In 2010 I became a wiser gal and I realized that money weren't making me happy.
Surfing the internet I came across of the term "Early Retirement (ER)" and found a few websites that made me changed the way I was seeing many aspects of my life. My definition, and most likely many others' of "early retirement" is that when someone who can stop working before the pension benefits kick in at the age of 60 or later.
In short I realized that one human being doesn't have to work like a dog for 30 + years, but he/she can work for a while, save money at the maximum possible, then "retire". For many people this in an unachievable goal for many reasons: kids, mortgage, debt, being a workaholic. The first 3 don't apply to me, but the workaholic in some ways applied to me. I worked at my last job for 13 years and I like to believe I did it very well, at least that's what many of my ex-coworkers said. :) . But with this said I knew that there was no chance for me to get promoted. This simple because I worked in a place were people weren't promoted for what they knew or how good they were..Sounds familiar? There were many reasons why I quit this job, but I am not going to list them here. Let's keep it simple. I wanted to be FREE.
So back to 2010, I started reading about ER and how to achieve this by saving money.
This can be achieved very simple: by stopping spending on things that you don't need, and try to pay your debt (of any kind) off. I assume many people, including myself, buy things that they were have buried somewhere in a closet or basement. I myself, over the years spent a lot of my money on clothes which most of never been worn.
I had thousands of clothes that took me 1000's of hours just to remove from my closets. I used to live in a large apartment and my clothes fit: in a walk-in closet, a wall-long one in the small bedroom, a smaller closet on the hallway and many boxes full of them. Then I moved in an old house where the clothes were tiny.
Well, there how the ugly show started. I didn't have enough room for all my possessions, not even for 25% of what I used to have in my former apartment. So I started purging the only small closet I had access to. Moving all these clothes into boxes took me almost all my spare time (i was working at that time). I sold many on ebay for almost nothing and some I donated, and I still have a few huge boxes.
I also have had many other items that I have never used or ever will. Also I own a bunch of small pieces of furniture such as: chairs, small cabinets, lamps, CD cases, dressers. About 75% of those have been sold on ebay and craiglist.
So this was the story about my possessions which I still have in a quiet large number. Now that I am free I have more time to get rid of them. I hope I can do this soon.:)
More about my road to Early Retirement in the next post.......
Surfing the internet I came across of the term "Early Retirement (ER)" and found a few websites that made me changed the way I was seeing many aspects of my life. My definition, and most likely many others' of "early retirement" is that when someone who can stop working before the pension benefits kick in at the age of 60 or later.
In short I realized that one human being doesn't have to work like a dog for 30 + years, but he/she can work for a while, save money at the maximum possible, then "retire". For many people this in an unachievable goal for many reasons: kids, mortgage, debt, being a workaholic. The first 3 don't apply to me, but the workaholic in some ways applied to me. I worked at my last job for 13 years and I like to believe I did it very well, at least that's what many of my ex-coworkers said. :) . But with this said I knew that there was no chance for me to get promoted. This simple because I worked in a place were people weren't promoted for what they knew or how good they were..Sounds familiar? There were many reasons why I quit this job, but I am not going to list them here. Let's keep it simple. I wanted to be FREE.
So back to 2010, I started reading about ER and how to achieve this by saving money.
This can be achieved very simple: by stopping spending on things that you don't need, and try to pay your debt (of any kind) off. I assume many people, including myself, buy things that they were have buried somewhere in a closet or basement. I myself, over the years spent a lot of my money on clothes which most of never been worn.
I had thousands of clothes that took me 1000's of hours just to remove from my closets. I used to live in a large apartment and my clothes fit: in a walk-in closet, a wall-long one in the small bedroom, a smaller closet on the hallway and many boxes full of them. Then I moved in an old house where the clothes were tiny.
Well, there how the ugly show started. I didn't have enough room for all my possessions, not even for 25% of what I used to have in my former apartment. So I started purging the only small closet I had access to. Moving all these clothes into boxes took me almost all my spare time (i was working at that time). I sold many on ebay for almost nothing and some I donated, and I still have a few huge boxes.
I also have had many other items that I have never used or ever will. Also I own a bunch of small pieces of furniture such as: chairs, small cabinets, lamps, CD cases, dressers. About 75% of those have been sold on ebay and craiglist.
So this was the story about my possessions which I still have in a quiet large number. Now that I am free I have more time to get rid of them. I hope I can do this soon.:)
More about my road to Early Retirement in the next post.......
