Like a lot of people, we are sitting on the sidelines right now when it comes to making any travel plans. One of the crazy things about this pandemic is that there is no where to go to hide from it. I read recently that it has spread to over 200 countries. We didn’t have any travel booked when the outbreak began, but we were … Continue reading Thinking About Post-Pandemic Travel?
With global governments printing trillions of dollars, Euros, Yuan, and Yen to keep economies from going illiquid, I thought now would be a good time to check on Bitcoin. Longtime readers will recall I took a ‘hobby stake’ in Bitcoin back in early 2017 to test my thesis that cryptocurrencies have a role as a more reliable ’store of value’ than government-managed currencies. I have … Continue reading Bitcoin Amid CV19
I’ve been gone from work for 4 years as of April Fool’s Day and even though 4/1 was more than three weeks ago, I never even reflected on the anniversary as it passed. In previous years, I’ve written a post to articulate how things are going, but I guess after this much time, early retirement has just become who I am. Last Friday I had … Continue reading Zooming Back To MegaCorp
We’ve discovered during the CV19 crisis that my wife and I have a different degree of devotion to emergency preparation than some other folks do. I thought we were pretty well set with our emergency prep planning from when our son was in Boy Scouts, but we’ve quickly learned we aren’t prepped nearly as well as we thought we were. Related: Emergency Preparedness for CV19 … Continue reading Stocking Up
The Washington Post columnist, Ezra Klein, once quipped that our Federal Government should be described as an “insurance company with an army”. If you look at government spending, it is dominated by social insurance programs (Social Security & Medicare) and military spending. Combined, these two areas account for about 75% of Washington DC’s annual outlays. The billions of dollars of COVID-19 ‘stimulus checks’ that are … Continue reading Our National Savings Dilemma
“I wish I had the time” has become an ironic phrase for so many folks now stuck at home during the coronavirus crisis. Suddenly, there is time to get after all of the projects you never had time for … but will we? Perhaps Anna Kendrick has it right … We’ve gotten some projects done at home in the last month, but there is a … Continue reading Yes, We Have The Time, Will We Use It Productively?
Some folks that are retired find it helpful to get ‘business’ cards printed up with their name, address, phone number, and email address. A retired friend recently gave me his. I wasn’t even a big fan of handing out business cards when I was at MegaCorp, so I would have never thought having them when you are not working was a ‘thing’. People say they … Continue reading Who Are You?
Many are calling the COVID-19 crisis the end of the FIRE movement (financially independent, retired early). The narrative is that no one can now afford to retire early since the market fell apart last month. Many expect that we’ll see a huge number of people retiring much later, but I don’t think that will be the case. First, the average age of retirement has not … Continue reading Time To Put Off Retirement?
I started looking at the topic of America’s growing debt before the coronavirus pandemic spread. Across all age groups, debt has been accelerating rapidly for the last two decades, and I’m sure it has gotten much worse now. This chart, from a CNBC article, shows the magnitude of the debt problem, with perhaps the greatest growth happening among older Americans … As the chart shows, … Continue reading Debt Has Spread Like A Virus
They say that all of the cable & streaming channels are getting a big boost during the COVID-19 shutdown. Everyone is at home and looking for something to watch on TV other than the grim nightly news. I like watching TV and we have a few series that we are watching regularly now, including ’Outlander’, ‘Survivor’, and ‘LEGO Masters’. We even started watching the absurd … Continue reading TV Time?
MrFireStation 