At a backyard ‘social-distanced’ event last weekend, people were asking me about our early retirement. As is often the case, one person cut in and asked if my wife was still working while I was being a goof off. She doesn’t work, but the question always comes with a ‘gotcha’ tone as if they are suspiciously wondering if we are really retired – or am … Continue reading From This Day Forward …
You can file today’s post under the category, “You have too much time on your hands in early retirement.” But recently, I have unilaterally taken on the job of ‘rearranging’ the seasons of the year. You may not think the seasons need rearranging – nor that I am authorized by anyone to do this – but I have long noticed that the astronomical seasons are … Continue reading Rearranging The Seasons
Our son is just out of college and about 4 weeks into his career in software & web design. He signed up for all of his work benefits right away, including his health insurance and retirement 401K plan. He’s very thoughtful with his financial approach, but I saw an online chat about ‘Financial Advice For People In Their Twenties’ from the fatFIRE Facebook Group that … Continue reading Financial Advice For Your Twenties
June is typically the month of weddings, but the CV-19 pandemic has largely eliminated the big, traditional wedding. We were planning on attending a couple weddings this summer, but they have both been converted to small, family-only affairs. Such is 2020. Perhaps it is all for the best when it comes to the cost of hosting a big wedding. The analysis I did a few … Continue reading Small Wedding Sensibility?
I was surprised as anyone to see the stock market erase its 2020 losses last week in a remarkable reversal of the COVID-19 doldrums. Certainly the trillions in Federal stimulus spending and ‘loose money’ from the Federal Reserve has a lot to do with it. Minneapolis Federal Reserve Chief, Neel Kashkari – who had been involved in the 2008 TARP program and Fed initiatives during … Continue reading Stock Market Derisked?
Normally at this point of the year I provide an update on how our retirement portfolio is doing against the investment plan we laid out before early retirement. It takes a little time to crunch all the numbers and with the historically horrific headlines we’ve had this year, it might have been easy to just skip the update until later this year. Still, with the … Continue reading Unexpected Returns – Portfolio Update
Since the CV19 pandemic has resulted in many people working from home over the last few months, experts are wondering what changes may be in store for the traditional 5-day, 40 hour work week. One of the ideas getting a lot of buzz right now is a compressed, 4-day, 32 hour work week. I recently saw an article that details efforts in progressive Singapore to … Continue reading Time For A Shortened Work Week?
Insurance is one of the things I certainly hate paying for. Health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, and car insurance are all necessary to a degree, but it’s hard to pay for something you only use in a catastrophe. We’ve gradually dialed back our insurance coverage for things we can ‘self-insure’ the risk of. We have the highest health insurance deductible we’ve ever had and … Continue reading Up, Up And Insured
Today, our son joins the world of full-time work after graduating from college last weekend. He’s starting work in software/web development at a great company that he was an intern at last summer. Last night we were talking about the business and the fun of working on businesses challenges. I’ve been early retired for over 4 years at this point, but have always loved the … Continue reading Edgar Guest – ‘It Couldn’t Be Done’
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