Over New Year’s Eve and the first five days of the new year, my wife and I did our annual FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early) reset , which includes creating our 2026 Goals Bingo cards and completing our no-spend challenge. This reset helps us stay intentional about health, spending, and how we want early retirement to actually feel—not just how it looks on paper. This will be our first full year in early retirement since exiting the rat race in 2025. Last year, we w

As the year comes to a close, I still find it hard to believe that we actually retired before turning 50  this year. When we were in our 30s, retirement at any age seemed like a pipe dream . Despite having low-paying jobs and no direction, we somehow still managed to cross the rat race finish line early. With less than a week left in 2025, we’re now making preparations for two annual traditions to close out the old year and ring in the new one. A few friends started copying u