Tag Archives: Liebster Award

Great early-stage accolades for Pretired.org

When I started this here little blog, it was a personal endeavor.

Sure, I felt the urge to share my triumphs and mistakes as I learned how to escape the death trap of mindless spending and emotionally draining corporate work.

But mostly I wanted to keep my mind sharp as I moved into stay-at-home dad mode with my now 11-month-old son and I imagined guiding my teenage nephews toward a wise path on their own financial journeys (even though they’ll likely never read this site).

Now barely five months into this project I have to acknowledge it’s not as personal an endeavor as I had imagined. I’m sharing this journey with now thousands of people each month, thoughtful comments keep pouring in and I can no longer pretend to be an anonymous diarist hiding in a dark corner of the internet.

This became dramatically apparent when I received not one, but TWO Liebster Blog Awards. This award is somewhat modeled on the old chain letter concept (you older folks will know what I’m talking about). The main differences being that it’s not annoying and is actually quite an honor to be noticed by your peers.

The first nomination came from Andrew at Living Rich Cheaply, who nominated me back on June 11. The second came just a short time later on June 20 when I was nominated by E.M. at Journey to Saving.

Now the great part about this award is once one has been nominated you are then supposed to nominate five others to receive this award (like a chain letter, see?). Be sure to read to the very end to see my nominations.

The other fun thing about this award is that I get to ask my nominees 11 questions about themselves. And, of course that means I have to answer the questions from those that nominated me. Since there are two nominations, I have to answer 22 questions! Hope you like reading about Pretired Nick!

As a final fun part of the award, I also get to list 11 random facts about myself. Let’s get that out of the way first:

11 Random Facts about Pretired Nick

1. I actually go by “Nicholas” in the real world most of the time.
2. I love to garden, but I’m not very good at it.
3. I have almost no fear of death, but I’m deathly afraid of becoming old and frail.
4. I hate, hate, hate having a messy desk. The perfect desk to me has a keyboard, a monitor, speakers and a mouse. That’s it.
5. My desk looks like a hoarder lives here right now.
6. I have visited almost every state in the U.S.
7. When I was two years old I was photographed at a dog show by a young newswire photographer. That picture ran on the front page of newspapers nationwide. People from all over the country sent my mom cut-outs in the mail.
8. Years later in a weird coincidence I would end up working with that same photographer at a newspaper, although I didn’t know it at the time. (Found out it was the same guy years later after he had passed away.)
9. I have a weird genetic disorder that prevents me from burping properly.
10. I went skydiving for my 30th birthday. Loved it.
11. My favorite book is 1984. My second favorite is Guns, Germs and Steel.

11 Questions from Living Rich Cheaply

1. What would you do if you won a million dollars?
   This is a hard question and perhaps deserving of its own post one of these days. For sure I’d solidify my financial position so I could make my freedom even more secure. Then I’d probably ensure all my family was out of debt as well. If there was anything left after that, I’d probably start buying condos in exotic locations to rent out as vacation properties. 
2. What is must see TV for you?
   These days it’s been Mad Men. It’s such a soap opera, but I love it. 
3. If you could live in another country for a year, where would it be?
   Well, if it’s for just a year, it’d be somewhere in Europe. In many ways I feel like a European who was born on the wrong continent. Right now if I had to narrow it down, it’d probably be Spain, mainly because of weather.
4. If you could time travel, where…I mean when would you go?
   I’m a big history buff so it’d be tough to choose just one time to visit in the past. However, if I was allowed to go forward as well, naturally I’d skip to the future so I can see what happens. Skipping 500 years or so forward would be pretty amazing. Just gotta watch out for Morlocks. 
5. Why did you start blogging?
   I guess I more or less covered that above. 
6. What would you love to learn to do?
   Create music. I’m obsessed with great music and I feel like I have music inside me that wants to come out. Fortunately technology is making it easier to create music without having actual musical training. Check out Audacity and Soundation for example. I used to love the music tools from Aviary before they killed them off. There’s a real opening for a cool offering that democratizes music creation. (“Real” musicians hate this kind of thing, of course.) 
7. What is the best advice someone has given you?
   To never carry a credit card balance. I think the first time I was given that advice was when I was in high school and it’s never failed me. I’ve learned to just wait (most of the time anyway) for what I want instead of becoming overburdened with debt. That alone has saved me from a life of misery. 
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
   As an introvert, I’m completely jealous of people who can just talk to anyone about anything. Like most introverts, I’d love to switch teams.
9. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
   I always wanted to be a writer. I used to write little stories and dreamed of being a novelist. Later I became a journalist and got pretty sick of writing. It’s only now just becoming enjoyable again.
10. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
    I have no idea. My problem, though, isn’t an inability to come up with a dream, it’s difficulty narrowing it down. I’m fortunate to be in a place where nearly anything is possible. But it’d almost be easier if my options were narrowed! 
11. What is your favorite movie?
    V for Vendetta.

