The Road to Freedom

   Good morning friends!  This blog is to journalize and document my journey to an early retirement and being financially free of debt. I spent the first 10 years of my adult life as most people do, enjoying the easy money that comes with credit cards, going to college and running up student loans, and working my butt off so I can live comfortably while still making all of the payments on my debt.  Luckily I havent gone too far in the hole financially when in comes to school as I have been going to community college to save money.  As it sits, I am about $25,000 in debt myselft and my wife has about $50,000 in student loans.  This includes all credit cards, store cards, cars and student loans.  Its hard to believe that we have gotten ourselves into $75,000 worth of debt in less than 10 years but we have.  To remedy this, I will be using a combination of techniques including Dave Ramsey's snowball.  In addition to paying off my debt I will be putting money into savings, IRAs, my  401k, commodities, food storage, and dividend producing stocks.  Eventually the goal will be to pay off all of the debt and set up multiple streams of income so I can retire early and travel the world with my wife.  I am currently 27, I have steady work, making around $55,000 a year and my wife makes around half of that.  I am setting the time for this goal at 13 years.  If I can be debt free and bringing in enough residual income to pay all the utilities, food and gas I will take a leave of absence and take my family to Europe for a vacation.  After that, I will continue to work and build up my investments for another 5 to 10 years and retire early.  It may seem like a long and impossible journey to some, but I feel like I am so close that I can taste it.  I dont want to owe anyone anything, and with the government, economy, and world going the way they are going, being financially free and independant is essential to survival.  Hopefully, all of us can become more financially educated and free through this project.  Thank you all for your support!

- J