I published our FIRE Travel Framework a couple years ago and thought I would send out a link to it again today, as we have taken our big trips for 2018. Our budgeting for travel has worked out very well. We have been taking trips 4x a year – or roughly once a season since we stopped working: Sunny Winter Trips: Disney World, Los Cabos, … Continue reading Travel Framework Update – Bonus Trips
Last week my wife and I had the opportunity to visit an Amish settlement in southern Minnesota. We went on a three hour tour of Amish farms with a private guide who knew the families well and was welcome on their farms and businesses. There are about 800-900 Amish that live in the area on dozens of farms. It was really interesting to learn a … Continue reading Amish Approaches to Financial Independence
We watched the movie “The Italian Job” a few nights ago. It’s the heist movie where Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, and company steal and re-steal $35 million in gold bars. It got me thinking about the trend in gold prices since I last wrote this article almost 18 months ago: LINK – Gold: An Investment In Fear? Despite being considered an excellent hedge against inflation … Continue reading Time Yet For Gold?
The economy is performing about as well as one could hope at this point in time, but you wouldn’t know it to watch political ads on TV. Despite quarterly GDP growth reaching 4%, the S&P 500 up +30% over the last two years, the unemployment rate at 3.9%, and consumer confidence approaching all-time highs – every political ad is full of gloom & doom. Despite … Continue reading Mid-Term Elections – Plan For More Inflation?
Autumn is in the air and for the third straight year, that finds me back on campus. One of the most interesting things I’ve been able to do in Early Retirement is take university classes on a variety of subjects. Two years ago, when my own son was just starting college himself, I took advantage of a university parent’s program to take Freshman Sociology. It … Continue reading Autumn On-Campus – Lifelong Learning Classes
Perhaps because it is a midterm election year, the media is filled with stories about the “Death of the American Dream”. This is a popular political narrative that both major parties love to play on – and play against each other. Vilifying the other party for “ruining America” has long grown tiresome to me, but politicians must see some utility in playing it out election-after-election. … Continue reading Achieve The American Dream In Just Three Simple Steps?
Earlier this week I turned on the TV as I was making myself breakfast. The game show, “The Price Is Right” was on and kicking off their 47th season and an Emmy win with a special episode. Everyone was dressed in formal wear and one contestant won $100,000! I loved this show when I was a kid. I’m old enough to remember when it was … Continue reading Not Much ‘Price is Right’ in Early Retirement
Someone recently started a thread on Reddit asking “What is your biggest financial mistake/regret?” I posted a couple articles on our biggest mistakes in the past and so I perused the Reddit thread to see if our misery had some company. Here were the responses – in order of how often people mentioned them: Spent too much on college/an impractical major (6) I was surprised … Continue reading Biggest Financial Regrets – Have Any?
I received what I call an ‘excessive velocity tax’ – more commonly known as a speeding ticket – a couple of weeks ago on a charity road rally to Chicago and back. I wasn’t really ripping down the road when I was pulled over (above picture). In fact, both my navigator and I felt that we were merely moving at the speed of traffic. Nonetheless, … Continue reading Cost of a Speeding Ticket – Worth It?
I’ve written before that the biggest difference that I’ve come to associate with early retirement is that your fundamental relationship with the concept of TIME changes. That is, instead of time being USED as a resource of productivity, it becomes SAVORED as a resource of lifestyle enjoyment. Recently, I’ve been reading the magnificent history book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. It might be the best … Continue reading A History of Time & Timekeeping
