August 2026 FIRE Budget: No Buffer Left for September
We were $668.22 over budget this month at a 4.59% annualized withdrawal rate. Our kids return to school in August, and there are always associated costs. We know these are coming, but we never know how much they will be. This year they totaled $539.82, and $334.33 of that landed in the budget. That’s normally…
Getting Scammed: The Anatomy of a Hack
This week we saw our identities and financial accounts flash before our eyes with JC getting scammed (day 36). We scrambled for a full day to get a hold of that situation. As we came up for air the next day, she got tricked into using a shady passport renewal site as well (day 37).…
July 2026 FIRE Budget: Month One in Colorado
This month was one of those in life where you look back on it in a couple contradictory ways. While I’m proud of all the accomplishments over the course of July, I never want to live this month again. We had a mountain of work to accomplish between home repairs, home renovations and moving back…
Settling In To Our CO Life
This week we were wrapping up a lot of nagging things around the house, and we finally put an end to all of our extended family activities. We’re finally settling into our CO life. FIRE: Day 29 (7/27) There wasn’t a lot going on today with the house now that we have it almost fully…
The Premature FIRE Experiment Worked: We Hit Our FIRE Number
This blog started with the premature FIRE experiment that was our international gap year. At the beginning, we had not hit our FIRE number at home in Colorado. We would have had a risky 4.5% withdrawal rate, having only 22 of the required 25 FU’s. Slow traveling internationally was an adventure of its own, but…
Barcelona Spain Expat Budget
Barcelona Spain was the final stop of our year-long journey. With it being our single longest stay in any one Airbnb, I have lots of data to pull from for this expat budget. While I already know the cost of living is relatively high, there are some affordable aspects of Barcelona as well. For example,…
FIRE Week One
At this point with our year of travel over, we have returned to our regular life in CO. In the kickoff post for our year of travel I was speculating about what we would return to in terms of having achieved FIRE or not. Our at-home budget is still developing at this point, and I…
June International Travel FIRE Budget
June is the final month of our international gap year, and we spent the entire month (actually 28 days) in Barcelona Spain. This international travel FIRE budget breakdown will finalize the full financial details of this year, and reveal how we did overall at maintaining our target 4% withdrawal rate. Up to this month we…
May International Travel FIRE Budget
This month was split between Lisbon (13 days) and Barcelona (18 days), and this is a rare budget month in the year where the figures won’t be extracted and examined from an expat cost of living standpoint. There was better data for Lisbon in the April budget, and there will be better data for Barcelona…
The End Of Homeschool and Sick Car Searches
In this week of travel, I unbelievably get sick again after being sick just six weeks ago in Lisbon (days 334-337). We had our last day of homeschool (day 336). Besides that I spent a lot of time being sick, working on yesalittle.com, and researching cars. Travel Log: Day 332 (5/25), Spain Today is labor…
Traveling Toward Fire
A Premature FI Experiment
