Flying to the Movies?

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Last week I flew from Dallas to Colorado Springs to… see a movie.

I’ll start by acknowledging the privilege and frivolity involved here. The idea of flying to another state, spending the night, watching a movie, and then turning around and flying home sounds pretty ridiculous on its face.

So why did I do it?

Chasing Another Companion Pass

The Southwest Companion Pass has been called one of the best deals in the travel hacking world, and for Katie and me it has certainly lived up to that reputation. One or the other of us has had a pass for most of the past ten years, and we have probably gotten more than 100 free flights from it.

I’ve never tried very hard to calculate how much money we “saved” because that isn’t really how we used it. Many of those were trips we never would have taken if we had needed to buy a second ticket. The Companion Pass gave us the freedom to take more trips, add a weekend somewhere, or have Katie tag along when I was already traveling for work.

Looking ahead, though, I’m not sure it will continue to be as valuable for us. I’m flying less for work, which means fewer opportunities to bring Katie along on a reimbursed ticket, and changes to Southwest and the associated Chase credit card programs have made earning the pass more difficult and using it less attractive.

That made a recent Southwest promotion interesting. The rules were pretty simple. Register for the promotion, book a qualifying round trip or two one-way flights by August 6, and complete the travel by November 18. In return, I could earn a promotional Companion Pass valid from January 5 through March 3, 2027.

The math seemed pretty straightforward. If I could complete a relatively inexpensive trip now and save more than that amount on Katie’s flights next year, I would come out ahead.

We already have several trips in mind for early 2027, including Hawaii, so finding more than $200 of value from the pass shouldn’t be difficult.

Now I just needed somewhere to go.

The Mileage Run

I started by looking for a simple mileage run from Dallas Love Field. Houston? Austin? Lubbock? Fly somewhere, turn around, and come home.

Unfortunately, last-minute fares on the shortest routes were higher than I expected.

Then I found Colorado Springs.

I could fly there for about $250 and come straight home, but if I stayed overnight and returned the next day, the airfare dropped to about $200. Normally the cost of a hotel would wipe out the savings, but I had a free-night certificate that was about to expire anyway.

Suddenly, I had an overnight trip to Colorado Springs.

Now I just needed something to do.

Wait… There’s an IMAX Theater?

Katie and I had just visited Colorado Springs, so I wasn’t particularly interested in repeating the tourist stops we had done a few weeks earlier. It was also really hot, and with less than a day to acclimate to the altitude, a long hike didn’t sound particularly appealing.

Then I remembered something a local had told me during our previous visit.

Colorado Springs has one of only 26 theaters in the United States capable of showing movies in 70mm IMAX. Dallas has one too, but tickets for The Odyssey had been sold out for months. Our son managed to get one, but he was sitting in the corner of the front row for a 2:30 AM showing!

On a whim, I checked Colorado Springs. Plenty of seats. Apparently, when you live next to mountains, hiking trails, and the Garden of the Gods, sitting inside a movie theater isn’t quite as exciting. 🙂

For my purposes, though, it was perfect.

So What Did This Actually Cost?

Here was the damage:

  • Round-trip flight from Dallas to Colorado Springs: $200
  • Hotel: free with an expiring certificate
  • Lyft between the airport, hotel, and theater: $39, minus a $10 Sapphire Reserve credit
  • Movie ticket: $25

That put my out-of-pocket cost at about $254.

In exchange, I earned a promotional Companion Pass that I should be able to use for several flights during the first two months of 2027. Based on the trips we are considering, I estimate that Katie’s tickets during that period could easily cost $1,500 to $1,800.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I “made” $1,500 by going to a movie. We have to actually take those flights for the savings to be real, and there was still a very real $254 charged to our credit  card this week.

But I like my odds. 🙂

Was This Really About Saving Money?

I am certainly not recommending that everyone start flying to other states to see movies in the name of financial responsibility.

There were other factors at play.

It is August in Texas. Temperatures are routinely over 100 degrees, school has started again, and even our local pool has reduced its hours. I had been home for a while and was getting restless waiting for our Fall travels to start.

