My last day or work was in April of 2017, almost 8 years ago (!!!). Life has been pretty great, but it isn’t the Instagram version that you see influencers and media outlets bleeting about.
Our kids keep us mostly in Longmont. They’re in public schools (after home-schooling during COVID, there’s NO way I’d sign on for that again!). They also have busy lives with friends, sports, and school related activities. Because we’re geographically limited, our lives are more conventional than some FI folks who don’t have kids.
While all of that stuff on Instagram looks sexy and cool, it’s not where the base value of FI is. FI allows you to be:
- Resilient: If something breaks, I have the time to deal with it. It’s great being able to fix a dryer, complete home projects, and deal with the DMV without being stressed.
- Present: I can attend all of my kids’ events and volunteer whenever the school needs help. Mindy and I take long walks every day.
- Fit: I let myself go while I worked. It’s easy to not go to the gym when life gets busy. But now that I’m liberated from formal employment, I often go to the gym for 2 hours or go for a 6 hour hike in the middle of the day. I feel great.
- Helpful: I was able to jump in the car when my dad was dying and drive 800 miles at a moment’s notice.
And sometimes, these attributes are complementary. Because of a horribly planned addition (the roof slope on the right in the photo below), it was raining in my mom’s house. The water would flow down the roof and hit a wall. The horrible people who built the addition filled the junction with about 20 tubes of caulk. Just like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, water will find a way and it did.
The rain would get into a wall and soak wiring which would then trip circuits. NOT good! Because I had the time and skills, I was able to jump in the car with a trunkload of tools and build a cricket:
I always make sure to get some fun in too. San Diego is a quick trip from Las Vegas, so after the roof was fixed, I went to San Diego and visited friends Jeremy Schneider (Need money help? Check out his CFP service, Nectarine) and Fiology David.
On the way back, I stopped at Indian Wells and saw my first tennis matches (the match between Arthur Fils and Danil Medvedev was outstanding!).
On The Cusp
But now our kids are 18 and 15. In less than 4 years, we’ll be empty nesters. At that time, we’ll be able to let loose with some bigger adventures:
- Big Walk: I’d love to do a very long walk. One of those trails like the Camino de Santiago where you don’t have to worry about food and and lodging sound awesome (Sleep is a challenge and I don’t need to make it any worse by camping!)
- Language Learning: I was a lousy Spanish student. Dunno why. I just didn’t take to it. I wish I had. But it’s not too late. Learning a language would be useful and it’s also great brain exercise.
- Repositioning cruise (digital detox): Many cruise boats spend diffeent seasons in different parts of the world. For example, some will spend winter in Mexico and summer in Alaska. Twice a year, the ship repositions. The cruise line still wants to sell space on the boat, so you can take these cruises at a discounted price. I think it would be awesome to spend a lot of time on a boat with just books and a laptop. No internet!
- Meditation retreat. The Hoffman Process was a great reset for my mental health. I’d like to try other setting changes.
- Live in different cities for a month or even a season. Instead of rushed trips, we’ll live in other places for at least a month.
- Themed trips. I’d like to do some extended trips with a purpose:
- Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) road trip: FLW was one of the greatest American architects. While I’m not a fan of all of his designs, I like how he pushed the boundaries.
- Friends: I’m so fortunate to have friends all over the country and world. Thanks blog and FI community!
- Pacific Coast Highway (PCH): Spending time near the ocean never gets old. I’d love to drive or bike down the PCH.
- Tennis: Seeing a professional tennis match in person was really great. Perhaps we’ll travel the world to see others.
- National Parks: So much beauty to see in the world.
- Tour my old Midwest stomping grounds: Not as sexy as the national parks, but sometimes it’s the little things that bring the greatest joy.
But being home too is really good too. We have a great network of folks in and around Longmont. Thanks MMM HQ! I enjoy weekly hikes and pot lucks at HQ with friends. And Colorado is a beautiful state with a lot to do. We can see Rocky Mountain National Park from Longmont.
And my life works better with a routine. And even a loose routine is easier to maintain at home.
So I see life post-kids looking like this: Mindy and I will have some bigger adventures, but carefully balance them with time at home. Perhaps we’ll build our travels around the temperature. I’m not a fan of the Colorado heat that sets in July through September, so maybe we’ll get out of town then.
