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

  Time to give thanks! Welcome back readers!  In this post, I’d like to take the time to give my thanks and to give back to our readers for their support.  My wife and I have always believed in the power of showing gratitude, and this felt like the right time to do just that!   To start I’d like to quote a tidbit of one of my favorite ball players, the immortal Lou Gehrig of the NY Yankees:   “... today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth ...”  This is one of my favorite speeches of all time.  It shows a man who would succumb to ALS disease in less than 3 years, showing gratitude even in those harrowing times.   His speech will forever be remembered for its message of courage, determination, and hope, which all of us can learn from... When I started this blog (Wandering Money Pig), I had no idea who, besides few of my family members and friends, would read my blog.  The reason I started the blog was to share my two pas...

Emerald Isle Boating Access Area My wife and I have spent the months of December, January, and February (2020 through 2021) in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.  This was our second long term destination, after Ocean City (Maryland), where we spent a month or longer, as part of our slow travel plan. By ‘slow’ traveling, we’re able to see and experience a destination’s attractions much more in detail.  We can explore the nooks and crannies, places most visitors may not get to see.  On a ‘normal’ vacation lasting a week, our itinerary would be somewhat hurried as we were eager to discover as much of the destination as possible.  This would also tire us out to try to keep to our itinerary! The three parks we’ll be covering in this post are my favorite parks on Bogue Banks.  Our pack (my wife, myself, and our 13 pound Pomeranian, Toby) spent countless hours in these parks.   Our top 3 Bogue Banks parks:      1.    Fort Macon State Park *...

  Getting insurance is part of being financially secure! Welcome back!  This is a sixth installment in the series of financial tools to master.  In the previous installments, we covered checking accounts, savings accounts, budgeting, retirement accounts, and brokerage accounts.  I’ll put links to all of these posts at the bottom of the page for those who have missed any of them. Insurance, as weird as it sounds, is one of the most important tools to master for financial well-being.  Without it, all the money you have will no longer be with you.  If you have a medical emergency or a car accident, insurance is what you need so you won’t have to pay out of your retirement accounts, brokerage accounts, or your emergency fund. It’s not one of the more sexier topics for financial independence but I believe it warrants a closer look as it does require everyone to deal with and to understand it.   Let’s first define the term: Insurance is a means of protection...

Sunset at the beach, Atlantic Beach, North Carolina  I have been retired since August of 2020, at age 48.  In this post, I’d like to share with you my personal experiences after my last day at my job. August 17th would be Day One of my early retirement.  I had dropped off my company equipment and signed my papers, then had come home after saying goodbye to my supervisor / mentor (with a box of Sam Adams in my hand, courtesy of my mentor!) That day and subsequent few days until closing of our home (August 24) would be spent not on enjoying our early retirement, but rather on preparing for our home sale and on downsizing.  * Click here to read about selling our home during the pandemic here . Our typical day would include dropping off donations, throwing out/recycling stuff, shredding old documents (why in the world did we have documents from high school!?!), painting, and cleaning each room.   August 24th came.  We loaded up remainder of our belongings (we w...

  Looking up stocks! Welcome back!  This post will cover brokerage accounts, which is the fifth topic in a series of financial tools to master.  Brokerage accounts are used by many early retirees of the FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement to get them by until the official retirement age of 59 1/2.  Sometimes it’s used exclusively as their only retirement vehicle.  If you’ve missed any of the previous posts on ‘financial tools to master’ series, please see the links at the bottom of this page. What are brokerage accounts? A brokerage account is an investment account that allows you to buy and sell things like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, money market funds, etc.  There are many brokerages like Charles Schwab, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Vanguard, E-Trade, Robinhood, etc., that you can choose. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but I would recommend researching these to figure out what works for you.  I recommend ‘discount brokerage firms...

  Money growing over time Albert Einstein: “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.  He who understands it, earns it...he who doesn’t...pays it. This quote is one of my favorites of all time.  It sums up the basic tenet of investing which allows early retirement to work by growing money over time.  It also underscores an important lesson which is also important to grasp, which is, don’t owe money to anyone , as compounding interest will make your life absolutely miserable, as money you borrow will get bigger over time! I, along with my wife, are one of many adherents of FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement, and we can proudly say we’ve seen the power of compounding interest first hand.  What is compounding interest? Compounding interest is the addition of interest to the principal sum (loan or deposit), basically adding interest on interest.  This happens when interest is reinvested rather than paid out, thereby the interest ear...

Valley of Fire State Park, near Las Vegas, NV I’ve been to Las Vegas a total of six times so far, and my wife, a total of four times.  During the days of COMDEX that was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, I had the pleasure of visiting the desert oasis twice on business, and four times on pleasure! The first time I went there, I was totally blown away at how busy the Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) was.  There’d be tons of people walking around, with street vendors and performers of all creeds and nationalities.  There were high rise hotels and casinos that built Las Vegas, glittering at night and luring souls to hand over their hard earned money.  All that glittering at night was similar to where I grew up (New York City), in that the desert city never sleeps! Las Vegas is a transient city and is constantly evolving.  It seems each time I visited Las Vegas, things would change dramatically.  There’d be more buildings, more restaurants, and more people on...