
Work Optional
Retire Early the Non-Penny-Pinching Way
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Narrated by:
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Tanja Hester
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By:
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Tanja Hester
About this listen
A practical action guide for financial independence and early retirement from the popular Our Next Life blogger.
In today's work culture, we're expected to hustle around the clock. But what if you could escape the traditional path and get on one that doesn't require working full-time until age 65? What if you could wake up every day without an alarm clock and do the things you love most?
Tanja Hester and her husband Mark left their crazed careerist lifestyle to live their dream life in Lake Tahoe, retiring early from high-stress careers. Now Tanja will help you map out a customized plan for freedom and make it easy to succeed, whether you're good at math and budgeting - or not! Work Optional is more than just a financial plan: it's a plan for your whole life-designed by you, not by an employer or clients. Tanja walks you through envisioning your dream life, accounting for variables such as health care and children, protecting yourself from recessions and future unknowns, and achieving a purpose-filled early retirement, semi-retirement, or career intermission with completely doable, non-penny-pinching steps.
You can live a happier, more meaningful life, free from the daily grind. Regardless of where you are in your career, Work Optional will get you there.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Tanja Hester (P)2019 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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graphs/diagrams
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Critic reviews
Forbes, "Best Early Retirement Blogs to Read!"
MarketWatch, "Best Books for FIRE!"
Forbes, "Money and Productivity Books You Should Absolutely Read This Summer!"
SavingAdvice.com, "Best Money Books By Finance Podcasters"
"Tanja Hester and her partner... achieved early financial independence, and in these pages she takes you on her journey. Learn why so many are firing their bosses and searching for meaning and purpose beyond cubicles and 24/7 jobs."—Vicki Robin, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Your Money or Your Life","
"Hester's story is relatable, refreshing, and a pleasure to read. All too often we chase external measures of success without thinking about what we truly want from life. In Work Optional, Hester gives us a roadmap for a less traveled path: living a more purpose-driven life through financial independence."—Kristin Wong, author of Get Money: Live the Life You Want, Not Just the Life You Can Afford
"Ms. Hester get[s] you to think about how you might retire early, forc[ing] you to ponder how you could cut current spending and increase your income, savings and the rates they earn."—The New York Times
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-
Story
A successful entrepreneur living in Southern California, Scott Rieckens had built a “dream life”: a happy marriage, a two-year-old daughter, a membership to a boat club, and a BMW in the driveway. But underneath the surface, Scott was creatively stifled, depressed, and overworked trying to help pay for his family’s beach-town lifestyle. Then one day, Scott listened to a podcast interview that changed everything.
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Unrelatable and nauseatingly privileged
- By Phil Royer on 03-25-19
By: Scott Rieckens
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Pathfinders
- Extraordinary Stories of People Like You on the Quest for Financial Independence—and How to Join Them
- By: JL Collins
- Narrated by: Kevin Meyer, Audrey J Williams
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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From “The Godfather of FI”, a follow-up to his international best-selling personal finance sensation The Simple Path to Wealth! Pathfinders brings together scores of amazing and insightful real-life stories from real people on the journey to financial independence—providing practical encouragement and inspiration for anyone who wants to join them.
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Wish it was narrated by JL
- By T. Huff on 11-13-23
By: JL Collins
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Retire Before Mom and Dad
- The Simple Numbers Behind a Lifetime of Financial Freedom
- By: Rob Berger
- Narrated by: Rob Berger
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s time to claim your financial freedom. All you need is a road map to follow, and you can create a life most people only dream about. A life free from financial stress. A life full of what matters most to you. In Retire Before Mom and Dad, you’ll learn how to unlock the superpower inside of you that is capable of transforming almost any income into lasting financial freedom.
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Excellent personal finance book!
- By Chicago on 09-15-19
By: Rob Berger
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Start Late, Finish Rich
- A No-Fail Plan for Achieving Financial Freedom at Any Age
- By: David Bach
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Start Late, Finish Rich applies David Bach's financial wisdom to all those who forgot to save (or just plain procrastinated) and are worried that it is too late to achieve financial freedom. For those who worry that they'll never be able to retire on their current savings, hope and help have arrived. David's message is that it is never too late to finish rich.
