Welcome back FImily to the next installment of the FIRE Community Interview Series! For anyone new here, this interview series will cover people within the FIRE community who are on their way to becoming financial independent, have already reached financial independence, or who have retired early. If you are reading this and you are financially independent, retired early, or close to reaching these major financial milestones, please reach out to the Modern Fimily!

I am so excited to have Ali and Alison Walker from All Options Considered to tackle our interview questions this week. We connected with Ali & Alison through our Instagram account and have been digital friends for awhile now however I feel like we are old friends and have known each other for years (if that makes any sense). It is very rare to find fellow lesbian FIRE members so we immediately hit it off and the friendship has grown ever since.  Ali and Alison have already reached FIRE and are now traveling all over the world.  I won’t dig too much into their story as they have provided amazingly detailed responses to all the questions I threw at them.  I hope you appreciate all the details as much as I do – it’s very rare to get this much insight from a couple who have already retired early – I hope you gain some knowledge along the way!  Ali and Alison, take it away!


1a. Can you give us a little background of who you are, what you do, and
We are Ali and Alison Walker. We were both born in California and we met in Seattle in 2004. We were married in Canada in 2006 because that’s where it was legal when we were ready to get married. Alison had a 30 year career in the graphic arts and printing industry and retired at the top of her field as a high end image retoucher for a small pre- press company in Seattle. Ali had an 18 year career mostly in marketing for the architecture and engineering industry. We both retired in 2018 when Alison was 54 and Ali was 44. Our plan is to never have another W2 job again.
 
 
1b. how you became interested in personal finance?
Alison: My dad was an accountant so personal finance has always been an important part of my concept for being a productive adult. My level of interest only became the obsession it is now after I turned 40 when Ali and I started planning for our future together in 2004. Up until I was 40 I was completely focused on building my job skills and mastering my skillset for career purposes. After Ali and I got together I felt ready to loosen my grip on my job and began to turn my mind to personal finance because it was clear that was what we needed and wanted to focus on together.
 
Ali: My grandma demonstrated the importance of handling one’s own personal finances when I was little, and she gave me some initial instruction on managing money and learning how to invest. But I also learned from her that debt was a normal way of life and that was a harder lesson to unlearn. It wasn’t until Alison and I got together that I had someone in my life who really wanted to “work on personal finance” with me. We got into personal finance on a different level as a couple and were completely open to talking about all aspects of personal finance and began focusing our energy on how we could make our money work for us and achieve our goals.
 
1c. How did you discover the idea of financial independence?
Alison found the FIRE movement in 2014 when she googled “how much money do you need to retire?” There were a lot of different authors, bloggers, and podcasters in the community at that time and of course it’s a much larger community today. But there were really 3 voices that we gravitated towards in the beginning. The first one was Vicki Robin, we love her book “Your Money Or Your Life.” The next voice that really spoke to us was Brandon on the Mad Fientist podcast, so we plowed through every episode of that show. And then the third voice that really got us completely on the FIRE wagon was Paula Pant and her Afford Anything podcast so we started listening to that every week. And by the way that was when we really understood why our misguided efforts with rental properties failed so miserably. We still really appreciate those 3 voices in the FIRE community and we really enjoy all of the other writers, bloggers and podcasters we have come to know since then.
 
2a. When in your journey did you realize financial independence was actually possible?
When we found the FIRE movement in 2014 we first felt like we had permission to consider financial independence as a possibility. But it took another 3 years for us to get a full grasp of the concepts behind financial independence, gather the data needed to run all of the calculations, and gain the confidence to actually test our own numbers. The lightbulb moment was when we decided we were willing to move the capital within our condo into our investments for generating passive income in 2017. That’s when we realized financial independence was actually possible for us.
 
