• My best friend and I knew each other for 16 years before we met in person.
• We met online as teenagers and had lived thousands of miles away. 
• She invited me to her wedding, and it felt like we'd always known each other. 

Watching your best friend marry the love of their life is one of life's greatest joys — even when their wedding day is the very first time that you meet them.

I met Miranda 16 years ago on a social networking website called Bebo; before Instagram and Tiktok, this is where many teens spent their time online. I lived in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, and Miranda lived in Virginia, US.

While we lived on different continents, our lives were very similar. We were both raised by single mothers, both lived in small towns, and both had an interest in writing, music, and pop culture, so it was easy for us to connect and build a friendship. Soon, I was staying up all night to talk to her, separated by a six-hour time difference.

We grew together, even thousands of miles apart

I was 13 years old, and Miranda was 12 years old, and we were at the crux of growing up. We thought we were so much older, wiser, and more mature than we really were and would spend hours talking about the ways no one understood us. We went through important life phases together, including Miranda's obsession with owls and abstract photography, and when I dyed my hair black and got a nose ring.

We endured our first heartbreaks together, toxic teenage friendships, bullying (both offline and online), family life changes (like when Miranda's mom got married and had her youngest brother), and made important decisions — particularly where we would attend college and what we would study.

Unsurprisingly, we both chose to study journalism, our similarities becoming more prevalent the older we got. Our friendship dwindled in the years we attended college but we still liked every photograph and video the other posted on social media, encouraged to remain in contact by the friendship we had already cultivated together.

We didn't talk every day or even every month, but our love and care for each other never diminished. Miranda was still one of my favorite people. The teenage girl I had once told all my secrets to was now in her mid-20s, navigating life after college, and I was preparing to pack up my life and move to the United States. We would finally be on the same continent, but would that change our friendship, the one that had only ever existed online?

We met for the first time at her wedding

Once I moved to New York in 2017, it still took seven years for us to meet in real life. Now, the first time we were going to meet was at Miranda's wedding.

She had invited me to her rehearsal dinner, reserved for extended family and the bridal party, of which I was neither.

"But I want you there, I want to spend time with you!" Miranda said.

Even on a day that was supposed to be all about her, she prioritized our friendship. I was grateful but also incredibly nervous to meet her and her family, people I'd only ever seen in photographs online.

The first thing her mom said to me when we met was, "I feel like I know you already, I've heard so much about you!" The nerves immediately melted away as her family embraced me wholeheartedly.

Meeting Miranda for the first time felt like reuniting with an old friend. It wasn't weird or awkward. We talked like we had physically been in each other's lives for 16 years, not separated by thousands of miles. It was comfortable and natural. She was even more beautiful in person and even kinder and more considerate than I could ever imagine.

Our lives had been integrated for so long that there was never any doubt that we would find our groove and learn how to be in each other's presence, no longer separated by a computer screen.

I would watch wedding guests' incredulous expressions every time I told them that I'd been Miranda's internet friend for 16 years, and this was my first time meeting her. It was an incredible and unlikely story, and it was ours.

• BI spoke to Gen X and boomer student-loan borrowers nearing retirement with six figures in debt.
• The student loans have prevented each of them from saving sufficiently for retirement.
• It's part of a larger retirement crisis and could put Social Security benefits at risk.

Diane Shelton, 58, has been working as a clinical psychologist for over 25 years — but her student loans are still in the six figures.

Shelton's debt load is something of a double-edged sword.

"There's just no doubt the value of the education and the value and the intrinsic richness that I have from the work that I've done," she said. But that's coupled with a heavy loan burden, complicated bureaucracy, and the interest it's accruing.

"I've taken forbearances at times when I really couldn't afford my mortgage. I had to pick and choose," she said. Even now, with a stable and well-paying career, her debt is still impacting her economic trajectory.

The situation is a bit different for Larry, 75, who requested his last name be withheld for privacy. He's staring down a $208,000 balance that he took out in the late 1990s to help his kids go to school. While they took out federal student loans for themselves, Larry wanted to ensure their options weren't limited. So he took out parent PLUS loans — a type of federal loan that allows a parent to cover up to the full cost of attendance for their kid's education. It has the highest interest rate of all federal loans.

Larry consolidated the four PLUS loans in 2007 with an original principal of nearly $160,000, but due to periods of unemployment, his loans went on forbearance, during which interest grew and surged the balance. Now, Larry is working full-time in retail sales, and while he hopes to retire in a few years, he knows he'll be taking his six-figure student-debt load with him.

