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

  Coligny Beach Park, Hilton Head Island, SC After doing a 10 week long cross country road trip the previous winter, going from North Carolina to Southern California, my wife and myself’s tingling traveling genes were fully alert and ready for more adventures.  As most people do, we were secretly thinking about our next road trip as our West Coast road trip was slowly coming to an end, right around February, 2023.   When both of us were working stiffs, every time we would take a vacation (typically a one week affair), the thought of going back to work the following week always made us sad, and frankly depressed.  Because of that, just thinking about the next trip made us immediately happier and more optimistic about life in general. I’m sure we’re not the only ones who felt this way when seeing your precious vacation coming to an end.  Researching and thinking about the next vacation seemed to be the cure for our ailing hearts and wandering minds… To that end, ...

  Coligny Beach Park, Hilton Head Island, SC The last time my wife and I visited Hilton Head Island was way back in 2003, on our way down to Florida, for a one night stay.  We had just spent 2 nights in Myrtle Beach (SC) prior to our trip to Hilton Head Island, and we wanted to at least see the place, so we made a reservation to stay the night. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to do much or see the island that trip, as we were looking forward to going to Savannah (GA) early next morning.  Big cities, like Savannah for us back then, had a much bigger attraction for us as a potential travel destination.   This was prior to us getting our Pomeranian Toby, who seriously got us into hiking and all things parks (national/state/local/community).  But back then, we were just interested in hanging out in a big city, spending couple of nights eating, drinking, and shopping, just like all people do at that consumption-centric age.   Long story short, we arrived at Hilto...

  Warren Buffett:  “Fear is the most contagious disease you can imagine.  It makes the virus look like a piker.” The stock market and the bond market which my wife and I have been relying upon to fuel our early retirement, has seen its peak exactly 16 months into our retirement, in December 2021.  When we retired early in August 2020, thanks to the concept of FIRE (financial independence retire early) movement, we thought we had prepared ourselves for the inevitable ups and downs of the financial markets. What we didn’t realize at the time of our early retirement were the macroeconomic conditions that we didn’t even know existed.  Things like demographics and when people consume vs invest, were simply not known to me when I was researching all things finance-related and FIRE related. How was I to know that thanks to globalization, when people take manufacturing or services related jobs in the cities, that that would transform how many kids they would have? ...