I definitely want to get started with my story this year.  I kind of tried at the end of 2017 after discovering financial indpendence in September 2017, but didn’t quite manage to get started.

Habit forming tricks work a lot of the time, but not always.  When I want to make sure I go running in the morning I set out my shoes, shorts, and shirt so all I have to do is roll out of bed throw on my clothes and head out the door.  This works great for me for running… therefore the same idea should work for blogging, right?

Not quite.  I got things started, I got the domain, I got the hosting, I setup wordpress, and wrote like 2 things.

I don’t think this was really a failure of habit forming tricks, I just wasn’t ready yet.  The end of 2017 was a pretty busy (and stressful) time.  I’m not trying to make excuses, just an observation that blogging wasn’t on the top of my priority list.  I’ll go into some of those details later as last year and this year include a lot of life changing events and some shifts in thoughts, perspectives, and priorities.

Last Sunset in Ventura County

I’m sure the world needs another financial blog (/sarcasm), but sort of how JL Collins started his blog to educate his daughter I hope I can use some of what I write here to show my wife (who we shall call Lady Kit from here on), the unbeliever, that it is possible for us to retire in 5-10 years.

A little background for those reading this to see if anything I write might relate to them:

We’re a married couple turning 31 this year and we have been married for 6 years (but “together” for over 13 years).

Ansel – 1 of our 7 pets

We’re a dual income no kids (dink) household, but have 7 pets.  Lady kit is a veterinarian and I am an engineer.  As such we earn very comfortable salaries, but we live in one of the most expensive parts of the country (Silicon Valley).

My subtitle here is “no geo-arbitrage require” as we plan to stay in California.  Geo-arbitrage can be a great tool for those searching financial independence and to retire early (FIRE), but we are happy in California close to our friends, family, mountains, beaches, and forests.  Our life (and thus the content here) won’t be applicable to everyone searching for FIRE, but hopefully we’ll be able to make it and show that it is possible to achieve this goal living in a high cost of living area with some hard-work, planning, and dedication.

Where we are starting from:

• Net Worth: $320,104 (doesn’t include cryptocurrencies)
• Mortgage: $0
• Student Loans: $0
• Auto Loans: $0
• Consumer Debt: $0
• Retirement Accounts: $154,095
• Health Savings Account: $5,771
• Brokerage Accounts: $22,145
• Cash: $138,093
• Cryptocurrencies: $35,166 (this swings wildly)

Where we are going:

• FI Number: $1,500,000
• FI Date: December 31, 2023