The Goal: Financial Independence and Traveling in my Retirement Years

The bottom line? FIRE is what most young adults probably want, although people younger than 30 might not be thinking about this as a priority, as most young adults want to enjoy life while they are young, and aren’t as fortunate enough to travel at a young age.

My wife and I weren’t as fortunate in our 20s. We racked up a lot of credit card debt, but at least we were able to travel abroad somehow, but most of it was limited to the Philippines, since my wife wanted to go back to visit her parents from time-to-time. And we were able to at least get out of town and visit places like Los Angeles, San Francisco. It wasn’t in our mid to late 50s, however, that we really got to travel abroad with regularity.

By the way, FIRE stands for Financial Independence, Retire Early.

One of my personal goals was to visit all 7 continents. And I’ve been to North America, Europe, Asia, Africa; so that’s four… the remaining 3 continents are South America, Australia and Antarctica. We were planning to visit South America next, then the COVID Pandemic hit (and we’re just lucky to be alive at this point). Now we’re thinking that New Zealand and Australia is a more viable next destinatation, being that South America was truly hit hard by COVID, while Antarctica would be the final, most difficult destination.

Incidentally, if you have children, they will need funds saved up for university. And that was what delayed us from traveling more, our priority was to put the kids through college.

So, two things any person should put away money for the future. College. Retirement.

A 401K, Roth IRA or any kind of pension plan through your employment will provide a nice retirement when retirement age comes. Very important. Then there is my situation. I’m a freelance musician and investor, so I don’t plan on retiring officially, but I’m glad my wife is retired.

But I have a unique situation. I’m self-employed, so I have the stress of being my own boss and at the same time the freedom to be my own boss.

But a good goal is to find passive and semi-passive income streams heading into retirement, so you don’t have to work hard in your later years, and have the freedom to enjoy retirement and travel abroad here and there. That’s not too much to ask, but a certain amount of planning and action is required to make those goals happen.