"We have savings, which is probably about a 10th of what it should be," Larry said. "This is just hanging over our heads mentally. I think it affects me a lot because I probably think about it every day because I can't help but think about it. It's really very frustrating, very embarrassing, and just not fair."

Shelton and Larry aren't alone: As Gen Xers and boomers age into retirement, they're bringing student loans with them. It's part of a looming retirement crisis that could put even more seniors in a financially precarious position — and potentially without full Social Security benefits to back them up.

"I'm making a decent salary now, but there's all of this price that I've paid in terms of not being able to save for retirement," Shelton said.

The retirement student debt crisis

Both Shelton and Larry are facing a particular aspect of the retirement crisis: hoping to throw in the towel while sitting on mountains of student loan debt. Over a million American ages 55 to 64 are either holding student loans or have spouses holding loans, according to a report from the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. Those loan holders said that, on average, they expect to take 11 years to repay their debts — but it can oftentimes end up being much longer due to interest and financial hardship.

Among Americans holding student loan debt, Gen Xers and boomers have the highest median balance, although only a small percentage of those 55-64 — around 13% — and those 65-74 — around 5% — hold educational installment loans.

Just the other day, Shelton was checking what her Social Security check would look like at different retirement ages, since the program incentivizes waiting to collect checks.

"If I work until I'm 70, that's where I've got the most amount. But that's still going to be tight when a quarter of that is a student loan payment," Shelton said. "It stresses me to no end."

Interest is a key reason many older adults find themselves struggling to pay off their student loans for decades. Since Larry could not afford to make payments for a period of time due to financial hardship, the 6.25% interest rate caused his balance to grow larger than what he originally borrowed. It's an issue other PLUS borrowers have previously told BI — while they took out loans to give their children the best shot at a successful future, they didn't know at the time that doing so would leave them with balances they could not afford to pay off.

"We surely would've saved more than what we tried to do," Larry said. "And because of those payments, we pretty much have not saved a lot, other than my wife's retirement fund."

And while many older Americans rely on Social Security to get by in their later years, it's a benefit that's particularly imperiled for student loan borrowers. That's because if the borrower defaults on their payments, the government has the power to seize Social Security benefits and wages until the borrower can fulfill their student-loan obligations again. It's a practice some Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have called to end.

"The idea of just not paying it — well, now I understand they can garnish your Social Security, and so it just feels like there's no way out," Shelton said. "And so I'm probably going to work until I can't work anymore."

Are you worried about student loan debt impacting your ability to retire? Contact these reporters at asheffey@businessinsider.com and jkaplan@businessinsider.com.

• Jensen Huang is on top of the world.
• The AI frenzy briefly made his company, Nvidia, the most valuable in the world this week.
• Its future growth hinges on generative AI succeeding.

It's been a week to remember for Jensen Huang.

The 61-year-old CEO of Nvidia watched as his company briefly surpassed Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company for the first time with a $3.34 trillion valuation.

Though Nvidia has since slipped behind Microsoft again, with Apple now breathing down its neck too, its position among two titans of American tech battling for the bragging rights at the top spot is a sign of just how far it has come.

No longer is Huang's company — once on the brink of bankruptcy in the 1990s — just a purveyor of niche graphics cards designed for the gaming industry, but a near-indispensable component of the generative AI boom.

Nvidia's chips, known as GPUs, have been the subject of hot demand from the likes of Meta, Google, and OpenAI as they've sought to get their hands on hardware that can help them train and build increasingly powerful AI models.

Last month, the company showed just how relentless demand has been when announcing results for the first quarter of its fiscal year: it set a record quarterly revenue of $26 billion, up from 18% the previous quarter and 262% from the same quarter a year ago.

It helps explain why the frenzy around Nvidia has been reminiscent of the stock market rally during the dot-com boom.

The company has not only left its roughly $400 billion valuation from January 2023 in the dust, but is now worth about as much as the 100 biggest companies on the UK stock market.

The question now is how long will it last.

AI forever?

For the bulls, Nvidia's rally still has plenty of room to run.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, the most optimistic proponents of the generative AI boom — driven forward by Nvidias H100 GPUs — have made the case that we are still in the beginning stages of a revolution that has the potential to be as influential as smartphones and the internet.

In a research note on Thursday, analysts at Wedbush including Dan Ives, who has called Nvidia's CEO the "Godfather of AI," wrote that "the AI party is just getting started as its 9 p.m. in a party going till 4 a.m. with the rest of the tech world now joining."

Huang has done his own bit to make the case for AI mania just getting started, too.

Speaking in Taipei this month, the Nvidia boss boldly claimed that "the intersection of AI and accelerated computing is set to redefine the future" and laid out a road map for releasing upgraded chips every year to help achieve this future.

