We came home from a trip last week Wednesday, our third of the year, and the next morning I did a consulting call from this unique bench in a park near a shopping center where I had stopped. It’s a picturesque perch on a man-made lake with beautiful flowers and walking paths. This shady spot is so different than any ‘office’ I had ever worked in. … Continue reading Professional Consulting Networks
It’s shocking to me how inane many personal finance articles are. I understand that handling one’s finances can be a complex topic, but so many articles are just simplistic click-bait. This recent article from The Motley Fool is a perfect example. The headline teases ‘Three Secrets To Retire Rich”. That sounds like a pretty compelling article, but when you click on it you find it … Continue reading Mindless Money Advice
I’m always interested in seeing how Millennials are doing since my son is that age and their money habits will play a big role in determining the health of the economy over the coming decades. Most of the financial press likes to focus on them as a group with poor money habits or as victims of the student loan crisis, but I’ve never found either … Continue reading Millennials: How Are They Doing?
I’ve noted before that the media loves to create hysteria & fear about early retirement. From Suze Orman’s cautions that the FIRE movement is “the dumbest personal finance decision people can make” to this recent article from CNBC focusing on the ‘Downsides of Early Retirement That No One Tells You About’. I thought it might be good to offer my own experience as a counterpoint … Continue reading FIRE: Everyone Has Their Own Reaction
This is the second April post in a three-part series focused on our third anniversary since reaching FIRE (financial independence & retiring early). Last week’s post focused on the FINANCIAL aspects of early retirement from this Life Wheel, this week I’ll focus on the three SOCIAL dimensions: Family/Friends, Love/Romance, and Giving/Teaching. My goal in this series is to answer the most common question I get … Continue reading Third FIRE Anniversary (2) – Social Life
I’ve written before that the biggest difference that I’ve come to associate with early retirement is that your fundamental relationship with the concept of TIME changes. That is, instead of time being USED as a resource of productivity, it becomes SAVORED as a resource of lifestyle enjoyment. Recently, I’ve been reading the magnificent history book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It might be the best … Continue reading A History of Time & Timekeeping
Our window box flowers are looking better than ever this year. We live in Minnesota, so we don’t get color like this except for in the peak of summer. Gardening is said to be the most popular hobby in the United States, and when you have more time to plant, water, and care for flowers you sure do see the benefits. Recently our garden hose … Continue reading In Pursuit Of The Perfect Purchase
I had a dream last night about going back to work. In this dream the MegaCorp bosses were in a pinch and wanted me and one of my former colleagues to come back and fix the business I used to run. It seemed like fun in the dream, but I don’t know how the dream turned out since I woke up before we got too … Continue reading Quickly Faded Dreams About MegaCorp
My friend that snowbirds in Florida during the Winter came back to MN a few weeks ago. We are now three tennis matches and three softball games into early summer. The activities we enjoy each week are inevitably capped with a cold refreshment and often with a visit to a new restaurant/pub. We’ve been to 30+ different places over the past few years! We were … Continue reading Hazy Recollection of MegaCorp
This is the final weekend to work on your income taxes. April 17th is the deadline this year because the 15th falls on a Sunday and the 16th is a District holiday in Washington. We filed our taxes earlier this week. We finally got the right paperwork from MegaCorp – whose bureaucracy still operates as it did in the 1990s. The cost of running the … Continue reading A Shocking Comparison for Tax Day
MrFireStation 