As I watch the clock tick to 2:30pm, I hastily leave the office early, dropping what I’m working on to stuff my backpack and hurry home from work. I can’t help but think I’m busier now than any other time in my life. When I was younger, in my twenties and even early thirties, I used to think I was busy. How naive I was. Young kids are tough and take tons of attention and energy, but they don’t have to be places. They don’t have much opinion less letting everyone know when they’re hungry or tired.

Parenting young kids pales in comparison to now, or maybe I have a bad case of recency bias. In this current chapter of my life, my kids are little humans with thoughts and wants and agendas of their own. They have sports, music lessons, math tutoring; they have places to be and things to do. It’s my job to get ‘em to those places.

If I had to choose a time for my daughter to play softball on any given Saturday, I’d choose the early 8am start every time, so we can knock out sports and I can get a few hours back in the afternoon–though my kids and wife might disagree. There’s nothing like rising early and getting out of the house with a hot cup of coffee, to go accomplish a task with the sun still low in the sky. Last Saturday we did just that. My youngest daughter has taken to softball, and so my life has gotten much busier now that I’m the one ferrying my kid around to practices and games–all while working full time and commuting back in a hurry to do so.

This year my daughter’s softball schedule is a bit more rigorous. Games on Saturday and Monday. Practices Tuesdays and Thursdays. Four days out of the week we have softball activities to attend. Five, if I include my oldest daughter’s guitar lessons. Busy it is. Especially so with two working parents.

The deal I’ve worked out with my wife (or should say the deal I was handed) is that I get the afternoon duties with the kids, while my wife does the morning routine. She goes into work later in order to drop off our kids at school, and usually will be the one to miss work for any sick kids or appointments. So to even out the load I handle the evenings.

This means leaving work at 2:30-ish in order to make it home in time to pick my daughter up and make it to her practice or warmups by 4:30. Even though I don’t have anyone directly supervising me at my job, and gave warning to my coworkers months back about this, I still feel guilty leaving work before everyone else.

There’s something about being the first to leave while everyone else is still working that feels wrong.

Wrong?

Yes, wrong. I want to say fuck corporate America for making me feel this way, but if I step back and reflect on why I have this guilt for leaving work early…it’s less about my company and more about me. My job is cool with me leaving. Nobody is shaking their head at me. If my boss came by and found out I was leaving early this often for my kid, they might clap me on the back and tell me good job.

Yet, I have this deep found inner turmoil that I’m the creator and the sole sufferer of. And it’s just another reason why I want to be able to retire early. It’s this splitting and carving up of my time that I dislike. It’s here I’m grateful for being a salaried employee. If I balance my workload right, I can get my work done, leave early for softball, and still get the same paycheck each Friday. Salary cuts both ways. If I’m not careful I’ll spend too much time at work and still get the same paycheck each Friday.

For me, being a salaried employee is the biggest benefit to my personal finance system.

When I first got into the office after transitioning from hourly, the question of when to leave was the biggest change. As an hourly worker, you’re out the door at the exact time you’re supposed to get off. Everyone leaves at the same time. But in the office, as a salaried personnel, it’s the exact opposite.

Shortly after becoming salary, I’d sit around my desk, slowly eyeing everyone else who seemed so busy typing and clicking away. Why weren’t they leaving? My work was done. Why did it feel weird to get up, pack my back pack and leave while everyone else seemed so focused? It reminded me of finishing a test first at school. Even though I knew the answers, I suddenly became self conscious and fearful I’d rushed myself. I’d missed something. Self doubting and second guessing would follow.

At first, if my boss hadn’t left yet, I’d go and see my boss in his office and tell him I was leaving. After a few weeks of this he finally told me, with irritation or pity in his voice: “Hey, you don’t have to tell me when you’re leaving every day. Just leave.“

I like to tell myself that I’m helping tip the scales of work life balance. In this case I’m happy to lead by example, with nobody the wiser of my inner turmoil and guilt. I do hope others see me leaving early with a smile, and know it’s ok if they leave early too.

And so my weekdays feel rushed and action packed. My Saturdays can feel short if there’s a game in the middle of the day or afternoon. I don’t feel like I can get started on any weekend projects if I’m waiting to leave the house in the middle of the day.

All of this is a long way of saying I’m busy these days, and an early game on Saturday is a much welcomed and surprising luxury in my middle aged life.