In other words, Huang suggests that companies engaged in fierce competition to make generative AI smarter will do so by working closely with a company like Nvidia, which can give them the computing power they need.

Boom or bust?

Nvidia's position as the primary provider of that computing power has been helped by its CUDA software, which has made it easy for companies to use their GPUs — no matter how varied or complex their AI is.

However, Nvidia's run faces one big risk: it depends on the generative AI boom lasting. That's a bet facing considerable uncertainty for a few reasons.

Though tech giants, including Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, now appear to have made generative AI their priority, there appears to be awareness of the technology's weaknesses.

Earlier this month, for instance, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple Intelligence — the company's bold new package of AI features for iPhones, iPads, and Macs — was "not 100%," acknowledging that the technology was liable to making mistakes.

Such mistakes have already threatened the reputation of its peers. Google, for instance, was forced to apologize earlier this year after its generative AI image generator created historically incorrect images in response to user requests.

Race to $4 trillion

Meanwhile, Meta's AI chief Yann LeCun told The Financial Times last month that large language models, the tech powering the generative AI boom, were not going to lead to the field's holy grail of artificial general intelligence.

If others start to feel LLMs are a bit of a dead-end on that path, too, there could be a knock-on effect that impacts demand for Nvidia's chips as AI leaders try to figure out if alternative paths forward are viable.

For now, though, the industry seems intent on moving ahead with LLM-enabled generative AI. That should keep Nvidia in the race with Microsoft and Apple to a $4 trillion valuation.

• Jensen Huang isn't sitting comfortably atop the world's most valuable company.
• He doesn't want Nvidia to meet the same fate as Cisco or Sun, The Information reports.
• The two other companies were on top in the 90s, but collapsed when the dot-com bubble burst.

For Jensen Huang, unparalleled success has reportedly come with a healthy helping of anxiety.

The Nvidia cofounder has been christened the tech world's Taylor Swift — with a rock-star persona to match the company's unprecedented riches.

Known for his signature leather jackets, Huang was recently pictured autographing a woman's chest at a tech event in Taiwan — this as 31-year-old Nvidia became the world's most valuable company on Tuesday, edging out Microsoft with a $3.338 trillion market capitalization.

But The Information reported that behind the scenes, Huang, 61, is concerned with future-proofing Nvidia, telling colleagues he doesn't want it to meet the same fate as former tech titans Cisco and Sun Microsystems.

Having launched in 1999 as a maker of GPUs for gaming systems, Nvidia has had its stumbles over the years, The Information reports, including a failed attempt at software for self-driving cars.

There's no imminent sign of a slowdown for Nvidia's white-hot chips that are largely powering the AI boom.

But a glimpse at the histories of fallen tech companies illuminates just how quickly fortunes can turn.

Cisco shares plunged when the dot-com bubble burst

Several analysts have drawn parallels between Nvidia and Cisco, which also trafficked in hardware that fueled its day's transformative technology.

Cisco sold routers and other networking hardware during the dot-com bubble. It went public in 1990 and saw its stock crest in 2000, briefly becoming the world's most valuable company with a $569 billion market cap.

Sound familiar?

But then the bubble burst. Data centers built by telecom companies went untapped, and Cisco's hardware went from revolutionary to commonplace.

The company announced layoffs in 2001, and by October 2002, its share price had plunged 90%, according to Investor's Business Daily. While shares have never reached peak levels again, the company continues to operate.

Sun had a $200 billion valuation — and was later acquired for a fraction of that.

Another cautionary tale Huang reportedly heeds is Sun Microsystems.

"He tries to remind people not to get 'Sunned,'" a Nvidia employee told The Information.

The server and computer manufacturer experienced a similar ascent to Cisco during the dot-com bubble, with CEO Scott McNealy and programmer Bill Hoy emerging as celebrities of the tech industry, according to Forbes.

Sun's operating systems were an early hit and eventually led the company to a peak market cap of $200 million in 2000, according to Marketwatch.

But eventually competitors caught up — and Sun failed to pivot to the lucrative software space, The Information reports.

It was acquired by Oracle for $7.4 billion in 2009.

The Information reports Huang is seeking to avoid the same fate by diversifying Nvidia's business beyond chips, including with cloud server rental and software businesses.

Nvidia AI Enterprise, for instance, is an operating system that trains AI. Whether history repeats itself remains to be seen.

