One of the things I enjoyed about working was coming in every morning and looking at the sales & volume numbers of the businesses I worked on. Each day, we would get a Daily Volume Report that showed how many cases of cookies, canned soup, frozen pizzas, or yogurt cups had been ordered by our grocery customers and every Monday morning we would see how … Continue reading Lifestyle Change By The Numbers
Chicago, Illinois is known as the “City of Big Shoulders”. While it is in the middle of the introverted American midwest – it thinks big and carries itself as a hardworking blue-collar city. Little cultural pretense, yet world class sights and amenities. We’ve been to Chicago many times but hadn’t been there on a family vacation for almost a decade before we went for a … Continue reading FIRE Travel – Chicago, City of Big Shoulders
We dropped our son off at college yesterday to start his sophomore year. Naturally, I am reflective this morning about him and his adventures. He really had a productive summer. He worked part-time at a retail store and took three summer classes to get ahead on his Bachelor’s degree. My wife an I were astounded at how responsible he is. We met when we were … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Back To Campus
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
The Economic Policy Institute recently published some charts focusing on the state of retirement savings among working families in the United States today. I’m not sure what they determine exactly constitutes a ‘working family’ – since most Americans live in 1 or 2 member households – but assuming the definition is reasonably broad, the data was interesting. It showed the amount of retirement savings that … Continue reading Millionaire Status in FIRE – How Does Your Savings Stack Up?
As tomorrow is Independence Day, I will tell you that I never appreciated the idea of freedom as much as I do in early retirement. Living a completely autonomous lifestyle – independent of an employer’s bureaucracy, policy-making, or decision making – is the happiest way of living I can imagine. Even if I owned my own business, I would feel beholden to customers, employees, and … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Independence Day
This is it. This is the last week of the year since I left MegaCorp for early retirement last year and also the last chapter in a series of four posts about what I have been up to since last April Fool’s Day. This post focuses on the last two areas of the Life Wheel I created with goals in each area of my life … Continue reading First Year of Early Retirement (4) – Learn/Write & Giving/Teaching
On Sunday’s CBS 60 Minutes, they reported that 82% of likely voters are more disgusted than excited for the election. Regardless of your politics, neither candidate gets high marks for trustworthiness and there is a lack of confidence that the country is heading in the right direction. On this day before Election Day, I thought I would comment on the four key things that will … Continue reading What The New President and Congress Need To Address
My former boss at MegaCorp announced his pending retirement last week. It was big news with a number of people calling me and telling me about it from the office. He was immediately moved out of his role and put into ‘special projects’ until his final day on April Fool’s 2017. It’s exactly one year from when I departed, although I didn’t come close to … Continue reading From The Office Door To Door County
Today’s quote is absolutely true. People probably waste more money on cars than almost any other depreciating assets in their lives. I worked at a car dealer when I was in college and I still remember with shock how ‘upside down’ people would get in their cars and then rollover their debt to even newer cars on 60 and 72 month loans. That said, I … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Ridiculous Cars
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