So I spent $254, got a quick adventure, used a hotel certificate before it expired, saw a movie in a format I couldn’t easily see at home, and potentially unlocked $1,500 or more of future travel.

That seems like a pretty good trade to me.

It also illustrates a few things I enjoy about financial independence and travel hacking. One is simple arbitrage. Sometimes spending a little money today creates an opportunity to save considerably more later. Another is learning how the programs you use actually work and looking for opportunities around the edges. Promotions, points, credits, certificates, and loyalty programs can be stacked together in ways that create some pretty interesting possibilities.

Most importantly, though, financial independence has given us the freedom to occasionally do something just because it sounds fun.

Years ago, taking a random overnight trip in the middle of the week would have required vacation days, schedule juggling, and probably more justification than I was willing to give it. Today, I can see an interesting opportunity, do the math, check my calendar, and occasionally say, “Why not?”

Was flying to Colorado Springs to see a movie necessary?

Absolutely not.

Was it the most efficient possible use of $254?

Probably not that either.

But I had a great little adventure, and if Katie ends up flying to Hawaii for free because of it, I suspect I’ll feel even better about the decision. 🙂

Why We’re Still Choosing to Rent

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Too often, when people think about housing costs, they only look at the mortgage payment. In reality, the cost of owning a home is much broader. It includes principal and interest, property taxes, insurance, utilities, maintenance and repairs, HOA fees, and the opportunity cost of having so much money tied up in a single asset.

On a typical $300,000 home, those annual carrying costs can easily be more than $50,000 and look something like this:

CategoryAnnual Cost
Mortgage (Principal & Interest)$18,000
Property Taxes$5,000
Homeowners Insurance$2,500
Utilities$8,400
Maintenance & Repairs$6,000
HOA Fees$1,200
Opportunity Cost of Equity~$12,000

(For the purpose of looking at our own situation, I’m going to ignore the opportunity cost. Yes, our house has almost doubled in value since we bought it, but we purchased it back in 2001. Once inflation is taken into account, the appreciation is barely keeping up with inflation.) Anyway, here are our actual monthly housing costs from when we chose to pay off the house to last year..

Category20192025
Mortgage & Interest$950$0
Property Taxes$400$600
Insurance$150$300
Utilities$400$700
Maintenance & Repairs$300$600
Total$2,200$2,200

After paying off our mortgage, our housing costs were…

…exactly the same.

Within five years, increases in taxes, insurance, utilities, and maintenance have completely absorbed the savings from the eliminating principal and interest payment. The “cost to carry” a house just keeps climbing and there is no relief in sight. 

Now, if we wanted to stay in the same four-bedroom suburban Dallas house forever, ownership would almost certainly still beat renting. Landlords want to make a profit, after all. But that’s not the comparison we’re making.  It is not apples to apples, but apples to grapes. We’re comparing a house we no longer need with a lifestyle we actually want.

Katie and I don’t need four bedrooms. We don’t need a yard to maintain, proximity to schools, or a garage full of stuff. We don’t even need (or want) to stay in the same place year-round. By downsizing, taking advantage of geographic arbitrage, and remaining flexible enough to move when rents rise or our interests change, we’ve been able to build a lifestyle that costs less while giving us experiences we value more.

Some people push back on our decision to rent, and I get it.  For many, homeownership represents stability, permanence, and security. Some of our best friends are perfectly happy to nest in the same house they’ve lived in for decades, surrounded by memories and possessions, until they are wheeled out (hopefully many years from now).

There’s nothing wrong with that.  For them.

For us, though, the opportunity to wake up overlooking downtown Omaha one season and the Atlantic Ocean the next isn’t a compromise or a way to save money. It’s exactly what we were hoping for. Having the freedom to explore different communities and different ways of living isn’t a bug in our plan. It’s one of its biggest features. 🙂

The Takeaway

I think homeownership is often oversold as a path to wealth.. It can be a good tool for forced savings, but it isn’t the only path to financial success, and it isn’t automatically the right answer for every stage of life.

