We are two weeks into our six week winter getaway to Florida and enjoying the summer-like weather. January had relatively mild winter weather in Minnesota, but now that we have escaped, the temperature there has absolutely plummeted. If you think of your vacation investment in winter as having a ‘return on temperature’, our 2021 outlay is looking like Bitcoin right now. As you can see … Continue reading Winter Summerland
We went to Walt Disney World on Wednesday morning and spent the day at one of our favorite places …. EPCOT Center. Before we left our rented townhouse, I peeked at my daily FaceBook ‘Memories’ which included this unforgettable post from exactly 5 years ago … The funny this is, I had forgotten it. You would think like a birthday or anniversary, you would remember … Continue reading Suddenly … Five Years
We just arrived in Florida for our ‘No Responsibility February’. I took this picture with my camera drone above Melbourne Beach on a beautiful 75-degree day. We visited with some Minnesota friends that are staying here with a beautiful ocean view. Leaving cold high-tax Minnesota for sunny low-tax Florida inevitably brings up the “should we move to Florida for 6 months and a day?” conversation. … Continue reading Sunny Skies & Lower Taxes
I promised an quick update on the progress of my refractive lens exchange surgery last month and the good news is everything has worked out extremely well. The first eye was done right after Christmas and the second eye two weeks ago. They removed my perfectly good, but near-sighted, natural lens and replaced it with a trifocal artificial lens that supplants any need for me … Continue reading The Eyes Have It
I like to tell my son – “my turn running the world is over, it’s your responsibility now.” With Biden now in office, I started looking at what impact the Democratic Party proposals might have on our household. I sold a lot of stock options for cash last year to get ahead of potential changes in tax rates, but that cash will only last so … Continue reading No Impact From Washington DC?
I just got this notification from WordPress that it has been 6 years since I started babbling nonsense through this blog. In January 2015, I still was 14 months from quitting my job and living a life of nonsense. This writing project was inspired as a way to perhaps help others think through their journey to early retirement. I found very few longer-form descriptions of … Continue reading Six Years Of Nonsense
Count us among the very, very lucky in 2020. Amid the craziness of a deadly pandemic, global race riots (that started in our metro area), and a rancorous Presidential election, we stayed healthy and our retirement nest egg did much better than expected. Last night I went through our year end numbers and updated the spreadsheet I use to track our portfolio. We’ve been enjoying … Continue reading 2020: A Most Unexpected Result
It’s always interesting to see what articles people responded most to at the end of the year. Some posts connect with current events, some were linked to by bigger websites, and some are perennial favorites. have several thousand hits. Top 2020 posts … 1. Time To Put Off Retirement? – This early-pandemic post (April 2020) pondered if it was a still a good time to … Continue reading MrFireStation’s Top 10 Posts in 2020
I took this cool picture on a hike with my friend, Russ (also retired), last week in a nearby state park. We took a number of hikes over the last few weeks on day trips away from our metro area – grabbing lunch at little places we came across. Former colleagues, we both recalled how busy MegaCorp used to be in December. As the last … Continue reading Enjoying The Amazing View
The writers at Kiplinger’s sometimes talk about retirement in three phases: the ‘go-go’ years, the ‘slow-go’ years, and the ‘no-go’ years. The phases relate to how capable people are to travel, take on new hobbies, and lead an active lifestyle. They break out the ages like this: ⁃ Go-Go Years: Ages 65-75 ⁃ Slow-Go Years: Ages 76-85 ⁃ No-Go Years: 86-100 It makes sense when … Continue reading When Does ‘Go-Go’ Become ‘Slow-Go’?
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