• R. J. Fenton built a career in media for years before she decided to add a plumbing qualification to her portfolio.
• After being laid off from her job and becoming a single mom, she decided to take on a new challenge.
• She turned to plumbing as a way to supplement her income and regain self-confidence.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with R.J. Fenton, 40, about how she opted to reskill as a plumber after she became a single mom during the pandemic. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified her previous and current employment.

Over the past 18 years, I've built a career in publishing and media. I started in audio publishing, working at Amazon's Audible and later becoming head of development at a TV production company.

Then, the pandemic hit, and my life trajectory changed.

In August 2020, I was laid off from my job, and a couple of days later, my husband left me.

To add to the shock, I found out weeks later that I was pregnant. We'd been trying for children for a few years and had unfortunately suffered two miscarriages in our fertility journey, so finding out I was pregnant was a piece of joy amid a very trying time.

My pregnancy was surprisingly calm. I tried applying for a few jobs but soon gave up, as sleep deprivation left my energy levels on the floor. I gave in to the idea of leaning on some of my savings and taking statutory maternity pay during the pregnancy and the first year of my daughter's life while continuing to do some volunteer mentoring.

The main struggle came after my daughter was born, as I tried to navigate being a single parent with only a small amount of family support.

I registered with the job center in mid-2022 when my daughter turned 18 months old. I needed to return to a career for financial reasons and to boost my self-esteem.

The job center introduced me to the Connecting Communities scheme, where I could receive £500 ($640) toward a chosen training course. That's when I decided to do something completely different: retrain as a plumber.

Within weeks of applying, I found myself in a drafty workshop in the South East of England, undertaking a weeklong plumbing accreditation course.

A trial-by-fire

I was the only woman on the ten-person course, and it's safe to say I felt out of my comfort zone. I'd barely done any DIY before, and the tutor had us soldering and bending metal pipes from day one.

I felt embarrassed that I couldn't distinguish a hacksaw from all the other saws laid out before me.

It was definitely a trial-by-fire, but by the end of the week, I felt a real sense of accomplishment.

As a new mom and a single parent, you can feel that your capability is in doubt. Sleep-deprived and mentally exhausted, I felt disconnected from myself. Despite the intensity of the course, learning a new practical skill allowed me to engage a new side of my brain, and I couldn't get enough.

Six months later, I took another course to obtain a Level 2 plumbing diploma. I was lucky enough to receive a full bursary from the City & Guilds Foundation, a charity that offers vocational training.

This course upped the ante: it was six weeks long, and I'd be in the workshop most days from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. It was a mixture of classroom and manual learning followed by nine academic exams. Once again, I was the only woman on the twelve-person course.

It was a lot to manage: I was getting three to five hours of broken sleep each night with my daughter, then having super intensive days where I'd be heavy lifting and using a threading machine on heavy-duty iron pipes.

Outside my comfort zone

Most people were surprised when I opted to reskill in plumbing maintenance instead of returning full-time to my previous career.

It might sound crazy to have chosen to dedicate my time to a new pursuit so far removed from my previous career. But I was at a point where I had to prove to myself that I could do something that was out of my comfort zone.

As a new parent, sometimes you feel your sense of self falter. I didn't have a partner or a full-time job to give myself a sense of continuity, so achieving something I'd never even imagined doing gave me a lot of pride.

From training to setting up my own business

While doing my training, I was still maintaining my freelance work as a media consultant, using the network and skills I'd built up over 18 years.

I was working a contract job for a literacy nonprofit, and thankfully, they allowed me to take six weeks off to complete the plumbing course.

After the course, I started by practicing my skills close to home. I live in a new development building that contains around 150 flats. All the residents have a WhatsApp group where they ask around for contacts in the trades or ask other residents for advice on home maintenance.

I shared with them that I was about to become a qualified plumber and immediately had around four jobs booked.

That pushed me to become self-employed in plumbing and do this alongside my media work, which forms the basis of my income.

I work the two jobs side-by-side, and I'm a little taken aback that I can charge clients the same rate as a newly qualified plumber as I do as a media consultant with 18 years of experience.

The thing I like about the trades is that people know they have to fork out a certain amount for an in-demand service, so you don't get as many clients cheekily asking you to do extra work for free.

How I manage my time and income

I began combining my two careers earlier this year when I became a spokesperson for TaskHer, a platform that matches female tradespeople with clients.

Some female clients prefer a woman tradesperson. But also a number of male clients have told me they've felt embarrassed to admit to a male tradesperson that they can't fix a problem themselves.

I currently carve out one day a week for plumbing work — I concentrate on smaller maintenance, so I can do around four to six jobs within a day. I get the satisfaction of solving problems for my clients as well as bringing home a decent wage.

