Reasons to Live: Finding Your Purpose after Retirement or Financial Independence
What, exactly, is the point of retirement? With all our focus on the mechanics of saving and investing, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Is financial independence really your goal, or is...
View Article3 Reasons a Child Can Help You Retire Sooner (And 1 Big Reason Why You...
Are raising a family and saving for early retirement compatible? Raising children costs money. There is no disputing it. A common narrative says having kids makes achieving a secure retirement...
View ArticleHelping Aging Parents With Their Money
Many of us will have to care for aging parents at some point in time. For some, that will mean managing your parent’s finances as they deal with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. For others, it may mean...
View ArticleUsing Rental Properties to Create Retirement Income
A few months ago, I crossed paths with real estate investor G. Brian Davis who asked if he could write a guest post for Can I Retire Yet? Using rental real estate to create retirement income is a topic...
View ArticleGoing Back to Work
Can I Retire Yet? It’s a profound question that many of us struggle with. After saving and planning for years or even decades, there is no easy answer. Many people stay in jobs and careers they are not...
View ArticlePaying It Forward — An Early Retiree Case Study
In our April Best of the Web post, I shared an interview with an early retiree who was a long time reader of Can I Retire Yet?. It was the most clicked on selection that month. This showed me the...
View ArticlePlaying Offense in Retirement
In a comment responding to my recent post about making better decisions in the face of uncertainty, a reader wrote: “Life is inherently risky. To try and compensate for every contingency is irrational....
View ArticleBecause You Never Know
I spent the last week in Washington D.C. at FinCon, a conference for those who create digital content in the personal finance space. After long days, late nights, too much noise, and traveling cross...
View ArticleMaking the Transition From Spender to Saver to Achieve Financial Freedom
Today, I have an interview with Rob Berger of Retire Before Mom & Dad. I’ve gotten to know Rob through the blogging world over the past couple years. You may be familiar with Doughroller, the...
View ArticleThe Stages of Financial Independence
I started reading this blog about five years ago, when I was literally asking myself the question “Can I Retire Yet?”. I desperately wanted to escape a career that dominated my time and left me feeling...
View ArticleSummer Travels and Travails
Ever since I started writing about retirement 8 years ago, I’ve stressed the importance of being active while you can, to minimize regret. Don’t defer your dreams. Case in point: I had hoped to spend...
View ArticleRetirement Mindset Shift: Saver to Spender
Tammy LaGorce recently wrote an excellent piece for the New York Times highlighting the difficulty retirees have spending down the retirement assets they worked so hard to accumulate. I hear this...
View ArticleDivorce Proof Your Retirement
A few months ago, divorce Attorney Ronan Blake sent me an email. He asked to write a guest post sharing his perspectives about how divorce can affect your finances and retirement plans. Understanding...
View ArticlePulling Your Retirement Levers
How does your retirement equation work? When you finally retire, does your financial life go on autopilot, subject to precise mathematical rules? Or, is the retirement equation more a guideline than...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Retirements: FIRE and Traditional
A few years ago, I left my career as a physical therapist at age 41. I decided to pursue a completely different financially independent, retired early (FIRE) lifestyle. Around the same time, my parents...
View ArticleWhen to Take Social Security
This is a milestone year. The girl I married in her 20’s, is now a “senior citizen.” Though she doesn’t look like one. And I’m close on her heels. (Though I am starting to feel like one, at least on...
View ArticleWhat Does Financial Independence Have to Do With Surviving a Pandemic?
The world faces the most serious crisis in most of our lifetimes, and people are dying. What does this blog’s theme of frugality, investing, and financial independence have to do with a pandemic? Are...
View ArticleAnalyzing a Variable Annuity
Variable annuities get a lot of bad press. Especially in the do-it-yourself financial independence world. The party line, which I’ve generally accepted, is that variable annuities are complex, costly...
View ArticleRetiring With Extreme Low Interest Rates
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused financial chaos. Many eyes are focused on the stock market, massive government spending programs, and oil prices. Are we underestimating the fundamental change that...
View ArticleExploring the Pros and Cons of Retiring Before Your Spouse
I recently made the decision to retire early. My wife did not. She continues to work the same number of hours at her same job. Our path enables me to be free of a job I was burnt out on, improves...
View ArticleGetting a Mortgage When You Have Assets But No Income
Most early retirees have no pension, annuity, or Social Security income. Even if you’re a traditional retiree, you might have only one of those income streams. But what if your lifestyle plans require...
View ArticleMy Favorite Retirement Calculators
I’ve used many retirement calculators. More than 80 at last count. I relied on the best retirement planning tools to project my own retirement trajectory, culminating in early retirement at age 50....
View ArticleThe Best Retirement Calculators
What’s so important about retirement calculators? Why are these tools of more than just technical interest? Well, they’re important because either you, or a financial planner, will use the results from...
View ArticleThe 3 Best Free Retirement Calculators
Retirement calculators have an impossible job. They use various imperfect mathematical techniques in an attempt to predict the distant future. That can’t be done reliably. So they will inevitably be...
View ArticleDealing with Uncertainty in Retirement Calculations
Remember the game of Telephone? Players whisper a secret message down the line from one to the next. When the message reaches the end of the line, it’s repeated aloud to the group. And, without fail,...
View ArticleWhat If You Can’t Retire Yet?
Can I Retire Yet? It is pretty safe to assume that if you are reading this blog you have an interest in answering that question. There are common themes that cause people to start asking. Many of us...
View ArticleFinding Your Purpose in a Long Retirement
I’m happy to be writing for Can I Retire Yet? again after a two-year sabbatical. I’ll be holding down the first-Monday-of-the-month position this year while Chris continues to fill out the rest of the...
View ArticleWhy One of Us is Taking Social Security Now
As an early retiree in my 50s, I tried to factor Social Security into my financial planning. But with more than a decade to go before claiming benefits, the huge social program remained a mythical...
View ArticleAre You Ready for Medicare? — My Minimal Medicare Primer
A couple of months ago I posted that Caroline had started Social Security, and I described our thought process around that decision. Depending on your financial circumstances, there could be a range of...
View ArticleSenior Living: What Are Your Options?
When I started this blog at age 51 about twelve years ago, topics such as Social Security and Medicare were distant on the horizon. My focus back then was on living frugally and managing our...
View Article