11 Questions from Journey to Saving

1. Why did you start blogging, what topic do you blog about, and why do you blog about it?
   See above for the “why”. I write about freedom — from brain-deadening corporate work and from the trap of debt. I believe that if people can get off the treadmill it brings the whole society to a better place. Less environmental waste, less stress on people and families, less drug use and crime. That said, I do love capitalism, but I believe it makes a better servant than a master. 
2. What is your favorite place to vacation in?
   That’s a tough one. I have seen a fair amount of the world, but there’s so much more I want to see. I always feel at home whenever I travel to Europe, but the place I’ve been to the most is Mexico. Our strategy for vacations has been to alternate a restful, beach-style vacation with an exhausting (expensive) cultural vacation. Now that I’m semi-pretired and we have a baby, we may need to change our vacation approach. 
3. Do you have any pets?
   We just have one cat right now. 
4. What is your favorite meal to eat? Care to share a recipe?
   My favorite meal is anything I can eat on the beach. I once had the most amazing fresh seafood cooked simply in foil on the beach near Manzanita, Mexico. Wish I had the recipe for that! But anything tastes better when your toes are in sand.   
5. Do you enjoy doing household tasks like laundry, cleaning the dishes, and vacuuming?
   I actually do enjoy cleaning for the most part, but apparently not that much because it’s often easy to find other things to do. 
6. What is your favorite scent? (Can be perfume, flowers, food, etc.)
   My favorite scent is the smell of burning driftwood. Wood that has been saturated with seawater gives off the most wonderful aroma when it’s burned. 
7. What do you hope to have accomplished in ten years?
   As long as my son is happy, curious and creative, I’ll feel like a winner. 
8. Are you happy with your job right now? Why or why not?
   I just do a little bit of consulting right now along with my Daddy duties. I’m definitely happy with my situation, although I’m very, very busy. But my last job (hopefully ever!) was so horrible that it makes anything else seem great in comparison. 
9. If you could be in one profession/industry, what would it be?
   I think I was really born to be a musician, but I grew up without learning music. It’s one of those things that is hard to become great at once you’re an adult so it’s fairly tragic that my parents didn’t prioritize that for me. 
10. How likely would you be to return a wallet with a load of cash in it if you found it randomly on the street with contact info contained inside?
    Of course. I’d feel way too guilty to keep it.
11. What are your plans to market your blog and get more readers?
    Can’t really say I have plans right now. I wasn’t really planning on trying to build a proper web site when I started out. But, now, since I’ve been lucky enough to gather a decent following, I may have to start thinking about it. 

Now, without further ado, here are my nominations for the Liebster Award!

1. Your Daily Finance
2. The Financial Economist
3. Hello Suckers…
4. My Financial Independence Journey
5. Cash Rebel (OK, technically, Cash Rebel has more than 200 Twitter followers, but it’s barely over, so I’m letting it slide.)

11 Questions for my nominees:

1. There must have been that moment that made you decide to write a blog. What was that turning point that made you decide to buy a domain and start blogging?
2. If you could give advice to a teenager right now, what would it be?
3. When you look back on your life, what was the most frightening moment?
4. Did you ever get in trouble in school? What for?
5. Beach or mountains?
6. Authority figures: Follow or fight?
7. What is the secret to inner peace?
8. What music makes you feel invincible?
9. If you could have dinner with three people who are now dead, who would you choose?
10. If money was no object, what would you do?
11. If I say the word “freedom”, what comes to mind?

Rules for the Liebster Award:

• Only up-and-coming Blogs with less than 200 Twitter followers can be nominated for the Liebster Award.
• The award must be passed down to other blogs in the same category as your blog.
• When nominated, you must post 11 random facts about yourself
• After writing 11 random facts, answer the 11 questions from the blogger who nominated you.
• Come up with 11 questions of your own for your nominees.
• Nominate 5 other bloggers for the award, link to them, and let them know you nominated them by commenting on one of their posts.
• Do not nominate the person who nominated you.

I think that’s it! Thanks again to the sites that nominated me! And congratulations to my five picks. You’re doing great work!