I always say I’ve lived a charmed life. Great family, good health, and many blessings. This past holiday week was also charmed, but in a very different way, as I was fortunate to survived a holiday heart attack that caught me completely by surprise. I was playing tennis with my good friend Russ the day after Christmas, looking forward to a post-match , end-of-the-year beer, … Continue reading The Big One … Almost
Just last week I wrote about the Oklahoma Christmas Lottery and how life-changing the million dollar prize would be for most people. Then came the story of the Spanish news reporter – on the right in the photo above – who ‘won’ the $2.4 billion dollar lottery and quit her job LIVE on national TV. Except the ‘Del Gordo’ prize revealed on Christmas Night was … Continue reading How Not To Quit Your Job – Christmas Lottery
Every year for the last 10 years, I’ve posted a ‘countdown’ of vintage Christmas advertising, classic toys, or antique post cards on my personal Facebook feed. A few years ago, I started sharing them here – as a Christmas card of sorts to readers. This year’s Christmas countdown focused on 25 classic magazines featuring the ‘golden age’ of cover illustration. It was a fun countdown … Continue reading Merry Christmas – 2019 Christmas Countdown
The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting piece this week listing the FIRE (financially independent & retired early) movement as a key development in personal finance over the last decade. The overall focus of the story is on the 2010s as the “Decade of Frugality”. We started our journey to FIRE long before we knew the FIRE acronym and many years before the 2010s began. … Continue reading Decade of Frugality and FIRE?
On my Apple News feed, a recent story popped up about the Kansas State Lottery ‘Holiday Millionaire’ game, which gets drawn on the day after New Year’s. Winning that would change most people’s lives, wouldn’t it? Well … some people don’t think so. As much as the media loves to bedevil wealthy people these days, they also like to poo-poo the idea that having a … Continue reading Christmas Lottery Millionaire?
Everyone loves the holidays – unless you are Ebenezer Scrooge – but it is quite the BUSY time of year. Especially since the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year is one week shorter than last year. This is now the fourth year since we made our FIRE escape that I have been able to enjoy holiday activities untethered to a job 50+ hours a … Continue reading Savoring The (Shortened) Season
This Wednesday, the high temperature in Minnesota where we live will be 0F degrees, while in Orlando FL it will be a balmy 82F. While our home, family, and ‘life’ are here in the cold, we’ve decided to engage in some ‘weather arbitrage’ and escape to Florida this winter. I wrote about Snowbirding a few years ago with the advice of my friend Russ and … Continue reading Snowbirding Practice 2020
Awhile ago, I wrote an article and did a survey looking at the value of corporate perks one gives up when heading into retirement. People mentioned expense accounts, sports tickets, fitness club memberships, and other things. Related: Irreplaceable PERKS One thing that didn’t get mentioned was ‘corporate apparel’. You know, those MegaCorp branded shirts & gear they often hand out this time of year? It … Continue reading Corporate Apparel
I think we’ve made it! The biggest concern that most early retirees have is how they will manage the cost of health insurance between leaving MegaCorp and gaining retiree benefits or Medicare eligibility. It’s a topic I’ve provided many updates on over the last 5 years because health insurance is an expensive and dynamic market. This is the last year of open enrollment where we … Continue reading Health Insurance – Open Enrollment
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