This is a big week at the Fire Station. It was 10 years ago that I set up the site and published my first post. That first week, I had 9 visitors with 28 views. I think most of the views were from me & my son! The concept of FIRE – Financial independence and Retiring Early – wasn’t brand new at that point, but … Continue reading Ten Year Anniversary
Today is the last day of 2024 – New Year’s Eve. It’s been a second very good year for investment markets and we’ll start seeing tomorrow if we are going to get a “three-peat” performance in 2025. Here are some of the predictions I’ve seen that will impact retiree finances in the New Year … Overall, it’s a pretty positive outlook for the economy & … Continue reading New Year’s Predictions
As I do every year at Christmastime, I countdown the days with posts that celebrate the season. This year’s countdown focused on classic holiday TV specials. I tried to line up many of them in the exact date in December that they originally aired …
Hope you enjoy, Merry Christmas!!
🎅🏻 25 Days to Christmas: Aired on Christmas Eve, 1964 – in the first season of Bewitched – Samantha takes a skeptical orphan to see Santa at the North Pole in “A Vision of Sugar Plums” (S1:E15)
❄️ 24 Days to Christmas: Dr. Robert Hartley spends Christmas Eve 1975 in the hospital in “Bob Has His Tonsils Out”. Set in snowy Chicago, this is one of many Christmas-themed episodes of the Bob Newhart Show (S4:E15) …
🎁 23 Days to Christmas – The Simpson’s have done dozens of holiday episodes, but “Marge Be Not Proud” is the highest rated. Marge copes with Bart shoplifting at Christmastime. (S7:E11) …
🎅🏻 22 Days to Christmas: “Mickey’s Christmas Carol” premiered on television on 12/10/1984 on NBC. December 10, 1984. It’s one of the highest rated adaptations among dozens of Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol” on IMDB …
Sending Christmas cards used to be a huge part of the holiday season. Families would sit down together, write personal messages, and mail cards to loved ones. I even used to sell engraved Christmas cards door-to-door in the Summer when I was in grade school. Still, the tradition is waning. According to the US Post Office, the number of Christmas cards sent through the mail … Continue reading Christmas Cards: A Tradition Gone By?
Apologies to Clement C. Moore … ‘Twas a Sunday in December, as day turned to night. Not a worry was stirring, all felt just right. No work tomorrow, no Sunday night dread. Just watching the Packers pull ahead! The TV was glowing, a warm, steady light. The Christmas tree twinkled, so peaceful and bright! There were no emails to answer, no meetings to plan. Just … Continue reading ‘Twas A Sunday In December
I went deep down the Social Security benefit timing rabbit hole this week. I built a little spreadsheet to look at SSI lifetime benefit at different “start ages” and added in the value of taking SSI pre-age 67 and investing it. These are my currently projected benefits from the MySocialSecurity website. I assumed a conservative 3% investment return on the early dollars. You can see … Continue reading One More Look At Early SSI …
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
My wife and I were already out looking at Christmas Lights on Friday night. The sun sets at about 4:30pm here in early December, so we got some hot cocoa at Starbucks, and enjoyed the red, green, and white glow of lights, blow molds, and inflatables. It’s an amazing amount of work that people put into these residential displays. Especially here in Minnesota where the … Continue reading Christmas Light Fight
I’m always fascinated by the different goals that people set for themselves in early retirement. Recently, I was chatting with MegaCorp colleague, Scott M, about his retirement in Arizona. He decided to take to the air and become a pilot! Here’s his story … Setting goals in retirement is one of the most fun and inspiring things I have ever done. It is a time when … Continue reading Flying the Friendly Skies
Short post this morning. I just wanted to share this scary chart I ran across. We all know that housing affordability is at a 4-decade low, but this chart really brings it home. The bars show what % of people are are able to get mortgages they can afford. Only 6% of home buyers (green bar on left) could do so within the traditional mortgage … Continue reading Housing Unaffordability
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