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Sound advice, but...
- By James Younger on 03-28-05
By: David Bach
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Your Money or Your Life
- 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Fully Revised and Updated for 2018
- By: Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, Mr. Money Mustache - foreword
- Narrated by: Vicki Robin
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than 25 years, Your Money or Your Life has been considered the go-to book for taking back your life by changing your relationship with money. Hundreds of thousands of people have followed this nine-step program, learning to live more deliberately and meaningfully with Vicki Robin’s guidance. This fully revised and updated edition with a foreword by Mr. Money Mustache is the ultimate makeover of this best-selling classic, ensuring that its time-tested wisdom applies to people of all ages.
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Not A Book About Finances
- By Tristan on 09-24-18
By: Vicki Robin, and others
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The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated
- A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich
- By: David Bach
- Narrated by: David Bach
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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With The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach presents an easy, realistic system, based on timeless principles, with everything you need to know so you can put the secret to becoming an Automatic Millionaire in place from the comfort of your own home.
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Start now your future self will be happy you did.
- By yesenia peralta on 08-30-24
By: David Bach
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Retiring?
- Your Next Chapter Is about Much More Than Money
- By: Ted Kaufman, Bruce Hiland
- Narrated by: Scott R. Pollak
- Length: 2 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Retiring?: Your Next Chapter Is About Much More Than Money is a practical, concise, and encouraging guidebook specifically written to help you understand and plan for the profound, inescapable non-financial challenges that retirement brings.
By: Ted Kaufman, and others
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The Simple Path to Wealth
- Your Road Map to Financial Independence and a Rich, Free Life
- By: JL Collins
- Narrated by: JL Collins, Peter Adeney
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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This book grew out of a series of letters to my daughter concerning various things - mostly about money and investing - she was not yet quite ready to hear. Since money is the single most powerful tool we have for navigating this complex world we've created, understanding it is critical.
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Misleading, heavily biased
- By Cody Peralta on 07-19-19
By: JL Collins
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The Millionaire Next Door
- The Surprising Secrets of America's Rich
- By: Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D., William D. Danko Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Cotter Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Listen to the incredible national best seller that is changing people's lives - and increasing their net worth. Also available:
The Millionaire Mind.
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A good place to start but watch out!
- By Jeffrey on 05-13-16
By: Thomas J. Stanley Ph.D., and others
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Financial Freedom
- A Proven Path to All the Money You Will Ever Need
- By: Grant Sabatier, Vicki Robin - foreword
- Narrated by: Grant Sabatier, Vicki Robin
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Financial Freedom is a step-by-step path to make more money in less time, so you have more time for the things you love. It challenges the accepted narrative of spending decades working a traditional nine-to-five job, pinching pennies, and finally earning the right to retirement at age 65, and instead offers listeners an alternative: Forget everything you've ever learned about money so you can actually live the life you want.
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Meh...
- By bobby on 02-10-19
By: Grant Sabatier, and others
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Same as Ever
- A Guide to What Never Changes
- By: Morgan Housel
- Narrated by: Chris Hill
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past. Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change. With his usual elan, Morgan Housel presents a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. Through a sequence of engaging stories and pithy examples, he shows how we can use our newfound grasp of the unchanging to see around corners.
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Beautifully Succinct Summary of Others Original Ideas
- By Mitch on 11-09-23
By: Morgan Housel
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How to Retire
- 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement
- By: Christine Benz
- Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow, Rachel Handshaw, Nezar Alderazi
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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What are the secrets to a healthy, happy, and wealthy retirement? To answer that question, longtime Morningstar columnist and podcaster Christine Benz asked 20 retirement thought leaders to go deep on a single lesson that they believe contributes to success in retirement. These lessons range from nitty gritty financial matters to quality-of-life considerations that help pre-retirees and retirees maximize their “time on earth” allocations.