Our priorities have changed. We value flexibility over permanence, experiences over square footage, and optionality over accumulation. Renting while we slow travel lets us experiment with different communities, avoid unexpected maintenance headaches, and adjust our plans whenever life changes.

Will we own another home someday? Maybe. But after this first year on the road, we’re more convinced than ever that renting isn’t a temporary compromise while we figure things out.  For us, it’s exactly the lifestyle we’ve been trying to buy all along.

The Pillars of Financial Independence

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I just finished listening to a ChooseFI podcast where Brad Barrett and Jackie Cummings Koski went back to the basics of Financial Independence and it made me reflect on my own FI journey. I’ve been listening to ChooseFI since it first started almost ten years ago, and the idea of the “pillars of FI,” or the basic principles that, if embraced, will inevitably lead to financial independence really resonated with me on my path to early retirement.

The FI community doesn’t use the language of these pillars as much anymore, but it stuck with me. Over the years, Katie and I have tried each of these pillars out with varying degrees of success. Today’s podcast conversation prompted me to take stock and reflect: which ones actually made the biggest difference for us?

1. Low-Cost Index Fund Investing

Instead of trying to beat the market, we stuck with broad, low-fee index funds. This alone saved us a fortune. Early on, I got suckered into a high-fee annuity that bled me dry with commissions and surrender charges. Switching to index funds like VTSAX completely changed our trajectory.  Our nest egg would be only a fraction of what it is today if we hadn’t gotten smarter about this one.

2. Affordable Housing

Housing is usually the biggest expense, so keeping it under control matters. Many in the FI world “house hack,” but being a landlord never appealed to me (One of the reasons we are traveling now is so I don’t have to take care of my own home, much less one that renters are living in 🙂).  Our version of this pillar was simple: we bought an older starter home when we got married and resisted the urge to upgrade along the way.. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was cheap, easy to maintain, and close to work. That decision freed up thousands each year for investing.

3. Buy Gently Used Cars

Cars lose value fast. We’ve driven used cars for 8–14 years each (and counting.  Bertha is still chugging along as our back in Dallas car), avoiding car payments while watching our savings grow. No regrets here—this one was an easy win for us.  What is the point of having a pretty car and then parking it in a high school lot every day? 

4. Crush Your Grocery Bill

Early on, meal planning and cooking at home saved us hundreds every month. Now that we’re in a more comfortable spot (and aren’t feeding two kids), we’ve loosened up on this one. It was a powerful lever in the beginning, though.

5. Tax Optimization

When we could, we took full advantage of accounts like 403(b), 457(b), but we prioritized funding our Roth IRAs. As teachers in relatively low tax brackets, paying taxes up front made more sense to me than deferring them. I can’t imagine our tax rate being much lower in the future.

6. College Hacking

We cash-flowed our own advanced degrees with side hustle money. For our boys, we wanted them to have skin in the game so we set a boundary: we’d cover the equivalent of two years at community college plus two years at a state school. If they graduate for less, they keep the difference. Kid #1 used every penny; kid #2 has a path to graduate early and spend the difference on grad school or pocket the savings. Either way, the cost was predictable for us.

7. Travel Rewards

This hasn’t necessarily sped up our FI path, but it certainly has made the journey more fun. In our version, we’ve leaned heavily on travel hacking to fund dozens of budget-friendly trips rather than blowing money on a few luxury ones.

8. Cut the Cord and Premium Cell

We ditched cable years ago, but have added so many streaming services back that I don’t think we actually saved much. Same with cell phones.  We could optimize here, but at this point, we’re fine with the splurge.

9. Multiple Income Streams

This was huge for us.  Some years we had the equivalent of three full time salaries!  Side hustles paid for extras (like advanced degrees and travel) and also boosted our investments. Our family rule: half of any side hustle income went to the family budget for extra fun or unexpected expenses, half was personal money for the earner. That balance kept us motivated and moved us much faster toward FI.

