Before his daughter, Faith, was born in 2010, Jim White was mostly content with his job as an engineering manager at an IT firm in Ohio. He made decent money, owned a home and a rental property with his wife, Lisa, and even enjoyed the work he was doing.
But the week off of work he spent with his newborn daughter crystallized something for White that had been nagging at him for while: He realized as his brief paternity leave ended that he didn’t want to miss the time with her that the standard American corporate job all too often encroaches on. The traditional 9-to-5 made him feel trapped, as if his life was just passing him by. He didn’t want to spend his best days behind a desk.
It was also around this time he first discovered the FIRE—financial independence, retire early—community online, which helped him realize that his dream of leaving the corporate world decades sooner than the norm wasn’t so far-fetched. After extensive conversations with his wife about the possibility of a different kind of life, the Whites soon began saving 60% of their income and planning for an early departure from the workforce.
It took eight years, but White, then 43, was able to pull the plug on his corporate career at the end of 2018. The family sold most of their belongings, their home, and their car, and moved to Panama in 2019. They had fallen in love with the country after a previous vacation there, and spent their days hiking, exploring, and simply spending time together. White had never been happier.
“It was beautiful. We were able to spend every day outside, we didn’t have a car, it was all those little things,” White, now 48, tells Fortune. “I got to feel like that was home.”
Living costs were lower—though the family “scaled up” housing costs to live in a resort community on a golf course for $2,100 a month—and the quality of life was unparalleled, White says. He found a welcoming expat community, walked most places, and enjoyed the “crazy cheap” local produce. The Whites homeschooled Faith, and spent almost three years just enjoying the quality time together that had first inspired White’s FIRE journey.
Eventually, though, the Whites decided they wanted to be closer to family again, and moved back to Ohio in 2022, taking over an apartment lease for some expat friends they met in Panama. Soon restless again, the trio decided to embark on a nine-month RV trip around the country, with different legs taking them first to Texas, then the Southeast, and finally the West.
“This is the second time we’ve gotten rid of everything,” says White. Though not every day is a vacation—the family has come to realize they are not long-term RV people, given the space constraints—he has no regrets. “This has been the greatest thing.”
‘The only way to enjoy life’
White’s life may sound idyllic, but, of course, very few people are able to retire early. Many members of the FIRE community are in high-paying fields like tech, medicine, finance, or law—some of the wealthiest workers in the U.S. White had the added bonus of living in Ohio, which has a relatively low cost of living, and both he and his spouse were committed to living frugally.
White began his career working part-time at an IT firm in the 1990s for $25,000 per year. He stayed at that company his entire career, working his way up to engineering manager. The salary wasn’t bad for the time, he says, especially considering he was still wrapping up college when he landed the job. It also helped him with a different financial undertaking: Paying off the $30,000 in credit card debt he had accrued in school. “I regret the debt,” he says. “But at the same time, it was a lesson and I learned from it.”
White also benefitted from some smart real estate plays. He bought an investment property in the early 2000s, which he rented rented out for a few years and then sold in 2018 (that said, White has also catalogued the downsides of owning rental properties—it’s not all profit). They also sold their primary residence before their move to Panama.
Still, the family made plenty of sacrifices and relied on fairly standard strategies to accrue wealth (most of his investments, for example, are in low-cost index funds). He and his wife have always been frugal, he says. That helped when they had to shed most of their belongings during their first move to Panama.
“There’s only so much you can cut back on. And you get to a point where you’re as optimized as you can be, for the most part,” he says. “We spent our time putting 60% of our money away and waiting to reach our number. It’s kind of frustrating, because you know your end goal but there isn’t a feasible way to get there earlier. It’s not an easy thing to do, but the end can be so rewarding.”
White has tracked his FIRE journey on his blog, Route to Retire, since 2015. There, he displays his net worth—currently over $1.6 million—budget, and the ups and downs of early retiree life for all to see.
He has no plans to go back to the traditional corporate world. If he ever needs a job—mostly to have something to do, not just to earn money—he said he could go part-time at Costco or Walmart—somewhere “fun.”
In the meantime, he plans to keep trying different things—the best gift early retirement has given him.
“I decided randomly to climb an active volcano in Panama. That was so out of my realm, but I got it done,” he says. “I used to think people who ran marathons was crazy, but there’s such a sense of accomplishment, it’s wonderful. You have to try it. You’re not going to love everything, but it’s the only way to enjoy life and find what you do love.”
Fortune is interviewing retirees about life after leaving the workforce. If you’re interested in sharing your story, email senior writer Alicia Adamczyk at alicia.adamczyk@fortune.com.
