Early Retirement Extreme Forums

The Great Career Pivot

I have been thinking more about what to do with my life after leaving the Navy. I’ve settled on taking some time off of FTE and utilizing my GI Bill to further my education and expand my employment options.

Taking a quarter to finish my B.A. has been the plan from the ...

@delay

Most people’s favorite thing about the Navy seems to be the close friendships they developed during their career.

I think the primary reason I joined was for the sense of security. I only considered staying if I actually enjoyed the work, but it was the path that allowed me to save up ...

Phone - I still use an iPhone 7 - can't find another Apple phone with such perfect dimensions


I was on the search for the best small phone on the market and landed on the iPhone 12/13 mini. They are slightly smaller than the iPhone 6. The mini line is unlikely to return though because everyone ...

Q1 of 2025 Reflections

A rather belated post, but life just got a little hectic. Didn’t progress much on personal goals but I was spot on for the financial side of things.

The Numbers

Quarter Total __ Monthly AVG __ Category

$2,385 _______ $795 _________ Housing &Utilities

$475.32 ...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bq0P8hwS8qI

Anne Donath has lived in this tiny 4x4 meter wooden house for ~30yrs. No electricity or running water. Pays a minimal amount for drinking water and uses a cistern in the garden for other needs. Uses a wood stove for cooking and heating the home. Uses an ...

@frugaldoc

I haven’t thought about doing skillbridge but I might as well keep myself open to other options. I’m leaning towards moving from east coast back to west coast and taking a year off from working. But the year off thing is arbitrary so I’m not too set on it. If I see an opportunity near ...

@ertyu

I don’t have any friends around I hang with, so I just do solitary activities. I’ve only planned group activities with family who live in different states. Like whenever I travel it’s been to visit family.

I wasn’t thinking about buying board games because I don’t have anyone to play with ...

I’ve been enjoying reading through the forums. Keep getting started on long journals so lots to catch up on. I want to be more active on the forums one of these days. I think I’ll write more about my hobbies, although it’s just stuff I do for fun at this time, I do aspire towards working on creative ...

@ertyu

It would be useful to have the qualification. I’m just tired of working with the Navy. So motivation is minimal. I’m just biding my time most days. Not getting that sense of progress towards something that I actually want to do.

I’m almost done though. Then I’ll have less to worry about at ...

Failed my budget again. But not too bad overall since I started this journal. Gonna stick with the same budget plan in 2025 ($20k annual lifestyle spending). Also been working towards giving more to charity as I’ve fallen into a very good financial position.

Work wise I’m down to 1yr left in the ...

I’m a surface nuke. It’s just odd because qualifying is the endpoint. You’re just not as useful until you finish qualifying. There is always a shortage of people for the nuke rates and having less SIR people just makes it worse. We’ve already had a lot of depressed people in the department leave the ...

Thanks for the welcome y’all.

The past few months were rougher than expected but finances turned out alright.

3mo AVG

Lifestyle Spend: $1,708
Total Spend: $2,700
Save Rate: 66%
Total Savings: 7.5x AVG Annual Expenses

So, we’re off to a slow start but on the bright side there’s plenty of room ...

The Plan

Well next stage for me is to lean out the budget. With a few caveats. I don’t want to include student loans or gifts and charity in my spending goal. I actually want to work on increasing my spending on charity. I’ll just continue tracking my overall spending along with my subset of ...

My Background and Motivations

I have really waffled about starting this journal. I’m pretty easily intimidated and find it hard to accept failure. I have lurked for long enough though. I should be seeing any progress in the right direction as a success as well.

I enlisted in the Navy as a Nuke 4 ...

I feel like I have wasted so much of my time on meaningless things. I wish to dedicate more time to learning new things and working on projects I find satisfying. But I’ve always struggled to stick with things long enough to gain proficiency. It’s easy to just go online and watch other people doing ...