FI Life has been great, just in a different way than some might expect. I’ve been able to spend considerable time with my children and that’s been incredible. In the end, it all comes down to having autonomy over your time. Even a full-time job is much easier to tolerate when you don’t have to do it for the money anymore.
Evolving With FI
It’s wicked to wish your days away. – Stephen King
It drives me pretty crazy when I hear people say things like this:
Only 873 more days until I hit my goal and can retire!
And I’M THE ONE typing on my 1500 Days To Freedom blog! It seemed like a good idea at the time. *sigh*
Life will be great when ____ mentality caused me to live in the future, hoping a big pile of money would make life great. It certainly made life better, but I overemphasized its importance. Money will solve money problems.
Make The Most Of Life Of It
So, I’ve come to this:
FI is great, but…. I thought that money would make me happy. You’re still the same person, just with a bigger number. Of course, you can (and should) use the money to work on yourself.
Enjoy your life wherever you’re at. If you still have a job and it sucks, find a different one. If you hate where you live, move. It’s not worth staying in a bad situation just to get to FI faster.
Always view life through a lens of gratitude. If nothing else, it’s great to be alive. (Consider the alternative!) I remind myself of this every morning. Before I even go for my morning pee, I open the shades, gaze out at the world, and give thanks. And then I quickly make my way to the bathroom before my bladder explodes.
If it takes longer, so what. I once talked to some people who wanted to install a pool and were asking if they should spend the money. They stated that while the pool was expensive, their children were young and loved to swim. They looked forward to the pool becoming a neighborhood gathering place. They were OK with it taking a little longer to retire. They were surprised when I enthusiastically supported the pool idea. My thought was this: On the surface, they were buying a hole filled with water in their backyard. But much more importantly, they were buying two decades of awesome memories. It would be a great use of money and the window to do it was limited.
I’m in Cincinnati at EconoMe, getting ready to head out for the first big event. If you’re here, stop by and say “Hi!” If not, perhaps I’ll see you around Longmont or some other corner of the world.
More 1500 Days!!!
You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:
- BiggerPockets: Hey look, I’m on a podcast again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DOFfBN7cxg
- YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
- Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
- Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
- Coworking space: On the surface, MMM HQ is a coworking space. Look a little deeper and you’ll see that we’re really building community. The members of MMM HQ are some of the finest people I know
- Buying a Tesla? Use my referral code to get some perks!
I’m chiming in to vote for the FLW roadtrip! In the past few years I’ve hit up most of the NY/PA/OH/IN/MI/IL & WI sites. The best way that I can describe it is that when I’m in one of his buildings, I feel like I am inside a work of art. Not looking at a work of art, I’m inside it. Plus I’ve seen so many incredible non-FLW things along the way. WI is gorgeous, and who knew that Buffalo is a happening place? And you’ll get to go to Springfield, Ohio, the town where no cats or dogs have been eaten!
I’ve been FI for a few years and I’ve been talking a big game about leaping to FIRE this summer. I’m hesitant to kill off the golden goose (my job), but I’m also starting to push the boundaries of what I can get away with in terms of taking time off and folding travel into my work day. The possibilities are that I might take things too far and get fired, or that it will all work out and I’ll keep my salary and benefits for a few more years. Either way I win!
Hi Birchie!
I just took a look at your site and appreciate your Rust Belt Travel Guide! I just added a link to it in my post. I used to live in Chicago and Wisconsin and the Midwest will always hold a special place in my heart.
I’m in Ohio right now and I’m glad to hear that the natives don’t eat cats or dogs. If they did though, would they taste like chicken?
Congratulations on getting to FI! When you’re ready, come on over to the other side. It’s pretty great here!
Ping me when you make it to Colorado!
