Every few days, a message will appear in my email box from someone looking for help on a consulting project. When I first retired, I’d do dozens of these in a year for as much as $500/hour. Many of them led to extended contracts. Lately, however, I hardly respond to them at all, other than to say “thanks for thinking of me.” The issue with … Continue reading Dialing Out Of Consulting
Since Roman times, they have described August as the “Dog Days” of Summer. Our little pupper, Riley, hasn’t gotten the message. When it is hot or humid outside, he prefers to stay inside … snoozing where it’s nice and cool. On Tuesday this week, I was up early to take him for a walk. The heat of the day had not settled in yet, so … Continue reading Outside … From Dawn To Dusk
A friend who bought a new boat recently quipped, “if money doesn’t make you happy you aren’t spending it right.” Until recently, scientists debated that point, claiming that happiness topped out at about $75K/year in income. That’s now changing. New research suggests that more money makes you more happy up to well over $500K/year. That’s a big difference and seems to make a lot more … Continue reading Money & Happiness Reconsidered
One thing I don’t write a lot about in this blog is how I write this blog. I started it back in January 2015, when I was 15 months from executing my FIRE Escape. I began sharing since I didn’t see a lot of detailed, first-hand accounts of people that had reached financial independence & retired early and was craving information like that for myself. … Continue reading Blog Milestone …
Do I stick to a budget? No, I don’t even have a budget anymore. I’ve become completely un-analytical in retirement. I used to be good at it. When I was working, I built complex spreadsheets to track our annual budget, our net worth, and projections of what we needed in retirement. Since retiring, much of that has gone by the wayside. I stopped tracking our … Continue reading (I Guess) We Are On Budget …
A short post for a busy Friday … When I chat with friends, I often say that when it comes to money, we all have more than we need by any global standard. We also have a higher standard of living than we would have expected growing up in the 1960s-70s-80s. Because of this, I believe that time is the ultimate luxury. Time to live … Continue reading Bob Dylan: “What’s Money?”
Internet memes get posted by the millions each day and most of them aren’t worth the time you spend looking at them. That’s why today’s post is pretty silly. I saw this dubious meme tonight and got suckered into analyzing it five different ways. There are a lot of dimensions to the claim in this meme – time, inflation, houses, cars, college – and for … Continue reading Life Was Financially Better … When?
A friend had some work done on her house recently and posted online that she was happy to see the vendor using products from the MegaCorp she recently retired from. I too continue to have some loyalty to the MegaCorp packaged goods brands I once worked on. But, it is only that … “some loyalty”. I’m not completely brand loyal just because they still send … Continue reading MegaCorp Loyalty
Our pupper, Riley, celebrated his half-year birthday recently and my wife observed that based on an online calculator, he is now 27 years old in human years. I was surprised that he is already ‘older’ than our adult son by a couple years. It’s shocking to think about how quickly the little pup is aging. As most everyone knows, dogs age at about a 7:1 … Continue reading Dog Days of Life
I’ve been booking a lot of travel recently. We’re heading to Europe in September for a biking trip and going back to Florida next winter. Between those two big trips there are a few smaller trips in the midwest. All together, I booked an amazing 91 nights away from home across the 4 trips. (71 of those were for our winter snowbird trip alone). I … Continue reading Award ‘Winning’ Travel
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