People thrive with purpose. When you are working or have kids at home, your purpose is often derived from those things. When you early retire or become empty nesters, you need to find new sources of purpose. Some people do non-profit work, some get involved with their church, and some work on improving their community. People spend a lot of time looking for the right … Continue reading 40 Little Pieces of Purpose
Our son signed up for his company 401k plan as quickly as he could after starting work last month. The company has a good match, but he wants to make sure he is saving as much as he can to really put himself ahead in the future. He wondered how much more he needed to save – beyond the 401k to really be on track … Continue reading Playing The Percentages For Savings
A few weeks ago, a friend from high school posted that her brother had a bad heart attack and was saved by the use of stents, the same as had happened to me. She said he is doing all right, but asked me some questions about my experience as he was being released from the hospital. I hadn’t even realized that the day she contacted … Continue reading Healthy Six Month Check-Up
Inflation is one of the assumptions that our FIRE financial model is the most sensitive to. Even a half percent change in inflation over a 40 year retirement plan is hugely significant. We use an assumption that our spending inflation will be between 2.5-3.0% a year, which is slightly higher than what the official US Consumer Price Index (CPI) has averaged. I’ve read articles in … Continue reading How Fast Are Prices Really Rising?
At a backyard ‘social-distanced’ event last weekend, people were asking me about our early retirement. As is often the case, one person cut in and asked if my wife was still working while I was being a goof off. She doesn’t work, but the question always comes with a ‘gotcha’ tone as if they are suspiciously wondering if we are really retired – or am … Continue reading From This Day Forward …
You can file today’s post under the category, “You have too much time on your hands in early retirement.” But recently, I have unilaterally taken on the job of ‘rearranging’ the seasons of the year. You may not think the seasons need rearranging – nor that I am authorized by anyone to do this – but I have long noticed that the astronomical seasons are … Continue reading Rearranging The Seasons
Our son is just out of college and about 4 weeks into his career in software & web design. He signed up for all of his work benefits right away, including his health insurance and retirement 401K plan. He’s very thoughtful with his financial approach, but I saw an online chat about ‘Financial Advice For People In Their Twenties’ from the fatFIRE Facebook Group that … Continue reading Financial Advice For Your Twenties
June is typically the month of weddings, but the CV-19 pandemic has largely eliminated the big, traditional wedding. We were planning on attending a couple weddings this summer, but they have both been converted to small, family-only affairs. Such is 2020. Perhaps it is all for the best when it comes to the cost of hosting a big wedding. The analysis I did a few … Continue reading Small Wedding Sensibility?
I was surprised as anyone to see the stock market erase its 2020 losses last week in a remarkable reversal of the COVID-19 doldrums. Certainly the trillions in Federal stimulus spending and ‘loose money’ from the Federal Reserve has a lot to do with it. Minneapolis Federal Reserve Chief, Neel Kashkari – who had been involved in the 2008 TARP program and Fed initiatives during … Continue reading Stock Market Derisked?
Normally at this point of the year I provide an update on how our retirement portfolio is doing against the investment plan we laid out before early retirement. It takes a little time to crunch all the numbers and with the historically horrific headlines we’ve had this year, it might have been easy to just skip the update until later this year. Still, with the … Continue reading Unexpected Returns – Portfolio Update
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