I think language learning is the best (I’m a language nerd myself). Without a doubt, the best thing you can do is try to immerse yourself. You can definitely make that something which you combine with travel. I’ve tried some different strategies, and I think that a “good” approach would be:
– spend some time, maybe a few months, doing intense (about 30-60 minutes 2x/day) study (I would recommend a combination of Duolingo (good for vocab and getting comfortable w/ the sounds of the language) and watching/listening to stuff (YouTube, news, podcasts, etc) in the language
– then start speaking practice, with something like one of the apps that pairs you with a teacher/tutor (definitely do one-to-one, rather than groups), until you feel comfortable holding a decent length conversation with your teacher/tutor
– then travel someplace where the language is spoken, preferably somewhere where there aren’t tons of English-speaking tourists (to avoid the situation of people always trying to switch to English with you when they hear your accent or if you struggle a bit)
I haven’t tried with this particular sequence all the way through yet (for a variety of reasons), but right now I am in the “work with a tutor phase” of my most recent target language and I’m preparing for an upcoming trip.
The other thing that I would say is that if you travel with someone else (wife, family, friends, etc) and they are not similarly trying to learn the language, you will find that it is more difficult for you to “immerse” in the language because of the need to speak to your travel companions in English all the time.
Robert! Thanks for these great tips; much appreciated!
I’ve done a lot of Duolingo. That combined with Spanish studies in school probably gets me to a 2/10. I’d LOVE to do an immersion school in a Spanish speaking country. Such a better way to learn than to sit in a classroom and practice verb conjugation for 3 hours/week.
Depending on several factors you might find an immersion school to be overwhelming unless you are already at a certain stage of learning (or unless you have a very high intensity drive to learn the language very quickly). I watch content from quite a few anglophones who have moved to countries where having to learn another language is necessary (for any of a number of reasons). I remember one YouTuber (American, moved to France and married a Frenchman) describing reaching the point of feeling “all Frenched out” during the initial months of being immersed in the culture. Granted, immersion is a really good approach, but more bite-sized bits up front probably help to smooth out some of the friction.
With technology the way it is today, connecting with a tutor is extremely convenient and easy. The nice thing about Spanish is that it is sufficiently common that there is a lot of competition in the space.
I would strongly recommend going the 1 hour/day 3-5 days/week with a specific focus on pronunciation and accent work. You will sound much more understandable and natural if you learn the right pronunciations and practice them repeatedly. For example, the typical American learning Spanish will pronounce José as something like “hoooe-zaaaay”, but the correct pronunciation is more like “hoh-seh”. This is something that working with a coach for a little bit and then practicing on your own as you go about your daily activities would be amazingly valuable.
Drop me an email if you want some more specific recommendations with links (I don’t want be spammy and drop a bunch of links in a blog comment).
(Also: the Air Force Museum is amazing, isn’t it? My favorite is the Vietnam era stuff. Enough tech to be advanced, but they were still dog fighting and doing stuff that required some very serious intestinal fortitude.)
Yeah, the Air Force Museum was super cool! I only had 4 hours there, but could probably have spent 4 days. Next time…
Thanks for all of the advice on language learning. Email incoming!
Based on what Mindy has mentioned on a couple podcasts (shout-out to Ramit) I vote for biking the Pacific Coast highway to start. Then maybe combine a language with an international bike tour for immersion? It’s on my FI life bucket list but I’m on coast FI so I’m also hoping for some posts to live vicariously through.
Main thing I wanted to advocate for is check out warm showers app for cycle touring. It connects touring cyclists with hosts for a place to sleep, or meal or sometimes a pickup on a rough day. The community has a Facebook page, email newsletter and a podcast called bike life if you want to get a sense of the community. I’ve hosted people from all over the US and Europe including families with kids as young as 12 really cool experiences.
Love reading your stuff!
Alec! Thanks for kind comments and Warm Showers recommendation. While it will be at least 3 years before we do the biking trip, I’m going to sign up for hosting on Warm Showers now.
I get what you are saying to an extent. But, if we can’t be helpful, present, fit, and resilient prior to FI we need to reevaluate our priorities.
It can be difficult. There was a time when Mindy and I both had full-time jobs with 2 kids. This presented 2 problems:
1) Time just gets away from you. You plan to go to the gym at 5 after work. Them you have to drive your kid somewhere. After that, it’s dinner. Then if I exercise at 7, I’ll have big issues falling asleep.
2) My willpower was often destroyed. After extreme stress at work, I just didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with anything else. So I ate crappy food.
To the people who pull all of this off, hats off to you.
We did the Camino de Santiago with our teens last year (at ages 18 and 15) and it was a great experience. Even though they complained at the time, they now say they’re glad they did it with us.
