I’m on a flight from FL to MN right now and ran across this interesting survey from Empower, an investment company. I thought it did a good job showing how people are thinking about their financial lives & retirement. Link: Empower Study Overall, I’m generally pleased when I see how people are thinking about retirement, even if their actual behavior falls quite short. Like nutrition, … Continue reading Empowerment Retirement Survey …
The website, Ooma, recently published this interesting infographic comparing the states for the cost of living for retirees. They used 9 different dimensions for their ranking It’s a looooong infographic, so I broke it into key components so you can see the comparisons more easily. How does your state compare? I wasn’t surprised to see that our primary home state of Minnesota ranked in … Continue reading Retirement Cost of Living
Northwestern Mutual does a nice annual study on the ‘state of retirement’ in the USA. It’s a pretty exhaustive analysis that looks at all aspects of life and our involvement and satisfaction with each dimension. Link: Northwestern Mutual 2025 ‘Planning & Progress’ Study I was surprised by a few of the numbers from this year’s study and thought I’d share them. First, Americans are pretty … Continue reading Retirement Confidence
A few readers / friends sent me this cheeky t-shirt image, celebrating the stock market’s quick bounce-back from the Trump tariffs. Folks thought I was too negative about Trump’s move to correct long-standing “trade imbalances” – even though my official investor position was to “stay the course”. Related: Stay The Course Still, I thought it was important to acknowledge that the S&P 500 has quickly … Continue reading Trump Tariff Bounceback
I recently saw a few threads on Reddit where people were asked to answer the question “What are you most looking forward to in FIRE?” (financially independence & retired early). There were dozens of comments. I’ve been early retired over 9 years now, but I still love reading what people are enjoying / looking forward to, so I thought I’d share some of the best … Continue reading Things To Look Forward To In FIRE
It’s hard to sit still watching the tremendous waste & inefficiency being exposed in Washington DC over the last two years. The proceedings are a maddening comedy & disheartening tragedy at the same time. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that a bipartisan Senate Committee was given evidence that as much as $1 trillion on a year are paid out fraudulently by the federal, state, … Continue reading Federal Comedy & Tragedy
Just a quick post today to highlight what could be the biggest change for the finances of retired people in a generation … eliminating Federal income taxes on Social Security. After seemingly not mentioning it since the election, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters yesterday that it is a key part of the budget negotiations that GOP leaders in the House, Senate, and White House … Continue reading No Tax on Social Security?
I was chatting with a friend & neighbor recently about Social Security. Paul has just turned 65 and was thinking of jumping on SSI early (his full retirement age is 67). He thought the advantage might be that he could get “locked in” to a benefit before the government potentially cuts back SSI benefits for wealthier households. In thinking through the situation, I put together … Continue reading Social Security Revisited
I recently Googled the term ‘early retirement’ to see how the media is chattering about this topic. Since I’ve been boring readers with this topic for more than 9 years, I felt I had a responsibility to keep up-to-date with how early retirement is being discussed in the media. As usual, the headlines were confusing and at odds with each other: “My Dad Sacrificed Everything … Continue reading Early Retirement: Searching For Answers?
Before my Dad passed away in June, he and my Mom were diligent in getting “their affairs in order”. Now it’s our turn. My wife and I made a real estate purchase on Monday for our “forever home”. We bought a couple plots in the church cemetery next to my parents and my brother and his wife. When my wife’s Mom passed away unexpectedly a … Continue reading Planning Ahead …
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