I’ve written before that for me, social media plays a very positive role in early retirement for keeping in touch with people. I’m pretty tech-involved and use a number of different platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn – in pretty different ways and different amounts of engagement. Related: Social Media in FIRE The one platform that I use the least is LinkedIn. My … Continue reading Hardly Linked to LinkedIn Anymore
I’ve been gone from work for 4 years as of April Fool’s Day and even though 4/1 was more than three weeks ago, I never even reflected on the anniversary as it passed. In previous years, I’ve written a post to articulate how things are going, but I guess after this much time, early retirement has just become who I am. Last Friday I had … Continue reading Zooming Back To MegaCorp
We’ve discovered during the CV19 crisis that my wife and I have a different degree of devotion to emergency preparation than some other folks do. I thought we were pretty well set with our emergency prep planning from when our son was in Boy Scouts, but we’ve quickly learned we aren’t prepped nearly as well as we thought we were. Related: Emergency Preparedness for CV19 … Continue reading Stocking Up
“I wish I had the time” has become an ironic phrase for so many folks now stuck at home during the coronavirus crisis. Suddenly, there is time to get after all of the projects you never had time for … but will we? Perhaps Anna Kendrick has it right … We’ve gotten some projects done at home in the last month, but there is a … Continue reading Yes, We Have The Time, Will We Use It Productively?
Some folks that are retired find it helpful to get ‘business’ cards printed up with their name, address, phone number, and email address. A retired friend recently gave me his. I wasn’t even a big fan of handing out business cards when I was at MegaCorp, so I would have never thought having them when you are not working was a ‘thing’. People say they … Continue reading Who Are You?
I started looking at the topic of America’s growing debt before the coronavirus pandemic spread. Across all age groups, debt has been accelerating rapidly for the last two decades, and I’m sure it has gotten much worse now. This chart, from a CNBC article, shows the magnitude of the debt problem, with perhaps the greatest growth happening among older Americans … As the chart shows, … Continue reading Debt Has Spread Like A Virus
They say that all of the cable & streaming channels are getting a big boost during the COVID-19 shutdown. Everyone is at home and looking for something to watch on TV other than the grim nightly news. I like watching TV and we have a few series that we are watching regularly now, including ’Outlander’, ‘Survivor’, and ‘LEGO Masters’. We even started watching the absurd … Continue reading TV Time?
It was good advice. I had it written in a cell at the bottom of the first budget spreadsheet I put together thirty years ago: “Keep 3-6 months spending in an emergency fund. More if you smell layoffs coming.” We had just gotten married, we were watching every penny, and we viewed it as an important first step. We took the emergency fund principle from … Continue reading Locked Up
As expected, the financial markets are having a very crazy week. Starting Monday, with a shocking -3,000 point DJIA drop (-13%), the week was filled with volatility. It wasn’t the environment I expected to find any opportunity in, but on St Patrick’s Day (Tuesday), I think I found the ‘Luck of the Irish’. Longtime readers have heard my woeful tale of crashed MegaCorp stock options … Continue reading Lucky Inflection Point?
It’s hard to know even what to say this morning. I’ve heard that “every bull market is the same, but every bear market is different” because they are triggered by a unique economic disasters. That’s certainly the case now as I fear the market will open today with another 1000 point drop based on the DJIA futures. While these are unique times, they are causing … Continue reading Advice From A Century Ago
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