Financial Independence Archives - Page 15 of 22

Mrs. Root of Good Jumps Into Early Retirement!

February 15, 2016 JustinRoG Awesome!, Financial Independence, Lifestyle

I’m looking over her shoulder at 4:30 pm on a Thursday while sitting in our home office. A quick last check of her emails. A moment’s hesitation. Is this really it? A click on the X in the upper right corner of the screen. Fade to black.

Ten years of work culminating in that final click on the X in the corner. One chapter of Mrs. Root of Good’s life is over. Turning the page to a new chapter, she finds the rest of the script unwritten. Her biggest worry becomes the emptiness of all that white space spread in front of her.

For over a month, it’s been a done deal but I’ve kept it a secret. Unlike the last time she resigned, no negotiation this time around. She said in her resignation letter it was time to move on. She is now officially free from the 9 to 5 work schedule.

Book Review and Interview – Job Free: Four Ways to Quit the Rat Race

February 1, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Personal Finance

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Jake Desyllas, another very early retiree. Jake hosts The Voluntary Life, a podcast about entrepreneurship, financial independence, and freedom. In 2000, he founded Intelligent Space, an award-winning consultancy in the UK, that led innovation in the field of pedestrian movement simulation and analysis. In 2007 he sold his business and in 2010 he retired early, at the age of 38. He is the author of Becoming an Entrepreneur and his new book is called Job Free.

Since achieving financial independence, his adventures have included becoming a perpetual traveller, going minimalist, playing in a band, writing books, and creating a podcast. He currently lives in Panama with his wife Hannah.

Budgeting in Retirement – 2016 Edition

January 25, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

It’s a new year so it’s time for a new budget. For the past two years I used this budget of about $32,000 per year. We spent $34,352 in 2014 and $23,802 in 2015, for an average of $29,077 over the last two years. We ended up an average of $3,000 under budget in spite of undertaking a major home renovation including new siding, new windows, and a roof repair in 2014, and a seven week trip to Mexico in 2015.

The $32,000 per year budget was my first attempt at developing an early retirement budget. I tracked our expenses for a few years before I retired in 2013 and figured out that we spent about $24,000 per year on core expenses that would continue into early retirement. To that $24,000 figure, I added extra expenses to account for increased costs in early retirement like health care and traveling the globe.

The Deception of a Billion Dollar Jackpot

January 11, 2016 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Personal Finance

I get it. It sucks you in. Dreaming of all the ways you would spend a sudden windfall. The lottery is this amazing chance to live on easy street for the millions that play it every week. It’s literally a ticket to a better life. Where else but the Powerball lottery can you invest $2 and turn it into $1.3 billion dollars overnight?

When you come forward, your name is public in most states. I hope you enjoy being a very popular third cousin once removed to everyone and their brother. And hey, if you do win, can I borrow some money because I’ve got a really great business idea and I’m willing to let you in as a partner on the ground floor? I’ll pay you back, I promise.

How We Reached Financial Independence In Our 30’s

November 30, 2015 JustinRoG Awesome!, Financial Independence, Personal Finance

After posting the Zero to Millionaire in Ten Years post a few weeks ago, there’s been a huge amount of traffic visiting Root of Good (hello, new readers!). The article received top billing at Rockstar Finance (thanks, J Money!). Business Insider loved my story so much that they reprinted it and it’s received close to a million views in the last two weeks. My own article has been shared over 400 times (that I know of) on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, and the Business Insider article has probably been shared thousands or tens of thousands of times.

Along with great attention comes inane comments. It’s the Law of the Internet. Check out the comments at the Business Insider article if you don’t believe me! I put together a response to a few of the frequent questions and comments generated by the Business Insider article.

How Early Retirement Affects Social Security

November 18, 2015 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

This week I’m jumping into the inner workings of Social Security to answer a question about the impact of early retirement on how much Social Security early retirees will qualify for.

The usual question is: “Yeah but if you retire early you won’t get hardly any social security and you’ll be poor when you’re older. You should keep working till a reasonable age like 67 so you can earn a good Social Security payment”. Okay, grammarians, I confess. That’s not really a question but rather a complaint in the form of a declarative sentence followed by another declarative sentence.

The short answer is that the complainant has no clue how Social Security works, because early retirees typically qualify for really great SS benefits given how little they work. The long answer involves bend points and understanding the progressive nature of the Social Security system. And math.

Zero To Millionaire in Ten Years

November 9, 2015 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

Financial voyeurs of the world, rejoice! I dug out all our old tax returns, pay stubs, and my net worth spreadsheet to pull together the story of our ten year journey from nearly zero net worth to millionaire status (and early retirement).

This post answers a lot of questions like: How much did we earn? Did we have six figure incomes all of our careers? Did we work for a start up and make a million when our employer went IPO? Did we get lucky picking stocks?

September 2015 Financial Update

October 5, 2015 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Lifestyle, Personal Finance

September is over and left us a little poorer but in overall great financial shape. Our net worth dropped by $36,000 in spite of $8,225 in income for the month and a meager $927 in expenses.

The older kids are back in school and we’re settling into the school year routine. I’m back to my normal weekly early retirement schedule. We returned home from our 7 week vacation in Mexico two months ago. Mrs. Root of Good had some excitement this month when she submitted her resignation letter to join me in early retirement. Instead of quitting outright, she’s now working from home four days per week with full time pay. Pretty sweet deal!

Mrs. RoG’s First Attempt at Early Retirement

September 21, 2015 JustinRoG Awesome!, Financial Independence, Lifestyle

She did it. She finally did it! On September 1st Mrs. Root of Good formally resigned from her job.

After composing the resignation email at home the previous weekend, she lingered in anguish at her desk on the morning of September 1st with her mouse hovering over the send button. She was very nervous when it came time to email the official resignation letter to her bosses. Was it the right choice? Was it the right time? Will she regret the decision later?

SEND. If not now, when?

It is done.

But there is more to the story of course!

August 2015 Financial Update

September 8, 2015 JustinRoG Financial Independence, Personal Finance

August showed us how net worth can fluctuate wildly while income and expenses remain fairly stable. August also reminded us that investments in the stock market don’t always go up.

Our net worth reversed course from the previous six months of generally upward momentum and crashed by $74,000 to $1,470,000. That sounds like a scary sum of cash to lose in one month but I’m not worried at all.

Income for the month was lower than normal at $2,016. Expenses of $1,701 were slightly less than our anemic August income. We’re finally settling back down into our lives here in Raleigh after spending June and July out of the country on an incredible seven week journey through Mexico (with three kids!).