Our son’s J-Term from college ended yesterday. He’s been out of the classroom since just before Christmas and will be starting his Spring semester today. It’s hard to believe the he’ll be finishing his Junior year in a few months and he has already started to interview for summer internships. I thought this might be a good time to look back on how the 15 … Continue reading College Savings / 529 Plan Check-In
We’re enjoying a sunny trip in the Caribbean right now with our son who is off from college. We left right after New Year’s, so I never got a chance to look at our final spending numbers for 2018. That said, I ran across this interesting chart from JP Morgan’s Consumer Expenditure Survey that looks at how much people spend annually as they get older, … Continue reading Lower Spending As You Age
It’s just a couple weeks to Christmas, so I thought I would send out a quick link to reviews I previously wrote on helpful personal finance books. If you know someone interested in FIRE (financial independence & retiring early), I highly recommend any of these books: Making The Most Of Your Money, Jane Bryant Quinn The Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley & William Danko Affluenza, … Continue reading Holiday Book Suggestions for FIRE Enthusiasts
I just came across a couple interesting articles about envisioning your early retirement and saving for early retirement and how those two things relate to each other. The first article, from MoneyWatch relates the top ten words that MIT researchers heard from people when they think about “life after their work careers”. They are pretty fun words that do a good job of describing the … Continue reading Getting Your Eyes On The Prize
The economy is performing about as well as one could hope at this point in time, but you wouldn’t know it to watch political ads on TV. Despite quarterly GDP growth reaching 4%, the S&P 500 up +30% over the last two years, the unemployment rate at 3.9%, and consumer confidence approaching all-time highs – every political ad is full of gloom & doom. Despite … Continue reading Mid-Term Elections – Plan For More Inflation?
Perhaps because it is a midterm election year, the media is filled with stories about the “Death of the American Dream”. This is a popular political narrative that both major parties love to play on – and play against each other. Vilifying the other party for “ruining America” has long grown tiresome to me, but politicians must see some utility in playing it out election-after-election. … Continue reading Achieve The American Dream In Just Three Simple Steps?
It happened again. A beloved & wealthy performer – this time, Aretha Franklin – passes away without a will or trust to protect her family & fortune. The same thing happened with Prince a few years ago and his $200 million dollar estate continues to be caught up in court proceedings and will be significantly eaten away by inheritance taxes and lawyers fees. Not a … Continue reading Living Trusts – Leaving on a Good Note
Someone posted an interesting question on Early-Retirement.org recently that caught my attention. Just a few months from reaching FIRE (financial independence & retiring early), a person asked the collective wisdom of the ‘Life After FIRE’ forum if their early retirement was what they had planned on, or something different. The post generated a lot of response with over eight pages of people sharing their experience. … Continue reading Should You Expect the Unexpected?
BankRate.com recently published the results of a survey where they asked people about what the “ideal age” was for certain personal finance milestones. I thought it was interesting to look at the results and compare to our experience (and our son’s) in reaching FIRE (financial independence & retiring early). Here are some of the milestones: FIRST CREDIT CARD – My son is 21 right now … Continue reading Personal Finance Milestones – What’s Ideal?
Is your early retirement in the cards? The famous Trinity Study by William Bengen in the 1980s, was the first major analysis to put forth the idea of 4% annual safe withdrawal rate of your nest egg for retirement living expenses. It’s become a popular rule of thumb for people thinking about how much they need to save. I frequently tell people about the 4% … Continue reading Betting On The 4% Rule Alone?
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