I saw this appliance repair truck in our neighborhood last week and I appreciated how lucky we’ve been with our house. We moved in 17 years ago this Halloween and we haven’t had to call the repair man very often. I shared the post Is Your House Falling Apart? about seven years ago and we’ve avoided big repairs for the most part since I wrote … Continue reading Playing On Borrowed Time?
Our trip to Iceland & Ireland was a good mix of days in the countryside (7 days) and time in Reykjavik & Dublin (4 days). Some people like the sights & buzz of the big cities, while others would spend all of their time in the small villages and rural areas if they could. We like to see a bit of both. That said, if … Continue reading World’s Top Cities
We’re back from our trip to Iceland & Ireland. We were only gone 12 days, but that was the perfect amount of time for those two countries in one trip. . When we got home, we were marveling at how much easier travel is now compared with 10, 20, 30 years ago. We’ve gone from having to buy American Express Travel Checks before we leave to … Continue reading Digital Travel Assistant
If anyone was worried that the travel industry wouldn’t come back after the pandemic lockdowns, you can put your mind at ease. The Wall Street Journal shared this chart a couple of weeks ago showing the boom in European trips by Americans. As you can see, travel to Europe has reached new highs the last three years running. It reports that 2026 travel continues to … Continue reading Americans Traveling
I’m not much of a handyman, but I just installed an automatic window box & flower pot watering system in front of our house. Our flowers are exploding! Before I retired, I imagined getting a part-time job at Walt Disney World watering the flowers at one of their resorts in the morning. I met a guy who did exactly that at the Wilderness Lodge. Still, … Continue reading Irrigation Magic
Many people worry that they will be bored or isolated in retirement. My experience has been the complete opposite. I have more time for friends & activities than I have ever had. Apparently, I am not the only one. I ran across a great survey of retired people in America from TransAmerica’s Center for Retirement Studies and it’s clear that almost every retired person surveyed … Continue reading Retired? Get Happy
Today was our big Fantasy Football Draft Day—for the 37th year! It’s a little hard to believe we have been playing that long! When we started doing this, we were young guys keeping track of players with newspapers, box scores, pencils, and calculators. Today our league has an online auction draft, multi-year contracts, waiver wires, salary considerations, and no free-agent signings once the season starts. … Continue reading Kickoff 2026
Most of us spend years obsessing over investing, allocations, withdrawal rates, and our retirement timing — but we also need to think of relationships as their own line item in the retirement plan ledger. Throughout life, school, work and parenting quietly hand you a social life for free — you hang out with buddies after school, go to lunch with work colleagues, and catch your … Continue reading Investing in Friendship Circles
There’s probably not a lot new in this chart for most readers, but I thought it’d be a good reminder on a Friday morning … The author of the infographic (Ooma) did a nice job thinking about the key expenditures for seniors. There is more detail on the data sources & state ranking in their website. While it’s relatively easy to compare the cost of … Continue reading Retiree Cost By State
We’re fortunate to live in a really nice neighborhood with great neighbors. I recently saw a post online where readers were asked “what’s a sign you live in a very nice / expensive neighborhood?” These are the top 30 responses … As I think about our neighborhood developments – our home in MN and our vacation place in FL – I’d say we have almost … Continue reading Nice Neighborhoods
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