Right now, being self-employed is the best option for me while my child is below school age. I need a bit of work-life balance, and working for myself means I can go to a morning fitness class or go out for lunch on occasion.

The plumbing work gives me good flexibility, and I'm very aware that it is a way of future-proofing my career in case the rise of AI makes elements of my media work redundant.

To some extent, I've always been a bit of a hustler. I love having these two wildly different careers and blending them together. It means that I don't get bored.

I don't want my trade knowledge to end at plumbing. Next, I'm planning to start a new course in carpentry and joinery to continue expanding my skill set.

I want to show my daughter and other women in the trades that there are many options out there to design your own portfolio career.

• My mom died just before I turned 8 and my maternal aunt adopted me years later. 
• We got off to a rough start, but I accepted her help when I saw she wasn't trying to replace my mom.
• I'm so grateful for the life she gave me.

My mother died unexpectedly 10 days before my 8th birthday. She had been sick for less than a month before eventually succumbing to her illness. She was warm, bright, funny, and smart, and my time with her was unbelievably short.

I lived with my biological father for four years after my mother's death before I was removed from his care and ended up in the Department of Children and Family Services' custody.

While living with him, I became withdrawn, distrustful, and completely uncommunicative. Once in the custody of DCFS, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. After a month in the custody of the state, my maternal aunt, Elizabeth, was granted guardianship when I was 12 years old.

I was resistant to her help at first

She tells the story like it was yesterday — she received a call from DCFS asking whether she would be my guardian, and she literally raised her hand while on the phone and said, "I'll do it." I moved in with her and her 17-year-old son, John, on August 1, 2013. She was divorced from her ex-husband, Cary, and had another 26-year-old son, Tim, who no longer lived at home.

At first, it was just the three of us. It wasn't exactly smooth sailing — I hadn't really been parented in four years, and though we'd always been close, I think I was subconsciously afraid of her replacing my mother. I was resistant to a lot of her help for a long time.

Elizabeth contacted Cary and asked if he wouldn't mind spending some time with me so that I would have a paternal figure in my life. He agreed, and I began spending weekends at his house like I was the kid of a divorced marriage. My cousin, John, didn't go with me, so I had one-on-one time with him. And while I was spending time with Cary, he and Elizabeth eventually started dating again.

They remarried in 2014, and Cary moved back in. He said he never stopped loving Elizabeth, even while they were divorced, and I was as good of a reason as any as to why they got back together. However, I was still struggling with my connection with Elizabeth, even though I enjoyed spending time with Cary — though I'd always wanted a replacement for my biological father, I'd never wanted a replacement for my mother.

She assured me she wasn't trying to replace my mom

Elizabeth sat me down one day and asked me if I was afraid of her replacing my mom. I said yes, and I can remember her response as clear as day.

"I'm not trying to replace your mother. She was my sister. But I promised her I would look after you. Are you in or are you out, kid?" she said.

And I realized then that all I'd needed was for her to acknowledge that my mom was still my mom and that she could never be replaced. I softened to her then, and I was finally all in. Calling Cary and Elizabeth "Mom" and "Dad" felt quite natural afterward.

There was still an adjustment period after the realization, though. I had a hard time believing I was safe and loved and that I had nothing to worry about — that I could be a child. I also had to learn that wasn't my job to worry about the electricity being on, whether there was enough food for dinner, or if there was gas to heat water for a shower.

But my parents were patient. They took me to therapy, helped me talk through my feelings and break out of bad habits, cared for and loved me, and nurtured me while still pushing me to be capable of the things they knew I could do. It took a lot of work, both on their behalf and mine.

I'm forever grateful for my mom's decision to take me in, and even more grateful that she loved me just as my biological mother would have wanted her to. Even though she had two kids already, there was still enough room for me in her heart. She has loved me like her own, and while she hasn't replaced my mother, she has honored her memory just by being her.

I live in Ireland now, and my parents retired from Illinois to Tennessee, after spending two short years in Ireland with me. Now, I see them once every two years if I'm lucky. But when I am home, it truly feels like home. My parents gave me a life I could have never dreamed of before they took me in. They gave me a chance to be me. I couldn't have done it without them.

• Chris Elle Dove, once bankrupt, is set to retire early with over $1.5 million net worth.
• She transitioned from earning $50,000 a year as a professor to investing full-time.
• Her strategy includes living minimally, investing in real estate, and keeping spending low.

Chris Elle Dove, 52, declared bankruptcy at age 29 in 2001 and survived off government benefits and side hustles to provide for her two kids. She had recently lost her husband and was struggling to be a good mom while finding more stable work.

