What a long strange trip it's been...

Hi folks!  As the title suggests, the time since my last post (nearly 5 years!) has been one hell of a journey!  To recap, I retired from corporate America in late 2010 (at age 38) and promptly went into travel mode with my wife. We enjoyed our travel so much that we decided to become Ex-pats in Central America!  Wow! What an experience!! 

Between travel, new hobbies and engrossing ourselves in an entirely new culture, we've had our hands very, very full. 

True to form, however, the concept of financial freedom and active financial management has remained front and center.  Not only have I continued to be a very active stock market participant, but my wife and I have also (more recently) been working on a cash-flow generating small business. Truth be told, after all is said and done, you can only relax, socialize and pursue hobbies for so long. At some point, the mind just needs to be fed, and remaining active in the financial markets, as well as creating a small business are a few ways to keep the mind sharp.  It also helps keep you engaged in what's happening in the world, even if you live in a small Central American town.

I'm not sure how I remembered my long lost blog, but it just came to mind tonight and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of people still reading through my posts - that's GREAT!  I also took the time to check up on a lot of my fellow finance bloggers and was VERY surprised that most of them are still at it, and have also reached what I consider to be a viable retirement nest egg.

Take it from me - you don't need NEARLY the amount of money you think you need to comfortable retire. $50k a year?  EASY.  Other parts of the world?  $40k?  $30k?  EASY.  The "system" has you believing you need a TON more money, and you don't. Period.

Until next time...  (perhaps soon!)