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

  Watkins Glen State Park, NY Unknown:  “A cemetery is the only place where people don’t try to keep up with the Joneses.” Recently, my wife shared with me a video of a psychiatrist who was discussing the topic of happiness.  In the video, she was discussing all the ways one can try to be happy and all the ways one can try to be unhappy.  Out of all the good things she discussed, one of the statements that stuck with me was when she stated that comparing yourself to others is the worst enemy of happiness . That really got me thinking.   When I was a young teenager, like everyone in that age bracket, I lived to be like someone else.  I wanted to be like Michal Jordan, Bruce Lee , or any number of famous celebrities that were rich and famous.  This got me into learning Taekwondo to try to emulate Bruce Lee, and this got me copying basketballs moves ala Michael Jordan.   Although I didn’t become any one of my idols, I at least got to experience what...

  Lake Wallenpaupack, PA When our pack (my wife, myself, and our dog Toby) lived in the state of Pennsylvania from 2007 until we sold the place to retire early in August 2020, we visited quite a few places near and far from our home in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  We would take many day trips to explore the great outdoors, especially with our energetic Pomeranian dog Toby, nudging us to go walking on weekends. Thanks to our Toby, exploring new places were fun, and we owe him a great deal for making us embrace nature and all its incredible beauty.  We explored places like Ricketts Glen State Park, World’s End S.P., and Promised Land S.P. together, happily spending time walking/hiking/exploring some of the most beautiful parks in the state.   It was during one of our jaunts that we discovered Lake Wallenpaupack in the Pocono Mountains .  It was a place I had heard about from my work colleagues.  During the summers especially, Lake Wallenpaupack seemed to ...

  Horseshoe Bend, Page, AZ My wife and I are no strangers to either the states of Arizona or Utah .  We’ve visited several places like Scottsdale, Phoenix, Grand Canyons National Park in Arizona, and we’ve visited one of our favorite national parks, Zion N.P. in Utah. When we were planning our 2+ months long cross country road trip going from North Carolina to Southern California, we knew we wanted to revisit both states, but really see them in much more detail.  There are just so many wonderful, world famous attractions in both states, and we wanted to explore many of them during our trip. We knew we wanted to visit national parks/monuments/landmarks along our travels, including Petrified Forest N.P, Meteor Crater Natural Landmark, Horseshoe Bend, Antelope Canyon in Arizona and all 5 Utah national parks including Arches N.P., Canyonlands N.P., Capitol Reef N.P., Bryce Canyon N.P., and Zion N.P. These are iconic places that all Americans revere.  I grew up watchin...

  Capitol Reef National Park, Utah George Bernard Shaw:  “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” One of the most frequently asked questions my wife and I get from our friends and family these days is what’s life like after 3 years of early retirement.  Each time we think about the question these days, we have a hard time believing we’ve already lived through 3+ years of retirement! We still remember the days just before we jumped off the rat race, selling our home, selling most of our stuff, quitting our jobs, then heading out into the sunset in August 2020, during the peak of Covid-19 pandemic.  We remember packing everything left over into our Chevy SUV until 8:45 a.m. the day we were supposed to leave our home of 14 years, getting ready to arrive at our home closing at 9:30 a.m. We closed on our home that morning right outside (not inside the office as is usually the case) the settlement agency thanks to raging pandemic. ...