In last week’s post, we highlighted our 2022 expenses. This post will summarize our investments and process for funding our third year in early retirement together. OUR INVESTMENTS Our investment portfolio is roughly 70% stocks and 30% bonds/cas...
Welcome to a detailed look at our 2022 early retirement expenses. This was our third full year of early retirement together as a couple. Dragon Gal retired in June 2017, and I retired in November 2019. Once we learned about FIRE, tracking our spendin...
Dragon Gal had a great year of reading! She read less than in previous years, but that doesn’t matter too much to her. Diversity of genre and author is more important for her, though she could still improve on this. She is excited that she’...
We hope everyone has had a safe and wonderful holiday season! We’re wrapping up 2022 by celebrating the many places we visited this year: Big Bend, San Juan, Spain, Germany, Austria, Iceland, Colorado, The Dakotas, The Maldives, Doha, and Califor...
On November 1st, Dragon Guy completed year three of early retirement! He quit his job in 2019 after 20 years of working in the finance industry. These past 12 months we really upped our travel — being away from home for over 100 nights and &...
This month we took an 11 day trip to the Maldives and Doha, Qatar. It was a dream trip for Dragon Guy, as we redeemed American Airlines miles and flew business class on Qatar Airways. MALDIVES AND DOHA We redeemed American Airlines miles and flew ...
In May 2022, we took a trip to Germany and Iceland. We spent 12 days in Germany: 5 days in München and 7 in Berlin. And we ended the trip with 11 days in Iceland. München is what we Americans call Munich. What we call … The post 5 Days in Mü...
In March 2022, we took our first international trip since the pandemic began. We flew into Madrid, Spain and visited five cities over a three week timeframe: Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba (day trip), Toledo, and Madrid. I will wrap up our Spain journey by...
In March 2022, we took our first international trip since the pandemic began. We flew into Madrid, Spain and visited five cities over a three week timeframe: Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba (day trip), Toledo, and Madrid. In this post, I will review the act...
This month we took a 11 night trip to the Dakotas (plus Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado). Originally, we weren’t planning on traveling this month, but at the last minute, Dragon Gal decided she had cabin fever. Dragon Guy was able to resurrect a discar...
It’s been another great quarter of reading! We always try to read a variety of subjects, genres, and authors; Dragon Guy keeps himself accountable by doing the Dewey Decimal Challenge. Feel free to drop us your recommendations in the comments bel...
In March 2022, we took our first international trip since the pandemic began. We flew into Madrid, Spain and visited five cities over a three week timeframe: Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba (day trip), Toledo, and Madrid. Getting to Córdoba We were in Sevil...
In March 2022, we took our first international trip since the pandemic began. We flew into Madrid, Spain and visited five cities over a three week timeframe: Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba (day trip), Toledo, and Madrid. In this post I will review the week...
This month, we took a Colorado roadtrip to Denver to visit family. We spent two nights on the road each way instead of one – we like to drive no more than 6 hours or so a day. We spent a total of 12 nights … The post Early Retired Life R...
Earlier this year we published our 2022 goals for the year and our 2022 expense budget. Now it’s time for our mid-year review of both our goals and our finances! 2022 DRAGON GOALS UPDATE Using the stop light as our inspiration, we’ve used a col...
In March 2022, we took our first international trip since the pandemic began. We flew into Madrid, Spain and visited five Spanish cities over a three week timeframe: Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba (day trip), Toledo, and Madrid. I will be breaking our trip...
We were home for the entire month of July. The crazy hot temperatures have worn us down. Thankfully we have been able to enjoy our neighborhood swimming pool a few times a week. In July we kept busy by learning together through different projects. T...
I’ve reached my fifth year in early retirement! I continue to be incredibly grateful that I discovered the FIRE movement in February 2017 and was able to retire that same year. We’d been saving consistently for almost 20 years of our career...
In February 2022, we spent five nights in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We visited family in Florida and then made the easy hop down to the popular Caribbean destination. Since Puerto Rico is part of the U.S., it was relatively straightforward to get there –...
We’re home for the next two months. We Dragons have traveled a lot since March, and it’s good to take a break, especially since air travel seems to be dealing with lots of delays. Despite being home, we still have plenty of activities to ke...