I’m always interested in seeing how Millennials are doing since my son is that age and their money habits will play a big role in determining the health of the economy over the coming decades. Most of the financial press likes to focus on them as a group with poor money habits or as victims of the student loan crisis, but I’ve never found either … Continue reading Millennials: How Are They Doing?
The Federal Reserve cut their interest rate target yesterday by a quarter point, and the stock market fell about 1%. The cut was expected over the last couple weeks, and the market seemed excited about it, but now that it has happened, it feels like no one is satisfied. Such is the ambiguity that comes with watching what the market does on a daily basis. … Continue reading Fed Rate Cut Ambiguity
Add the name of NFL running back Adrian Peterson to the list of celebrities that can’t seem to figure out how to manage his prodigious wealth. Despite earning over $100 million dollars in his career, Peterson is apparently so broke that he cannot pay back millions in dollars of loans he took. In news reports they wrote it up as another case of an athlete who … Continue reading A Tale Of Two Running Backs
A few years ago, when we turned 50, we were greeted by invitations to join AARP, the American Association for Retired Persons. My birthday is 8 months before my wife’s, but for some reason hers came first. We didn’t join the organization, even though it’s only about $15 a month. I didn’t even give it much consideration, even though I’ve checked out personal finance articles … Continue reading AARP – Worth It?
We just got back from a week of vacation in Los Angeles and it was a pretty hectic week. We went on some studio tours, visited a few museums, caught a ball game, and went to the new Star Wars area at Disneyland. We tend to try to plan a mid-day break into our traveling whenever we can, but the Los Angeles traffic did not … Continue reading Life Caught In Traffic
Do you collect ‘visits’ to any places? Friend, neighbor, and recent retiree, Jeff, sent me a text today telling me about his new ‘collection’ of State Park visits. He liked the article I wrote a few years ago about my plans to have a list of at least 150 things I could do on any day in early retirement. He found 68 State Parks within … Continue reading Parks and Ball Parks
I have to admit that I wasn’t interested in buying anything on Amazon’s Prime Day, until I saw the highlights of the deals they have. Now there are all kinds of things that seem interesting to me for the big ‘Christmas in July’ sale. Related: Amazon Prime Day Deals Even though we are on vacation, I might take a break from the California sunshine and … Continue reading Prime Deals on Prime Days?
I’ve been a responsible adult for about 35 years, but I’ve enjoyed living a second childhood since we made our FIRE Escape in 2016. The pleasure of living in this ‘Kidulthood’ has become the key discovery of our lifestyle change. A few weeks ago, I shared my latest obsession with re-living the Apollo Mission history from my grade school days. Childish, maybe – but several … Continue reading Kidulting Again – LEGO Moon Landing
Readers were pretty negative when the year 2019 began – with good reason. The financial markets had sunk severely at the end of last year, the government went into a budget shutdown, and many so-called experts were saying that the next recession had already begun. If you like stability, there was very little to feel optimistic about on New Year’s Day when I published this … Continue reading Fast Start On 2019
I’ve noted before that the media loves to create hysteria & fear about early retirement. From Suze Orman’s cautions that the FIRE movement is “the dumbest personal finance decision people can make” to this recent article from CNBC focusing on the ‘Downsides of Early Retirement That No One Tells You About’. I thought it might be good to offer my own experience as a counterpoint … Continue reading FIRE: Everyone Has Their Own Reaction
