Heartland on FIRE

Blazing a Trail Towards Financial Independence

Blazing a Trail Towards Financial Independence

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Financial Independence

Making Dough to Save Dough

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A key to living a great life and reaching Financial Independence (FI) is to find the activities that truly make you happy and make them priorities.  The purpose of this article to to focus on one activity that I am passionate about:

Making Pizza

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Life Can Be Grand Living in the Heartland

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If you’ve read the About this Blog page you know that the Heartland on FIRE crew lives near St. Louis, MO.  Smack dab in the middle of America’s Heartland… a place that many call “Flyover Country”.

Now at first blush, the Heartland doesn’t offer ocean views, rocky mountains, the trendiest restaurants or shopping, or the highest paying jobs in country.  It’s also true that the weather tends to be bipolar (super hot and humid in one moment and bitterly cold the next).  As I am writing this the temperature has dropped from the mid 60s down into the 20s! What the hell?  So, it’s understandable why many think the way they do.

However, for those of us on the path to FI, you may find that Heartland living can be a secret weapon to achieving FI significantly sooner.

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Progress Update 1

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Well its been roughly a month since this here blog said hello to the world.  I’ve promised to provide updates on our journey to FI along the way.  You can always check the latest and greatest info on the Track Our Progress page  Anyways, without further adieu, here is how we did in December: [Read more…] about Progress Update 1

Playing with FIRE

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If you’ve found this blog you probably already know about the FIRE movement.  But if not, FIRE stands for Financial Independence/Retire Early.  The basic premise is to accumulate savings or investments as quickly as possible.  Once you’ve reached “your number” you then have the option to retire and live off 4 percent of your investments annually. The 4 percent rate is often referred to as the “safe withdrawal rate” as detailed in the controversial “Trinity Study” by three Trinity University professors in 1998 (and a 2009 update) who studied mixes of stocks and bonds based on published stock market data from 1925 to 1995.  Essentially, with a 4 percent withdrawal rate the theoretical retiree would not exhaust their funds during retirement through almost any market conditions.    [Read more…] about Playing with FIRE