2b. Was that the original goal at the beginning?
Our original goal was to retire together at ages 55 and 65, though this was a point of disagreement for us. Ali was always convinced we would retire earlier though never had firm ages in mind, but that started when we decided we would definitely retire at the same time. From Ali’s perspective we were running though all kinds of exciting ideas for generating passive income and anything seemed possible, even if we were running trial and error ideas for years. Alison really believed she would likely be working until she was at least 65 or maybe 70. Alison was very worried about our finances and didn’t think we would have the money to retire, and that’s probably because when we originally talked about retirement we were struggling to keep up with our expenses and for years they were increasing while our income was remaining pretty flat.
 
3a. To help put things into context, if you are comfortable sharing some numbers, what is your savings rate,
We worked hard on increasing our savings rate every year we were together, and we were very happy that we were saving well over 60% of our income by the end of our employment years.
 
3b. FIRE number,
We started with the standard FIRE calculation of 25x your annual living expenses. Our
goal was to build some extra cushion, and we retired at 33X our annual living expenses.
 
3c. net worth,
We aren’t currently comfortable with sharing our exact numbers. Maybe that’s because we want to avoid participating in anything that could create judgement or competition for us or anyone else. Or maybe that’s because we simply just want to keep our personal finances personal. Regardless – we do think he more important topics we want to focus on are the concepts and calculations since those are more easily transferable than one person’s exact and unique numbers.
 
Our net worth is invested across 5 total accounts. We each have a rollover 401k IRA, we each have a Roth IRA, and we have a joint brokerage account. We retired with an invested savings of 33x our 2017 expenses, which gives us a 3% withdrawal rate for our budget allowance calculations. The 2017 number we used was net take home pay after 401k, medical, and tax expenses were withdrawn. Our current actual budget now covers total expenses including our costs for medical and taxes. And of course we remain a bit conservative and have built in some additional buffers, and we do make an effort to come in under budget in our spending.
 
3d. salary,
Our 2017 joint salary was around $220k. We were not huge income earners during our careers, and we only enjoyed that salary level for the last 2 years we were employed after Ali got a rather large raise. We both fell into situations at work where we allowed our income levels to remain pretty flat. Alison had strong personal feelings for her friends who owned the small business she worked for, and that ended up creating a situation where her salary was flat and she even agreed to accept salary decreases when the company was struggling. Ali also had a fairly overwhelming sense of loyalty to the company she worked for from 2003 until 2016. For most of those years Ali accepted what were mostly cost of living increases and didn’t really consider options for how she might move up or move to a new firm. It wasn’t until 2016 when Ali was ready to risk a big move to a new firm for a big salary increase, and the fact that we were starting to see the possibility of reaching FIRE at that time was a huge part of what gave her the confidence to do that at the end of her career.
 
3e. how many hours a week did you work, etc?
We were salaried employees. We both worked over 50 hours per week consistently and
we often worked over 60 hours per week.
 
3f. How long have you been working towards financial independence and where are you today?
We started working towards financial independence together in 2004. But for a long time we did not have the vocabulary to call what we were doing that exactly. It was definitely a progressive process for us where we learned more and more through trial and error each year. We like to say we stumbled our way into FIRE. And we retired in 2018 at ages 44 and 54.
 
4a. Do you feel deprived? Do you feel like you are sacrificing and missing out on life?
Neither one of us feels deprived. We are thrilled to be living a lifestyle where we can determine our own path and control the way we spend our time. On the other hand, we wouldn’t mind having so much money that we didn’t have to be careful with our spending. And sure, life would be a little bit easier if we never had to say no to a purchase. It’s probably accurate to say that sometimes our circumstances at the moment can cause a slightly elevated feeling of deprivation — like maybe we feel a tiny bit more deprived if the apartment we are in at the moment is a bit shabby, compared to how we feel if the apartment we are in seems really fabulous. For example, right now we are in Ecuador getting ready for chautauqua. We were able to add the cost of attending this chautauqua in 2019 to our budget, even though we had not originally planned for that expense. A lot of the people in our group are also going together to the Galapagos Islands after the conference is over, but that additional cost is well over our budget for this year so we had to say no to that experience. Of course we would love to be going to the Galapagos Islands with the group but sometimes we have to say no to spending opportunities, and we might have a flash of feeling deprived when that happens. But we recognize that being responsible for our spending and sticking to our budget is not about being deprived. It’s part of the agreement we made when we decided to retire early and become financially independent. We know we can always plan for visiting the Galapagos Islands another year.
 