10. Savings Rate & The 4% Rule

At the end of the day, Financial Independence comes down to saving enough so your investments can cover your expenses. Some years we hit a 50% savings rate; other years, one or both stepped away from W2 work to invest time into a side business and our rate dropped. The point is, we always had the basic framework in mind: spend less, invest more, and track progress against the 4% rule.

Looking back, every pillar helped in some way, but for us the biggest levers were multiple income streams, keeping housing and car costs low, and investing in low-cost index funds. Those three principles alone got us most of the way to where we are.

So what about you? Have you seen this list before? Which of these pillars could have the biggest impact on your financial path?

yellow bicycles

Urban Biking & Slow Travel: My New Favorite FI-Friendly Habit

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A lot of people in the FIRE community are passionate about biking.  Some even go as far as replacing one (or both!) of their cars with a bicycle. While I admire that level of commitment, I’ll be honest: I’m not quite that gung-ho. Our slow-travel lifestyle isn’t exactly conducive to hauling a personal bike across the country, and I’m definitely not strapping one to a plane 🙂 

But here’s what has surprised me: using urban bike-share programs has become one of my favorite ways to explore a city. It’s the perfect “middle ground” for someone like me that is interested in the FI mindset, but also trying to live practically while bouncing from Honolulu to Kansas City to Omaha to Boston. This Fall alone, I’ve used bike shares in every one of those cities, and each experience has reinforced how useful (and fun!) they can be.

It expands your reach.
Walking a city is great, but it can limit your radius to a few miles. With bike share, suddenly the entire waterfront, the next neighborhood over, or that park you’ve been meaning to visit becomes accessible without giving up the pedestrian feel of truly experiencing a place. It’s slower and more immersive than driving, but infinitely faster than walking. A perfect sweet spot.  One thing I like to do is to grab a rental bike and go 4-5 miles in one direction to get a feel for an area, park the bike, then work my way back on foot.

It saves money.
Bike share programs are shockingly affordable. A few dollars unlocks a full day of mobility with no gas, no parking fees, no rideshares, etc.  In Omaha, for example, the Heartland month pass got me unlimited access to bikes throughout the metro area for around $20.  And while I’m not trying to replace a car with biking anytime soon, even occasional use can offset Uber rides or rental car time. For travel, especially slow travel, those savings add up.

It’s good for the environment.
One less car trip means fewer emissions. It’s a small thing, but choosing bikes over short car rides is exactly the kind of low-friction habit that makes the FI lifestyle more sustainable both financially and environmentally.

And honestly… riding a bike is just fun.
There’s something childlike and joyful about pedaling through a new part of the city. No agenda. No stress. Just moving your body, noticing small details, and feeling connected to the place you’re exploring.

As I continue this slow-travel journey, bike-share programs have quietly become one of my favorite tools. They let me explore more, spend less, and stay present in the spaces I’m temporarily calling home.

If you haven’t tried urban biking yet, especially while traveling I encourage you to give it a shot. Start with a short ride along a river, a downtown loop, or a neighborhood you’ve never visited. You might find, like I did, that it’s one of the simplest ways to make a city feel more accessible, more affordable, and a whole lot more fun.

CampFI: Four Ideas That Changed the Way We Think About Financial Independence

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Earlier this month, Katie and I had the opportunity to present at CampFI Rocky Mountain (week 2.5) about our journey after reaching financial independence. We talked about our experiment with “slomadic” living, spending several months at a time in different parts of the country while trying to figure out what we want this next phase of life to look like.

Typically, people ask us about the logistics. How do we find housing? What do we do about mail? How do we handle healthcare, taxes, or travel rewards?  Those are interesting questions, but they aren’t really the biggest lessons we’ve learned. For this presentation we decided to focus on four themes that kept showing up over and over again throughout our journey. They have influenced almost every major decision we’ve made this year.

More Than One Right Answer

I love the Financial Independence movement, but the focus on optimization can lead to analysis paralysis.  Plus, as teachers, Katie and I are well aware of the multiple choice mentality that has conditioned many of us to believe that every question just has one correct answer.

