We are Mr. & Mrs. Bug, a German dude and an American chick who have uncontrollable wanderlust. Mr. Bug works in IT and Mrs. Bug worked in Finance. We LOVE to travel and would travel more except this pesky thing called “work” gets in the way. So, we decided to fix that. Our goal is to become financially independent to enable us to work on OUR terms and not anyone else’s. There is a huge world out there just waiting to be discovered and we have only touched on a tiny portion of it. Follow us as we try to feed the travel bug by taking as many small vacations as possible through long weekends and creative holiday planning while we continue to work towards our ultimate goal of financial independence and traveling the world!

Inspiration

The idea came to me in early 2012 when I read an MSN Money article by Robert and Robin Charlton from www.wherewebe.com.  At the age of 43, they were able to say sayonara to the daily grind of work and live their dream of traveling around the world. I have followed their website for a couple years and dreamed of retiring early but thought that it was only a dream, and if we were lucky, we could retire by age 55 or 60. I pretty much forgot about my awesome idea until good ol’ Robert and Robin popped up again on a Motley Fool post and that got my wheels turning once again. I pitched the idea to my husband and showed him their website and he was on board! We got REAL serious in October 2013 when we read their book “How to Retire Early: Your Guide to Getting Rich Slowly and Retiring on Less”. This book was a total eye opener for us and a big game changer.

The Plan

We buckled down and got serious! We figured if others are retiring early, why can’t we?? Who wants to work for “the man” 50-60 hours a week for 40 years only to be “rewarded” with crappy health from sitting 40 years at your desk job and then be unable to travel due to health constraints? We looked at all of our finances and realized it was time to make a change. We had entirely too much debt and not nearly enough savings for retirement. We started spending WAY less on everyday things and put every extra penny we could find towards our debt. In 8 months we were completely debt free except for our 15 year mortgage. Next came the fun part! We maxed out our 401Ks and opened up a Roth IRA and maxed that out, and then started investing in taxable accounts. What is the ultimate goal? To become financially independent in the next 8 years (around year 2022) so we can say adios to traditional work and start traveling the world!