Mountain Biking & Hitting My Socialization Quota
This week was unusually heavy on socializing with friends who are also past coworkers (days 88 and 89). I can only take so much of that, and I have hit my socialization quota for a while. It was really great though, and I feel much more inclined to do that now without work draining me.…
Existential Flourishing?
This week took an interesting turn from prior weeks. The start to the week was not the best for me physically, but my mental state has been just about the opposite of an existential crisis. I guess you would call it existential flourishing. The power of ample free time is revealing itself to me as…
Self Discovery And Fun On Purpose
This was a tough week for me as I was recovering from being sick while working through my continuing existential crisis. I need to remind myself that it’s really a self discovery process. I’m figuring out what I am outside of the job I used to do, and outside of international travel. Later in the…
Down With The Sickness
An extremely boring and unproductive week unfolded with most of our household sick. There is literally nothing interesting to point out, and this isn’t worth reading. FIRE: Day 64 (8/31) Gym, Spanish, Tech The bulk of today was spent looking into a 2018 Nissan Leaf we are thinking of buying. It’s only $9K, single owner…
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…
Coworkers, Birthdays, and Fantasy
This week felt pretty long, and covered a lot of ground. I started off the week a little sick (days 57-59), and saw my old coworkers around mid week (day 59). Later in the week between my fantasy league draft (day 61) and a neighbor’s birthday (day 62), I drank enough alcohol that my whole…
Tech work in the suburbs
This week I wait and watch to see if my lead foot in South Africa is going to cause me more issues. It was also JC’s birthday. The rest of the week after that was about as mundane as it can get, at least for content in this blog. I spent the bulk of it…
FIRE Induced Anxiety
This week was unfortunately dominated by more existential thoughts about FIRE. After going the full year of travel without any of these thoughts, I figured I was in the clear. FIRE induced anxiety (not a real thing I’m sure) has been bugging me a bit this week, and it’s something I’m going to have to…
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…
Traveling Toward Fire
A Premature FI Experiment
