Blogger Confessions #34: Billy and Akaisha Kaderli from Retire Early Lifestyle

Happy Saturday and welcome to the 34th episode of the 'Blogger Confessions' interview series on the blog. Today, I'm bringing in Billy and Akaisha Kaderli from Retire Early Lifestyle to talk about blogging and how they've managed to keep everything straight as a personal finance blogger.

Akaisha, take it away.

Having retired at the age of 38 in 1991, Billy and Akaisha Kaderli are recognized retirement experts and internationally published authors on topics of finance, world travel and medical tourism.

They have been interviewed about retirement issues by The Wall Street Journal, Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, The Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement newsletter, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Clark Howard, Bankrate.com, SmartMoney, Minyanville, FOXBusiness, US News and World Report and countless newspapers and TV shows nationally and worldwide.

With the wealth of information they share on their blog, they have been helping people achieve their own retirement dreams since 1991.

Blogger Confessions with Billy and Akaisha Kaderli from Retire Early Lifestyle

1: In at least 100 words, describe the target audience of your blog.

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.

Our readers are looking for personal freedom to spend their lives as they choose. In that same vein, we provide countless options for housing, transportation needs, medical tourism, side gigs/volunteering, investing/money management, and continuous learning.

We have found that people in their 20s and 30s write to us so they can learn how to save, invest, and create a lifestyle they want to live.

Those in their 40s and 50s ask us to sort out their path to financial independence and early retirement, and we do that through our Mentors Subscription service. Those in their 50s through 70s want to know how to liven up their current retirement which may include relocating to another area where cost of living is more affordable, weather is more appealing, healthcare is easier to access, and taxes are not as oppressive.

We help with all of this.

2: What makes your blog different from other blogs in the PF blogosphere?

We emphasize fun, adventure and inspiration with a practical approach to financial management.

We also discuss the emotional component of the FIRE life, which many PF blogs do not. Learning to become Financially Independent is not always just about Finance.

We keep things simple and try not to “out-whiz” anyone. We don’t want to drown anyone in minutiae. If our readers have further questions, they can write to us personally.

There is not a “one-size-fits-all” FI or ER, so we offer exciting choices for the mundane categories of life, and they can choose.

We want people to be led by their dreams, not pushed by their problems.

3: What’s the thing that you’ve struggled with the most since starting your blog?

We left the working world (in 1991 at the age of 38) long before personal computers and online social media were common place. If we had to name a “struggle” it would be our continuing education about internet matters, code, and social platforms. It is a new language for us.

4: Do you publish your net worth on your blog? Why or why not?

No, we don’t, and the reason is because it’s irrelevant.

It doesn’t matter how much money we have. What matters is how much does one of our readers need to create the lifestyle they want to live.

Some need a gazillion dollars. Others we know live a satisfying lifestyle on their Social Security check. And there is lots of room in between.

Satisfaction is a personal quest, and fear can rob anyone of that no matter what their portfolio states.

Again, we try to guide people from the place where they are starting.

5: Have you monetized your blog (ads, affiliate marketing, etc)? Why or why not?

We have monetized our blog.

We were retired 15 years before we wrote our first book, The Adventurers Guide to Early Retirement. After that, we spent several years and countless hours in a volunteer framework of mind helping others understand this new choice of lifestyle and basic money management.

We also focus on presenting options they might not have considered before.
It has been fairly recently in this journey that we have monetized our blog, to pay for expenses.

However, if we quit the blog tomorrow, it would not affect our financial standing or our lifestyle.

6: Would you rather be loved, hated or controversial? Explain, please!

I think we would rather be loved than anything else.

However, we have presented controversial ideas all along the way. If you question the conventional manner of doing things, you are inherently disputed by people who cannot see another way of living.

We take on that challenge as an opportunity to assist others in getting out of a stale approach to life. We enjoy it greatly.

7: Who would you be horrified to know read your blog?

We wouldn’t be horrified about anyone reading our blog. We want everyone to read it!

We think becoming financially independent is the best thing a person can do for themselves and for the world. It opens you up to countless opportunities to give back instead of being a wage slave.

8: What’s your most favorite, least favorite and most embarrassing post on your blog?

I don’t think we have any of these.

Since our topics cover a wide area, we get excited about all of them. It’s hard to write about something if we aren’t jazzed about it. So when we have a medical tourism experience, or when we went car-free years ago, or when we live among the indigenous in Guatemala… It grabs our interest and we infuse our posts with zip!

It’s our hope that our readers feel inspired by our perspectives.

9: Explain your writing process

We work as a team.

Sometimes one of us will get an idea at 3 in the morning and will go write it down. Other times if we have an experience, we’ll take notes for a post further down the line.

We edit each other’s work. (It has taken practice to do this!) One of us simplifies, the other clarifies. One throws spaghetti at the wall, the other makes the sauce.

We want the best, easiest to understand, most practical-yet-inspirational information we can come up with for us to post.

We have our readers in mind, always.

10: What is your favorite blog in the PF blogosphere (other than your own!)?

We are rather independent.

We get ideas from the news, from travel books, from our surroundings (glorious nature? Indigenous peoples? Lost our luggage? Travel experiences through Asia, Central America, Caribbean islands?) and from speaking with other travelers and characters while on the road.

We don’t really “follow” anyone. We never have.

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