Retire Early Lifestyle
Retirement; like your parents, but way cooler

In 1991 Billy and Akaisha Kaderli retired at the age of 38. Now, into their 4th decade of this financially independent lifestyle, they invite you to take advantage of their wisdom and experience.

Compounding Made Me What I Am

Billy Kaderli

The life the numbers made possible.

Two kids from Ohio on an accelerated college plan — aka dropouts — raised with a strong work ethic pretty much describes Akaisha and me.

Our education came from life experience and common-sense decision-making over the years. Still, we left the working world in 1991 to chase our dreams while others were leveraging their assets and accumulating debt.

For years we were always the youngest retirees at any gathering of retired folks. Even so, we connected with many of them, learned from them, and loved their stories. The RVers we met were highly experienced and knew how to fix just about anything. We had a lot of good times with them, and I’m still in contact with some of them.

During those early years we managed our money carefully, shopping sales and slow-traveling the western U.S., sometimes boondocking — dry camping with no hookups — on BLM land in beautiful natural settings.

Home on the road, early 1990s

In 1993 we were invited to travel to Chapala, Mexico. That invitation turned into a four-year stay, and it’s where I quickly understood what is now called geo-arbitrage: your assets remain in the U.S. and keep growing while you live in a lower-cost, high-value country. Mexico fit that description, as did Guatemala and Thailand.

I first visited Guatemala in the early ’70s and always wanted to bring Akaisha back to show her Lake Atitlán. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. I know the area well enough that when I returned in 2020 — on the day the COVID chaos took over — I stayed only a couple of nights in Panajachel before deciding I had to get out. That’s another story, and I’m lucky just to be alive.

Meanwhile our investments continued to grow — sometimes backward, but higher over time. As the numbers got larger, the growth sped up until it became exponential.

I am now in my 36th year of this lifestyle. The historical average of rolling 30-year cycles in the S&P 500 is about 10–11%, with an inflation-adjusted return of 6–7.5%. That means that even if my expenses rise with inflation, my assets can still increase by that amount each year.

Over time, compounding smoothes out severe market crashes like 2008 and the dot-com bubble.

Which is why I say compounding made me what I am. Not just the portfolio. The time. The freedom. The life Akaisha and I got to live.

Billy

Retire Early Lifestyle appeals to a different kind of person – the person who prizes their independence, values their time, and who doesn’t want to mindlessly follow the crowd.

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