Luckily, life doesn’t work that way. Should you pay off your house or invest? Retire early or keep working? Move across the country or stay close to family? The answer is often, “Yes :)”  

One of the most freeing ideas we’ve embraced is that decisions are rarely binary.  There are usually several good choices. We can be happy choosing A, B, OR C.  Once we accept that, decision-making becomes much easier.  We spend a lot less time trying to optimize every single variable and more time asking whether a choice fits the life that we are trying to build.

Freedom Is Better Than Wealth

This may be the biggest surprise of our FI journey. Looking back, many of our best financial decisions weren’t really about maximizing money. They were about maximizing options.

Katie left a higher-paying corporate career because education gave us work we enjoyed and schedules that fit our family. Later, side hustles, teaching online, and consulting gave us even more flexibility. Instead of making one giant leap into retirement, we gradually reduced the work we no longer enjoyed while keeping the parts that were still meaningful.  

The crazy thing?  In chasing freedom, the money followed naturally.  Financial independence didn’t simply increase our net worth. It increased our ability to say yes to opportunities (and our ability to say no). That has turned out to be far more valuable than just chasing dollars.

Simple Is Better Than Complex

If you’ve followed this blog for very long, you’ve probably noticed this theme already.

Simple investments. Simple travel. Simple spending. Simple housing.

I enjoy reading about complicated financial strategies just as much as the next FI nerd, but I’ve learned that complexity often creates more opportunities for mistakes. The same has been true in our personal lives. I can understand the appeal of real estate investment or the concept of RV travel, but the devil is in the details.  In both cases there are just too many variables and opportunities for friction for us right now.  We’ve realized we don’t need a large house, multiple properties, elaborate travel plans, or a complicated investment portfolio to be happy.

Simple systems free up mental energy for the things that actually matter.

Zero-Based Thinking

This has probably become our favorite mental model. Every once in a while, we like to ask ourselves a simple question:

“Knowing what we know today, would we make the same decision again?”

Sometimes the answer is yes, but sometimes it isn’t.

I really enjoyed teaching at the university, but after COVID permanently shifted the bulk of the teaching online, it no longer fit what I wanted to do. The four bedroom house by the elementary school and across the street from the community pool was perfect while raising kids, but isn’t the house two empty nesters need today.  The dependable sedan was great for commuting in city traffic, but not ideal for cross country moves.

Even our current experiment with slow travel is really just one long exercise in zero-based thinking. Instead of assuming we know where we want to spend retirement, we’re intentionally testing different possibilities before making another long-term commitment.

Looking Ahead

When we accepted CampFI’s invitation to speak, my first draft had us spending most of our time talking about geo-arbitrage, budgeting, and logistics.  Instead, we found ourselves talking about philosophy. How do you make decisions? How do you define success? What kind of life are you actually trying to build?

I hope the presentation was helpful for the people who attended, but I also hope these four ideas are useful for anyone pursuing financial independence, whether retirement is five years away or fifty.  After all, FI isn’t just about accumulating enough money to stop working. It’s about building a life that gives you the freedom to make the choices that matter most.

Are We Doing “Slow Travel” Wrong?

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My amazing wife, Katie, and I have been having a bit of a debate lately.

It centers around the concept of “slow travel” and whether we’re actually doing it.

We used to spend a lot of our travel time rushing from place to place. Airports, rental cars, hotel check-ins, repeat. That phase of life had a goal. We wanted to get our boys to all 50 states before they graduated, and we (almost) did it. It was fast, chaotic, and a lot of fun.  Now we are in a different phase of life and things are different. At least, they’re supposed to be.

What Is Slow Travel?

Generally speaking, slow travel is an approach to travel that emphasizes extended stays, local experiences, and a more relaxed pace instead of rushing through a checklist of destinations. (In other words, the opposite of what we did when we were knocking out all 50 states during our Summer breaks 🙂) In our version, we stay in an area for 3-6 months and explore potential locations for our forever home.

