Before I left MegaCorp last year, I had the chance to speak with a room of 20 of our newest MBA recruits who were in a leadership development program for the company. While I was wrapping up my career, most of them were just a few years into their career. I was giving them an update on a digital marketing initiative taking place across the … Continue reading “50% Rule” To Retire In 20 Years
Readers that know me know that I spent my career working for MegaCorps and largely running branded food businesses. My job was leading a team to figure out the best way to get consumers to choose our soup, yogurt, granola bars, or frozen pizza over our competitors – which included the low priced store brand. With TV advertising, cents-off coupons, new flavors, sponsorships, “new & … Continue reading FIRE Savings – Store Brand vs. National Brand Products
We live in the suburbs and every year our city has a city-wide garage sale weekend that raises money for the local Lion’s Club. It’s an amazing event with hundreds of garage sales across the city – dozens in every neighborhood you drive into. They say that over 5,000 people come to our city for the event and it is not uncommon to see several … Continue reading Garage, Yard & Tag Sales – Love Them & Hate Them
Recently a good ‘friend-in-law’ posted this interesting chart on where Americans spend their money. The chart is not just for this year, but for the past 75 years (all numbers adjusted for inflation) using a single data source. Take a look at how amazing this chart (from howmuch.net – a cost information web site. It really causes me to reflect on our lifestyle today. How the way … Continue reading Over 75 Years, Consumer Spending Starts At Home
We enjoy the whole Christmas season, especially attending events and parties with family and friends. While those activities are the highlight of the holidays for me, we also exchange gifts as a family on Christmas morning. The older your kids get (and the older you get) the bigger challenge it becomes to find meaningful presents for each person. Since we are already into the first … Continue reading Christmas Gift – Festive Framework
I wasn’t sure how many ‘parts’ there may be to our health insurance open enrollment this year, but we got it sorted out pretty quickly. While the cost increases are dramatic, the fact that there are actually less options to look at makes the shopping process relatively quick. Not painless, but quick. You’ll remember from our earlier post that our incumbent health insurance provider was … Continue reading Early Retiree Health Insurance – Open Enrollment (Part 2)
The shower head in our bathroom is starting to drip. Our house is about seven years old and I’m sure there is some rubber washer that probably needs to be worn out. Now that I early retired, I guess I am going to have to figure out how to fix it. It’s not the only drip that happens at our house that probably needs tending … Continue reading Drip-Drip-Drip: Reoccurring Payment Schemes
With the holidays upon us, I ran across studies from the American Research Group, US News & World Report, and the National Retail Federation that look at planned Christmas gift spending for 2015. I was surprised by many of the numbers from the studies and compared it to our own holiday shopping habits at the Fire Station. 55% of Americans went holiday shopping on Thanksgiving Weekend … Continue reading Christmas Shopping By The Numbers
Early retirees talk about the pleasure & independence that comes with walking away from the workplace and living their lives to the fullest. At the same time, they also talk about the shift in mindset that comes from no longer actively accumulating their savings, but continuing to actively spend it.
One opportunity to spend less comes from the costs that are solely work-related. For me those expenses fall in two key categories: lunches at work and dry cleaning bills. I recently went on Mint.com, where I track our spending to see how much these expenses add up to annually. Continue reading “The Price of Work – Everyday Expenses”
Ben Franklin wrote, “A penny saved is a penny earned”. Quite true, but another perspective might be that “A dollar saved, takes you three steps toward financial independence”.
Why is that? Here’s how I count the three ways: First, a dollar saved is a dollar you can spend tomorrow; second, it is a dollar that will grow and give you more dollars in the future; and third, by not spending on things you don’t really need, you keep your lifestyle cost one dollar less in the future. That’s it – three dollars for every one saved.
The last point assumes that our future lifestyle has some relationship with what we spend today. Retirement experts suggest that we plan for 70-80% of our pre-retirement expenses in retirement. More if you want to splurge on Continue reading “Triple Play Formula For Inflating Your Nest Egg”
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