013, 03:34 PM   #6
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Brewer is correct. You oughta start a blog. You're welcome here, but a blog will offer you more control and options than you will have as a guest at this forum.
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Old 11-08-2013, 03:51 PM   #7
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I look forward to hearing more about your travels as we are in a similar situation.
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Old 11-08-2013, 03:59 PM   #8
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I have enjoyed your posts on your frugal lifestyle so far, Alex, and would enjoy reading more. We are moving down a similar path. We have been cutting expenses for a couple years now and quite enjoy having less stuff and more free time.
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Old 11-08-2013, 04:39 PM   #9
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I too am looking forward to your descriptions about living on that amount.
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Old 11-08-2013, 05:34 PM   #10
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Hi Alex. I always enjoy your posts. The blog is a good idea, but honestly - I'd be more apt to read posts here rather than go to a blog. Perhaps you can do a summary here and then put a link to the blog for more detail. I'd probably follow a link.

I'd love to hear how you can get by on only 18k a year. Can you start with your budget. My budget for healthcare alone is 30k (which assumes 7k out of pocket per year but not the 12.6k OOP max I might have to pay !).
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Old 11-08-2013, 05:44 PM   #11
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Hi Alex. I always enjoy your posts. The blog is a good idea, but honestly - I'd be more apt to read posts here rather than go to a blog. Perhaps you can do a summary here and then put a link to the blog for more detail. I'd probably follow a link.

I'd love to hear how you can get by on only 18k a year. Can you start with your budget. My budget for healthcare alone is 30k (which assumes 7k out of pocket per year but not the 12.6k OOP max I might have to pay !).
I suspect that your health care costs vary greatly depending on whether you are a) married, and b) with kids. For that matter, your overall COL is clearly going to be lower without kids. As for couples, I guess a couple that both works probably has the best scenario, followed by a couple with one income but no kids.
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Old 11-08-2013, 05:58 PM   #12
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Hi Alex. I always enjoy your posts. The blog is a good idea, but honestly - I'd be more apt to read posts here rather than go to a blog. Perhaps you can do a summary here and then put a link to the blog for more detail. I'd probably follow a link......
One could have a link to a blog in his or her profile but not in posts themselves, per the Community Rules here. /mod hat off/
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Old 11-08-2013, 11:18 PM   #13
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Just be on the lookout for shadowy figures packing Kryptonite.

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Old 11-09-2013, 05:29 AM   #14
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Hi, Brewer12345, HawkeyeNFO, Live and Learn, and Bestwifeever...

Thank you so much for commenting on my original post.

All of your comments had to do with the question of whether I should create my own blog instead of posting here in this Forum. I'll give you the short version of my answer now: managing my own blog -- yes, I said managing --would be WAY more work than I would want to do. The long version of that answer I will publish in a new post that I began writing today. (And thanks loads for the idea!)

Cheers...

Alex in Virginia
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Old 11-09-2013, 06:38 AM   #15
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Dude, "managing" a blog isn't much work at all. You don't have to write every day, lol. And it doesn't take any longer to write on the blog than writing it here. Tumblr is pretty easy to use, if you want to check it out. I use Wordpress, which is harder, but lots more options.
I think you'd like it if you tried it.
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Old 11-09-2013, 06:57 AM   #16
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Dude, "managing" a blog isn't much work at all. You don't have to write every day, lol. And it doesn't take any longer to write on the blog than writing it here. Tumblr is pretty easy to use, if you want to check it out. I use Wordpress, which is harder, but lots more options.
I think you'd like it if you tried it.
Yep.

Plus you wouldn't have others interrupting your blog with cat videos...

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Old 11-09-2013, 07:35 AM   #17
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Yep. Plus you wouldn't have others interrupting your blog with cat videos...
I am very disappointed--you couldn't find a video about a cat retiring or reading AARP magazine or clipping coupons to stay on topic?

Like this one

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Old 11-09-2013, 07:41 AM   #18
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Dude, "managing" a blog isn't much work at all. You don't have to write every day, lol. And it doesn't take any longer to write on the blog than writing it here. Tumblr is pretty easy to use, if you want to check it out. I use Wordpress, which is harder, but lots more options. I think you'd like it if you tried it.

Hey, Sarah in SC (and REWahoo)...

Thanks for your replies to my post.

It's not about the writing. It's about the marketing management of the blog to drive traffic to it. Just wait a little... I'll have a full post on this fairly soon.

(And BTW, I love kitty cats!)

Alex in Virginia
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Old 11-09-2013, 07:55 AM   #19
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Hey, Sarah in SC (and REWahoo)...

Thanks for your replies to my post.

It's not about the writing. It's about the marketing management of the blog to drive traffic to it. Just wait a little... I'll have a full post on this fairly soon.

(And BTW, I love kitty cats!)

Alex in Virginia
Got it - it's all about the traffic.

You want to use the E-R "discussion" forum as your blog site so you can leverage the readership to get visibility for your personal story. Too bad you can't run some ads to generate a little income.
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Old 11-09-2013, 08:00 AM   #20
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Got it - it's all about the traffic.

You want to use the E-R "discussion" forum as your blog site so you can leverage the readership to get visibility for your personal story. Too bad you can't run some ads to generate a little income.
Well, he is such an altruist that ads are beside the point.
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