
Often when I talk to people about retiring early they get the idea of someone sitting on a couch all day doing nothing. This, in turn, makes people justifying not really preparing or trying to retire early. I typically hear “what will you do all day be bored and sit around”.
I’d like to clear this up. If you want to work for a long time that is your choice and I understand. Yet my plan is to build enough wealth that I have options and can pursue what I want when I want. If you also would like this and are struggling with what to do reach out to me by message, I’m always willing to help or follow my journey on my site by subscribing. I’ll continue to push meaningful content as fast as I can.
What opened my eyes to this way of life? Well, I would have to give the credit to the Financial Independence Retiring Early (FIRE) community. It’s such a great community that has taught me what true value in life is. It is so great to see a community of regular people able to retire early in their life. Before I used to be surrounded by people I like to call “consumers” who will consistently complain about money. They tend to think they have to work till they are in their 60s. This is true if you put your value into stuff, upgrades, and luxuries.
This is why I am very focused on building my wealth as fast as I can. See I’m 37 years old and I started this journey in 2015.
The only bad part of this journey is the way other people will start to self-reflect on their failures once they see how good you are doing. I often will get people to say I am greedy. Or I love the “you can only do that because you are single” or “do you even ever have fun”. These people always make me chuckle. I can only give them advice and hope they listen. Remember my goal is to help guide as many people as I can to create the life they want. It’s not to get jealous or upset with those who are very successful. Actually, the people who are doing great are the ones I surround myself with and pick their brains.

My Plans
I like to think of my plans as fluid or flexible. Because we change as we age and things we liked last year we might not like anymore. I think future plans will shift and might not even look like they do today. Right now I am leaning toward six months in America and six months traveling. I’m not sure yet if my home base will be in America or another country.
The wife and I have talked about a home in France, moving back to Guatemala, and also having a place in Key West with family. Of course, we do have the RV so when in America we can live and travel in that as well.
I want to do a lot of slow travel. I don’t want to do the typical two-week vacation in another country. Instead, I want to live there and stay until I am ready to move on to the next place. I guess I want to be somewhat nomadic with a home base.
Typical Day
The perfect day in retired life for me would be waking up around seven in the morning. Take my time to get a nice cup of coffee, some oatmeal, and get a nice shave with my vintage razors. Take care of any little errands I have or any physical projects I am working on. Around lunch get a good workout in and then eat some lunch. Follow that up with some stimulating projects for my brain. Take a nice walk followed by watching the sunset and eating dinner.
That is a great snapshot of what I want my typical day to look like in retirement. I do like to adventure and go exploring. So a few times a week I would add hikes, exploring, off-roading, or Overlanding to my retirement life.
Will I Earn More Money?
I’m not sure at this moment if I will earn more money. I know I don’t want to work a full-time W2 job right now. My plans are maybe to do some interesting side-hustles that stimulate my brain or that help me learn a new skill.
One of those interesting side-hustles would be to grow the blog and turn it into something more serious. As of today I really have not tried to grow it or make any money off it. I can see that changing once I am retired and have more time.
I also have thought about doing more fitness and financial coaching. So many cool things that interest me it makes it hard to choose. Here is a really great post I did on Side Hustles!
School
Since I am active duty military I do have the GI Bill as a perk. That perk pays for my tuition and gives me a stipend to live based on the zip code of the school. Here in San Diego that stipend is $2,319 a month. Now that is only for the months you are a full-time student. Still, that is me getting paid $2K a month to go to school for about 9 months a year. In Key West, it’s even more money! It is about $2,673 in Key West a month. I can choose any subject that interests me or I think would be fun.
How cool is it that I can go to school and pick what I want to study because I enjoy it vs needing to get a good-paying job? Trick question, it is as cool as Naruto fighting Isshiki.
I can even use it for trade school. A few things I would not mind learning would be, electrical work, building, HVAC, or even plumbing. I think all of those skills could be very useful. I have even thought about using it to become an aesthetician and massage therapist. These two jobs seem like they would be fun side hustles.
Conclusion
As you can see early retirement is not a bad thing, you don’t have to sit on a couch all day lol. It’s whatever vision you want it to be. The great thing about life is we can design it however we desire. We all can retire early if we make it a priority.
We must also be willing to self-educate ourselves In personal finance and then take action on it. You must be willing to learn and listen to others that are doing better than you.
My goal as of now is to have the ability to stop working in 2024. About two and a half years from now! But I am currently thinking about trying to accelerate that to retire early this year in 2022. It all depends if my request gets accepted by the Marine Corps.
Ethier way I can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hope you enjoyed my ideal FIRE life.