it's been two months since we became financially independent and retired
early at age 38. in this video we're going to share the honest truth about
how our fire journey's been so far the good the bad and the ugly
hey guys it's amber and jared here from holy city family our mission here is to empower you
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say bye-bye wendy can you blow kisses
so after jared retired we wanted to take advantage of our newfound freedom
and visit our families in north carolina so while we're at my mom's house my mom and dad's house
we actually made cookies with gay mommy they wanted to make all these little treats with her
been kept eating clean was so funny oh the cookie dough tell her which ones you made
both together take the plate together
you made those the special the cherry ones yeah they're sprinkles on their own
thank you and they brought cookies to eat with you kept gigi one can gigi have one quinny no
oh she's gonna share it bitten so then went over to my sister's house
crackers
we came back out we were sitting and all of a sudden kayla comes out and she's like decked out
do you have makeup on oh you're beautiful and you have sparkly shoes
look at that i took so long because i needed to get older
we ended our trip going back to my parents house for like a day
they wanted to make necklaces with my mom what's
so then when we got back home my brother matt and his wife nicole came over to our house
we found some shrimp that were underneath the dock and we just get them out with net
so they went out and then they found what did you guys find like we went out into the dry
spot i don't know what those little crabs are called on the fiddler crabs yeah fiddler crabs
and then we went and caught a bunch of those with the net and then put those with the shrimp
and so after jared's brother's family left we got to celebrate gwenevere's first birthday
the next day was her birthday happy birthday gwen quinn say i'm one i'm one yay i'm one
whoa
gwen are you and maya building a sand castle are you helping her happy birthday to you
happy birthday
i don't know if you guys have ever been to folly
beach but there's this really cool tree called the shell tree
and then to celebrate gwen's birthday that night so she got i don't know how many cakes she got
like three it's like we celebrated it three different styles cupcakes
a cake another cake the next day and then a cake when my parents came
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you we talked about the busy time curriculum and one of the things
that we were talking about was the community helpers and just so happens that our neighbor
is a firefighter at the charleston fire department in downtown
we got to tour the downtown charleston fire department which is the original
one we were so lucky to be standing outside and get a call so the fire truck went out
are you driving okay look at me
she's like what is this is that really tall can you see out the window
look at this you're in a fire truck can you imagine driving this
so given how long and difficult our fire journey has been there is light at the end of the tunnel
we have a newfound freedom the flexibility to spend that time with the kids and not worry about
for jared not worry about those meetings having to check work emails having to have those deadlines
ability to spend two weeks with family without having to ask that permission now we can zero in
our time and our effort and our focus on the holy city family actually maximizing our investments
in the stock market as well that feeling that someone's always looking over your shoulder
it's so nice that that's gone that i don't have to worry about that i don't feel that and that's
a tough one until you actually do retire or quit your job or whatever you can't simulate what that
feels like and you don't really know how that's making you feel until it's gone it's also nice to
see that amber is now getting more on on board with the fire movement you know now that the
the nine to five income is gone it's there's like something magical happened when the income stopped
because even for for both of us it's just there's a funny thing when you have all that money coming
in from that job you just kind of take it for granted and you spend it frivolously we've also
cut back on our spending and gotten our budget probably more in line than we ever have so while
we were with jared's parents we went over to patterson farm which is near their house
you wanna go take a picture on that wagon over there
here show me show me stand right there
why is his leg shaking
so then we went to this wonderful place that we've been i think one time before
uh grayson highlands they have wild horses that you'll see and
it's just magical it really is it's like something out of a fairy tale
again
that might be buttercup that way we'll have to go home and look up that picture
it looks like her
yeah don't get near the back that kick really hard michaela
daddy's right near you
my mom wanted to go pick apples so she took the kids she took the kids in us
apple to an apple orchard in morganton north carolina it's called apple hill
so while we're at my parents the funny thing is my dad sells tape so he duct tape finn
and michaela and this little toy car of my brothers and they were like duct taped in
my mom and dad have a golf cart so they take the kids on golf cart rides and that's like
one of their favorite things to do and kayla had been wanting to make s'mores
for like a week and a half you don't want to get that you don't want to touch on the ashes
you got to hold it really steady let's hold it up
or you can give me a cracker and i'll put this look at these faces oh look at these paintings
one of the things that they cleared out was this creek that had been there for
years forever my mom used to swim and like swim in it with my hands
vinnie looks like huckleberry finn
then look at gwen we wanted to have like a reuniting play date they hadn't seen
each other in like two weeks so it was like and they invited us
over and they have power wheels and our kids have never ridden in power before
like into the woods he was a drunk driver he was okay he didn't really crash he just kind
of like kept going when did you wreck did you turn into a dream get your foot off the gas so
we're able to celebrate jared's birthday when we came back and we did a beach day
i can feel it whoa look at his legs michaela yeah finney oh my goodness
so one of the things that i've been wanting to do with the kids for a long
time and i'm just kind of waiting until they're old enough so we can go on hikes
and that we had a yard yeah pitch to the tent yeah we had a great time and put up the tent
but the funny thing is that both nights i'm the only one that slept in the tent and the
kids never made it just seen like crazy amount of tree frogs and they're called um animal chameleon
lizards ever since we got here we got a little terrarium and yeah not a little bit
a pretty big one good job put on the fairy house she's right here put her in the fairy house
this one i'm not sure i think this might be a boy because it doesn't have a
line at all got to spend this halloween going trick-or-treating with the kids
the slimy feeling yeah what does it feel like what is this what kind of pizza so
finn wanted to be blippi so of course finn wanted me to be the fake witch
and then we had i was anna and then michaela was elsa and then when he was olaf
did you get some yeah
so when you hear that someone is financially independent you automatically think like
okay they're set they're good no worries but there is an uncertainty of income
another thing that we're trying to do is figure out that routine that rhythm
without jared having a set schedule that he followed another thing that i noticed
maybe a couple weeks in once once the shock kind of started wearing off of actually retiring early
i started thinking about our retirement income and how somewhat volatile it is in the stock
market i started thinking of contingency planning if we have a lot of money invested in the stock
market there's going to be volatility you know i think the crashes happen five to ten years so if
you look at the next 60 years of our life we're looking at most likely six plus market crashes
or recessions and so during that time we need to have a plan for how we're going to live if we're
going to cut back on our costs if we're going to get a part-time job or how we're going to handle
that so that we don't we're not withdrawing money when our when our investments are down thank you
guys so much for watching the video today all the way through and for sharing those special moments
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