Wow, I can’t imagine doing that with my kids who are also that age. Maybe?!??
I think the real evolution of your FI life is to figure out how to be that kid again without the worries and without the fears. As adults paying the bills we pull back from living for today.
I always try to remember what I would do as that care free college kid with my friends when time was not an issue. Add self confidence and money to play and that is what I am chasing. To enjoy today
I went to my first Econome this weekend and had a great time. Everyone was nice, real, and looking to enjoy the moment. Perfect way to spend a weekend . Great meeting you Carl
ScOttawa! It was great meeting you at EconoMe!
College was a great time! Just go to class, study, and hang out. No worries about food or housing or much of anything else. And isn’t this kind of the point of FI? You make enough money to liberate you from having to worry about money. Live simply once again.
“ScOttawa” – even better. Maybe I will run for Mayor and update it
Hi Carl,
I am kind of in messy middle of Fi. Reading this reminded me of my early Fi days. Why am I doing this? I feel like I am running nonstop and dancing to the tunes of life.
I will definitely appreciate more where life has taken me. I would have been sitting in traffic for 3 hours and grind 10 hours at work in a different world. But yes, when I am viewing it through lens of gratitude , it feels like I am gifted. It reminds me of a line by a famous poet in India: “If things happen as per your wish, it’s good. If it does not, it’s God’s Will which is the best.”
Keep writing my friend. You don’t know how many lives you are changing.
Rakesh! I was just thinking about you! My thought was that I need to figure out a way to raise $10,000,000 so Rakesh and his family can be my neighbors! How do we do this?!?? https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/25/politics/us-gold-card-foreigners-trump/index.html
Thanks for the kind commments. I’m not sure how many lives I’ve changed, but this community has certainly changed mine!
Thank you, Carl. This message made my day. Few years back when I did not know about FI or your journey, I did not have $100k to my name. I was constantly worried and ashamed that after living in US for 10 years, I did not have $100k in investment. But things moved pretty fast in last 5 years. Money in the account definitely took my fear away. I am better prepared for my future now.
Unnati and I were watching CNBC MAKE IT and a couple from Brooklyn were featured. They started a community kitchen 4 years back. Their neighborhood love their food. I imagined myself at Longmont in few years hosting you all on weekends.
CNBC make it link: https://youtu.be/7WB2qpTV404?si=EOjSGG5HCu8wEGlu
Put Wimbledon on your list. Tickets aren’t super expensive, but most likely you have spend some time in a queue for them. It’s one of the most unique and unforgettable experiences for a tennis fan and it was totally worth getting up early and waiting in a long line. Glad you enjoyed Indian wells!
Definitely!!
I went to Indian wells back in 2018. It was an amazing experience. Don’t remember the exact match but I definitely moved through different courts and watched more than one game. Yes Wimbledon is also on my list to do. But I have to start with US Open first.
I know you log a lot of steps/miles in per day. Have you ever considered doing a long distance walk or hike?
My husband Mike and I always enjoy your writing. Our children are 3 and 5 so our FI life is also more grounded, but we have made changes together that allow us to feel like our FI journey is still a work in progress. Maybe one day we will get back to a CampFi!
Yep, a walk is definitely in the cards. I want to do one like the Camino that has places to stay. I’ve gone soft in old age and don’t wish to camp!
Take time to do the Camino!! I’ve logged a lot of Caminos in my life–more than 10. Do more than the short 5 or 7 day version. At the least, start in León. Really, you should start in St. Jean Pied de Port. 30~ days walking does a lot for the body and soul. Take the kids only if they are into it. You don’t need to hire a company. Reach out if you want more info. I’ll share my itineraries/info with you.
Go walk the Camino. If you kids are up for it, they’ll love it. If not, don’t take them. The Camino is much cheaper than my daily life in the US. If you take 18 days, start in Leon and that will give you a few days on each side. Really you should take longer. If you want to go big, start in St. Jean Jean Pied de Port. You’ll need about 32-33 days. You def. don’t need to get a company to make the reservations for you. Reach out if you want a list of where to stay. As a 10x Camino walker, I basically go every year. It’s great for the body and soul.
10x! That’s super awesome! I WILL do this some day and maybe I’ll catch you on the trail. Thank you for the tips!