Two decades later, she and her second husband have a total net worth of over $1.5 million and are set to retire early in their 50s.

After years of earning between $50,000 and $60,000 as a professor, Dove was convinced by her husband — who is in the military and had maxed out his retirement accounts — to invest full-time. Investing, alongside income from real estate and financial consulting, allowed her and her husband to be on track to become FIREs — or those who have reached financial independence and retired early.

She acknowledged her FIRE journey started much later than many others, though she stressed reaching financial independence isn't as inaccessible as many think.

"It was a long time before I got back on my feet, and I have no intention of ever being in that situation again," Dove said.

A rocky financial start

Dove was raised in an upper-middle-class family that went on two vacations a year, and she did extracurriculars from cheerleading to horseback riding to ice skating.

"I didn't even think about not going to college," Dove said. "I only thought about what college."

Her parents never openly discussed money, but she knew they kept a strict budget. They taught her about managing money, such as by giving her a pre-paid credit card in high school for clothes that she had to budget.

She had her first kid at 20 and her second at 24, putting her bachelor's degree on hold — it took her 17 years to finish her degree. At one point, she held three jobs — teaching ballroom dancing, bartending, and shoveling mulch for a landscaping company.

While raising her kids, her husband developed a brain tumor that left him sick for years. The medical bills piled up, and most weren't covered by their insurance. She also had student loan debt that she put on the back burner.

Her husband died at 28 when her kids were 7 and 3.

Dove didn't have much time to grieve, though. She worked so many hours to support her kids she would get sick. After a car accident that led to a hospital stay, she declared bankruptcy.

With little money to her name, relying on Social Security survivor benefits, she moved with her two kids to a town in Western Illinois. She bought a $50,000 home, paying $200 a month in mortgage payments. She maintained her dance teaching position, privately tutored, and was a research assistant.

"I always felt like a failure, like I should be providing for my kids the way I was provided for," Dove said. "I was never able to do that. I was just trying to make it to the next paycheck."

Getting back on her feet

In a stroke of luck, she got the opportunity to teach sociology courses at a community college, which paid her $34,000 a year in 2006. Her salary rose to $56,000 a few years later. Having plenty of vacations and more stable hours allowed her to be more present in her kids' lives, though money was still a stressor. She made extra income from advising campus clubs.

"We kept the wheels on the bus, but we never got ahead," Dove said.

She barely had money in her retirement accounts and hadn't invested much for her kids' futures. All she could think about was squeezing enough money out of her next paycheck to take her kids to a museum.

"I honestly spent most of my life not caring about money unless I had an emergency expense and I couldn't pay for it," Dove said. "I thought money was probably something that corrupted people, and I just didn't have a very positive opinion of money."

Her second husband, whom she met in 2015 and married in 2021, had maxed out his retirement accounts and saved much of his income. They agreed she would take off a few months to write children's books and see if it was financially sustainable. Once it became clear this career switch wasn't viable, she began investing after her husband convinced her she would be good at it.

"I pushed back because I didn't think it was rewarding. I didn't think I would feel like I was contributing to society in a meaningful way as an investor," Dove said.

Reaching financial independence

She sold her car and invested that money in the stock market, starting with buying a share of Berkshire Hathaway, then diversifying her portfolio.

"One of the biggest realizations for me is that I used to think you needed more money to be wealthy, but now what I've learned is you can have a ton of money and still live paycheck to paycheck," Dove said. "You can make a very small amount of income and live within your means and live stress-free and happy and build wealth."

She knew she couldn't start her financial independence journey alone, and her more financially savvy husband helped her get on track. On a national parks trip, they decided they would do whatever they could to retire early and spend more time exploring the world without worrying about money.

She read dozens of books and articles about financial markets, completed graduate degrees in financial planning, and became a Certified Financial Behavior Specialist. She modified her investing strategies to fit her personality, schedule, and risk tolerance. She and her husband started with $240,000 invested in retirement accounts, as well as about $80,000 in equity. Within the first four years, they doubled their investments twice.

In her mid-40s, she paid off her student debt, which she considered a huge milestone. It was the first time she could start saving money and max out her 401(k).

She and her husband adopted a minimalist lifestyle, starting by adopting a "one in, one out" rule — for every shirt she bought, she would sell one. They prioritized experiences over gifts and significantly increased savings, only purchasing what they needed.

Over the last four years, she estimates they've saved over 40% of their income — and about 60% if including investments from home sales. Still, she said they're not overly frugal and spend on fitness, food, and hobbies like bikes.

