This is optimal Finance Daily, episode 1283, three bad financial decisions that helped me retire sooner,

part two by Chris Mammula of Can I Retire Yet.com.

And I'm your host and narrator. My name is Dan and I'm here every single day reading to you from some of the best personal finance blogs on the planet.

And today is a part two of two. It's a continuation from yesterday, so if you're new here it would be best to listen

to yesterday's episode first. That's Saturday episode 1282. But if you did that already,

let's move along to Part 2 of Chris's Post as we optimize your life.

Three bad financial decisions that helped me retire sooner, part two by Chris

Mamula of Can I Retire Yet.com. Why It Worked for us. We as a couple and my wife in

particular have more difficulty spending money from savings and investments than from a paycheck.

Paying off our mortgage quickly eliminated our biggest monthly expense.

Analyzing our current expenses reveals that our three biggest expenses are food, outdoor

adventure, like gear, ski passes, etc. and charitable giving.

We spend roughly the same amount on each of these categories. Our next biggest expenses,

medical insurance premiums and property taxes, are a fraction of the others. We could

substantially reduce our food spending and completely eliminate our other two big

expenses at least temporarily if we needed to. We could not eliminate a mortgage or

rent payment. Having minimal monthly liabilities gave us courage to take more risks and take them sooner than we otherwise would have.

Being mortgage-free first benefited us after the birth of our daughter.

My wife decided she didn't want to return to full-time work. Having low monthly expenses

gave her the courage to cut back to working part-time. A few years later, it gave her the courage to take her

current job as the seventh employee at what was then a startup

company. It was a lateral move with less job security. This was strictly a lifestyle decision

...