Our preseason softball practice was cancelled this week due to rainy, windy weather in the low 40s. While other parts of the country are already enjoying golf and baseball opening day, we are muddling through April. We’ve had some nice days in the 80s, but also below freezing temperatures and snow. Our unpredictable ’Spring Showers’ season is meteorologically frustrating. People are anxious to get outside, … Continue reading Cold & Rainy
I asked my AI illustrator app to picture 77 pints of beer on a bar top, but I think it went a little overboard with this image. I can relate. After a couple years of buying ‘Pub Passes’ and ‘Tap Room Passports’, I now have THREE of them to use in 2023. Those three books entitle me to a total of 77 ‘free’ beers after … Continue reading 77 Pints of Beer on the Bar
Quite unexpectedly this is the second post in an unplanned series about preventative insurance care coverage. After I posted on Monday about being charged for my annual check up, I ran across this article stating that annual check ups and other preventative care claims will no longer be covered under the Affordable Care Act. Link: Court Strikes Down Coverage of Preventative Care It seems that … Continue reading Preventative Care Coverage Prevented?
I’ve always been good about going in for my annual checkup, both when I was working and now 7 years into early retirement. I was blessed to work for MegaCorps that had on-site health clinics and executive health programs, that made it easy. I recently went in to our post-retirement clinic for my annual check up and was surprised to get a bill for $278 … Continue reading A Good Question To Ask At Your Next Check-Up
My wife & I took her Dad’s collection of old coins to an appraiser last week. Her father had collected them his whole life. We weren’t at all sure how much they might be worth. We learned a lot about the state of coin collecting today from the floor manager. It turns out, it’s not good. Not many young people are collecting coins anymore, they … Continue reading Collecting Coins?
With interest rates rising and housing prices up, it’s no surprise that home affordability is in the headlines. I thought I’d share these two charts that highlight trends in the ‘starter home’ market … First, this US Census chart is making the rounds as evidence that young people can’t afford homes … You can see that the gap between 35 & 65 year olds has … Continue reading Starting Out or Waiting – Homeownership
It’s pothole season and good friend and regular reader, “Bowmanifesto”, commented about the “financial potholes” that prevent people from reaching FIRE (financial independence & retiring early). Just like the potholes in the road, there are hundreds of financial hazards that we all need to dodge each year. Just like the holes in the road, financial potholes aren’t catastrophic, they are just annoying costs that add … Continue reading Financial Potholes – Ten To Dodge!
I have a friend who owns a car repair / body shop here in Minnesota who is enjoying a bumper crop of business from nasty potholes this spring. The roads are in such bad shape that you can see the old bricks & streetcar tracks poking through the broken pavement (upper right photo) near his shop, even though the trolley service ended almost 70 years … Continue reading Epic Potholes!
I really hate writing articles about political issues, but here I am again. The Biden administration’s student debt cancellation policy – which seeks to erase $430 billion in college student loan debt – is in the headlines again. We’re awaiting a Supreme Court’s decision on its Constitutionality, likely this June. It caused me to look a little into the scope of the “CRISIS” as it … Continue reading Stop Calling Student Loan Debt A “Crisis”
The failure of the Silicon Valley Bank – and subsequent other banks – garnered all of the headlines this week. Like many of you, I’m sure, my simple response was to double-check that none of our bank accounts had more than the FDIC $250K in them. I didn’t expect we had that much parked anywhere, but worth double-checking, I figured. We were, as expected, good. … Continue reading Banking Mess Involvement
MrFireStation 