The Journey That Is Your Life

I do believe that life is a journey. And like any journey it can be fantastic, harrowing, boring and everything in between at times. Life surely won’t be one of those things all of the time. Over time life offers many experiences and opportunities to people. Above all though, it’s wonderful to be alive!

Over the forty plus years of my life the one thing that has been most important to me to figure out is this. How do I stay at peace inside while on this journey? Because if you think about it if you are at peace inside many many things in your life seem to come together. Whether it’s sunny out or pouring. Whether it’s hot or cold. Whether you’re healthy or sick. Whether you’re wealthy or broke. Internal peace (or peace of mind) is something that allows people to not only manage but appreciate where they’re at and what they have at any given time.

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The Power Of Frugality In Wealth Building

Over the years people have called me cheap. Okay, perhaps they’re right about that but I prefer the categorization of frugal. From where I sit people who can be called cheap just don’t want to spend money…for whatever reason. But my perception of frugal people is different. I see frugal people as those who fail to spend…on some things…with a purpose. My purpose in not spending, where possible, is related to my desire to retire early and live well for the rest of my days. With that goal in mind I’m happy to pay for the necessities of life and to enjoy life where possible without joining the masses who worship at the altar of consumerism. Things, in particular, have never excited me too much. Things like a fine leather sectional sofa or a new car or an expensive watch. There are so many things people love to spend their money on these days. We used to think back in the 1990s that the Home Shopping Network (HSN) was a niche channel on cable that catered to shopping addicts. But today the near immediate satisfaction offered by the internet has revealed just how much mass there is in mass consumerism. Not being excited by things I have not joined in the orgy of internet spending, at least not to the level of most American adults. I enjoy my 25-year old IKEA couch. I enjoy my 15-year old dining table and chairs. I enjoy my 20-year old mattress, to name a few household items I’ve had for a stretch. Because when I think of those things, and others, in my apartment the thought of replacing them doesn’t move me as much as the thought of retiring early and living well in later years moves me.

Oh sure, I’ve been known to love technology in my day so I do have a MacBook Air, an iPad, and a Windows laptop. But when I buy these things I keep them for years, not trading them in every year or two when new versions come out. I confess I went a few early iPhone cycles upgrading every year. I quit that somewhere around iPhone 6 though. I now have a Samsung Android phone that’s 2.5 years old. I’m quite happy with it and don’t feel the need to have the latest and greatest phone with Artificial Intelligence (AI) features. When I do buy a new phone I usually get one that’s been out for at least year, has been discounted, and doesn’t include all the pro features that top of the line smartphones are known for. When I moved last, about 3 years ago, I was really wanting an updated 4K TV so I gave my ten year old 50-inch LCD TV to a maintenance guy at the apartment complex where I was moving from. When I arrived at my new home I bought a new 50-inch OLED 4K TV. I also decided I wanted to have really nice sound to enjoy those 4K action movies I love so I added a companion soundbar. So I’ve been known to splurge on things from time to time! But my spending on things like that are the exception rather than the rule. After I moved into a condo I purchased in late 2022 I had problems with the refrigerator. People I talked to about it urged me to get a new refrigerator. Now there’s no shortage of places where you can order a refrigerator online, have them bring it to your door and have them take the old one away. I looked at comparable new refrigerators and they all cost over $1,000. So I decided to call a repairman. The person I got diagnosed the problem as a circuit board issue. He happened to have a circuit board because it’s a common fault of my quite common refrigerator. For $300 the fridge has worked well for almost three years since. The way my mind works doing what I did a) reduced the waste of having to junk a refrigerator; and b) freed up $700 that I could save and invest for either retirement or something more critical I’ll need to spend on down the line. That’s my mindset…for better or worse.