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Had to return the audiobook
- By Kavita B on 09-29-24
By: Christine Benz
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I Will Teach You to Be Rich
- No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S. Just a 6-Week Program That Works (Second Edition)
- By: Ramit Sethi
- Narrated by: Ramit Sethi
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Buy as many lattes as you want. Spend extravagantly on the things you love. Live your rich life instead of tracking every last expense with Ramit Sethi’s simple, powerful, and effective six-week program for gaining control over your finances. This isn’t typical advice from a money expert. In this completely updated second edition, Ramit teaches you how to choose long-term investments and the right bank accounts. With his characteristic no-BS perspective, he shows how to squeeze every hidden benefit out of your credit cards.
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Repetitive - should be retitled.
- By Truth on 06-20-19
By: Ramit Sethi
What listeners say about Work Optional
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- Terrell Anthony
- 11-10-20
Educational and Motivational
Educational and Motivational. Must read if you’re considering retiring early. Look at this book as a checklist to make the jump.
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- Eric
- 12-05-19
The best modern & relevant personal finance book!
Finally, a book that is written for modern personal finance. I loved this book because it reinforced my plans and the work I am doing to build a work optional life. It's also great because it's simple; most finance pro's try to make you think wealth building is super complicated so that they can charge you money to manage it for you; this author shows you how simple it all really is and helps you gain confidence to build the life you want. I feel like most of the best personal finance books out there have good lessons but are so outdated it's hard to take them seriously. This book is modern, accurate, inspiring, easy to understand, motivating and real. I'll be gifting this to my niece graduating this Spring for sure.
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- Amazon Customer
- 04-03-19
Amazing resource for financial independence!
This is a book I’ll be coming back to for years to come. It covers all the bases in an accessible way with tons of useful examples and personal exercises to use. I know that as I encounter new steps and questions along my own financial path, I’ll be looking back to different sections of the book as a guide. Highly recommend for anyone interested in financial independence and/or early retirement!
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4 people found this helpful
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- Kimberly
- 03-31-21
Fantastic Read!
Really enjoyed! It is a nice balance of finance and narrative., a holistic approach to early retirement. The author also does a great job in narrating the text.
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- rp2030
- 02-03-20
Actually learned a few things
I have a finance and accounting background and have generally read and learned about FIRE topics for a while. Nonetheless this book was useful as an organizing framework and o learned a handful of technical things that were great (eg straight line depletion of 401k pre-65yo).
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1 person found this helpful
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- Bradley A. Trauth
- 01-07-20
Solid listen, full of great info.
Tanja truly covers in detail every single aspect of personal financing and investment. She lays out a great plan to get you to financial freedom. The accompanying pdf is very helpful. Her performance is great and an easy listen. Be prepared to snooze during the in depth chapter on finances because it’s so detailed but try to stick it out because it’s great info you need to have a well rounded understanding of your own personal finance options. Overall I would highly recommend not only for the FIRE crowd but anyone (like me) who needs a little motivation to go deep with their money & spending and understand how every spending decision affects your overall financial & wealth position and future.
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- Daynas
- 09-02-19
Great information
This book is nicely written and provides a more realistic plan than some other books I have listened to such as those that expect you to be a financial wizard at age 14 and be saving from about that same age. Well narrated as well.
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- Feathering the Nest
- 11-01-20
Practical overview
This is a good overview for newcomers to the “financial independence” community, and it offers helpful new perspective to those who (like me) are already practicing some of these principles. I especially appreciated the ideas for combatting impatience during this long-term endeavor, plus the list of questions to consider at different stages along the way. It’s also worth checking out Tanja’s other work (blog, podcast) for her reflections on environmentalism, feminism, and other social dimensions of the “financial independence/retire early (FIRE)” movement.
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- DocZ
- 10-26-23
Very enjoyable
Great listen and totally enjoyed it looking forward to anything else she might write. Good luck, and the rest of your journey.
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- Kathryn R. Buschan
- 04-02-21
Great recommendations on how to retire early!
I loved all of the suggestions given! I especially loved how Tanja stressed the importance of identifying both your retirement vision and your money mission statement, the questions she posed were excellent as well as the real life examples she gave. I highly recommend this book.
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3 people found this helpful