• You can STILL be anything you want to be
    Do Everything Else

    You Can STILL Be Anything You Want to Be

    You Can Still Be Anything You Want to Be This is an interesting topic that Emily and I were discussing today. At some point, everyone quits believing you can be anything you want to be. When, though? And more importantly, why? There are a couple of key points to this article. First, is a take on family dynamics, when those change, and we explore the reasons why. Second, we explain the actual benefit of certain lifestyle choices to open up your world to get back to that same place of possibility and excitement. How Your Parents Influence This Disconnect ‘You can be anything you want to be!’ -Your parents, as…

  • Retire in the Mediterranean
    Live Longer,  Manage Your Money,  See More Places

    Retire In The Mediterranean

    Leaving our jobs to move abroad has to be one of the worst kept secrets in the world. We’ve all but sent out emails to our respective employers about the change we are about to make. Adventure and travel are much higher rungs on our ladder than climbing our way up the corporate ranks. Geoarbitrage is a natural step up in this thought progression. (How many ladder metaphors do you think I can fit in one paragraph?). Anyway, we are going to break down our costs to retire in the Mediterranean.  Geoarbitrage Geoarbitrage is a fancy word for taking advantage of lower cost of living areas. It is also a…

  • Putting Lipstick on a pig
    Invest in Real Estate,  Long Term Rental,  Make More Money,  Short Term Rental

    How to Put Lipstick on a Pig

    What in the hell is ‘putting lipstick on a pig’? In the real estate world, this is an endearing term of dressing up a relatively shitty rental, or even personal home. Our ‘pigs’ usually have good bones, and are in good locations, but aren’t very easy on the eyes. This perfectly describes one of our duplexes. We will dive in and discuss the background of the property, first. Then, the ‘lipstick’ that we put on this pig. Finally, we will breakdown the financial result of our efforts. Background A few weeks ago, Emily and I listed one side of a duplex that had recently become vacant. To give you an…

  • Invest in Real Estate,  Long Term Rental,  Make More Money

    4 Ways To Get Started In Real Estate

    As you all know, we are a little obsessed with real estate. In our opinion, it is one of the ‘easiest’ ways to reach financial independence in the shortest amount of time. Since we are still fairly young, we obviously don’t want to spend what are potentially the best years of our lives working on or for something we aren’t 100% passionate about. We are using our able bodies and minds to save and invest in real estate now so we can use that as our means of living in the future while our minds and bodies can work on other enjoyable tasks. If you would have asked me 4…

  • Manage Your Money

    The Four Cardinal Sins of Finance

    What’s the worst financial decision you’ve made? The Financial Independence journey is a spectrum and everyone falls somewhere on that spectrum, even if they don’t know about financial independence, or aren’t actively pursuing it. With that in mind, there no choices or mistakes that can not be undone with time, focus, money, or some combination of the three. We’ve made some mistakes of our own, and even a couple that are listed below. However, if you want to achieve FI or give yourself as much of a buffer of passive income, emergency fund, or even a mortgage free house as you can, you will do well to avoid making any…

  • Do Everything Else

    Taxes: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

    One of my worst traits is procrastination. Ever since high school, I have had a tendency to put important things off until the last-minute. I thought maybe I could grow out of it, but lo and behold, as an adult, I find myself doing the exact same thing. However, being an adult, some things that don’t get done by a certain deadline can have serious consequences…like taxes. As everyone knows, yesterday was tax day. April 15 is a date James and I knew about and used that as our deadline to get our taxes done. So, of course, we just put them off until the last…possible…minute. It seems like we…

  • Fitness VS Financial Independence
    Live Longer,  Manage Your Money

    Fitness vs Financial Independence

    There are always, and will always, be similarities between getting physically healthy and getting financially healthy. To be effective long term, both require discipline, delayed gratification, and sometimes a long slow journey to the goal. However, while they can be very similar, at times they can also seem at complete odds of one another. If fitness and FI are so closely related, then why aren’t many more people on this journey, or already at their goal. Let’s take a look at Mr. Money Mustache, arguably the biggest, most well-known name in the FI world, he has a whopping 111k likes on Facebook. Admittedly, all those people probably aren’t on the…