Southbound

This past Saturday some of my wife’s family came out to watch my daughter play. I got to talking with her uncle, who told me he was retiring early. I was pretty shocked to hear this coming from him. He’s in his mid fifties. College educated. Owns a home. Kids are established here. His plan is to move back to El Salvador and move into a house he already owns, maybe get a second place on the beach. His point to me was that his work was making him return full time to the office and he didn’t want to do that. He can retire now in a lower cost of living country.

“We came here to make money. And we did. So why stay now that I’m done making my money?” He said.

I had to hold back on gushing out on my own detailed plans of doing the same. Though I agreed that early retirement was my plan as well. I don’t think FIRE in our sense; the traditional save 25 times expense, then withdraw 4%, was ever part of his plan. What he’s doing is probably what early retirement was before it was ever an internet movement trend, podcast topic, and book genre. Just save up a bunch of money and don’t spend too much.

It also helps he comes from another country that he can easily assimilate back into. I respect someone making a plan and executing. He came to the US to make a better life for himself and his kids, and succeeded. Now the game is over. He’s won. Why keep playing?

I love hearing about people shaking things up to get more out of retirement, specifically using “Geographic Arbitrage” to do it. What is geographic arbitrage you might ask? It’s simply maximizing potential spending power. It’s taking advantage of price differences by region. It can speed up retirement or just give a better quality of life depending on circumstance.

I retell this because I find it a good example of taking advantage of the arbitrage ability we have as Americans. Our cost of living is substantially higher than that of the countries to the south of us—or even further abroad. As Americans, our GDP per capita (the average amount of money each person in a country would earn if the country’s total income (GDP) was divided equally among everyone) is $81,695. A lofty number compared to the world. 5th, if anybody is counting.

For those of us lucky enough to be living in a country that is this rich, we have the chance to further stretch the dollars we earn.

Many Americans are doing just that. In 2022, 700,000 social security checks were being ‘sent’ overseas to retirees with foreign addresses.

Retiring “elsewhere” has always been my plan. I look admirably at any American you takes the leap and moves abroad. Doubly so if they do it with kids. If you’ve been reading this blog long enough I’m sure you’ve picked this up. Of course, the longer I stay here, the older and more established my kids get, the more comfortable we feel—the higher the cliff gets to make that leap into the unknown.

I’m seriously considering the implications of pulling my kids from their lives and moving to another country. I was just writing about softball and all the other obligations my kids now have. Moving abroad would disrupt that. When we talk about moving elsewhere they’re game. I know it’s possible to still get them an awesome education remotely or through international school so they can get into college. They know that too. I think taking them traveling while they were young has opened their eyes to the world. Talking about a move abroad has been done since they were small, and they speak about it quite often. Still, I’m going to take into consideration their opinions about it before we really make the move. It’s one thing to daydream about something and another to start packing up the house and put it up for rent.

I’m abroad right now as I write this; the entire post typed out on my phone! I’m sitting in a Shinkansen bullet train traveling 300 km/h on the other side of the Pacific. Heading from Osaka to Tokyo. The world is flashing by outside of the oval windows. If I let it, and it’s already happening, my years will also flash by like the objects outside the bullet train’s windows before I can do all the things I dream up for myself.

Traveling keeps me focused on my lofty dreams. Hearing stories from people I know moving abroad also reminds me that I’m not crazy. Writing this blog helps me keep the course. Ignoring news headlines (as best one can) and dollar cost averaging into this crazy market is the way forward. I must keep feeding my portfolio, that money machine that will eventually turn my dreams into reality.

Being abroad during liberation day tariffs and the week after has been pretty eye opening. I wake up to news and the stock market from yesterday. I’m grateful that I’m on vacation and have things to fill my mind, so that I’m not checking my portfolio. I do feel removed from the drama being this far away. Again, I’m grateful for my diversified portfolio that slows my portfolio’s descent. Of course I’m worried, I’m always worried, but I know I have a job for the time being. I can keep pumping money into the market. None of my losses are real.

Maybe I have to work longer if the market doesn’t correct itself. Maybe I won’t.

For now, my attention must turn away from the future and the what if’s—I have more important things to worry about— like enjoying the time now with my family. Retirement and personal ambition can wait. This chapter of my life; grinding away at work and moonlighting as a personal chauffeur is not yet over, and I’m embracing it.