Learning To Let The Lawn Grow
While the 2022 bear market viciously mauls my portfolio, I’ve made a pretty conscious effort not to look at my net worth during the last few weeks. I handled the 2020 bear market pretty well, though back then FIRE seemed so far away and the Bear attack so fast—over before I knew it. And the…
The Power of Self Discipline: A Journey to Financial Independence, Sobriety, and Health
From the time I get up each and every morning, I’m inundated with choices. The most important choice happens to be my very first choice: Do I get up thirty minutes early to make lunch and coffee at home? Or sleep for a few more wonderful minutes and eat out for lunch? What’s the difficult…
A Summer of Saving
It’s summer and my favorite time of year in the Happily Disengaged household. Summer is an easier time to do things outdoors while spending less money, and in general, is the most frugal time of year for us. Backyard grilling is cheap. Biking and hiking don’t cost much (except for the gasoline consumption). Next weekend…
The Investing Commute
Wow. Been a while. To give a brief update on my life in the last few months since my last post: Biggest change is I switched companies at work. My new company gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and well, in the name of FI, I had to take the money. I’m much busier…
Job. Career. Calling. Which Do You Choose?
After nearly twenty-one years of being an official adult, I’ve lost sight and forgotten many times the feeling one has when finally deciding upon (or settling on) a profession, be it a job, career, or calling. I didn’t go to college, so I never had the sort of free-range buffer of growing into adulthood that…
Happily Disengaged’s 2021 Expenses
It’s January, so now’s a good time to look back over the year 2021 and post about our total expenditures. There was a time when I did monthly expense blogs, but alas I’ve fallen off these types of posts as my blog bandwidth has narrowed and my blog posts have slowed down. Pursuing FIRE isn’t…
Dream Rebalancing
Something unexpected happened a few weeks ago: I killed one of my longest standing dreams. The murder of this dream turned goal wasn’t made in haste or with a burning emotion in my chest. I spent nearly a week mulling it over. Contemplating its repercussions. Sleeping on it. Waking up at night thinking of how…
My Silent Battle With Inflation
My mother had a saying when I was growing up and now it’s stuck with me like any good saying does when repeated over and over during one’s formative years. The saying is this: “Lazy people work twice.” It doesn’t take much imaginative work to guess that I probably wasn’t working as hard as I…
We Took A Trip To Portugal: Here’s How Much It Cost
Finally. Touching down in what would turn out to be one of my new favorite places didn’t feel like I’d been delayed 19 long pandemic-infused months for this vacation to Europe. The abrupt jolt of the airplane’s wheels making contact with runway asphalt was like hitting the reboot button for my soul. Rat race competition,…
The Sea Bag Effect
I write this post from Porto, Portugal. After nearly two years of delay, we were finally able to take our trip abroad. So far it’s been fantastic. Portugal has exceeded any expectations I had of the country. My oldest daughter spent her 8th birthday wandering around castles and the narrow twisting cobbled streets of Lisbon.…