News Summary

• We were making the most of Seattle's tech boom, but wanted something else.
• Success in our corporate jobs required an intense commitment, and we always felt it came at the cost of other pursuits, like artistic hobbies and longer, more immersive trips to see the world.
• After about a month, the conversations went from What we should do?
• to How they should do it?
• A few weeks later, in May, we quit our jobs and entered our "first retirement" at age 30.
• We've always been very financially conservative and knew we wanted to be debt-free during "retirement," so we took a hard look at our finances first.