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 spent the evening of New Year’s Day (observed) tallying up the ugliness of our 2022 year-end financial performance. The returns weren’t great. Not at all. It looks like our retirement savings took a huge dive. Our retirement nest egg fell a whopping -16.9%. That’s much worse than I had imagined. Our losses were all centered in the plunge in our equities. The S&P 500 … Continue reading A Bad Year, A Good Place …
I spent yesterday – Memorial Day – getting ready for an upcoming meeting with our Financial Advisor. We’re sitting down Friday for the first time in more than a year. We usually meet and do a ‘check up’ one time a year, but last year we skipped it due to the CV19 pandemic. Before our annual meeting, I give him a summary document of all … Continue reading Annual Portfolio Check Up
I early retired in April at age 49. I was just a couple weeks short of my 50th birthday and so I felt like I was ‘buying’ an extra 10 years of my life (without work). With a reasonable degree of success in my career I decided to put TIME ahead of banking more money and more material things. So far things have been … Continue reading What Does 10 Years Of Early Retirement Cost? Can You Really Do It?
There is probably no luxury that I have done more of an about-face on over the past 20 years than luxury automobiles. My DW and I started out very humbly in our 20s when we got married. We were very practical: she had a 11-year old Ford Fairmont (boring, but mostly reliable). I had managed to drive a few junkers into the ground through college … Continue reading Grown-Up Guilty Pleasure – Luxury Cars
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