The Most Romantic Lenten Sacrifice

Happy Valentine’s Day. And Happy Ash Wednesday (aka the first day of Lent). It’s the first time since 1945 that Valentine’s and the start of Lent have fallen on the same day.

The Most Romantic Lenten Sacrifice--www.thethethreeyearexperiment.com

So in honor of such an auspicious occasion, I’m taking on a new challenge. While Valentine’s is usually about eating as many chocolates as you can get your hands on, Lent, at least for those in the Christian tradition, is a 40-day time of inner focus, of taking a look at yourself and seeing if there’s anything that you could improve upon. It’s traditionally a time when practitioners make a sacrifice, give up a vice, or adopt a new, perhaps self-sacrificial habit for 40 days.

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Life Is Short. So Why Not Buy What You Want?

Life is short. Do not forget about the most important things in our life, living for other people and doing good for them.

-Marcus Aurelius

Life is short. I was reminded of that yesterday when I heard the news that yet another friend’s sister entered Hospice. I’ll spare you the details, because it’s a heart wrenching story. They all are.

It wasn’t that long ago that I hugged my friend Pam, both of us sobbing, as we absorbed the news that her sister had three days to live.

Life is short. Eff it. Buy the car, I hear people say. Sometimes death feels like it’s all around, especially with the advent of social media. I’ve watched more distant friends, their spouses and children, suffer cancer, car accidents, the loss of babies. I’ve watched the intimate details of people I was sort-of close to once upon a time live unimaginable, heart-wrenching things. It’s gotten so bad at times that I’ve had to step away from social media and shut it all out. The worst part of so much heartache is that it reminds you that it could happen to you, that you or one of your people could get sick, get in an accident. Reminds you that you, too, are vencible, as Junior ThreeYear likes to say (“That should be a word, right, Mom?”).

If we don’t ever know how long we’ve got on this beautiful planet, why even bother saving for the future? Thinking about the future? Sacrificing now for a better tomorrow? Continue reading “Life Is Short. So Why Not Buy What You Want?”

January Net Worth Update

It’s time for another net worth update! Are you in the midst of winter, or is it warm and deliciously summery where you live? The ThreeYears are smack dab in the middle of the coldest and snowiest parts of winter, but we made it through January and we’re raring to go for February (Little ThreeYear can hardly wait for Valentine’s Day and all that chocolate he thinks he’ll get from his classmates!).

January Net Worth Update--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

This is the first report from 2018, and boy is it a good one. Subsequent reports may not be as juicy, given that the stock market may have more “small or significant corrections” coming up, so I’m focusing on January while I can!

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending (gulp!). Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before! This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65%! from where we started in December 2016. Given the wild ride the market’s likely to take us on this year, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try!

We started the month of January off in warm Santiago. We took a three week trip to visit my in-laws, and had an amazing time.

La Moneda--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com
The boys had a blast during our visit to Santiago and San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, even if some of the smiles look forced!

I was very excited to see how our spending would look in January as compared to spending in 2017, given we have now eliminated the mortgage in Chile and our car payment. We’re also working to keep our food spending lower than last year.

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How I Met Mr. ThreeYear and Became a Financial Nerd: Guest Post on Chief Mom Officer

Hi all! Today, I’m really excited to have a guest post over on Chief Mom Officer’s awesome site on how Mr. ThreeYear and I met and how I became the financial nerd I am today. Liz, AKA Chief Mom Officer, and I have been “blog friends” for almost as long as I’ve been blogging, and we’re now IRL friends, too, since we got the chance to meet in person in Boston last fall.

How I Met Mr. ThreeYear and Became a Financial Nerd: Guest Post on Chief Mom Officer--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

The things I love about Liz are how focused and no-nonsense she is, and how passionately she advocates for financial literacy for women and moms. She gets a LOT done in a day, a week, and a year, and part of that is because she has crystal-clear goals: Continue reading “How I Met Mr. ThreeYear and Became a Financial Nerd: Guest Post on Chief Mom Officer”

A Year of Good Food: Shop with a List

It is time to report on our first month’s progress in the A Year of Good Food Challenge.

A Year of Good Food List--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

This year, our family is challenging ourselves to spend less on food, so we can reach our goal of location independence in two more years. Last year, I challenged myself to adopt one habit a month that would translate into better money moves for our family. You can read all about what I called A Year of Good Habits here.

Year Two’s Challenge  is called A Year of Good Food. This year, we are challenging ourselves to do better at our food spending. Our family spent an average of $966 US per month on groceries in 2017 for our family of four. That’s almost $12,000 in just groceries last year.

This year, we’ve adopted the (what we hope is attainable!) goal of shaving 20% off that number, each and every month. That means we would spend no more than $772 in groceries in any month of the year.

With the extra money we’re saving, we’ve created a travel fund, so we can pay for a ticket to Chile for Mr. ThreeYear, or some other travel adventure. The point of spending less on groceries isn’t just that we’ll have saved more money. It’s that we’ll develop the habit and hopefully carry it with us in future years, so we’ll spend less and waste less. Continue reading “A Year of Good Food: Shop with a List”

5 Frugal Lessons I’ve Learned From My In-Laws

Frugality is such an important cornerstone to financial independence. Even if people disdain the word, the concept of spending less than you earn is essential to financial independence. After all, if Nicholas Cage can blow through $150 Million, there’s really little hope for the rest of us, unless we can mind the gap and stretch the space between what we spend and what we earn.

