Our Florida ‘Winter Summerland’ escape took a strange twist this weekend. I was at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona auto race and saw a random text from someone named ‘Andy’. I looked at it and realized it had something to do with our February month-long AirBNB rental outside of Orlando. Andy was the AirBNB ‘host’ and he said our reservation was immediately CANCELLED “due … Continue reading Homeless in Florida?
I met a wonderful, inspirational gentleman at Walt Disney World last month. It might be the thing that I remember most when I reflect back on that trip. Daniel said I could share his name and story, so here it is … Daniel was serving us at the restaurant in the lobby of the luxurious Wilderness Lodge and getting trained-in by another employee. My wife … Continue reading Leaving A Legacy …
The bears are running through the financial media, with the 5% drop in the S&P 500 over the last week. I saw a headline on Friday that one of JP Morgan’s top analysts was predicting a 20% stock market sell-off. Another Wall Street ‘expert’ – John Hussman – believes that we could see a 70% market crash, led by sky-high tech stocks. The issues are … Continue reading Bears Starting To Run?
No story or insights to tell this Friday morning. I just have this simple post (from Reddit) that sums up the real secret of success … that there is no secret! HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND! Image Credit: Pixabay Continue reading Secret of Success?
Living in Minnesota, I love the annual ‘Theater of Seasons’. We are really treated to some epic changes throughout the year, with the temperature hitting 100 degrees F in the summer and -25 degrees in the wintertime. We are home to 10,000 lakes & the headwaters of the Mississippi, but they are all frozen like a rock for at least 3 months of the year. … Continue reading Winter Is Over Already?
We didn’t cash in any stock or appreciated assets in 2021, which kept our income pretty low. We just had some dividend income and I earned some pay from board work. Mostly, we just lived off of savings. Our accountant pointed out that married couples with income less than $80K pay 0% long-term capital gains tax. I hadn’t paid attention to that before, so we … Continue reading Capital Gains Wrinkle
Like most places, the residential real estate market is moving really fast in our area. Yesterday, we jumped in at lightning speed! My wife saw a snazzy townhouse in our neighborhood she thought would be nice for our adult son. We talked about it with him on Sunday morning just before 11a, connected with our friendly neighborhood agent 5 minutes later, scheduled/did a quick showing, … Continue reading Townhouse Lark
Last Saturday night I did something really silly – I attended the coldest NHL hockey game in league history. Our Minnesota Wild played outside at the Minnesota Twins ballpark on New Year’s Day and it was -8F at the puck drop. With wind chill, the temperature felt like a mind-numbing -24F. You might think I just got unlucky with the bad weather the day of … Continue reading Quirky Cold Night
I complained a lot about the economy in 2021. I didn’t like the trillions in debt-driven government spending and the ensuing inflation. Still, I acknowledged that the markets continued to rise – as the ‘Trump Bump’ became the ‘Biden Bump’. Yesterday, I tallied up how we finished the year with our portfolio. Our retirement savings were up an impressive +15%. Our gains were led by … Continue reading New Year’s Assessment
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