4b. How would you say your mindset has shifted throughout your FI journey?
We have had some major shifts in our mindset over the past 15 years of our FI journey, and it has been a roller coaster at times. We have gone through periods of comparing ourselves to our friends and family and coworkers. There were times when saying no to big fancy dinners on a regular basis was difficult. And there were times when we saw other people buying bigger and fancier properties or paying for extravagant home remodel projects that we thought seemed pretty fabulous. There were also times when we saw our friends taking luxury vacations twice a year, and we wondered if our once every two years points-based vacations were good enough. But over and over again we set ourselves back on the path to reach our own goals and refocused our efforts on what we wanted and needed. We stayed committed to our goal of reaching FIRE sooner rather than later. And we wouldn’t trade that for any of the big fancy houses and jobs other people have.
 
5a. What do you spend your money on and what don’t you spend your money on?
We probably spend most of our money on food and drinks. We also spend money on experiences such as cooking classes or museum admissions. We enjoy watching movies so we pay for Netflix. Because we both love listening to books and we can’t always find what we want through online libraries we pay for an Audible subscription. We will often spend extra money on housing to make sure we have a washing machine in the apartment. We spend money every year on new glasses and sunglasses since we both have eye issues and our vision changes annually.
 
We don’t spend money on travel upgrades, we’d rather travel in coach than pay extra. We don’t spend money on clothes unless we absolutely have to.
 
5b. What brings you happiness and joy? How much money do these things cost?
The things that bring us the most joy are spending time with each other; talking with each other about all of the different hopes and dreams we have, and all of the different ideas and possibilities we can imagine; taking walks together; watching the weather change and being out in the wind and rain; exploring new and different neighborhoods. We really enjoy things like that and of course those things are all free.
 
 
6a. Do you use a budget? Do you track your expenses? Do you track your net worth?
Hell yes!
 
6b. If so, how often do you update these?
Our budget is set for the year, based on our actual expenditures from the previous year. Our expenses are tracked daily and updated in a spreadsheet almost every day. We update our net worth about once a month.
 
7a. As a FIRE member living in the US (well living in the US until you retired early), are there any pros to living in America specifically that have helped you along your journey?
The main benefits that we were able to take advantage of while we were employed were saving into tax advantaged retirement accounts — our 401k’s IRAs, Roth IRAs — that reduced our income taxes when we invested and will also save on taxes when we withdraw those funds in the future. The other big benefit we experienced in our FIRE journey was not having to pay any taxes on capital gains when we sold our condo because that was our primary residence.
 
7b. Conversely, any cons?
Paying our share of healthcare costs while we were employed and living in the US was always a burden on our finances. Now that we are retired and have to pay 100% of our healthcare costs we are even more aware of how expensive healthcare is in the US. Since becoming nomads we are looking for ways to deal with our medical, dental, and vision costs outside of the US anytime we can to avoid paying inflated costs for those needs in the US.
 
8a. How long was the idea of becoming nomads and traveling around the world part of your FIRE plans?
When we started learning about FIRE in 2014 we came across the concept of geo-arbitrage, but becoming nomads was not part of our original plan. When we started talking about the importance of selling our condo and rolling those funds into our income engine we sketched out all of our options on the white board and the nomad option became a very realistic possibility for us right away. The first time we had that initial conversation was in September of 2017. We compared three ideas and worked out how we could make them work within our existing budget: becoming renters in a lower cost of living area in the US, living in an RV and traveling around the US full time, or becoming nomads and living primarily outside of the US. Clearly the nomad idea won. We had actually only traveled outside of North America twice before at that point, once in 2014 and then in 2016. So the idea of traveling around the world full time seemed absolutely amazing to us. We just couldn’t imagine anything more thrilling and satisfying than that.
 