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Success Fatigue

Anyone who has pursued a difficult goal that’s taken a long time and a lot of effort to achieve has probably experienced the subject of this post, which is Success Fatigue. For those of us who are goal-driven and success oriented success fatigue is a real threat to the accomplishment of our goals and dreams. I’ll speak about it from my own personal experience as I have experienced success fatigue while working on my health, career, finances and relationships. I’ve also witnessed success fatigue in other goal-driven individuals, either those who I’ve known personally or people whose stories I’ve seen in the media. So what is success fatigue and why is it so important to understand? Success fatigue is a state in which a person who has been actively pursuing a goal begins to resent the effort and sacrifices they have made and begins to feel deprived of experiences they might have had if not pursuing their goal. These feelings often lead to a regression in habits from the disciplined ones practiced during the pursuit of a goal to the undisciplined ones that left the person dissatisfied with a particular aspect of their life in the first place. It’s important to understand success fatigue because, if not acknowledged and addressed, it can lead to a situation where a person backslides and gives up all of the gains they have made towards their life goals. How sad do you think it would be to spend months or years pursuing an important life goal and then find yourself back at square one after abandoning virtuous habits due to success fatigue?

My own personal experience with success fatigue is what colors my perspective on this issue. About 11 years ago after a divorce I decided to dedicate myself to getting in better physical condition. After a decade in the corporate world, advancing my education at night and helping to raise children I had let myself go. My waist had expanded my a few inches. My chest and arms had shrunken. My stamina was all but gone. I had one of those ”I’ve had it” moments one day while looking in the mirror and considering my life situation. Something lit a fire in me to start exercising regularly and eating better, which I did for many months. After about 9 months of focus, discipline and sacrifice (using knowledge gained years earlier when I was a fitness trainer) I found myself in the best physical shape I was in since more than a decade before. I could run for miles without stopping. I had muscle tone and decent strength again. I had dropped inches from my waist and could fit into pants I hadn’t worn for years. Success! Touchdown! It was a great feeling, but perhaps too great. When I realized how well I’d done I was proud but I also failed to realize that I also had started to feel as though I deprived myself too much during that 9 month period. I celebrated my success by getting lax on my diet and exercise regime. I began to skip workouts and splurge more on rich foods and alcohol. Weeks went by and I didn’t notice a difference so I thought everything was good. Then I decided to take an end of summer trip to Miami Beach. The celebration continued. Mojitos, Cuban food, sand and sunshine. Good times! While preparing to go to the beach I put on a swim suit that I had worn months before when I was slimmer. The swimsuit was now tight on me around the waist. I wondered what was wrong. Taking my first critical look in the mirror since I had realized how well I’d been doing months before I could see that my physique had once again changed, slowly but surely, over the weeks when I had changed my habits.

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The Trip That Opened My Eyes

In February 2023 I took what my boss at the time called “an extended vacation” which was a 12-day Caribbean cruise that resulted in me taking nine work days off. This trip ended up being a catalyst for my desire to retire early (before age 60) rather than working full-time till at least 62 years of age, which is what I was planning to do up to that point. There were two general issues that lead me determining that early retirement would be right for me, one of which I confronted prior to the cruise and the other which occurred to me during the cruise. The first issue was the fact that taking nine work days off was considered (by my boss at least) as an extended vacation. The second issue had to do with what I witnessed with respect to the other passengers on the cruise.

The issue regarding the length of time I could take off from work definitely frustrated me as I planned to do something during that particular period in February 2023. As with most people, any kind of a real vacation just wasn’t possible in the years 2020-2022. Add to that fact that during those same years the stress level of my job had ratcheted up considerably. Because I was working at home all the time the expectation was that I’d be available for all kinds of hours and that an increased workload might even be a welcome situation to help distract from everything else in the world. I didn’t see it that way but that’s the way the powers that be defined the time. So by January 2023 when I started to plan my time off I really needed a getaway and not just for a few days either. A two-week vacation, something I hadn’t taken during my 11+ years at the is particular company, would afford me sixteen straight days (ten work days and six weekend days) to enjoy my time off. Sixteen days afforded me some nice possibilities for travel. It became clear to me during the early planning for my vacation that, due to my work responsibilities and my company’s lean approach to staffing, a full two-weeks was untenable. So I compromised and decided to start my vacation on a Tuesday and go through the end of the following week.

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Falling For The Debt Trap

Something very frustrating has been occurring as I’ve been looking at different sources of information related to my plan to retire early, which at this point is about 14 months away. Whether it’s via blog website or YouTube videos I keep finding the content of influencers who all push the fallacy that good debt can help accelerate your path to wealth. My experience as someone who has gone from $0 to a net worth approaching $2 million (with no debt) is that using debt in an attempt to build wealth will only slow you down from achieving true financial independence. Most of the people whose content I’ve seen identify themselves with the so called FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement and have not yet achieved the FIRE they so desire.