From a financial independence perspective, slow travel also makes a lot of sense for us. It replaces short, expensive trips with longer, more sustainable stays and substitutes everyday living in a new location for traditional vacations. It also lets us take advantage of geographic arbitrage, using the local cost of living to control our expenses.  In this model, at some point, the line between travel and normal life starts to blur.

That part has been working great for us so far.

Where It Gets Complicated

But what happens when you’re living somewhere for three to six months… and you want to take a trip?  Maybe I want to go to a conference.  Or we want to take a quick road trip. Maybe there’s a place we want to see, but have no interest in living in.  Are we betraying our “slow travel” ideals?

Probably Not

The more we’ve talked about it, the more it feels like a debate about semantics.  After all, it would be a little silly to let a definition stop us from doing something we want to do, especially after working so hard to create optionality in our lives.

Slow travel works well for us as a general approach. It helps us slow down, spend less, and actually experience the places we visit.

But it’s not going to stop us from:
• Taking a quick sightseeing trip when we just want an overview
• Visiting a more expensive place for a few days instead of a few months
• Or making a one-time trip somewhere we simply want to see

The Bottom Line

“Slow travel” is a useful framework for us, not a law.  “More what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules” 😉  In the end, financial independence isn’t supposed to limit your choices, but to give you more of them.

Lessons From the First Year: What Amenities Are Actually Worth Paying For?

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We just finished our first year of “slomadic” living, trying out different parts of the country and different styles of life with urban living in Omaha, Nebraska and beachside living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Along the way we learned a lot, but one of the more interesting lessons has been that the amenities we thought would matter were not always the ones that ended up actually improving our daily life the most.

When you are choosing temporary housing, it is very easy to get caught up in possibilities. You imagine the hobbies you might take up, the routines you could develop, or the conveniences that seem absolutely essential before you arrive. Reality tends to simplify things pretty quickly.

One example for us was paddle boarding. Before leaving for Omaha, we hauled our inflatable paddle boards all the way from Texas because we were convinced we would use them constantly. We never even inflated them once. Then, when we moved to South Carolina, we did not even bother bringing them down to the water. To be fair, the presence of alligators may have influenced that decision a little 🙂

Laundry was another area where we probably overthought things. Before leaving home, we spent a lot of time debating whether in-unit laundry was essential. In the end, the shared laundry facilities in both Omaha and Myrtle Beach worked perfectly fine. Because we were no longer dressing up for work every day or constantly cycling through “professional” clothes, we actually generated much less laundry than we expected. We never had major issues with broken machines, crowded laundry rooms, or rude neighbors. I wake up pretty early and was always able to take care of laundry before anyone else was even awake. What initially felt like a possible quality-of-life dealbreaker turned out to be mostly a non-issue.

Walkability was also more nuanced than we expected. In Omaha, I loved being able to walk to the YMCA for swimming workouts, but in Myrtle Beach I still swam just as much despite driving fifteen minutes to the pool. Similarly, in both cities we often bypassed smaller nearby grocery stores and drove to the larger stores that better matched the way we actually shop. It turns out that the idea of walkability sometimes mattered more to us than the reality of how we behaved day to day.

At the same time, a few amenities surprised us by how much they improved daily life.

The first was having a king bed instead of a queen. That may sound minor, but when you are 6’7” and living somewhere for months instead of taking a short vacation, comfort matters more than novelty. Sleep quality affects everything.

A functional kitchen also turned out to be incredibly important. Even though we enjoy eating out and exploring local restaurants, having a kitchen made life cheaper, healthier, and more convenient. It gave us flexibility. Some days we wanted to go out. Other days we just wanted something simple at home without turning every meal into an event.

And perhaps the biggest surprise was how much we both enjoyed having a view. In both Omaha and Myrtle Beach, we found ourselves appreciating the scenery far more than many of the more “practical” amenities we had stressed over beforehand. Whether it was looking out over downtown Omaha or waking up near the ocean in South Carolina, having visually pleasant surroundings added a surprising amount of value to ordinary days.

