Welcome to the Mindful FIRE Podcast, where we explore living mindfully on the path to financial independence and beyond. I’m your host Adam Coelho and I’m glad you’re here.

On today’s episode I’m joined by my friend Laurie Stephens, the Executive Director of Hood River Education Foundation a non profit helping students in Hood River, Oregon. Today’s episode is Part 1 of conversation and in it we explore how Laurie and her husband Doug retired at the age of 40 and what they’ve been up to since. Part 2 of our conversation will be released next week so be sure to subscribe to our email list and on your favorite podcast player.

We had a great conversation exploring how they made it happen and how they went about designing their life both before and after retiring early including what career to pursue, where to retire to and what to do with all their free time once they made it happen.

In this episode you’ll learn:
- How Laurie and her husband Doug retired at 40 years old
- Her husband always knew that he wanted to have a life filled with play and used that desire to be intentional about his career path so he could make money and then retire to a life of play
- How Doug brought Laurie into this vision and helped her build confidence that retiring early was actually possible
- How the book “Your Money or Your Life” by Vicki Robin changed the way - Laurie thought about life and money
- What they’ve been up to in the 20 years since they retired
- How Laurie has thought about pursuing her passions through several post-career careers
- How Laurie and Doug chose where they wanted to retire to
- How knowing you can always get another job is incredibly powerful in pursuing early retirement
- Laurie’s thoughts on the difference between being frugal and being cheap

And so much more. I hope you enjoy my wonderful conversation with my friend Laurie Stephens.