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
Every year, PNC Bank calculates the “true cost” of the Twelve Days of Christmas. I wrote about it 7 years ago, when the twelve gifts, bought individually, cost $39.1K. Link: FIRE Station Fun – What Do The 12 Days of Christmas Cost? Link: PNC Bank – Cost of Christmas I’m not sure where you would procure most of the gifts in the Victorian musical fantasy, … Continue reading 12 Days of Inflation
This weekend, I met with my brothers (and wives) to talk about my Mom’s finances. We meet occasional over Zoom to discuss any pressing matters and I was getting a bit concerned about her exposure to scammers. So many people I’ve talked to have stories about their parent getting scammed over the phone or computer. My Mom has gotten some of these calls herself. They … Continue reading Locking Out The Scammers
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?!
No, that’s not the Ghost of Christmas Future in the picture today. That hooded AI villain is supposed to represent a cyber-attack! MrFireStation seems to have been attacked last week over Thanksgiving. Helpful reader and Doberman-like guard dog, Klaus Wentzel, noticed last week that his comments have been blocked. I found them in a “pending” bucket. He wondered if website traffic had ground to a … Continue reading Under Attack?
Just a quick post this morning to share this chart I came across from Visual Capitalist. I’m sure most readers here understand the difference between “mean” and “median”, but the gap between these is pretty shocking. I’m sure many would look at the “median” column and think they are doing OK. The fact is that half of these people are in a tough place if … Continue reading Mean vs Median Wealth
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 …
We went to my Mom’s senior center apartment on Saturday and enjoyed walking around a Holiday Boutique they were hosting. One of my brothers was there, too. While I was there, I took care of a couple bills she had. My Dad passed away last year and I became the primary “money guy” for my Mom. I had started taking care of their checkbooks, … Continue reading Long Term Care & Insurance
One of the terrific things about having a place in Celebration FL – the “town that Disney Built” – is that we have a regular stream of friends, family, and acquaintances that are regularly swinging by Walt Disney World for vacation. This past week we met up with a MegaCorp friend who comes to WDW pretty often. They retired to Florida, but live about … Continue reading It’s A Small World
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