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Early Retirement | Slow Travel | Real Numbers

@early_exit_open_road

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You're allowed to want a different life 🏖️
Two retired teachers. No trust fund. $1.5–2k/mo 🚗
🎟️ Oct 29 live: the slow-travel reality check 👇

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Reposting the reel that broke my comment section. 😅

Last time, the fight was about the $600/mo maintenance line appearing in BOTH columns.

So let me say it plainly before anyone rages:
That’s not a mistake. The roof doesn’t care about your mortgage.

We live in a 57-year-old house. We set aside $600/mo and pay cash when things break — water heater, fence, AC, all of it. That number doesn’t disappear when the mortgage does. It’s our real sinking fund, not a guess. Your number will be different. Know yours.

And we’re in Texas, which ranks top 10 in the US for BOTH property taxes and homeowners insurance. So no, our non-mortgage housing costs are not small. Add utilities on the Texas grid and it all stacks up fast.

Full breakdown: principal + interest went to $0 (real, and it matters). Property taxes, homeowners insurance, and that $600 maintenance fund didn’t move. Total monthly housing cost: barely budged. Our mortgage was $950 and we bought our house in 2006.

“Pay off your mortgage and housing gets cheap” skips the fine print.
Now tell me I’m wrong. 👇

#financialindependence #debtfree #realnumbers #earlyretirement taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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😎 Everyone quotes the average retirement savings, $168K, and it makes normal people feel behind.

😎 But the MEDIAN is $44K (Vanguard, How America Saves 2026). Half of all 401(k) holders have less than that.

😎 Averages get dragged up by a handful of massive accounts. Stop measuring yourself against a number that’s lying to you.

😎 What’s YOUR number based on? Follow us for real numbers and a real life! #intentionalliving #earlyretirement #retirement #financialindependence #simpleliving taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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3 days ago

Teachers: you’ve earned the pension. Now find out what it’s actually worth somewhere else. 🌍

Slow Travel Reality Check: LIVE — Oct 29, 7pm CT, 90 minutes.

I’m walking through the real monthly costs for three slow-travel cities, you get the full spreadsheet, and we finish with live Q&A.

$77 early bird ends Oct 22 (then it’s $97). Capped at 25 seats so it’s actually interactive.

Comment WAITLIST and I’ll send you the signup link. #intentionalliving #simpleliving #slowtravel #mindset #retirement taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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4 days ago

🏡 We bought a starter home. And then we just stayed.

🏡 No upgrade to the shiny new suburb. No keeping up with anyone.

🏡 That one decision, staying put while our income grew, is probably the single biggest reason we retired early.

🏡 Every upgrade has a hidden side of the ledger: bigger mortgage, bigger taxes, bigger insurance, bigger everything.

🏡 We chose the small house and the big life.

😎 Run YOUR numbers before you upsize. Comment MORTGAGE to see if paying off your home is a good financial decision for you or not. #intentionalliving #simpleliving #financialindependence #mortgage taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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7 hours ago

✨Someone asked me this in my comments yesterday and I knew it needed its own post.

✨If you’re a Texas teacher (or married to one), listen up. Before the GPO repeal, your spousal Social Security benefit got cut by two-thirds of your pension amount. For most of us, that meant zero.

✨That offset is gone now. You get the full spousal benefit, up to half of your spouse’s full benefit at full retirement age. Survivor benefits too.

✨This is real money that was always technically yours. Now you actually get it.

✨Save this and send it to every teacher you know. Follow us for real numbers and a real life. #socialsecurity #texasteachers #retirement #intentionalliving #financialindependence taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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a day ago

Myth #2 of 5: ‘You can’t work after you retire.’

Yes you can — Texas literally built the rules for it. Retire, collect, go back. Two streams.

💰Details matter so read the TRS rules for your situation.

Comment PENSION. 😎 Follow us for real numbers and a real life.

#teacherretirement #trs #financialindependence #earlyretirement taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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🙌 The official 2027 Social Security COLA is 3.6% — the biggest since 2023. Average check goes up about $75/month starting in January. (Source: SSA, announced Oct 14, 2026)

🙌 And if you’re a teacher who got benefits back from the WEP/GPO repeal? This is your first COLA on those restored benefits. Check your statement — and add 3.6%.

Here’s how this actually affects you:
👀 That 3.6% sounds great until you look at what things cost. Social Security benefits have lost about 14% of their buying power over the past decade (Senior Citizens League).

😮 A dollar of benefits in 2016 is worth about 86 cents today. In an AARP survey, more than three-quarters of people said the increase wouldn’t be enough to keep up with rising prices.

💯 Social Security is one leg of the stool, not the whole stool. If you’re still working, look at whether you’re maxing out your catch-up contributions — every dollar you put away now is a dollar Social Security doesn’t have to cover later.

‼️And if you’re a teacher who got benefits restored: make sure you’re actually getting what you’re owed. The repeal helped millions, but nothing was automatic for folks who never applied because they were told a pension canceled their benefits.

✅ Check your statement. Know your number.

😎 Follow us for real numbers and a real life. #intentionalliving #simpleliving #financialindependence #earlyretirement #retirement taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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2 days ago

NEW BLOG POST

Last year, I broke down what our first 24 hours cost in Omaha, Nebraska. A few months later, we ran the numbers again after moving into our condo in Myrtle Beach. Now we've moved into stop number three: Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Same experiment. Different city. And I’m not sure, but maybe we're actually getting better at this. 🙂

https://earlyexitopenroad.com/2026/10/14/485/ by @early_exit_open_road

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Myth #1 of 5: ‘Teachers don’t get Social Security.’

The WEP/GPO repeal changed everything. If you taught in Texas, check your statement, you may be owed money.

Full series this week.

Comment PENSION for our estimator.
#financialindependence #teacherretirement #socialsecurity #earlyretirement taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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3 days ago

Someone asked this in my comments the other day and I had to look it up myself. Texas public university employees are in ERS, not TRS — but the Rule of 80 exists in both. Details depend on your hire group, link in stories. Comment PENSION and I’ll send our estimator. #earlyretirement #financialindependence #texasteachers #retirementplanning taken in Dallas, Texas by @early_exit_open_road

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6 days ago

Omg this shared without a caption. 🤦‍♀️ I was out on the beach today, looking a little goofy but the sun was still strong and I didn’t want to take any chances. Wear your SPF! taken in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina by @early_exit_open_road

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9 days ago

✨We’ve lived in three furnished apartments in three cities in about a year: Omaha, Myrtle Beach, and Santa Fe.

✨Omaha was $1,500 a month, a furnished two-bedroom with utilities included. We had a membership to the YMCA for swimming. Totally awesome area and extremely walkable.

✨Myrtle Beach was $1,500 too, plus a 7% lodging tax. Oceanfront and gorgeous, but built for a one-week vacation, not months of living. We bought a pantry shelf, a shoe rack, and a floor mat, and we cooked in a kitchen the size of a closet. Which meant we ate out almost every day.

✨Santa Fe is $2,000, the most expensive of the three. It has a gym, a pool, and a full-size kitchen.

No memberships, no restaurant habit, no more shoe racks.

The cheapest apartment isn’t always the cheapest place to live. We break this down at our workshop on 10/29. Comment WAITLIST to get on the list!

Save this if you’re thinking about renting somewhere for a few months. Follow us for real numbers and a real life.  #intentionalliving #simpleliving #financialindependence #earlyretirement #slowtravel taken in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina by @early_exit_open_road

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