Now I’m a ways down the road of life from the people whose content I’ve seen recently and I know about the debt pitfalls because I’ve experienced them. Yes, I’ve used debt in my life. I’ve had credit cards. I’ve had car loans. I’ve had mortgages. I’ve tried all the credit card tricks like transferring balances to 0% interest cards for a period of time and charging things so I could get points or miles. To name a couple of tricks that credit card companies use to get people hooked on using their cards. But in the end I realized that the purpose of all debt is to help you buy things you really can’t afford, which helps other people build wealth. But not you! Even mortgages, which I’ve had and think can be useful, can be quite destructive as people often use them to buy houses (or condos) that are too expensive in the hope that they can catch up on payments later or sell the property later when values rise. If they rise. And they don’t always rise as people found out in the 2008-9 housing crash. My experience simply has been that debt causes people to overextend themselves and gets people playing games (like accumulating points, miles or cash back bonuses) that distract from true wealth building.

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Friends Come And Go

For some reason I’ve been thinking a lot about my friendships, both past and present, lately. Now that I’m closer to 60 than 50 in my life I realize that there’s a lot of water under the bridge in terms of my friend relationships and things have not turned out like I expected them to on that front. But that’s an important truism in life. Things rarely turn out like you expect them to which can be good and bad. What I’ve found is that even the strongest friendships will come and go in your life and it’s not always because of tragedy or some dramatic event like a passionate argument or a betrayal. Many friendships tend to just fade out as people mature, make changes in their lives and establish new priorities.

At this point in my life I’m down to a couple of close friends who I don’t see very often as we’re in different parts of the country. Those two friends happen to know of each other but are not friends themselves. One friend, Richard, I consider very close because I’ve known him for about 35 years and from time to time we catch up either via phone calls or texts. The other friend, James, I’ve known for about 30 years and as it happens we work for the same company together albeit in different locations. We talk about work often and often that leads to discussions about how each of us and our families are doing. I see James in person a couple of times per year and I saw Richard in person about a year ago when I stayed for a weekend with his family. Before that I saw Richard about every couple of years. Beyond James and Richard I have a handful of friends, many of whom I knew from prior service in the military, who I keep in touch with over text message from time to time. We often kick around the idea of some kind of reunion but it never happens.

The bottom line is that I’ve found that in life, at least in my life, that friends come and go and that being the case it’s not worth fretting over such things too much as people need to be free to manage their lives as they see fit.

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Reasons Why People Continue Working

As I ponder my plans for early retirement in 2027 I’ve been thinking more about why people continue to work. Not just people who are nearing or thinking of retirement but people in general. I suppose these thoughts have entered my head because I want to leave no stone unturned in my consideration of eventually walking away from my career around the age of 57. Of course, I’m not just walking away from my career. I’m also walking towards the next phase of my life. But the impact of my decision is not the purpose of this article. Rather, I want to consider whether there are any good reasons for me to continue working past the age of 57. Contemplation has lead me to the four main reasons to keep working that I’ve listed below.

Needing the money to cover immediate needs.
Furthering some future goal that requires a large sum of money.
Maintaining an identity or status associated with work.
Fulfilling a real or perceived obligation, monetary or otherwise.

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Planning For Early Retirement

As a person who is contemplating early retirement from my career, which I define as retiring before the age of 60, I have decided to ensure that I fully understand the why of my decision to retire early. I do this for the reason that I want ensure that my purpose is strong enough to carry me through what will surely be some ups and downs of choosing to walk away from a lucrative corporate job at the age of 57, as I plan to do. I’ve found in life that having a strong why for doing anything complicated or difficult is central to the prospects for succeeding and being happy with whatever life challenge one chooses to take on. I’m also aware that there are many people who have expressed regret about retiring at a certain point in their lives due to it leading to boredom and a loss of the general direction that comes with maintaining an active career. I certainly don’t want that to be me.

