Mr Plow came and scraped out our driveway this morning. It was just as I got back from walking our dog. I only knew because I received an alert on my phone that there was “motion detected” on our driveway. I watched him on my phone as he cleared everything … from 1,561 miles away in sunny Florida. I saw my neighbor (Hi, Mark!) in … Continue reading Mr Plow & January Snow
I have been eligible to live in a 55+ community for almost 2 years now. Still, our visit to Latitude Margaritaville in Daytona Beach last week, was the first time that we have ever visited one. It is quite a development. Pitched as a “55-and-better community inspired by the legendary music and lifestyle of Jimmy Buffett, built on food, fun, music and escapism.” it has … Continue reading Latitude Margaritaville, Daytona Beach
We’ve been in Florida for a little more than a week so far, and so far so good. This is the 4th year we have had an extended snowbird trip and we are getting good at it. In particular, the packing went well. It’s amazing that we can live here for 2.5 months on just what you see on the luggage cart in the photo. … Continue reading Packed Tight for Snowbirding
We’re back in Florida for our fourth year snowbirding from cold Minnesota. We toured models at the giant Latitudes Margaritaville/ Daytona Beach development yesterday. A weird thing happened when they asked us where we were from. Being from Minnesota, we had to sign an “Out-Of-State Non-Solicitation Affidavit” to acknowledge that we arrived “voluntarily”. What? Yes, apparently it is against Minnesota law for a Florida developer … Continue reading Wait, Sign What?
We’re back in Florida this winter, snowbirding from the Minnesota cold. One bucket-list item I got to do today was drive down the sands of Daytona Beach in a bright red Jeep with the roof panels taken off. That was fun! Recently, I’ve been reading about people’s disappointments with some of their bucket list experiences. It started with THIS POST on EarlyRetirement.org, where people shared … Continue reading Bucket List or Garbage Can?
This may be the shortest post that I have ever written. It’s one of my first experiences with artificial intelligence. If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT yet, it’s an artificial intelligence (AI) program that seems to be a real breakthrough. To test it out, I asked 5 common retirement questions and am posting the ChatGPT answers. All were copied word-for-word, from the first answers provided. … Continue reading ChatGPT Retirement Advice
I spent the evening of New Year’s Day (observed) tallying up the ugliness of our 2022 year-end financial performance. The returns weren’t great. Not at all. It looks like our retirement savings took a huge dive. Our retirement nest egg fell a whopping -16.9%. That’s much worse than I had imagined. Our losses were all centered in the plunge in our equities. The S&P 500 … Continue reading A Bad Year, A Good Place …
I often complain how slowly the future has developed. When I was a kid, I thought by 2022 we would all live in streamlined skyscrapers, have parks under glass bubbles, and monorails whooshing us around the city. Our life isn’t quite that seamless and elegant today, but sometimes incredible change happens right in front of us and we don’t even notice. This sign I saw … Continue reading Easy To Forget How Far Things Have Changed
Happy Twixtmas! Twixtmas? Yes, the time “betwixt” Christmas/Hanukkah & New Years. Say it to yourself in a haughty English accent and it might sound authentic … Twixtmas). Twixtmas is the latest way to describe the extended holiday season, formerly known as “Christmas Break”. It’s the time when many people are off work, or work demands slow dramatically because so many others are out of the … Continue reading Happy / Merry Twixtmas!
When I first started working in the late 1980s/early 1990s, we would keep our meager savings at the MegaCorp Employee Credit Union. I would walk down to the lobby of our 40-story tower almost weekly to make a deposit, transfer some money, or buy a CD. Buying & cashing Certificates of Deposit is something it seemed like we did all of the time back then. … Continue reading The Savings Rate Game
