Our neighborhood investment club decided to have a friendly competition on “best investment” for the next 12 months. We were each assigned to come up with a publicly available investment and track the returns starting 2/2/26 thru 2/1/27. Whoever delivers the best return (including dividends, Klaus) has neighborhood bragging rights. I am typically a conservative, index fund investor, so this is a pretty different challenge … Continue reading Silver & Gold
I rejoined our neighborhood investment club this past Friday morning. It was a crisp 55-degrees here in Celebration FL, so we met inside the neighborhood clubhouse. There are quite a few Snowbirds in the group like myself who haven’t seen the other guys since last April. Rather than talk about how well 2025 turned out for most investments, the conversation was forward looking. We were … Continue reading Cash On The Sidelines?
Since we’ve been chatting about 2025 investment returns, I thought I’d share this article about Dave Ramsey advocating an 8% “safe withdrawal rate” (SWR) for retirees. I generally think Ramsey is a pretty sensible guy – encouraging people to get out of debt, invest in index funds, and build generational wealth. Still, the idea of an 8% SWR seems more than a bit wild to … Continue reading How High Can You Spend?
For this year’s Christmas Countdown, I spent the month reveling in the nostalgic joy of mid-century modern / “space age” holiday designs. These are the holiday decorations that became popular in the 1950s and stayed that way when my brothers and I were kids in the 1960s and into the 1970s.
🎄✨🎅🏻 24 Days to Christmas:“Evergleam” silver tinsel trees were introduced in 1959 by the Aluminum Specialty Company of Manitowoc WI …
I turned 59½ this year. As we get close to the end of the 2025, that means we now have a green light into our 401Ks. With paid corporate board work behind me, our income has dropped sharply—in a good way. No W-2s, no consulting, just modest interest and dividends. We’ve been living off cash from selling our rental property, which has pushed our federal … Continue reading End of the Year Roth Conversion
We just finished a few wonderful days of holiday / fun activities with friends and family. We have more planned this week. We went to a terrific Lady A Christmas Concert, shopped an indoor Holiday Market, enjoyed lunches with friends, went to a fun Minnesota Wild game with buddies, drove my Jeep in a holiday light parade, watched a silly Hallmark movie, and were able … Continue reading The Calm Before Christmas
I was surprised to see WalletHub’s 2025 ranking of almost 200 markets for “best area to retire”. Link: Best Places to Retire It caught my attention because Orlando – where we are hanging out at our vacation place right now – was ranked #1 in the country. It was 1 of 4 Florida cities ranked in the Top 10 with Miami, Tampa, and Fort Lauderdale. … Continue reading Best Places to Retire?!
My sister-in-law posted this on Facebook last night and I found myself nodding with everything on the list. For us, early retirement has been a major enabler for all 7 of these “luxuries”. Plenty of time to live, more focus on keeping fit / playing sports, no work stress, sleeping in each morning, traveling without a care, home improvements as a spare time hobby, and … Continue reading Seven Things To Be Thankful For …
A friend who bought a new boat recently quipped, “if money doesn’t make you happy you aren’t spending it right.” Until recently, scientists debated that point, claiming that happiness topped out at about $75K/year in income. That’s now changing. New research suggests that more money makes you more happy up to well over $500K/year. That’s a big difference and seems to make a lot more … Continue reading Money & Happiness Reconsidered
One thing I don’t write a lot about in this blog is how I write this blog. I started it back in January 2015, when I was 15 months from executing my FIRE Escape. I began sharing since I didn’t see a lot of detailed, first-hand accounts of people that had reached financial independence & retired early and was craving information like that for myself. … Continue reading Blog Milestone …
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