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1500 Days to Freedom

Think different and escape the rat race.

1500 Days to Freedom
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  • Featured

    Is This What Will Disrupt Index Investing?

    Performance Update, Q2: Not On My Bingo Card

    Money Will Solve Money Problems…

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    Most Recent

    Warren Buffett Bet, Year 8: Yeah Baby, Yeah!

    Eight years ago, Dividend Growth Investor (DGI) asked me if I’d like to participate in the Warren Buffett bet. For those unfamiliar, in 2008 Buffett famously challenged the hedge fund industry: Can you beat the S&P 500 over a period of 10 years? Buffett won as the hedge fund got clobbered by the S&P 500. But I like […]

    Recent Posts

    Random 2025 Thoughts: Money, Technology, Me

    What a horrible title for a blog post! Hey, they can’t all be winners. 2025 was a great year for us! And if you were invested in index funds, it was a great year for you too. Money This blog is supposed to be about money. Let’s start there. Markets are up. Again. The S&P […]

    Introducing The FI Collective

    I was listening to a recent podcast with Morgan Housel. I have a lot of respect for Morgan, so was disappointed to hear him say this: Everyone I know who retired early has gone back to work. My experience has been almost the exact opposite of Morgan’s. I know plenty early retirees and almost none […]

    Guest Post: Is Toilet Paper A Better Investment Than AI Stocks?

    Today’s guest post comes from a friend I met recently at the last EconoMe. I didn’t know he had a blog until fairly recently. His work is pretty great, so I invited him to guest post! I didn’t give him any guidelines about what to write about. Most do their best work when they’re doing […]

    Discovering FI, Our Town, And My Life

    Two stories today and then two thoughts… Story 1: Discovering FI (Telling The World!) I learned that I could retire early in October of 2012. I was having an awful time at work and put this into Google: How do I retire early? It was a hail mary pass that I didn’t expect to lead […]

    The Very Big F.O.O.L.I.S.H. Project

    The Wayback Machine It all started about 40 years ago. I was a boy who enjoyed fart humor, pizza, LEGO and rockets. Except for my age, nothing has changed. My parents were fans of Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) and we visited a couple of his structures. The experiences and his unique designs made an imprint […]

    Performance Update: Q3 Madness!

    My main goal* was to build an investment and cash portfolio of $1,120,000* ($1,000,000 to retire on and $120,000 to pay off the house) in 1500 days**, starting from 1/1/2013 and ending in February of 2017. I made my goal in 2016, my 1500 Days are over, and I’ve left my job. In the interest of openness, I’ll continue to share […]

    Is This What Will Disrupt Index Investing?

    I once heard Morgan Housel say something like this: Something will eventually come along to displace index investing. The context of the comment was a discussion of Benjamin’s Graham’s famous book, The Intelligent Investor. Morgan mentioned that the book changed frequently because investing changed. What works now will not work forever. Will Private Equity Disrupt […]

    Road Trip: California Coast

    I meant to write more about my road trip, but FI Life got in the way. Our trip has been a series of adventures; hikes in state parks, walks around urban areas, live music, beaches, one very cool Taco Bell, and meetups with old friends. No time to write! But here I am. We’re in […]

    Road Trip Part 2: Craig To Salt Lake City

    For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be documenting my road trip to drop my kid off at school. Today we left Craig Colorado and headed to Salt Lake City (SLC). Utah is our first new state: In Salt Lake City, we saw a whale breaching from the center of a roundabout, the state capitol, […]

    Road Trip Day 1: Longmont To Craig

    For the next 10 days, I’ll be writing about my road trip to drop my daugther off at college in California. It’s going to be 3,000 miles. I’m taking a northern route to get there to avoid the heat for the first part of the trip: Old Me would maximize driving, putting in 800-1,000 miles […]

    Maximum Fitness: The Best Benefit Of FIRE

    You can have all of the money in the world, but it means nothing if you don’t have your health. Warren Buffett drove this point home at the first Berkshire Hathaway meeting I attended over 10 years ago. A young audience member asked a question about book recommendations. Buffett rambled on and changed the topic, […]

    Recession? When?!??

    A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a local friend who is a building inspector. We had an interesting conversation: In my head: AHHHHHH RECESSION!!!!!! And then this came across my feed: And then I read that the Air Force and Space Force met their recruiting goals months early. Some think this is […]

    Performance Update, Q2: Not On My Bingo Card

    My main goal* was to build an investment and cash portfolio of $1,120,000* ($1,000,000 to retire on and $120,000 to pay off the house) in 1500 days**, starting from 1/1/2013 and ending in February of 2017. I made my goal in 2016, my 1500 Days are over, and I’ve left my job. In the interest of openness, I’ll continue to share […]

    The Question No One Asks

    Money Versus Time: Change Is Hard The FI crowd has a hard time giving up old habits. Optimizing for hardcore saving and investing will get you to the Promised Land of FI. But it will hold you back once you’ve arrived. Two examples: 1. Tool Time I have infinite tools from all of my remodeling […]

    Thought Exercises To Get Out Of Your Rut And Live Bigger

    In this post, I present you with two thought exercises. The first helps me get off the hedonic treadmill that I seem to be addicted to. The second helps me live bigger which I also struggle with. Exercise 1: Stepping Off The Hedonic Treadmill Hedonic treadmill: The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is […]

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    Freedom!

    My goal was to build a portfolio of $1,000,000 by February of 2017; 1500 days from the birth of this blog (January 1, 2013). And hey look, I’ve since retired!

    Investments only (primary home excluded)
    1/1/13 (The Start): $586,043
    1/1/14 (1 Yr Later): $869,635
    1/1/15 (2 Yrs Later): $987,351
    1/1/16 (3 Yrs Later): $1,057,961
    1/1/17 (4 Yrs Later): $1,257,128
    1/1/18 (5 Yrs Later): $1,527,701
    1/1/19 (6 Yrs Later): $1,549,440
    1/1/20 (7 Yrs Later): $2,035,040*
    1/1/21 (8 Yrs Later): $3,379,746**
    1/1/22 (9 Yrs Later): $4,762,642
    1/1/23 (10 Yrs Later): $3,112,821
    1/1/24 (11 Yrs Later): $4,562,750
    1/1/25 (12 Yrs Later): $6,060,794
    1/1/26 (13 Yrs Later): $8,135,505

    2026: Investments only
    1/1: $8,135,505
    2/1: $8,123,356

    Gains (since 1/1/2026): -$12,149

    Overall
    Gains since 1/1/2013: $7,537,313
    Net worth***: $8,523,356

    * The big jump between 2019 and 2020 was partly because we bought another home, but kept the previous (much more expensive) one as a rental and started counting it as an investment. We have since sold it.

    ** Tesla.

    *** Includes our primary home equity in addition to our investment portfolio.

    Finally, we still have about $290,000 in mortgage debt (which I love!). No regrets about the debts!

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    Disclaimer

    Investing is risky business. The information contained on this site is for informational purposes only. As with all matters financial, proceed with caution. Do your research and seek professional advice.

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