8b. How long did in advance do you plan things out prior to retiring early?
In July of 2017 we realized we could retire early. In September of 2017 we started to map out what retirement would look like as far as selling the condo, leaving Seattle, and becoming nomads. In January of 2018 we decided to set the date for Alison’s retirement for April of 2018. At that point Ali thought she would retire in 2021, but in March she got a new boss that she didn’t respect so we talked about having Ali retire much sooner at the end of 2018. By July Ali was anxious to quit so she we immediately changed gears and put the FIRE plan into full gear and Ali officially retired at the beginning of September 2018.
8c. Do you wing most of your itineraries or do you plan most things out in advance?
For our 3 vacations in Europe in 2014, 2016, and 2018 we planned every detail sometimes over a year in advance. We had that experience for traveling outside of the US, plus Ali’s routine for work travel which had really impacted the way we traveled to see family as well. So that’s what we had to work from when we started out as nomads in November of 2018. Between July and October of 2018 we planned out almost every detail of our travels from November of 2018 all the way up until September of 2019. There were a few changes but we pretty much stuck to the original plan. We left our condo at the end of October. We spent November housesitting. We spent December with family. And then we planned out January through April in SE Asia, and May in Japan. Then June of 2019 we planned to be back in the US with family. Then we planned July through September traveling with Alison’s mom in France and Scotland. I think the first time we left something open in our schedule was the exact location we would stay in while we were in Vietnam in April of 2019. Once we hit that point we started learning how to be more flexible. And today we finally enjoy the idea of keeping things more open so we can switch gears when new ideas hit us. But it clearly took us a long time to figure that out!
 
8d. Any regrets or changes you would have done now that you have been traveling for quite some time?
No regrets or changes. We assumed a life of constant change would be hard to adapt to but that actually has been easy for us. And we know now that we can’t predict just how happy we will be in one location or another. We really needed to let 2019 be about learning how to be nomads and acclimatizing to this new lifestyle. We have made plenty of mistakes this year, but they have all taught us how to be better nomads. For example, we couldn’t learn how to be comfortable in Malaysia by reading about it, we had to go there and figure it out for ourselves. We want to give ourselves lots of time to find a variety of locations that feel like a good fit for us. And eventually our goal is to have a list of places we already know we love so we can go back to them again and again. We aren’t trying to visit every country or become big time adventurers, we just want to keep being us in different parts of the world that we are comfortable in.
 
 
9a. What is your investment strategy? Do you invest in mutual funds, index funds, dividend growth stocks, real estate, other businesses, etc.?
Our investment strategy is based on a simplified allocation using a five-fund portfolio format that we derived from the Bogleheads three-fund portfolio. Our investments are in index fund ETFs and our income comes from dividends and capital gains across our portfolio. We each have a 401k rollover IRA, and we each have a Roth IRA, and we also have a joint brokerage account.
 
9b. Has your investment strategy changed over the years?
We initially focused on building as much wealth as possible in our 401k’s, and then we also started investing in individual stocks in a joint brokerage account. We really enjoyed selecting individual stocks but that was a very time consuming process for us and it was also stressful to be concerned with the normal ups and downs of the market on a daily basis. After we fell out of love with individual stocks we became really excited about investing in real estate to generate passive income. We had two rental properties for a few years, but they were never cash positive and we really disliked how involved we needed to be in our renters lives since we were handling our own property management. Eventually we gave up on the rental property idea and sold those properties. We finally settled on the strategy of keeping our investments in index fund ETFs and that has been a perfect fit for us.
 
