Month: December 2019

Holiday Gift-Giving Guide

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Wow, the holiday season is upon us. Every year, it sneaks up on me, regrettably. I know I need to up my planning game, and maybe start thinking about Christmas gifts earlier than, say, December 1st. This is never more so than this year, since I’ve been working full time and haven’t been planning ahead very well.

If you’re like me and need some last minute Christmas gifts, I thought I’d republish my gift-giving guide from last year. Yes, all the gifts are the same as last year, but they were great options then and they are now! Everything is under $20, to boot! So take a peak, and cross everyone off your list. 🙂

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What I Wish I Knew Then About FIRE: Guest Post on Costa Rica FIRE

Ahh, hindsight. Most always 20/20, it is the perspective gleaned from missteps and mistakes made.

We can’t change the past, no matter how much we’d like to, so our ancient mistakes can only serve as a guide in our present lives.

That’s the idea behind Scott and Caroline’s post. The couple, now empty nesters who I first profiled on the blog here in my Your Three Year Experience series, write about crafting a life you love, living in multiple places, and traveling. They reached out to lots of financial bloggers, me included, with the question, “What do you know now about FIRE that you wished you knew when you started?” In other words, what would you have done differently in your pursuit of financial independence/retiring early?

For our family, where retiring early has never been a primary goal, I had to think about the question under the framework of decisions we made that would have impacted our lives differently.

Certainly moving to New Hampshire in 2010 was a decision that we debated. Just before Mr. ThreeYear accepted the job with his company there, his company in Atlanta offered him a really great deal to stay. If we had stayed in Atlanta, our lives would have looked so different. What choices would we have made? Would we be as financially solid as we are now? Would our health and well-being have suffered as a result of Mr. ThreeYear staying in a stressful work environment?

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