I think the larger lesson here is that there is a difference between aspirational amenities and lifestyle-supporting amenities. Aspirational amenities are the things that sound exciting when imagining a new life. Lifestyle-supporting amenities are the things that quietly improve your daily routines over and over again.

That distinction matters financially because amenities cost money and limit options. The more accurately you understand what actually improves your quality of life, the easier it becomes to spend intentionally instead of reflexively upgrading everything.

As we prepare for our next stop in Santa Fe, we already find ourselves evaluating rentals differently. We are much less concerned about paying extra for amenities we only think we might use, and are more focused on the things that consistently improved everyday life during year one.

That may end up being one of the biggest benefits of this whole experiment. Not just discovering where we want to live, but learning what kind of life actually makes us happy once the vacation feeling wears off.

Lessons From the First Year: Geography Does Not Automatically Change You

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We just finished our first year of “slomadic” living, trying out different parts of the country and different styles of life with urban living in Omaha, Nebraska and beachside living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Along the way we learned a lot, but one of the biggest lessons has been surprisingly simple:

No matter where you go… there you are.

It is a cliche, but changing locations does not automatically create a different life or identity.

I think many people, especially those dreaming about retirement or relocation, just assume that a new environment will naturally transform them. Move near the beach and suddenly you become healthier, calmer, and outdoorsy. Move downtown and you become more social and cultured. Relocate to the mountains and somehow life becomes simpler and more peaceful.

Sometimes circumstances absolutely help. But our experience so far is that most of our internal habits traveled with us.I exercised about the same amount in Omaha as I did in Dallas. I was not magically better at meeting new people in South Carolina than I was in Nebraska. My personality, routines, and habits all packed themselves into the car and came with us 🙂

That realization has actually been helpful. Financially, this matters because ,in retirement, people often spend aggressively trying to solve problems that are not primarily financial:

  • burnout
  • dissatisfaction
  • loneliness
  • boredom
  • stress
  • unhealthy routines

A new house, a different city, or a dream retirement destination may improve your circumstances, but it does not automatically create personal transformation. That feels like an important counterbalance to some FIRE narratives. Financial independence creates capacity for change, but not automatic change itself.

FU money can remove constraints. It can buy flexibility, autonomy, and time. It can allow you to leave situations that are making you miserable. Those are incredibly valuable things. But money alone cannot independently create:

  • meaning
  • structure
  • relationships
  • discipline
  • purpose
  • community

Those things still require intentional effort, regardless of location.

In some ways, slow travel has actually highlighted this lesson more clearly for us because each move acts like a little reset button. You quickly discover which parts of your life were truly tied to location and circumstance and which parts were really tied to you. For me, one of the biggest lessons from year one has been realizing that while geography can support growth, it cannot substitute for it.

The encouraging side of that realization is that happiness may be more portable than we sometimes think. If you already enjoy simple routines, movement, exploration, reading, or spending time with people you care about, those things can travel with you almost anywhere.

The challenging side is that unresolved issues tend to travel too 🙂  

Lessons From the First Year: Geography Does Not Automatically Change You

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We just finished our first year of “slomadic” living, trying out different parts of the country and different styles of life with urban living in Omaha, Nebraska and beachside living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Along the way we learned a lot, but one of the biggest lessons has been surprisingly simple:

No matter where you go… there you are.

It is a cliche, but changing locations does not automatically create a different life or identity.

I think many people, especially those dreaming about retirement or relocation, just assume that a new environment will naturally transform them. Move near the beach and suddenly you become healthier, calmer, and outdoorsy. Move downtown and you become more social and cultured. Relocate to the mountains and somehow life becomes simpler and more peaceful.