She created an "intense and intimidating" spreadsheet to track everything coming in and going out. She added sections for emergency savings, investments, net worth, and their "slush fund" of purchases above $500.

They pivoted to moving 20% of her husband's base income, 100% of her income, and at least 50% of bonuses into investments. Her husband's military pension, which is inflation-adjusted, has also taken some weight off the planning process.

"In addition to paying ourselves first, we've adopted the 'give every dollar a job' approach. At the end of each month, any 'extra money' is assigned to either slush, emergency, or it's invested," Dove said.

Dove didn't want to work even more hours, which would force her to sacrifice time with her kids, so she made more with less. They recently bought a home for $96,000 in Bloomington, Illinois, just as State Farm moved their headquarters and home prices fell, then sold their house right as Rivian came in and prices rose.

This encouraged her to dabble in real estate investing, putting their mountain home up on Airbnb. The home was almost immediately booked out each week for eight months.

Dove has published four children's picture books and spends her days writing, facilitating workshops, and working as a financial coach. She is also an angel investor in some startups. Ultimately, she hopes to retire early to spend more time with loved ones and set them up for success.

"Although we have not hit our FI number yet, we will reach our target amount by our target date with just what we contribute from my husband's income," Dove said. "That has paved the way for me to chase my many dreams."

Are you part of the FIRE movement or living by some of its principles? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com.

• Costco warehouses require a lot of different jobs to run smoothly each day.
• Few workers have more customer-facing responsibilities than front-end managers.
• Business Insider spoke with a longtime front-end manager about what the day-to-day is like.

Costco has more than 600 warehouses across the US, and each one depends on hundreds of employees performing a range of jobs each day.

Among those workers, few have more customer-facing responsibilities than front-end managers, whose duties extend from the parking lot to the back of the sales floor and almost everything in between.

Business Insider spoke with an assistant front-end manager in Texas who has been with the company for more than 20 years to learn what the day-to-day is like. BI has verified his identity but is not naming him as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

From starting in the food court to a stint as a supervisor on the membership desk, he says he's seen just about everything.

"I had a customer who didn't know that you had to refrigerate a cheesecake, so he brought it back literally as a brick of mold and wanted his money back," the manager recalled. "We did the refund."

Now, as an assistant front-end manager, he oversees a team of five supervisors and anywhere from 25 to 50 hourly workers, and is tasked with handling almost everything from the sales floor to the registers to the parking lot.

A typical day starts when he wakes up around 7:30 a.m., quickly gets showered and dressed, and arrives at the warehouse as it's opening around 9:45 a.m.

"I'm the guy who's there to run the business," he said. "Very much managing the people and the situations that you run into throughout that day."

"Every day is consistent, insofar as it's inconsistent," he added.

Inventory moves quickly in a warehouse, and it's up to the front-end manager to keep a close eye on levels and make sure there is enough staff clocked in to keep things running smoothly in the aisles and the checkout lanes.

Plus, if another team needs extra support, it's often up to him to assign someone to help.

"Everyone goes to the front end, because we have the largest amount of people," he said. "If something goes sideways and your department needs help, you come to the front end."

Around 1:30 p.m., he hands over the reins to the evening manager and steps into a support mode through the afternoon rush until his shift ends at 7:30 p.m.

Asked what his favorite thing about working at Costco is, and his response was quick and clear: the team.

"It doesn't matter what building you're at, or what building you go to, you always find good people to work with," he said.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first to North Korea in 24 years.
• Putin gifted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a second Aurus Senat limousine during the visit.
• Putin uses an Aurus as his official state car.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took a Russian-made Aurus Senat limousine for a spin during the Russian President's first visit to Pyongyang in 24 years.

The drive offered the leaders an opportunity to showcase their strengthening relationship, which Kim said on Wednesday had reached "a new high of alliance."

Video footage shared on Telegram showed Putin behind the wheel of the Aurus, which he also gifted to his North Korean counterpart, Russian state media reported, citing Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.

Putin gifted another luxury Aurus to Kim in February of this year, adding to the leader's large collection of luxury vehicles, which also includes a Maybach, a Mercedes-Benz, and a Rolls Royce — all of which were likely smuggled into the country in violation of UN sanctions, Reuters reported.

Putin is also said to have gifted Kim a tea set and a dagger during his recent visit.

In return, Kim presented Putin with artworks, which Ushakov hinted were "related to the image" of the president.

Russia's answer to "The Beast"

The Aurus Senat was unveiled in 2018 by the State Research Center of the Russian Federation. It is used as Putin's official state car.

