A few weeks ago, I published an article about the financial surprise of big repairs and expenses around the house. In the comments, regular reader, Thom, mentioned that he forecasts and accrues for these ‘personal capital expenditures’ – which can occur over years and decades – on an annual basis. The key to his approach is a spreadsheet that lists all of the major components … Continue reading Accruing For Home Repairs – Spreadsheet Download
We’ve been in our house more than a dozen years now. When we first built the house, we had a list of ‘extras’ we wanted to add that stretched out a few years. We expanded our lower level, added a bar, covered & screened in our porch, and worked with our wonderful cabinet-maker on a number of built-ins. At the same time, we bought new … Continue reading Furnishing A Life …
Earlier this week, my oldest brother announced to his organization that he will be retiring next February. He’s the top dog at his company, so he needed to give his board plenty of notice to plan for a leadership transition. It’s is exciting news for him and it will be a big lifestyle change. I often joke that I didn’t find out how truly Type … Continue reading Preparing For Takeoff
Well, I blew it. I crashed my drone into a tree last week. It fell about 30 feet after shaking loose from the tree and the camera gimbal got damaged. It still flies, but you can’t really take pictures with it anymore. It was the second time I crashed it. The first time, it landed in soft snow and still worked fine. It’s a pretty … Continue reading Down & Out Drone
We had quite the “to-do” list when we got back to Minnesota from our Winter Summerland adventures in Florida last month. We don’t usually keep a list, but we had an unusual number of important things to get done. We got our bills paid (a few a bit late), helped our son move into the new townhouse, helped my father-in-law with estate documents, decluttered/organized a … Continue reading To-Do’s and Taxes
A friend posted a picture of her grandmother celebrating her 103rd birthday this week – that’s some milestone! Since my birthday is also in April, I got to thinking about the odds of reaching three digits. I found this interesting online calculator that gives you an estimate of your likelihood to reach the century mark: livingto100.org. The doctor who hosts it – Doctor Thomas Perls … Continue reading Birthday Calculator
I have to shake my head when I see politicians promoting “free college” and “student loan forgiveness”. College grads are supposed to be smart & responsible, aren’t they? In my view, college students are adults and they voluntarily entered into these loans with the help of the friendly folks in the university admissions department (who try hard to disguise their job as anything but what … Continue reading Driving Away From Debt …
I’ve been worrying about periods of high inflation since I started writing these posts over seven years ago. It wasn’t until these last 12 months that my worries were matched by reality. It doesn’t help that the politicians & media pundits keep trying to put a positive spin on things. The headlines have been ridiculous: Part of the challenge is I don’t know if the … Continue reading How Fast Is Inflation Really Rising?
It’s a golden age for retirement in many ways, but especially with the internet. I’m not honestly sure I could have happily early retired before the advent of the World Wide Web. I’m not kidding. I seem to have a constant need to be plugged into some kind of information source 24/7 to keep my ADHD mind busy. Even pre-internet I was a big fan … Continue reading World Wide Boredom Buster
MrFireStation 