More than a year before I early retired, I published my ‘Not Bored List’ – over 150 activities that I could look forward to each year in our new FIRE lifestyle. Putting it together was a bit of a confidence test of how effectively I thought I could fill my days when I had “too much time on my hands”. After three years, I assure … Continue reading Weekly FIRE ‘Field Trips’
Once again, vacation time is in the news with a new study by the US Travel Association showing that most Americans forfeit almost a week of paid vacation per year. The study – based on a survey of over 7K workers – says that people earn an average 23.4 paid time off days/year, but take only 17.2 days off. The time forfeited equals $66.4B in … Continue reading Vacation Days – Take Them All!
I was excited earlier this week to see that my recent article on the added everyday cost to operate our SUV compared with a less plush ‘sensible sedan’ was recognized as one of the RockStarFinance.com’s ‘Wednesday Hits’. It wasn’t the first time that one of my articles had been linked to by the good folks at Rock Star, and I don’t know how exactly they came … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Not-So Rock Star Finance!
A few weeks ago, a friend and I got together for lunch at a venerable, but soon to close, local ‘Dive Bar’ to catch up. At her retirement party last fall, I told her I’d treat for lunch if she made me a list of 10 observations on what it is like to adapt to a FIRE lifestyle. I’m sharing them here as a bit … Continue reading Monday Morning Inspiration – Fresh FIRE Insights
I recently had my SUV in the shop for some warranty work and they gave me a small sport sedan as a ‘loaner’ car for the morning. My SUV isn’t huge – and we use it as our family hauler – but I wondered out loud how much better a smaller vehicle might be for gas mileage. The technician added, “for the environment, too”. Here’s … Continue reading The Added Everyday Costs Of Driving An SUV
I like to scan the forums over on earlyretirement.org and sometimes I’ll even tally up up responses to a post to measure how people respond to certain questions. Recently someone provocatively asked “Are you still an athlete?” It drew a lot of comments so I went through them to see what other early retirees are doing athletically … Running was the most popular activity by … Continue reading Are You Still An Athlete?
File this phenomenon under the heading ‘I Don’t Get It’. Parents are now going into debt to fund their kids sports and extracurricular activities because they believe that the skills will help them earn more money some day. What? The recent survey from LendingTree.com, shows that 8 out of 10 of today’s parents believe that the money they spend on sports (30%), music (16%), dance … Continue reading Debt Spending On Kids Sports?
When our son turned 21 last year, he cracked that it was probably the last ‘big birthday’ number he would be excited to reach. I asked “How about age 100?!” Reaching age 100 is a mark that most people would aspire to reach, but it is exceedingly rare. Only about 0.02% of Americans have reached that age, although a recent AIG study / ad campaign … Continue reading Saving To Live To 100?
Good old MegaCorp is having a tough old time. After some really strong performance over the last 18-24 months, they have gotten themselves into a bit of a knot lately. Yesterday, the company reported sales & profits dropped, they reduced full-year investor guidance (even though it’s only Q1), and are slashing 2,000 jobs around the world. I connected with a few former colleagues and it … Continue reading Another Knot At MegaCorp
One of the many ‘rules’ most financial experts advise is saving for your own retirement before saving for your kids’ post-secondary education. The idea is like when you are on a plane – you should put on your own oxygen mask before helping your little ones with theirs. The curiously paradoxical thing about this financial advice is that no one I have ever met seems … Continue reading Save For Retirement Before College?
