Afford Anything

Category: Retirement

Written By Paula Pant

Why the FIRE movement is misunderstood

The FIRE movement is misunderstood. The drama of the last two weeks proves it. The question is, how can we fix this?

Ohhh we have a new supporter!!

Last week, Suze Orman called FIRE “dumb and stupid.”

“When I was 30 I was dumb and stupid as well, okay?,” she said in an interview with Yahoo! Finance, adding that she’s “pissed off” at people pursuing early retirement.

But since then, she’s taken more time to learn about the movement — and she’s in support.

In a Facebook post titled “What I Hate — and Love — about FIRE,” Suze writes…

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Written By Paula Pant

“Two Million Dollars is Nothing. It’s Pennies,” says Suze Orman

Want to retire early? You’ll need at least $5 million, more likely $10 million, says famous financial personality Suze Orman.

I should know. She said that to me, directly, on my podcast.

I asked Suze for her opinion about a frugal, flexible person who wants to retire early with a $2 million portfolio. She warned that retiring would be a massive mistake.

“Two million dollars is nothing,” Suze said. “It’s nothing. It’s pennies in today’s world, to tell you the truth.”

Wait, what?

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Written By Paula Pant

Here’s a Counterintuitive Idea for Your Retirement …

Once upon a time, in southern California in 1994, there lived a man named William Bengen.⠀

His friends called him Bill.

Bill was born in Brooklyn, and he studied aeronautics at MIT. He wrote a big paper on advanced model rocketry. Then he became an executive at a soft drink company. Finally, 17 years […]

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Does Your Lack of Savings Halt Your Dreams?

Several weeks ago, I invited new email subscribers to share their answers to two deeply personal questions:

What’s your wildest dream, and what’s preventing you from getting there?

The answers poured in to a degree I couldn’t believe. My Inbox flooded with hopes and sorrows. Some people shared brief-but-honest answers; others wrote memoirs. People from all walks […]

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This 72-Year-Old is Retiring the Right Way …

My 72-year-old dad just announced that he’s learning to drive a stick-shift. Why? Because he wants to drive – instead of relying on taxis or buses – when he travels to countries that only have manual transmissions.

And he goes to a lot of other countries. Last year he and my 72-year-old […]

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The Surprising Reason I Read AARP Magazine … In My Twenties

Guess what magazine I’m always reading?

If you guessed something targeted at 20-somethings or 30-somethings, you’re wrong. I love AARP magazine — the bimonthly publication of the American Association of Retired Persons.

It shows up in the mailbox at my 70-year-old parents suburban home, but I steal it away to my city apartment and devour […]

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Why Retirement is an Old-Fashioned Idea

I was reading through the January/February 2011 edition of AARP Magazine* which featured an interview with George W. Bush. Regardless of how you feel about his Presidency, one comment he made that rang true: retirement is an “old-fashioned” term.

You never retire.

More people are beginning to recognize that retirement – the notion that one […]

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