Is it time to rebalance your early retirement portfolio? With the Dow Jones breaking 25,000 this week (I remember when it broke 1,000!) – and after posting 37% growth since the 2016 Presidential Election – maybe it is time to look at your balance of stocks, bonds, and cash and ensure that you have not become overweighted in equities? The year 2017 was a great … Continue reading Dow at 25,000 – Time For A New Year’s Rebalancing?
“Staying busy in early retirement?” people ask me all the time. Yes, I guess I can say that I’ve found literally MILLIONS of things to do, since I chalked up a healthy 4,548,220 steps in 2017. How do I know? Well, about 6 months before I quit working in 2016, I started tracking my daily activity. I’ve kept track of it every day since – … Continue reading 4,548,220 Steps to 2018
At the end of the year, the media is full of retrospectives on the top news events and celebrity stories, so with that in mind, I set my thoughts to what are the biggest news happenings that have affected people on their journey to financial independence and retiring early (FIRE) in 2017. Here’s my list (in no particular order) … TRUMP BUMP – The stock … Continue reading Top 7 FIRE News Stories of 2017
I worked in brand marketing during my career and have an affinity for old print advertising. On my personal Facebook feed, I spent the last 25 days countdowning to Christmas with vintage ad each day of the month. The illustrations and products really give a fun glimpsed into Christmas Past. Collecting and posting these ads might seem like kind of a funny thing to spend … Continue reading 25 Days of Christmas – Vintage Ad Countdown
It’s been fun to spend a few days Christmas shopping over the last couple weeks. I started a week ago on Monday and went on a full blitz yesterday – stopping at 19 different stores before I was done. Today I’ve been wrapping and watching a couple cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies (check out this funny Hallmark Christmas movie drinking game). When we exchange gifts with … Continue reading Thrifty Thursday – Christmas Gift Challenge
Last year I suggested a few books that I thought people might find to be great last minute gift ideas. Maybe personal finance books aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, so I thought I would add another suggestion to the list that is a lot more fun: Ernie Zelinski’s How To Retire Wild, Happy, & Free. Before I get to this newest recommendation – here are … Continue reading Holiday Gift Book Recommendation: How To Retire Wild, Happy, & Free
We love to go to the movies and probably catch a showing every other week (in addition to movies at home). Increasingly, we catch shows on $5 Tuesdays. This past Tuesday, we caught the original White Christmas (in VistaVision!) on the big screen at the theater near us that features the reclining, first class airline-style seats. Tomorrow, we’ll be back to see Star Wars: The … Continue reading Sneaking In Movie Theater Snacks
This week – the second week of December – is a great time to start Christmas shopping, by my reckoning. We’ve nabbed a couple holiday deals since Black Friday, but I like to get out in the stores when everything is ‘on’. Lights on, music on, and sales on. It’s more fun to shop when the stores are decked out in all of their Christmas … Continue reading Christmas Shopping – Deck the Malls
December is always a crazy month in the office. I had the fortune of visiting MegaCorp yesterday and be reminded of what an unusual month it is. It had been quite a while since I had been back in the old digs. I saw the daily calendar printout of one of the people I was meeting with. He was back-to-back with 8 or 9 meetings … Continue reading Christmas Time At MegaCorp
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