Sometimes circumstances absolutely help. But our experience so far is that most of our internal habits traveled with us.I exercised about the same amount in Omaha as I did in Dallas. I was not magically better at meeting new people in South Carolina than I was in Nebraska. My personality, routines, and habits all packed themselves into the car and came with us 🙂

That realization has actually been helpful. Financially, this matters because ,in retirement, people often spend aggressively trying to solve problems that are not primarily financial:

  • burnout
  • dissatisfaction
  • loneliness
  • boredom
  • stress
  • unhealthy routines

A new house, a different city, or a dream retirement destination may improve your circumstances, but it does not automatically create personal transformation. That feels like an important counterbalance to some FIRE narratives. Financial independence creates capacity for change, but not automatic change itself.

FU money can remove constraints. It can buy flexibility, autonomy, and time. It can allow you to leave situations that are making you miserable. Those are incredibly valuable things. But money alone cannot independently create:

  • meaning
  • structure
  • relationships
  • discipline
  • purpose
  • community

Those things still require intentional effort, regardless of location.

In some ways, slow travel has actually highlighted this lesson more clearly for us because each move acts like a little reset button. You quickly discover which parts of your life were truly tied to location and circumstance and which parts were really tied to you. For me, one of the biggest lessons from year one has been realizing that while geography can support growth, it cannot substitute for it.

The encouraging side of that realization is that happiness may be more portable than we sometimes think. If you already enjoy simple routines, movement, exploration, reading, or spending time with people you care about, those things can travel with you almost anywhere.

The challenging side is that unresolved issues tend to travel too 🙂  

Lessons From the First Year: Every Major Life Upgrade Has Hidden Tradeoffs

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We just finished our first year of “slomadic” living, trying out different parts of the country and different styles of life with urban living in a small big city in Omaha, Nebraska and beachside living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. One of the lessons we have learned is the importance of looking at both sides of every major life change.

It is very easy to focus on what we are gaining.  Everything from an oceanfront view and easy beach access to walkability and access to cultural activities. Those benefits are real, and they matter. But one of the biggest lessons from this year is that the more important question is often not just “What am I gaining?” but also “What am I giving up?”

People often evaluate life changes by focusing almost entirely on the positives:

  • better weather
  • Tax advantages
  • nicer scenery
  • slower pace of life
  • more free time
  • lower housing costs

But lifestyle decisions are rarely one-dimensional optimization problems. Every move introduces tradeoffs.  Even positive changes can come with losses:

  • distance from relationships
  • disruption of routines
  • social isolation
  • healthcare disruptions
  • reduced community connection
  • loss of identity tied to previous work or location

Some of those costs are financial. Many are emotional or social, which makes them much harder to measure and quantify.

That is one reason I think retirement and FI discussions sometimes become overly simplistic. Spreadsheets are great at modeling taxes, housing costs, investment returns, and withdrawal rates, but they struggle to capture things like loneliness, boredom, lack of purpose, or the stabilizing value of community and routine.

We have been trying to evaluate decisions more holistically during this process. Instead of asking only:
“Is this cheaper?” or  “Is this more beautiful?” We are also asking:  “How does daily life actually feel here?” and “What parts of our current life would we miss?”

For example, beach living in Myrtle Beach has been wonderful in many ways. We loved the scenery, the ability to walk on the beach regularly, and the slower pace. But it also came with tradeoffs:

  • smaller living space (and no real kitchen)
  • distance from family and long-term friends
  • a more transient social environment
  • Not walkable to stores and restaurants
  • tourist crowds at certain times of year

Similarly, urban living in Omaha gave us walkability, interesting neighborhoods, and a surprisingly vibrant downtown lifestyle, but it also came with weather realities and distance from many of the places and people we know best.

None of those tradeoffs automatically make a decision bad. They just make it more complicated than a simple “upgrade.”

I think this is especially important for early retirees and location-independent workers because freedom creates the ability to move frequently, but movement itself also has costs. Stability, routine, and community provided more emotional value (especially for Katie) than we realized while we still had them. One of the biggest lessons from our first year is that there may not be a perfect place or perfect lifestyle. There are simply different bundles of tradeoffs.

The goal is not to eliminate tradeoffs entirely, but to choose the ones that fit us best.  And to keep in mind that there is no one correct answer, but many choices that may be right for us 🙂