Tag Archives: Financial Independence

Billy & Akaisha’s 3 Lessons on how they reached their Victory Lap

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Almost 3 decades of retirement and we still have a great time on a boat ride across Lake Atitlan

By Billy and Akasha Kaderli, RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Retirement is a great achievement, but it’s not static. It’s not like once you arrive you can forget about it and put it on auto-pilot. It’s an interactive manner of living that continues to respond to our input, the new skills we learn and how our goals modify. Hopefully we continue to grow and change, making our retirement sustainable and sweeter to live.

Below you will find three of our most effective lessons on retirement that will enrich you and increase your enjoyment along your path in financial freedom.

Control housing costs and you can live anywhere

This is a well-kept secret of retirement. The cost of housing is one of the largest financial outlays in anyone’s household no matter what age you are, and if you modify the price you pay for your residence, you have the financial freedom to virtually afford living anywhere in the world.

In other words, if you could save tens of thousands of dollars a year on mortgage payments or rent, insurance, maintenance and repairs, how would that affect your life? What if you could live in Paris or on a Caribbean island for free? You can do that, if you house sit. Continue Reading…

3 simple techniques for overcoming financial stress in Retirement

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Senior Couple Were Disappointed While Reading Letter On TableBy Leigh Marcos

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

We all look forward to retirement: complete freedom. We can do what we want, when we want, and don’t have to traipse into an office every day to join the rat race that dominates younger people’s lives.

Unfortunately, the transition to not working can come with a different set of pressures, not least the financial stress triggered by your drop in income. Current statistics show that 68% of working-age people in the U.S. don’t participate in an employer-sponsored pension plan, so this is a common anxiety that affects much of today’s retired populace.

Luckily, there are ways to combat financial stress and still relish what should be some of the most enjoyable years of your life. Here are three simple steps to help you do so:

Value yourself, and act like it

All too often, the change of routine involved in retiring after a lifetime of work can cause us to drift into a kind of daily limbo where time starts to lose meaning, and so as a consequence does our everyday life. Combat this lack of direction by actively redefining who you are without your job. What do you stand for? What do you still want to achieve? What do you enjoy doing? How do you spend your time? Take some time to reflect on these questions: brainstorming can help, as can physically writing things down or discussing them with a friend.

Make sure to avoid isolation by getting involved in regular, structured activity that enriches your life and brings you into contact with people who have a positive influence on you. This will help you keep financial worries in perspective and remind you that there are other important and valuable things in life.

Stay healthy

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Boomer & Echo’s Review of Victory Lap Retirement (+ a giveaway)

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There’s a growing body of evidence that suggests postponing retirement – even by just one year – can lead to a longer, healthier life. The reality is that we’re living longer and saving less. Something has to give. But another year or two spent pushing paper in a cubicle is probably not the holy retirement grail we’ve been searching for.

Related: Growing older in America – The Health and Retirement Study

Indeed, if you’re healthy and can afford to stop working, the idea is to find something else you’re passionate about and do that instead – whether it’s switching to a new career in an unrelated field, writing a book, starting a blog, or simply volunteering at your favourite charity. Call it your work-optional years.

Victory Lap Retirement

Authors Mike Drak and Jonathan Chevreau call it your Victory Lap Retirement. The authors argue that the idea of retirement has to change in the sense that going from 100 percent work mode to 100 percent leisure mode is boring and fraught with risk.

The fact is we might be retired, in the traditional sense, for thirty or forty years – as long, or maybe longer, than we spent during our working lives. That’s too long to spend in an armchair watching Seinfeld reruns.

How do we find purpose and meaning in this third stage of life? More importantly, for some, how do we finance it?

 In Victory Lap Retirement, Drak and Chevreau describe a post-employment lifestyle designed with a unique blend of work and play that allows you to live life to the fullest, on your terms, while you’re young enough to enjoy it.
Financial Independence

 

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Simplifying Investing for Financial Independence

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By Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

As 2016 comes to a close, we thought we would look back financially to where we started this adventure, from January of 1991. The chart below shows the ascent of the S&P 500 Index over our 26 years of retirement.

On our retirement date of January 14, 1991, the S&P 500 index closed at 312.49. It has recently closed at 2262, making roughly an 8% annual gain plus a couple per cent counting dividends. Hard to imagine, right? With all of the market ups and downs, global turmoil, governments coming and going, businesses expanding and failing, and still producing roughly a 10% annual return.

But is this really a one-off period and not the norm? Continue Reading…

How to create financial sustainability for yourself

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Billy & Akaisha Kaderli, RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

By Billy and Akaisha Kaderli, RetireEarlyLifestyle.com

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

These days, no matter what the topic, the talk is all about sustainability.

In regards to financial sustainability, there are three legs to the stool: income, spending and Investments.

1.) Income

Income is derived from money you make through your job using physical or mental labor or both. Passive income can be created through property rentals, bond interest, dividends and or capital gains from investments.

Increasing income can be done by learning a new skill, getting a promotion, or taking on a better or second job. Maximizing your skills and continued education either formal or on your own is a valuable asset. This could be as easy as teaching yourself about investments in your down time. There are plenty of online tools available to learn this.

Also, don’t rule out that Social Security [or in Canada, CPP and OAS] will be available once you become eligible.

2.) Spending

How much you spend and the debt you carry are two areas that are completely manageable by you. The categories of largest spending in any household are housing, transport, taxes and food/entertainment. Depending where you live, it may make more sense to rent instead of buying a home, or rent out a room in the home you already own, or rent out a subsection of your home in order to help with the mortgage. Putting off that remodel of the bathroom or kitchen, or the re-do of the back yard will also allow you extra money to put into investments.

Regarding transportation, you could walk or bicycle to work, take public transportation instead of owning your own vehicle, car pool or use Uber or a ride sharing service. The cost of car ownership is over $8,000 per year, roughly $650 per month, or $22 per day according to AAA’s 2016 Your Driving Cost Study. How much of your day is spent covering your car expenses, which according to Fortune is parked 95% of the time?

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