I’ve done some research on the demographics of retirement and one thing that I was surprised to find out is that a good percentage (about 25%) of people who consider themselves retired are under the most common retirement age in the US, which is 62 (and driven by the fact that 62 is the first age when a person can claim Social Security retirement benefits). There are a good number of people in government jobs (including the military, teaching and first responders) who are able to claim a full retirement after 30 years of service. Some of these people may choose to take a different job to supplement their pensions but a good number choose to just be retired. There are also people (my mom was an example of this) who have served for many years in corporations and are offered exit “packages” during their 50s that make retirement possible. Still, retirement at age 57 as I’m contemplating is considered by many people to be early. It’s good to know that I’ll be far from alone though.

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Safe Investing Tips

In my earlier post as part of my financial literacy series I wrote about opening a brokerage account, which then allows a person to invest (for the long term) or trade (for the short term) depending on their level of knowledge and appetite for risk. Since this series of posts is about financial basics I wanted to share a few tips on how a person can invest safely. These tips are based on my experience of investing in brokerage accounts (including retirement and non-retirement) for 25 years. I know that some people who are impatient in terms of their desire to build wealth will scoff at my advice but I do know whereof I speak.

Early on when investing I did things the risky way because it’s what I thought all the big shots in investing did and I found out quickly that for every win that makes you money doing risky things there are bigger losses ahead. In addition to that if you use your brokerage account in a risky way you are exposed to the silent killer known as stress. Stress creates a vicious cycle whereby you’re likely to make more and more questionable decisions that lead you to financial disaster. Thankfully, my desire to avoid heavy losses and the stress that comes with them tempered my desire to get rich quick and for at least 25 years I’ve been investing safely using the tips listed below.

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Eat Less, Eat Better, Move More

One of the most difficult aspects of this life journey for many people is keeping themselves fit and maintaining their weight as they age. I’ve experienced these difficulties myself for years. I went from a young man who seemingly couldn’t gain weight (no matter what I ate or how little I exercised) to a middle aged man struggling with a bursting mid-section and the inability to walk up a couple of flights of stairs without having to take deep breaths. Having once been a fitness trainer (as a man in my early 20s) who was paid to help other people overcome these challenges I thought that somehow I’d be immune from middle age weight gain and loss of cardiovascular ability. I was not.

Over the years I’ve taken action to keep my weight under control and stay in shape (as they say) in terms of cardiovascular ability. These things are important for a couple of great reasons. First, studies have shown that people who limit excess weight live longer and have fewer health problems. Second, improved cardiovascular ability contributes to an active and fulfilling quality of life. Neither of the prior reasons have anything to do with vanity. They’re practical aspects of life. Some people may simply think, “I don’t care about my weight or cardiovascular ability.” Because there are people who enjoy a sedentary lifestyle where they can eat what they want. That’s their right, but it’s also their funeral. What about the rest of us? Those who want to do their best to live a long and active life. There is a basic prescription that can move you in the right direction health wise and that’s what this post is about.

Disclaimer: What follows is not specific advice for anyone in terms of a diet and exercise plan. Consider it documentation of my experience. Always consult a physician or other health professional when making changes to your diet or exercise regimen.

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Opening A Brokerage Account

In my previous post meant to help people attain basic financial literacy I covered basic banking products, which are the foundation of wealth building. In this post I’ll expand into the world of brokerage accounts. Brokerage accounts are exciting on one hand because they are a critical wealth building tool. On the other hand, they can be very dangerous because if one uses a brokerage account in the wrong way then that person can create financial misery for themselves. My goal with this post is to help you understand the safe way to utilize a brokerage account so that it truly is the vehicle that will ultimately ensure your financial success over the long-term.

When I wrote about banking products I mentioned how they are safe products that can return between a little more than 0% to around 4% (as of early 2025) without risking the capital that you put into those products. Brokerage products have the capability of earning you much more than 4% a year and also open you up to the possibility of earning dividends, which can really accelerate your wealth building process. On the flip side, brokerage products do not guarantee your initial capital so it is possible to lose some, or even all, of your investment. That doesn’t stop millions of people from transacting brokerage business daily and as long as you don’t act foolish you can build a very solid nest egg as long as you exercise the winning traits of patience and discipline.

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