One of my hobbies is knitting and although I am somewhat of a beginner as far as knitting goes, I am trying to finish a sweater for my son. Hopefully it will come out good enough so he will think about wearing it out in public once or twice.
I have been following a blog written by Robyn Devine called Minimalist Knitter. She has a goal of knitting 10,000 items for charity in her lifetime. She just finished knitting 100 hats in one year! I am looking forward to knitting one hat for myself this fall and maybe a few for my family if mine turns out OK. Robyn just finished an interview with Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity which was very interesting. Hats off to Robyn for writing an interesting blog. Wish I could knit as fast as she does.
One of the advantages to retiring early is the ability to do things you never had time to do while you were working. My problem is that I have too many things going at once. I will need to prioritize them and concentrate on the most important and let the others slip for now. Blogging and finishing that sweater need to be my priorities for now.
Live and be active.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Achieving Financial Independence
I do not claim to be a financial adviser so I will not give any detailed financial advise but there are some general steps to take to achieve financial independence.
First of all determine how much money you will need to live your dream lifestyle. You need to be reasonable about your dream lifestyle to make it possible. In my case, I wanted to retire early and travel around the country in my motorhome. Research how much it costs to live your dream by talking to people who are already doing it. The internet is wonderful for research. Find blogs, look up costs of living in your target area, how much will health insurance cost and any other costs you will incur. Look into your current expenses. Quicken is great for detailing where your money is going. Many of your current expenses will continue on into your retirement.
After you have a rough idea of how much your dream will cost, figure out how to fund it. Look into retirement options at your place of work. Is there a pension plan? Do you have a 401k? I certainly hope you have been putting some money away into a 401k. From now on you should dump as much money in your 401k as you can. It would be nice to have your retirement income come from multiple sources in case there are problems with one of them.
As I said earlier, I will not give specific financial advise, but I will tell you what I had to work with. I had available three sources for income. The company I worked for would provide an annuity, my 401k and my savings. I could not do much about increasing the annuity except to work long enough until it would provide one third of my projected income, I was close so that was not a problem. I needed to grow my 401k until a 4% withdrawal would provide another third and I needed to increase my savings to provide the final third of my income. I kept a spreadsheet to help me determine where I was in reaching my goal. One of the happiest days of my life was when I determined I had what it would take for me to live without my job and could go into work and tell my boss I was leaving.
How can you make this all happen? Minimize your expenses. Pare down your life until you have enough to live your dream. Go through your current expenses and cut wherever you can. Question whether you really need all the stuff you think you do. This is where the minimalist lifestyle comes in. Sell everything you can live without and put that money into your savings. Stop buying things that are not essential. You may find you can move into a smaller house, cheaper apartment, or even move into a motorhome or RV. Some people even live in vans or cars, but that is rather extreme for me. Just do whatever is necessary to save up enough money to fund your dream.
Need extra income? Some people have been successful earning extra income with blogs using affiliate marketing or selling ebooks they have written. Sell stuff on Ebay. Provide consulting in your area of expertise.
What if you have no job and want to fund a dream of traveling? There are other options. Check out Workamper.com. Here you will find ways to get temporary jobs as you travel around the country. If you want to live in different places but not in an RV, you could work for companies like Home Depot or Camping World that will allow you to move to different areas and still work for them. Amazon has multiple distribution centers where you can get temporary jobs before Christmas.
Once you determine what you want to do and how much it will cost, keep digging until you find a way to achieve it or modify your dream to fit your funds. You can do it!
Have other ideas on how to fund a dream lifestyle? Post below.
First of all determine how much money you will need to live your dream lifestyle. You need to be reasonable about your dream lifestyle to make it possible. In my case, I wanted to retire early and travel around the country in my motorhome. Research how much it costs to live your dream by talking to people who are already doing it. The internet is wonderful for research. Find blogs, look up costs of living in your target area, how much will health insurance cost and any other costs you will incur. Look into your current expenses. Quicken is great for detailing where your money is going. Many of your current expenses will continue on into your retirement.
After you have a rough idea of how much your dream will cost, figure out how to fund it. Look into retirement options at your place of work. Is there a pension plan? Do you have a 401k? I certainly hope you have been putting some money away into a 401k. From now on you should dump as much money in your 401k as you can. It would be nice to have your retirement income come from multiple sources in case there are problems with one of them.
As I said earlier, I will not give specific financial advise, but I will tell you what I had to work with. I had available three sources for income. The company I worked for would provide an annuity, my 401k and my savings. I could not do much about increasing the annuity except to work long enough until it would provide one third of my projected income, I was close so that was not a problem. I needed to grow my 401k until a 4% withdrawal would provide another third and I needed to increase my savings to provide the final third of my income. I kept a spreadsheet to help me determine where I was in reaching my goal. One of the happiest days of my life was when I determined I had what it would take for me to live without my job and could go into work and tell my boss I was leaving.
How can you make this all happen? Minimize your expenses. Pare down your life until you have enough to live your dream. Go through your current expenses and cut wherever you can. Question whether you really need all the stuff you think you do. This is where the minimalist lifestyle comes in. Sell everything you can live without and put that money into your savings. Stop buying things that are not essential. You may find you can move into a smaller house, cheaper apartment, or even move into a motorhome or RV. Some people even live in vans or cars, but that is rather extreme for me. Just do whatever is necessary to save up enough money to fund your dream.
Need extra income? Some people have been successful earning extra income with blogs using affiliate marketing or selling ebooks they have written. Sell stuff on Ebay. Provide consulting in your area of expertise.
What if you have no job and want to fund a dream of traveling? There are other options. Check out Workamper.com. Here you will find ways to get temporary jobs as you travel around the country. If you want to live in different places but not in an RV, you could work for companies like Home Depot or Camping World that will allow you to move to different areas and still work for them. Amazon has multiple distribution centers where you can get temporary jobs before Christmas.
Once you determine what you want to do and how much it will cost, keep digging until you find a way to achieve it or modify your dream to fit your funds. You can do it!
Have other ideas on how to fund a dream lifestyle? Post below.
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