Our friends and us sometimes debate the “vibe” of snowbirding in Florida versus Arizona. I would guess that about 2/3rds of our friends opt for Florida and 1/3 opt for Arizona. We were undecided until a few years ago when my wife noted that although we’ve been to both many times, when we’ve chosen Florida over Arizona at about a 3:1 ratio for vacations over … Continue reading Sunshine State Snowbirding Vibe
Mr. FireStation has been tied up with a family emergency over the last week. Coincidentally, regular reader, “Klaus” Wentzel offered to step in with a post, which was great. Klaus and I have never actually met in real life, but he often shares very insightful comments. This post is based on one of his observations from a couple years ago that is relevant today. Thanks, … Continue reading What is Your Household’s Largest Budget Item?
I never planned on making any money off of this blog or monetizing the traffic in any way. Still, if it had exploded into millions of readers and I received a 8-figure offer to buy it, this is the kind of place I would have wasted some of that money on … a real fire station! This one is for sale in the French Quarter … Continue reading The Real Mr. Fire Station
We’re back in Florida for our fourth year snowbirding from cold Minnesota. We toured models at the giant Latitudes Margaritaville/ Daytona Beach development yesterday. A weird thing happened when they asked us where we were from. Being from Minnesota, we had to sign an “Out-Of-State Non-Solicitation Affidavit” to acknowledge that we arrived “voluntarily”. What? Yes, apparently it is against Minnesota law for a Florida developer … Continue reading Wait, Sign What?
We’re back in Florida this winter, snowbirding from the Minnesota cold. One bucket-list item I got to do today was drive down the sands of Daytona Beach in a bright red Jeep with the roof panels taken off. That was fun! Recently, I’ve been reading about people’s disappointments with some of their bucket list experiences. It started with THIS POST on EarlyRetirement.org, where people shared … Continue reading Bucket List or Garbage Can?
This may be the shortest post that I have ever written. It’s one of my first experiences with artificial intelligence. If you haven’t heard of ChatGPT yet, it’s an artificial intelligence (AI) program that seems to be a real breakthrough. To test it out, I asked 5 common retirement questions and am posting the ChatGPT answers. All were copied word-for-word, from the first answers provided. … Continue reading ChatGPT Retirement Advice
I spent the evening of New Year’s Day (observed) tallying up the ugliness of our 2022 year-end financial performance. The returns weren’t great. Not at all. It looks like our retirement savings took a huge dive. Our retirement nest egg fell a whopping -16.9%. That’s much worse than I had imagined. Our losses were all centered in the plunge in our equities. The S&P 500 … Continue reading A Bad Year, A Good Place …
The Big Man – Santa Claus – is back on his throne at our local shopping mall after a two year, pandemic-induced absence. It’s great to see him back. Unlike most guys, I love going to the mall and looking around. A UK study from a few years ago said most guys get ‘fatigued’ after just 27 minutes of shopping, while women don’t reach that … Continue reading Mega Shopping @ Mega Mall
About 10 years ago, I was one of those goofballs you see on the evening news waiting outside a store at midnight around Black Friday for the “big new thing”. Our son was excited for the debut of the Nintendo Wii U game console that was being released that night. I got there at about 9:30 PM and waited for the store to open for … Continue reading Not A Video Gamer
I took Thanksgiving weekend off from writing, but thought I would share this funny bit I saw posted on Reddit recently. It’s perfect for framing life in the ‘slow lane’ of early retirement… An Airbus 380 is on its way across the Atlantic. It flies consistently at 800 km/h at 30,000 feet, when suddenly an Eurofighter with a Tempo Mach 2 appears. The pilot of … Continue reading Slower, Older, and Smarter
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