Who Are We?

We are a husband and wife team living in Oakland, California. We moved to San Francisco from New York City in 1996, fell in love with the Bay Area, and have lived here ever since.

After working for many years in the Internet / Tech industry, we finally realized we had saved enough to FIRE. We officially retired from the corporate world in January 2015 and have never looked back.

When we’re not working on Retire By 45, we’re busy staying active, traveling around the world, and enjoying the wonderful weather and restaurants in our area.

Why Did We Retire in our Early 40s?

lake tahoeWe actually hadn't planned on retiring when we did. As fate would have it, we were both laid off from our day jobs within a month of each other. We decided to take advantage of our newly found free time to travel.

We started with a trip to Europe, visiting Italy, France, and Spain. Then it was off to Central & South America through the Panama Canal.  In between, we managed to sprinkle in a couple trips to Tahoe and back to New York to visit family.

Before we knew it, we were hooked on the freedom of our new lifestyle. We sleep better, our relationship is stronger, we're in better physical shape, and we're much less stressed out.

How Did We Accomplish It?

We both had decent jobs, although our salaries were modest for the Bay Area. We also didn't start investing for retirement until our late 20s and early 30s.

So how did we manage to pay off our mortgage and stop working in one of the nation's most expensive areas? It was a combination of things.  We set up automated investments, invested in real estate and rental property, created additional sources of income, and kept our expenses very modest.

You can get more details and inspiration of your own from the blog post How You Can Retire at 43 Like I Did.

Articles We've Been Featured In...

Podcasts We've Been Guests On...

About Dylin...

Dylin has always loved numbers, strategy, and money. As a kid, he was into geeky things like chess, role-playing games, and comic books. Those interests helped him to think strategically about finances.

He grew up in a very modest household, the only child raised by a single mom. They lived in a small two-bedroom apartment in Columbus, OH, essentially surviving paycheck to paycheck.

After college, Dylin moved to NYC and worked in bars and restaurants for a couple years. It was at a large theme restaurant in Times Square where he would meet Allison. After 6 months of dating, they moved to SF for a new adventure.

Dylin landed his first Internet job in 1998 and went on to work as the head of Marketing for a variety of small startups over the years.

About Allison...

Allison was taught the value of money and investing at an early age. Her parents did well financially but were always very frugal, and they passed this along to Allison.

Although Dylin chides her about being a bit of a hoarder, Allison's frugality is a big reason why they are able to keep their expenses down in retirement.  She has all kinds of techniques to get stuff for free or next to nothing.

Allison is also a big do-it-yourself person. She would rather figure out how to do something on her own than pay someone else to do it for her. This has saved them tons of money over the years.

One of Allison's other passions is cooking and sourcing delicious local ingredients.  She keeps their expenses down by preparing their own meals, and she keeps them healthier at the same time!