An article in the Guardian recently caught my eye. It’s called, “The soft life: why millennials are quitting the rat race“. This article features Rose Gardner, a millennial who did everything right in terms of following society’s rulebook for success: get a master’s degree, climb the corporate ladder, rise to a coveted high paying position, and then buy a house in expensive London, England. But despite checking off all the “adulting” boxes and becoming what society considers a success, she was not happy. “I remember walking into my flat, and this might make me sound so ungrateful, but I felt ..read more

Today’s reader case comes from the Czech Republic (now Czechia). I loved Prague when we visited, Czechia will always hold a special place in our heart for the classical medieval architecture combined with metal-ass churches made out of real human bones. So without further ado, let’s see how our Eastern European reader is doing, shall we? Hey FIRECracker & Wanderer, This might not be your typical case study request. I believe I am already FI, or getting really close. But all things might not be what they seem.  We are a family of four living in Eastern Europe. About ten years ..read more

The last time we visited Isla Mujeres was back in 2017 and we were on a scuba diving day trip to MUSA, the world-famous underwater museum, led by our Airbnb host, Diego, a scuba dive instructor. He’d always wanted to teach scuba driving in Thailand but was afraid that it was “dangerous”, which made me realize that non-travellers just think their own home is safe and everywhere else is a war zone. Now 7 years later, after the world was turned upside down by a pandemic and digital nomadism went from a fringe lifestyle choice into a mainstream one, it […] The post Let’s Go Exploring (with a baby ..read more

We recently got a question in our inbox that goes like this: I have used Norbert’s Gambit before to exchange CAD to USD in my Questrade RRSP account. But I also read about your recent travels and how you use Wise to convert currencies. Which has a better conversion rate in your experience when converting CAD to USD? Because of how much we travel, we do a LOT of currency exchanges, so it’s important for us to reduce fees as much as we can. And those fees can add up, big time, if you’re not careful. If you naively use […] The post Norbert’s Gambit vs. Wise for Currency Exchanges appeared first ..read more

While going through my reader case queue, this one caught my attention. This reader about to give birth and it immediately took me back to my labour and first months with Little Matchstick. Wow, time flies. He’s already 6 months old but it somehow feels like it was just weeks ago that he was born, but also at the same time a whole decade. Time feels weird when you are a mom. Kind of like how time gets warped when you’re retired and travelling. Anyway, I digress. I’m really interested in this reader case because not only is this reader […] The post Reader Case: Single Mom Wonders Whether Real ..read more

I recently got an email from a reader asking the following question. I’ve read that you guys have been investing in Preferred Stocks. I went down a rabbit hole trying to understand them further (particularly Preferred Stock ETFs for broader diversification), but am still a bit perplexed.  I’m wondering if Preferred Stocks could have a place in a portfolio of early retirees, since we’re trying to live off our $ in 1.5 years and do need safer income-producing assets. Right now our portfolio is 100% equities (stocks and ETFs), but that seems too risky, so ..read more

“Travelling with an infant is hell. You’d be crazy to do it. You’d just need a vacation from the vacation.” “Taking care of a baby is hard. Why make it harder by travelling?” “Oh, you’re having a baby? Guess you’ll finally have to be mature and settle down like the rest of us. Say goodbye to your travelling days!” Be mature?! HA! Having kids doesn’t make you more mature or classier. I’m the same piece of shit I was before popping out Little Matchstick and that’s not going to change any time soon. Long time readers know that I might […] The post How to Travel with a Baby appeared first on Mill ..read more

Back in 2016 when this blog was first starting to take off, I ran a weekly series of articles called the Investment Workshop, where I showed people step-by-step how to build and manage an ETF-based portfolio like the one we used to retire. The workshop ran for a year, with 52 articles, and after it was done, I figured we would move on to something else. Little did I know that the Investment Workshop would become the most popular part of our site, with literally thousands of people learning how to invest from it, and even after many years people […] The post Investment Workshop 2.0 appeared fi ..read more

Guess what time it is? Reader case time! Hi! We are a same sex married couple currently in the US (S is in her mid 40s working here on 10 yr employer sponsored visa and T is in her 50s). We stumbled onto FIRE concept and your great book / blog a few years ago so we are late to the game, but since then we’ve slowly but certainly changed our spending and savings habits. Our current net worth (according to Empower) is around $1.1M, and our goal ·         Is to retire together in 5 years if possible (T has multiple […] The post Reader Case: Same Sex Co ..read more

I recently got an email with the subject line “Is our age gap a blessing or a curse?” and I giggled a bit. Because that’s a question that if you have to ask it, the answer is almost always “Dude, I’m pretty sure that’s a felony.” So on that note, let’s see what kind of felony our reader is committing, shall we? Hello Firecracker and Wanderer, It was really nice that I come across your book in a Facebook group for FIRE and since I have read your book twice and the simple path to wealth once and now I […] The post Reader Case: Is Our Age Gap OK? appeared first on Millennial Revolution ..read more