If you spend any amount of time in Florida, one thing jumps out almost immediately: lawyer ads everywhere. On TV. On billboards. On the sides of buses. “Been in a car accident? Call now.” It’s hard to drive five minutes without being reminded that someone is ready to sue on your behalf. That observation stuck with me when I started comparing car insurance premiums between … Continue reading Florida Car Insurance
I recently joined an online forum of relatively wealthy investors who discuss portfolios, spending, and travel. One question that someone put a poll up around was “what is your current daily driver”? About 320 people answered – a decent sample size. I answered BMW, since I drive our BMWs more than my Jeep or my wife’s Audi. I wasn’t surprised to see that brand high … Continue reading What Do Wealthy Investors Drive
Our neighborhood investment club decided to have a friendly competition on “best investment” for the next 12 months. We were each assigned to come up with a publicly available investment and track the returns starting 2/2/26 thru 2/1/27. Whoever delivers the best return (including dividends, Klaus) has neighborhood bragging rights. I am typically a conservative, index fund investor, so this is a pretty different challenge … Continue reading Silver & Gold
I took Monday “off” this week from posting. I’ve kept a pretty tight schedule of posting on Mondays & Fridays for years, but I figured I’d just post once this week. The reason is that we were simply enjoying early retirement. There’s something about the winter in Florida that makes retirement feel more real and enjoyable. If retirement is like “permanent vacation”, it feels especially … Continue reading No Responsibility January
When we’re at our vacation place in Florida, it’s hard not to think about what the weather is like back home in Minnesota. Our son is there, our families are there, and our friends are there. Right now, the weather in MN is brutal. This morning will be -22° F. The afternoon high will be -10° F. Saturday will be only a little bit better. … Continue reading Snowbird ROI
I rejoined our neighborhood investment club this past Friday morning. It was a crisp 55-degrees here in Celebration FL, so we met inside the neighborhood clubhouse. There are quite a few Snowbirds in the group like myself who haven’t seen the other guys since last April. Rather than talk about how well 2025 turned out for most investments, the conversation was forward looking. We were … Continue reading Cash On The Sidelines?
No, I didn’t retire from writing about retirement. If you didn’t notice, MrFireStation.com went offline on Monday and it took me a few days to figure out what happened. Thanks to everyone who let me know about the problem. There were many of you – which was strangely gratifying. I initially had no idea what happened and my web hosting company doesn’t have the best … Continue reading Back Online … !
We’re thinking of taking a couple of overseas trips in the next 12-14 months. We’ve wanted to get to Ireland for a few years and might go this Autumn. We also want to take the big flight to the Southern Hemisphere and experience Australia & New Zealand, which would likely be in early-2027, given the difference in seasons. We wouldn’t typically plan two big overseas … Continue reading Time To Get Going?
Since we’ve been chatting about 2025 investment returns, I thought I’d share this article about Dave Ramsey advocating an 8% “safe withdrawal rate” (SWR) for retirees. I generally think Ramsey is a pretty sensible guy – encouraging people to get out of debt, invest in index funds, and build generational wealth. Still, the idea of an 8% SWR seems more than a bit wild to … Continue reading How High Can You Spend?
Frequent contributor, Klaus Wentzel, mentioned that his dividend-driven portfolio was roughly +8.5% in 2025, after netting out the year’s living expenses. I’m watching the Sugar Bowl right now, so I thought I would add up how our portfolio ended the year. For benchmark’s sake, the S&P 500 was +16.6% (x-dividends) and the bond market (VBMFX) was +3.0%. We finished the year with a pleasing +14.3% … Continue reading Terrific 2025 Returns
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