Freedom

How Travelling Saves You Money
- Let’s Go Exploring! Zagreb, Croatia: Quirky Museums and Eye-Opening History - January 23, 2023
- Our 2022 Expenses - January 9, 2023
- Can You Buy Happiness? - December 26, 2022
“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer”. –anonymous “But travelling is so expensive, I can’t afford to travel all the time.” “I don’t know what I would do with myself if I travelled to one place and stayed there for a whole month!” These are just some of the complaints I got from people I met while attending the Travel Summit. Having been out of the workforce for nearly 8 years now, it’s easy to forget what it was like to cherish those precious 3-4 weeks of vacation, then spend all year saving up for that […]

Meet Ken and Mary: Part 2
- Can The Bank Take Your House Even If You Pay Your Mortgage? - January 30, 2023
- Reader Case: How do I Squeeze More Income From my Portfolio? - January 16, 2023
- Our 2022 Portfolio - January 3, 2023
After last week’s discussion about FIRE with kids and the Black Tax, without further ado here’s Part 2 of our interview with Kan and Mary from TheHumblePenny.com. This concept of the Black Tax is really interesting to me, because it echoes a lot of our friends who have to deal with this from an Asian background. Can you tell us a little more about how this affected you personally? Ken: Sure. One of my family members called and said to me, “I want to start this fish farm. I found this piece of land and I just need to buy […]

Meet Ken and Mary: Nigerian Immigrants who Became FI with 2 kids
- Let’s Go Exploring! Zagreb, Croatia: Quirky Museums and Eye-Opening History - January 23, 2023
- Our 2022 Expenses - January 9, 2023
- Can You Buy Happiness? - December 26, 2022
FIRE is only for privileged people. FIRE is not doable unless you’re a DINK (double income no kids). We get this pushback all the time. Well, today, I’m going to introduce you to a couple who are neither of those. Meet Ken and Mary, the founders of TheHumblePenny.com, who became financially independent in 2017 at age 34 with two kids. They live in the UK but they both came from Nigeria and grew up with parents who struggled and gave them something that I know all too well—the immigrant mindset. I first met Ken and Mary in 2019 at the […]

Let’s Go Exploring! Plitvice and Split: Croatian History More Epic Than Game of Thrones
- Let’s Go Exploring! Zagreb, Croatia: Quirky Museums and Eye-Opening History - January 23, 2023
- Our 2022 Expenses - January 9, 2023
- Can You Buy Happiness? - December 26, 2022
It’s hard to be in a bad mood when you’re surrounded by a wonderland of pure joy that looks like this: But somehow, I managed to do it. The cause? I’ll get to that in a minute. We ended up in this slice of paradise that Wanderer affectionately refers to as “Banff on steroids,” due to unrelenting peer pressure. We were told by every Croatian we spoke to (including the immigration officer) that “you MUST go to Plitvice (pronounced “plit-vitz-eh”). You can’t leave Croatia without visiting it, so drop everything and go NOW!” Okay, okay, we’re going. Yeesh. Isn’t it […]

Meet Billy and Akaisha, Who FIRE’d 30 years ago! Part 2
- Let’s Go Exploring! Zagreb, Croatia: Quirky Museums and Eye-Opening History - January 23, 2023
- Our 2022 Expenses - January 9, 2023
- Can You Buy Happiness? - December 26, 2022
Continuing from where we left off last week, let’s find out from Billy and Akaisha about their housing situation and healthcare: 9) You mentioned on your blog that when you’re not travelling, you’re home basing it at your “manufactured home.” What is that and how is it different from a house or condo? RetireEarlyLifestyle: A manufactured home is often located in Master Planned Communities, or Active Adult Resorts. While one can purchase the land on which this home is placed, we choose instead to simply pay “Lifestyle Fees” and rent the land. Also, since our particular manufactured home is taxed through the Department […]