If you get guys of a certain age together, they’ll start talking about how they need to get rid of their old vinyl records. I have a buddy who is moving this weekend and after giving his adult kids anything they wanted, he ended up donating the rest of his LPs to the local thrift store. I’m in a similar situation. I was the Music … Continue reading Mr Zero
I’ve always been more “indoorsy” than “outdoorsy”. Growing up, I was more at home in the library than at a campfire. Still, early retirement gives you the time to try new things. Five years ago, a friend got me started on visiting MN state parks. Each year – usually in the autumn – I’ve gone on a road trip to visit & hike in a … Continue reading Unlikely Outdoorsman
An online group recently discussed the question “what are some ways that you SPLURGE or treat yourself in retirement?” Over 740 people responded to the question with many saying that a lifetime habit of pinching your pennies for the future is a difficult habit to break. Far and away the top comment was “More Travel” – especially upgraded with first class seats, 5 star hotels, … Continue reading 80 Ways People Splurge
I aim to be more prepared than the average bear, but this past week has taught me that I am often completely unprepared. You would think with the amount of time I have as an early retiree to get things done, I wouldn’t ever fall behind. Still, I certainly do. We had an unusual power outage at our house on Sunday. It lasted from about … Continue reading Falling Behind
With the horrific news of the last couple weeks and the anniversary of 9/11, I’m doing my best to focus on my own life and not “doom scroll” the frightful headlines. Sports is a perfect respite for doing that. It’s the first full summer that I haven’t been battling any injuries. Two years ago, I was a wreck with a pulled achilles and back pain. … Continue reading Sports > Headlines
Football season is here and that means the start of the betting season, too. I turned on the NFL RedZone channel yesterday at noon and see it is now presented by Draft Kings – one of the big online betting sites. Fan Duel is their key competitor – they have an exclusive deal with ESPN and the ESPN app that I often check for scores … Continue reading Football (& Betting) Returns
About a week ago, I got this provocative fortune in a cookie at a Chinese restaurant. It’s not often that you get interesting admonitions from Panda Express, but this one got us talking. My wife and I couldn’t think of many things that we had done that were “scary” over the last 5-10 years (a blue moon is once every 30 months, on average). … Continue reading Scary Fortune
The website, Ooma, recently published this interesting infographic comparing the states for the cost of living for retirees. They used 9 different dimensions for their ranking It’s a looooong infographic, so I broke it into key components so you can see the comparisons more easily. How does your state compare? I wasn’t surprised to see that our primary home state of Minnesota ranked in … Continue reading Retirement Cost of Living
My brother and I used to joke at frequency of news articles declaring something to be “America’s Fastest Growing Sport”. Every new sport seemed to claim the title, including disc golf, ultimate, handball, roller hockey, ‘slam ball’, and arm wrestling. I’ve played a lot of those sports, but Pickleball might be the current fastest-growing sport – and the one that breaks through with lasting, mass … Continue reading Fastest Growing Sport?
Just a quick post this morning. I wanted to share this data I just came across in the Wall Street Journal. If you want to feel good about how your retirement savings are going, just compare your savings with these mean & median figures from across the USA. I’m guessing if you found your way to this site, you are running well ahead of the … Continue reading Mean & Median Net Worth
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