According to the Aurus Motors website, the Senat limousine is "the embodiment of the dignity and power inherent in the Russian character. A car that combines excellent driving performance, immaculate comfort and unrivalled passenger safety."

The vehicle is powered by a 598 horsepower, 4.4-liter, twin-turbo V-8 engine and can go from 0 to 60 mph in six seconds. It has a top speed of around 155 mph.

Like the US president's Cadillac state car — which is nicknamed "The Beast" — the Russian Senat is bulletproof and bombproof. The Aurus can also be fully submerged in water and has steel-reinforced tires.

The Aurus Motors website describes the Aurus Senat as "the most protected luxury car in the world."

In 2021, Reuters reported that an Aurus with basic features would cost 18 million rubles, which is just over $200,000 today.

A senior Russian official said last month that Russia would start producing Aurus cars at a former Toyota factory in Saint Petersburg later this year, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

In September 2022, Toyota announced that it had decided to stop vehicle production in its Saint Petersburg plant "due to the interruption in supply of key materials and parts."

• Employment for software developers has dipped from pre-pandemic levels.
• Landing high-paying tech jobs could take longer.
• Glassdoor's Daniel Zhao said it could be tough "finding a job that pays as well" for experienced developers.

You're not going to be able to write a few lines of code to solve this problem.

A new ADP Research Institute report shows employment for software developers has declined from January 2018. Data elsewhere show fewer opportunities for people to fill software development and tech roles after the US labor market is no longer as hot as it was a few years ago.

"The tech job market has undeniably slowed since the end of 2022, cooling after a few years of rapid hiring during the pandemic recovery," Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor's lead economist, said in a written statement. "Rising interest rates, the end of pandemic-era trends and a slowing economy overall has crimped demand for tech workers."

"That being said, employment in the tech sector has fallen less than 2% since its peak in December 2022 and is still 21% higher than March 2020," Zhao said.

Nela Richardson, ADP's chief economist, told Business Insider that the software developer isn't "an out-of-date occupation," but it could take longer to land work given it has "become a very efficient occupation" where fewer workers are likely needed.

"You may not, as a young tech worker in this industry, get recruited straight away out of university or learn straight away from your first job, or that there may have to be a little bit more grinding, a little bit more of a normal labor market in terms of new hires," she said.

The change in software developer employment could partly be attributed to changes in consumer spending during the pandemic. "There was a slowdown in software developer hires in 2020, and then we had a couple bounce backs, and I think that's reflective of how the pandemic really spurred this increase into digital service offerings," Richardson said.

Job-search platform Indeed has its own running index of job postings for the software development sector. Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told BI, "it's unlikely we'll see levels of demand like we saw in '21, in '22 for software development anytime soon."

Still, Bunker said demand for these jobs is healthy, and these are still well-paying gigs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for software developers was $132,270.

"The depressed state of postings for software development jobs could be a possibly cyclical story or short-term story," Bunker said. "Maybe this is just interest rates are still very high, and a lot of employers are looking to be very cautious when it comes to hiring because a lot of those firms overhired in '21, and maybe they're just being very patient now."

Challenges for experienced workers seeking a better-paying gig and for new graduates

Zhao also noted "weak" sentiment in the tech sector and noted this could be because "waves of new graduates have been racing to enter the tech industry over the last decade as tech employers have offered high pay for newly minted software developers."

Zhao said, "even for experienced software developers at the top of the market, the issue may not be difficulty finding a job at all, but rather difficulty finding a job that pays as well as their previous one. Swallowing a pay cut is a tough ask for software developers who were earning top dollar just a few years ago."

Data from Handshake, a platform where students can look for work, suggests a cooler demand for software developers or engineers.

"There was a 29% decline in software developer/engineer jobs created" on the Handshake network when comparing the period between June 2023 and May 2024 to the year before, Randy Tarnowski, senior manager of research and education insights at Handshake, said in a statement.

Tarnowski said that software engineering roles "received a large share of 2024 computer science graduates' applications," but the share of applications has fallen by a few percentage points from the class of 2023.

"Instead of software engineering roles, the class of 2024 computer science grads are submitting more of their applications to other roles, including data science and analysts, computer hardware, information security, computer systems engineering, and financial and investment analysts roles," Tarnowski said.

For people making job decisions amid the strong but cooler job market, Bunker suggested thinking about long-term prospects instead of simply how demand is looking at the moment.

That is, a sector might not be "as flashy" or offer as great of compensation as it had been. However, Bunker added some of the "shine might have come off some of these jobs, but they're still well paying and have a good long-term outlook."

Have you made a career change from or to software development or another tech job? Reach out to this reporter to share at mhoff@businessinsider.com.