This is the second post in our summer travel series and I thought I would feature one of my favorite cities in the whole world, Barcelona. If a city every stood by the name ‘colorful’ – it would be Barcelona. On a hot summer day & night, there is something truly magical about the Catalonian capital that give it a funky, laid-back, and romantic vibe. … Continue reading FIRE Travel – Barcelona, Spain
Earlier, I wrote a few posts on financial failures on our route to financial independence and early retirement (FIRE). The idea was to share that everything hasn’t been challenge-free on our route to a life of goofing off. Today’s story isn’t patently a financial failure, but it runs completely counter to the advice that you might typical hear as you build your retirement nest egg. … Continue reading Financial Failures – Taking Loans From 401k
Travel is a big part of our early retirement plans, so I thought I would start a Friday morning summer series on a number of places that we have enjoyed visiting and would recommend. We have good friends that are originally from the Czech Republic and they hosted us on our first overseas trip there about 12 years ago. It was a fantastic visit and … Continue reading FIRE Travel – Prague, Czech Republic
Some say not to ignore the LITTLE things each day because you might discover that they are really the big things in life. I have written a bit about some of the big things that have changed in our life since retiring early last year. The BIG things are the easy things to notice that aren’t to hard to figure: I am a lot more … Continue reading The Little Things In Life
We declined on rejoining the boat club we belonged to for the last five years and now that the weather has jumped up into the 80s, I’m wondering how much we will miss it? Financially, it certainly was a terrific deal. We paid $3K a summer and had unlimited uses of a terrific fleet of speedboats, cruisers, pontoons, and water ski boats. I wrote in this … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Boat Life
Many people are concerned about the impact of the Baby Boom generation will have on stock market returns. The fear is that with so many people retiring at once – and cashing out their retirement accounts – Wall Street is sentenced to lower than historical returns over the next 15-20 years. Baby Boomers, currently aged 53-71, according to Pew Research, are half into retirement … Continue reading Baby Boomer Retirements Won’t Hold Down Market Returns
Roger Moore, most well-known for his seven movies as James Bond, passed away earlier this week at age 89. It was a long, grand life for this military officer and well-known actor, who in addition to acting served as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations/UNICEF and was knighted by the Queen for his charitable work. Moore was the Bond that i grew up with in … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Bond On Life
Readers that know me know that I spent my career working for MegaCorps and largely running branded food businesses. My job was leading a team to figure out the best way to get consumers to choose our soup, yogurt, granola bars, or frozen pizza over our competitors – which included the low priced store brand. With TV advertising, cents-off coupons, new flavors, sponsorships, “new & … Continue reading FIRE Savings – Store Brand vs. National Brand Products
One of the funny things about being retired early is that people are always suggesting jobs that you can do. People say, “Oh, you should get a job as a golf course ranger,” or “With your extra time, you could get a side hustle flipping houses”. Many people focus on what you have given up – a job – and forget all that you gained. … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Gaining Work?
We live in the suburbs and every year our city has a city-wide garage sale weekend that raises money for the local Lion’s Club. It’s an amazing event with hundreds of garage sales across the city – dozens in every neighborhood you drive into. They say that over 5,000 people come to our city for the event and it is not uncommon to see several … Continue reading Garage, Yard & Tag Sales – Love Them & Hate Them
