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Today we welcome Anita from The Power of Thrift, who effectively retired at age 33 after 5 years of working/saving.
Woah. Step back.
Anita’s story is actually that crazy. She was a lawyer for only 5 years (1 to pay off student loans, 4 to save) before she had enough passive-ish income to retire, travel, housesit her way across the country, and write her own book.
She shares with us…
- why she started her own publishing company,
- how she stayed in Denver for 5 months…for about $200(!)
- her “operation” attitude (you’ll just have to listen)
She’s an incredible example of the power of saving, and also the joys/perks of early retirement.
Enjoy the episode, join our private Facebook community, and show some love to Travis at Student Loan Planner (today’s sponsor, yay!)
Show notes and links from today’s episode
- Anita’s site – The Power of Thrift
- Anita’s book! Operation Enough: How to retire remarkably early.
- Trusted Housesitters, Housesitters America – Realllly cool ideas.
- Vellum – make beautiful books!
- The Crossroads of Should and Must
- Money Penny on FIRE Drill Ep. 2 (another novelist/publisher)
Key takeaways from our chat with Anita from The Power of Thrift
1 – High earner? The more potential to retire early
We can’t all make $100k+ a year…
But those of us that do have even more opportunity to retire early. As in, 5 years early.
That’s what Anita did, and besides being really impressive, it also sounds super….difficult.
How many six-figure earners do you know saving 70% of their income? Living on $30-40k a year is not only possible; most American’s do it every day.
Why aren’t more lawyers retiring after 5 years in the workforce? (If you’re into FIRE you already know the answer, but still.)
Earn more? Save more. There’s a huge opportunity there.
2 – Gwen’s a matchmaker.
You into FIRE? Single and ready to mingle? Drop by the FB group and let Gwen know. Apparently she has a database of FIRE daters to connect you with.
#semi-joking.
3 – Housesitting can be an amazing way to find affordable lodging for travel!
Most anyone into REI knows about “house-hacking” (renting or AirBnB-ing out part of your own abode), but what about for travel?
You could couch-surf, sure. You could camp. (I guess?)
Or you could do what Anita did. Pet-sit and house-sit for folks in their own homes. She used this method (see the links above for resources) to live in Denver for 5 months for less than $200 “rent.”
That’s insane, and worth paying attention to.
It’s obviously not for everyone, such as people with 12 kids or animal-haters, but we love this sort of creative-thinking and thriftiness.
Hey, maybe that’s where Anita’s blog name comes from 😉
4 – Anita hasn’t checked her blogging stats in a year(!)
- J checks once a day-ish.
- Gwen checks 38 times a day-ish.
- Anita checks….once a year?
For all the bloggers out there, this probably seems insane. Who isn’t addicted to seeing their own metrics? We all want growth.
BUT…
At the end of the day, Anita serves as a good example for us. She blogs regularly, wrote a book, started a self-publishing company, and is generally brilliant. Should we follow her example?
(Or at least check metrics LESS?)
The answer’s yes. While a bit of analytical review is necessary and beneficial, briefly looking at our stats does us little good as bloggers.
Focus on work, and let the wins/losses come as the God’s will it (paraphrased from The War of Art, a must-read for creatives!)
Still reading? Drop us a comment! Have you calculated your estimated years to FI?
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Dromgoogle says
Thanks for the info about the Housesitters. We are traveling to Antarctica in February, and will be in need of someone to watch our dogs. Going to check those sites out.