After years of reading J.L. Collins blog and reading all about Chautauqua, I finally got serious and signed up for the June 2019 Chautauqua in Stratford-upon-Avon. I wrote this post to describe my experience with this event. For anyone curious about attending Chautauqua, you can read up on it here. What is FI Chautauqua? FI Chautauqua is a seven day personal … [Read more...] about 2019 FI Chautauqua
Forging Finance Mid-Year Reflection 2019
It’s June 2019 and Forging Finance is 6 months old. That may not seem like much of an accomplishment, but for me it is. The only regret I have is not having started it sooner! I thought I’d share how this all began. I’m sure there are others out there that have gone done a similar if not the same path. How it all started I thought about starting a blog for several … [Read more...] about Forging Finance Mid-Year Reflection 2019
Benefits of Having a Retirement Number
One of the common phrases I use in my posts is: retirement number. I define the retirement number as the number you need to reach to be able to retire. I realize that is pretty braindead simple though. The more interesting part is the construct of the retirement number. When you’re reading my posts, it’s important to put this number in context. The bulk of my money is in … [Read more...] about Benefits of Having a Retirement Number
Why My Focus is on Financial Independence, not Retire Early
Leave it up to a bunch of personal finance nerds to start branching out and creating subcategories of a simple concept. Financial Independence/Retire Early (FIRE). When you spell out the acronym it says it all really. Then there are subcategories of FIRE, Fat FIRE and Lean FIRE. The definitions are easily searchable in Reddit here: Fat FIRE and Lean FIRE. I've read … [Read more...] about Why My Focus is on Financial Independence, not Retire Early
Path to the First One Million Dollars
I thought it’d be an interesting exercise to revisit the climb to the first million ($1M) since it was such a big milestone for my wife and I. We both dreamt about such a milestone in our 20’s but it was not always easy to visualize. Still stuck with some student loans, living in an apartment, and both on steep learning curves early in our careers, $1M seemed really far … [Read more...] about Path to the First One Million Dollars