People are doing all kinds of things to improve themselves during the pandemic and ‘Great Lockdown’. They are learning new skills, taking up interesting hobbies, and trying to improve their fitness. One effort I am making is to read more books. I recently saw a news report that if you read just a half hour a day, you will be 1,600 books smarter throughout your … Continue reading Summer Family Reading Club
We are very proud of our son who graduated from college this past weekend with his degree in computer science. He finished ‘on-time’ – completing his studies 4 years after first walking through these arches as a Freshman. He’s all set to start working a week from today as a software/web developer at a local software company. He interned there last summer and got a … Continue reading Post-College ‘Raise’?
Back on March 27th, I made the playful ‘Much To Early Prediction’ to friends (and in this POST) that the pandemic market crash had bottomed out. The DJIA had fallen to 18,214 on the afternoon of March 23rd. This was long before the worst of the pandemic had hit the US or the world yet, but so far the optimistic outlook has paid off as … Continue reading Is The Pandemic Bear Sleeping?
A friend recently spent 8 hours (and a $19.95 fee) taking an online ‘Safe Driving’ program through his insurance company. It was offered to people over 55 for an $80 reduction in their annual insurance premium for a number of future years. He told me when they were in the middle of taking the class and I thought, ‘no thanks’. Not enough juice for the … Continue reading What’s Your Time Worth In Early Retirement?
I’ve written before that for me, social media plays a very positive role in early retirement for keeping in touch with people. I’m pretty tech-involved and use a number of different platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn – in pretty different ways and different amounts of engagement. Related: Social Media in FIRE The one platform that I use the least is LinkedIn. My … Continue reading Hardly Linked to LinkedIn Anymore
My brother and I were talking about some estate work that we each had done recently and the subject came up of safe-keeping documents. We’ve steadily upgraded our approach over the years from using a file cabinet, to putting our wills in the freezer drawer, to buying a fire-box, to investing in a full-on home safe. We now keep our important papers in a large … Continue reading Safety First For Documents
Thank goodness that we have enjoyed an early spring during the Great Lockdown of 2020. We returned from our sunny Florida excursion at the beginning of March and soon everything was closed and the stay-at-home order came. Instead of being locked up in a wintery wonderland, we’ve been able to enjoy the outdoors. Related: Snowbirding Surprises Spring in Minnesota is usually an iffy-affair, but this year … Continue reading Playing Outside Again
Like a lot of people, we are sitting on the sidelines right now when it comes to making any travel plans. One of the crazy things about this pandemic is that there is no where to go to hide from it. I read recently that it has spread to over 200 countries. We didn’t have any travel booked when the outbreak began, but we were … Continue reading Thinking About Post-Pandemic Travel?
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