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 …
I read today that 85% of Americans think “the country is heading in the wrong direction.” It was from a new Associated Press survey and reflects the country’s angst with inflation, interest rates, immigration, CV19 response, and other issues. 85% – I guess the country isn’t DIVIDED anymore! 🙂 For Independence Day weekend, however, I would rather focus on what has made us SUCCESSFUL as … Continue reading Happy Economic Freedom Weekend!
They say we vote with our dollars, so I was interested when someone recently asked online, “What are you boycotting until the day you die?” The post had over 3 thousand responses, so I quickly tallied through a bunch until I had a good sense of the top ones people mentioned over & over again … The fact that many of these are the biggest … Continue reading What Are You Boycotting?
I came across this Japanese concept of ‘Ikigai’ when I was watching the Olympics last month from Tokyo. It’s a term to discussing the key dimensions of your ‘reason for being’. This graphic from the Toronto Star is a good look at it, although you will find many others on the internet as well. You can see that Ikigai represents the intersection of 4 overlapping … Continue reading Ikigai in FIRE
If you are like me, you have seen first-hand the struggle many businesses – especially restaurants – are having hiring enough employees right now. An acquaintance who owns a prestigious restaurant company in our metro area said they are so short-handed, they are running at only 50% capacity. As a result, I’ve been tipping extra since the pandemic began last year. I like restaurants and … Continue reading Eating Out & Tipping Trends
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