Since my family has a pressing reason to save a bunch of money–our dream of location independence–we are actively working to get better in this area.

I am mediocre at frugality. I didn’t grow up in a particularly frugal household (my parents having eschewed the Ziploc-reusing antics of their Depression-era parents) and although we did control our spending by wearing hand-me-downs and driving our cars to the ground (my dad drove one car he had for 17 years and then gave it to Mr. ThreeYear and me after we moved back to the States), we did not practice those everyday habits of frugal living that come so naturally to some.

Continue reading “5 Frugal Lessons I’ve Learned From My In-Laws”

The Story of a Book

Happy birthday, Mr. ThreeYear! Today is the anniversary of another trip around the sun for him and I want to give him a special shout-out for being my partner in this crazy location independence experiment we’ve undertaken.

As our family gets closer to our dream of location independence, I keep getting rid of more and more of the material things that we no longer need. Since 2014, we’ve worked on creating a house that has just enough, and ridding ourselves of our unnecessary possessions.

This is the 100% true story of one of my favorite books, told by me as I remember it. I realized, after being reminded of its existence recently (details of which you will soon read) that it represented a perfect analogy of my own journey toward distancing myself emotionally from my stuff.

Minimalism an ongoing journey for me, and I still have moments. Lots of moments, when I really, really crave material things (like a new pair of jeans when I already have four pair). Or I can’t imagining parting with that stainless steel bowl someone gave me for our wedding (that I’ve never used once in all our fourteen years of marriage).

Slowly, though, over a period of just over four years, I’ve gotten better at separating the emotions or memories I have from the things I own.

But I digress…

I remember the day and the details like it was yesterday. My mother had driven me and my younger sister on a special shopping trip after school. We’d gone to the mall, which was close to the private school I attended, a 45-minute drive from my house. My own little town was way too small for a mall. But Orangeburg had the aptly named Prince of Orange Mall, and inside the mall, was the… bookstore. Continue reading “The Story of a Book”

How to Cut the Cord: Guest Post on 99 to 1 Percent

Our family is on a three-year journey to double our net worth, sell our house, and become location independent–in other words, to cut the cord and travel.

If you haven’t read our complete story, it was just featured on the blog 99to1Percent.

How to Cut the Cord--www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

99 to 1 Percent

Here’s a sample:

Have you ever woken up to a truly terrible winter day, with snow and sleet pouring down, gray clouds and cold everywhere, and thought, “Get me out of here! I want to live somewhere warm and tropical!” before you pulled the covers back over your head? Continue reading “How to Cut the Cord: Guest Post on 99 to 1 Percent”

Location Independence, International Jobs: Jim from Route to Retire

Hello! Welcome to “Location Independent, International Jobs,” the Wednesday series where I showcase stories from people who have become location independent, work internationally, and/or continuously travel. I’ve interviewed all kinds of people who all have slightly different takes on location independence or living internationally. Posts include Steve from Think, Save, Retire,  Pete of Do You Even Blog?, and Mrs. Adventure Rich. 

Guest posters will be sharing how they became (or will become!!) location independent or how they got jobs abroad, but most importantly, they’ll share how their lifestyle has positively or negatively affected their finances and how they got to the life they’re living now.  

The reason for this series is to showcase people who have already achieved what the ThreeYear family is working towards: location independence and/or securing international jobs. 

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce Jim from Route to Retire. I reached out to Jim when I heard him share his plans to retire to Panama. Jim discovered the idea of FIRE (financial independence/early retirement) a handful of years ago. On regular salaries, he and his wife (Mrs. R2R) worked hard to reach a $1 million net worth in 2017. They’re now slated to retire at the end of 2019 (Jim will be 44 years old). They plan to move to Panama (along with their daughter, of course) in 2020 as part of their retirement strategy. 

Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Where you’re from, how long married, degrees, kids, ages, etc.

I’m 42, my wife is 40, and we’re both from Ohio. I graduated with a degree in Computer Information Systems and my wife with a degree in Child and Family Development.

We met right after I graduated from college – at a bar of all places! It’s a little more innocent than it sounds, though. We were both there with mutual friends that introduced us. We hit it off and have been together ever since and we’ve been married now for over 11 years.

We have a seven-year-old daughter and she’s the most amazing kid in the world. She actually recently wrote part of the second most popular post on my blog’s site titled “Like Father, Like Daughter….” I love her more than anything and she’s really the catalyst for why I want to retire early. It sincerely crushed me that I had to go to work every day shortly after she was born instead of spending those first few years with her. Continue reading “Location Independence, International Jobs: Jim from Route to Retire”

When Life Gives You a Kick in the Pants

Last week I got some news. One of my English Language Learner students, a newcomer with whom I’d spent several hours a day, was returning to her home country.

How thrilling for her! She is Puerto Rican and came to New Hampshire after Hurricane Maria. As much as she likes our school and learning English, she left most of her family there, including her dad, her dog, and her cat. And she misses the warmth! She misses going to the beach every day. Now she gets to go home. She is so happy.

As excited as I am for her, I’m bummed for myself. Because I worked with her so much each day, I’ll now have a lot less to do each day. And my income will drop significantly. I enjoyed teaching her, and all of the hours I worked with her provided a significant bump in my paycheck. This is a downside of being a contractual ESL Teacher, though. I can’t choose how many students I work with–it’s entirely dependent upon who moves into the district. Continue reading “When Life Gives You a Kick in the Pants”