10. If you could go back in time and change things, what would you have done differently?
Our attempts at owning rental properties really did not work out well for us. If we could go back and change things we would never have turned our personal residence in Seattle into a rental property because we know now that property could not meet the 1% Rule as a rental.
We simply did not understand what was involved in rental property investments at the time.
 
The other change we would make would be to immediately sell the property we inherited in Canada. That house was too far away for us to use it ourselves, it needed a tremendous amount of maintenance and we didn’t have the money to handle that, and since it was in a low income rural area it could not survive as a rental property. We felt obligated to keep that house since we inherited it, but we lost a ton of money on it and didn’t have the emotional capacity to recognize that the right decision would have been to sell it immediately. We wish we could go back and start investing our extra income in our 401k’s and our brokerage account during those years instead of paying to hold onto those two negative cash flow rental properties!
 
11. Has discovering financial independence changed how you viewed your job (when you were working) and life overall?
Alison used to be the type of employee who would accept it if her boss was struggling as a business owner and needed to cut Alison’s salary to help the business. Ali used to be the type of employee who would accept it if her boss wanted Ali to stay in the same role for 10 years so she could mentor new team members and provide consistency for the company. FI has made both of us less tolerant of our past employers’ shortcomings as business people and as bosses. We recognize that running a business is difficult, and we realize that our employers were not able to meet our expectations for having a fulfilling career experience and competitive salaries. We both stayed with our primary company for longer than we should have out of loyalty. We didn’t completely realize until after we retired that it would have been better for both of us to leave our companies before we were done with our careers, so we could keep up with our peers in terms of salary levels, and also so we could keep growing and changing as employees and people over time.
 
12a. Did you take advantage of tax advantaged accounts offered to you? If so, which ones and how so?
In the past we invested in our 401k’s, employee stock options, traditional IRAs, Roth
IRAs, and HSAs when they were available.
 
12b. What’s your game plan to withdraw these funds early without getting hit with a penalty?
We have a large brokerage account balance and our intention is to live off of those investments in our brokerage account for as long as it lasts until its empty. Starting this year we are making large IRA to Roth conversions while we have a very low income so we can avoid large RMDs from our IRAs when we turn 70 years old. After the brokerage account is empty we would then be living off the investments in our Roth accounts.
 
13. As an American couple who has pulled the plug and now living nomadically, what are your post-FIRE plans regarding health coverage? What do you estimate your post-FIRE health costs have been per year so far?  Do you estimate it will change once you are no longer nomads?
Our total out of pocket medical costs paid in 2019 are/will be $4,856. That includes four vaccinations, two dental cleanings, one porcelain dental crown, and one expensive prescription refill for $1,245. That also includes premiums for another year of IMG’s Global Medical Insurance Gold plan to cover us for 2020, which we will have to pay soon and assume will cost around $3,611 since that’s what we paid for the same plan for 2019.
 
Our current IMG plan covers us in every country in the world, and because it includes the US it’s expensive. For 2020 we considered switching to a plan that covers us everywhere except the US, plus brief periods of travel insurance for the US as needed. But we have decided to continue with IMG’s global medical insurance plan with full coverage everywhere.
 
In the future when we are no longer nomads, assuming we go back to living within the US full time, we would opt for coverage with the Affordable Care Act. We would look at high deductible plan options and try to find one with premiums around $3,500 (or less) annually for the two of us. Our plan was to manufacture our base income level to remain below the 4x poverty rate reflecting about $64,000 a year so we would qualify for subsidies. But we recently decided to start making large Roth conversions of around $60k each year until our 401k rollover IRAs are both empty, which would increase our income, impact our ability to qualify for ACA subsidies, and make our healthcare premiums much higher than what we were hoping for.
 

14a. Where do you see yourself in the next year,

We see ourselves in 2020 and 2021 continuing to live the way we are now for the most part, still visiting new countries and new cities and continuing to find places we love and want to return to for 1-3 months at a time. And we will mix in return visits to some of the places we already know we love like Scotland, France, and Japan. We will also continue to travel with Alison’s mom during the summer months to get her out of Phoenix AZ.
 
