Caroline

As we've been writing about on here since the beginning of this website, our youngest daughter goes off to college later this year, and that will be the moment we officially become empty-nesters and can employ our FIRE escape plan. She is now receiving her college decisions, and scholarship / financial aid offers, and so her college price tag is become more clear by the day. Private college costs $300,000 [...]

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We may receive compensation if you click one of those links and purchase a product. This reader is choosing between a real estate investment in Alabama or Costa Rica: My wife and I (both born and raised in the US) are looking into buying our first rental property. I'm looking at a condo in Gulf Shores, Alabama, but she wants [...]

With both our youngest daughter and my nephew graduating high school this year, the subject of taking a gap year did come up for discussion. Both kids are going straight to college, but both did express interest in Costa Rica if they had opted to do a gap year. My nephew is interested in marine biology and spent a few weeks in Spain studying Spanish, so Costa Rica would be [...]

In a recent post, Mr. Free @ 33 blogged that FIRE is a paradox, pointing out that the people most well-positioned to achieve are the people least likely to need it – Warren Buffett is the example cited. In the post, Mr. Free @ 33 was inspired by Retire By 40, another blogger who had posted that FIRE is a fad due to its anti-establishment appeal which by definition then [...]

My friend who took almost six months off for a travel sabbatical recently landed a job. He got this offer after two to three months of job searching, and it is at a comparable level to where he left off. Clearly his time away didn’t detract from his career. That said, there is no guarantee that if you take extended time away from your career you can pick up right [...]

While we have sold off real estate before, we have done far more buying than selling (19 purchases, 3 sales). However, we have a rental condo in our Jacksonville Florida portfolio that we are thinking of selling. We have made the mistake before of selling prematurely, and we have good reasons to keep this place. We similarly considered selling our Indianapolis turnkey portfolio recently, but instead opted to hold it [...]

One of my favorite parts about owning vacation rental property in Costa Rica is that we have business reasons to visit, making our trips tax-deductible! It is also fun to experience business in another country and culture. We had just six days in Guanacaste, but we squeezed out a lot of work and play. Day 1: Sunset at Playa Brasilito The flight from New York City to Liberia is about [...]

A few years ago, I read the book, “One Word That Will Change Your Life” by Dan Britton, Jimmy Page and Jon Gordon  The premise is alluringly simple, yet powerful: instead of a long list of goals and resolutions for the year, pick one word that captures the essence of what you want. Your One Word gives you focus when you need to prioritize day-to-day and make longer-term decisions. It [...]

If you want to live a more spontaneous, FIRE lifestyle even while you still have a job, then you need to negotiate for more flexibility at work. Companies will give workers more flexibility, especially when the worker fulfills a critical need. If you’re indispensable, you’re more likely to get what you ask for. Indispensability is a key trait to develop if you want flexibility at work – so you can [...]