In this interview, I talk to an anonymous person. He calls himself “Smile If You Dare.”

On my effort to get to know other personal finance bloggers, I reached out and I asked Smile If You Dare for an interview. I was pleasantly surprised. Here are the highlights of the interview.

Smile If You Dare Interview Highlights

• Smile If You Dare (From now on “SIYD”) wants to share his experience on what is it like to live in retirement and how living in retirement affects his financial life.
• In his younger years, he never thought about money. Apart from contributing to his 401 (k) and IRA, where he would make contributions, he would spend the rest of his money. He would eat out every weekday and on weekends, look for other ways to spend his money.
• Fortunately, SIYD contributed the maximum limit of his 401 (k) every year.
• The change in his life came about when he met a woman, fell in love and got married.
• His perspective on life changed. He started thinking about the future. He realized that he had no savings outside of his tax-deferred accounts. He wanted to buy a house but had no money.
• He was fortunate that his wife was frugal and between the two of them, they were able to buy a house.
• The realization of not having any savings put SIYD on the path of self-education about money, he started reading books and blogs about money.
• Over the years, he became interested in better managing his 401 (k). He started focusing on index funds with low managing fees. Out of the subset of index funds, he became even more interested in funds the focused on dividend stocks.
• Once married, they lived a frugal lifestyle. They continued contributing towards, their registered account, they would pay the mortgage, they would eat at home, and they started increasing their savings. They were gardening, growing some vegetables and fruits.
• Growing your own food, not only saves money, but it is also a great activity, plus, it gives a feeling of accomplishment.
• Within his abilities, if something breaks in the house, he would repair it himself.
• Smile If You Dare gave a few simple examples of frugality, of preservation of natural resources.
• Smile If You Dare also started investing in individual companies, companies that pay good stable dividends. He would either cash out those dividends or reinvested them. He believes that this is the best investment system for him.
• Dividend investment list put together by David Fish.
• We spoke about life after retirement and how the blog Smile If You Dare got started.

End of the podcast recommendations:

• Book recommendation: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.
• Blog recommendation: The Conservative Income Investor
• Podcast Recommendation: Dr. Linda Tucker Podcast.

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.” ― Eric Hoffer

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