14b. In 5 years,
Hopefully in 5 years we will have a routine of staying for longer visits in the 6 or so favorite locations we enjoy living in. Though we will also want to continue traveling to new cities and changing things up as well. And hopefully we will also still be able to travel a bit with Alison’s mom during the summers, her health permitting.
 
14c. In 10 years?
In the next 10 years it is realistic to assume that Alison’s mom will not be able to travel with us anymore. So we plan to stop traveling to spend a significant amount of our time with Alison’s mom in her retirement community in Arizona. And we know in the best circumstances that would be tough for us because Phoenix is too hot and too conservative for us to be really comfortable living there longterm. But we will learn to love Phoenix since our goal is to spend as much time as possible with Alison’s mom in her later years.
 
15a. Have you come out of the FIRE closet yet? Meaning, do your friends, family, co-workers etc. know about your financial independence goals? If so, how did you bring it up and what were their reactions?
We discovered the FIRE movement in 2014, and we started talking to our closest friends and family members about the main concepts and what interested us right away. Over time our behavior and spending habits changed more and more as we shifted our priorities, which meant we were talking to family about how often we were budgeting for travel to visit them and that sort of thing as well. And we were talking to our closest friends about deciding not to go out for drinks and dinner very often and wanting to spend less money. The big picture details about jobs and housing were things we talked about slowly over time as our plans evolved.
 
Regardless of how much detail we went into with our family and friends, people could see that we were spending less and less money each year and it seemed at the time that was becoming more obvious to everyone by comparison to their own spending habits. It seemed to us that as we talked about spending less our closest friends talked about spending more, so the difference was pretty blatant. And it also seemed like even though we were talking about the FIRE movement and those types of topics regularly, somehow a lot of our friends and family were not understanding what that was leading to for us longterm, maybe because it just seemed too foreign to a lot of people we knew. But there was a small group of our friends and family who really listened to what we were talking about and then they started to reexamine their own financial goals as well.
 
Once we actually quit our jobs and told everyone we were retiring and moving away from Seattle immediately, our friends and family digested it quickly and people were very supportive and they still are. But most of our coworkers did not believe us and just kept asking which companies we would be working for next, and ironically we have fallen out of touch with many of those people.
 
15b. If not, why not?
We did not share any retirement related details with our coworkers until we gave notice at work. We delayed telling most of our coworkers and employers, even though we had a lot of close friends at our jobs, because we didn’t want to get fired or impact the timing of our retirement plans.
 
15c. Why do you struggle with this conversation and why do you feel that money such a taboo topic?
We decided a long time ago that we would talk about money openly with our closest friends and family and try to steer conversations away from either being competitive or from being secretive or awkward. We believe really strongly that a person’s net worth has nothing to do with their self worth. But the reality is that in our society people make a very close connection between their net worth and self worth. Because we live in such a competitive society people tend to get caught up in a financial competition that turns into increased spending habits to help people feel like they are keeping up with friends and family. So it can be unusual for people to talk openly about money in a healthy way, but then if they do talk about money with their friends or family it happens to be discussed in a more competitive way. People worry about whether they make as much money as someone else, or whether their cars are as nice as other people’s cars, or whether their vacations are as luxurious as as other people’s vacations. And those spending habits can create a perceived imbalance in their relationships which makes talking about money difficult.
 
16. What pieces of advice would you suggest to someone who is just starting out or someone who is working toward reaching financial independence?
Don’t be afraid to do whatever it takes to keep your income growing. Be brave enough to change jobs every few years. Avoid lifestyle inflation. Be honest with yourself about your personal hopes and dreams, and make sure they are yours and not someone else’s. Stay away from consumer debt and student loans if possible. Know that the most expensive school may not be the best school, especially if it puts you in more debt to graduate. And remember that home ownership is a very personal choice. If it supports your hopes and dreams and fits in your budget, great. If not, don’t fall into thinking that buying a house is always a good investment, because some times it’s not. When you start saving in retirement accounts, focus on the maximum dollar amount you are allowed to contribute, don’t just target a generic % of your income. In the past the allocation formulas tended to focus on saving a generic 15% of your income, but they didn’t clarify that 15% of $40k is wildly different from 15% of $100k and those of us who were making less money and saving 15% were never going to max out our accounts. And most importantly, be willing to think about money and find people to talk about money with in a healthy way. Money is a tool, so make it work for you.
 
17. What has been your greatest accomplishment to date?
We are not very competitive people so sharing an accomplishment is not really our style. What we can say is that we are very happy that we were able to shift our way of thinking in a way that allowed us to retire early, and we are happy that the choices we have made have helped us create a nomadic lifestyle that we really enjoy. We taught ourselves how to manage our own money so that we will never have to work again and we feel really good about that. And most of all, we are so happy that we found each other and started our relationship with being open with one another about money. We feel really, really good about that.
 
18. Are there any books, blogs, or podcasts that you would recommend for our readers to check out?
books,
blogs,
podcasts,
19. How can people get in contact with you? 
 
20. Anything else you’d like to share?
I’m pretty sure we’ve covered it all… 😉

Phew, thats a wrap! THANK YOU Ali and Alison for providing SO much detail in these responses. I think it’s very clear how calculated most of their recent life decisions thus far have been.  I know this was a super long post so I’ll only cover a few main highlights here:
 
  • Love the three voices that resonated the most with you (Vicki Robin, Mad Fientist, and Afford Anything) – we too love all of those resources. And your recommended books, blogs, and podcasts sound very similar to our list!
  • You built extra cushion and are using a 3% safe withdrawal rate versus the standard 4% SWR used in the FIRE community.  That is so awesome guys, we too are planning to withdraw less than 4% once we retire early and I think this extra cushion needs to get discussed more.
  • I loved these sentences: “We recognize that being responsible for our spending and sticking to our budget is not about being deprived.  It’s part of the agreement we made when we decided to retire early and become financially independent.” As Paula Pant says, you can afford anything, but not everything. It’s all about prioritizing what is important to you and aligning your spending with your values.
  • Has anyone else noticed a common theme about what makes you happy?  Spending time with those you care about.  It’s the simple things in life really.
  • Healthcare costs seem to be one of the topic issues for many FIRE members within the US.  Ali and Alison have figured out a way to eliminate/reduce this worry – live abroad and have much more affordable healthcare!
  • Ali and Alison are case in point examples of how real estate is not a cookie cutter solution to scoring the big bucks.  I’m a firm believer that real estate may be a good investment but it may also be a bad investment – a lot of it depends on your location and the market.
  • When it comes to your career, know your worth and seek out new opportunities.
  • I absolutely LOVE all your pieces of advice.  
Thanks again Ali and Alison for being a part of our FIRE Community Guest Interview Series on the Modern Fimily blog. I hope you all appreciated their responses as much as I did.
 
Did you enjoy this interview? Anything you would change to the format? Are you financially independent, retired early, or close to reaching these key milestones?  We would love to have you tackle our guest questions. Give us a shout!  Thanks for tuning in and check back next month for the next interview.
 
And in case you wanted to read the previous interviews that make up our FIRE Community Guest Interview Series:

 

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13 thoughts on “FIRE Community Interview # 2 – We Quit Our Jobs to Retire Early & Travel the World”

  1. I like how Ali and Alison admitted they stayed too long in jobs that weren’t serving them – it can be hard to talk about the mistakes we made and what we’d do differently. Great advice to look out for yourself regarding growing your income potential. After layoffs in 2008, my generation’s view on job loyalty is certainly skewed.

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