When people talk about reaching retirement, they often talk about what their ‘number’ is. That is, how big their nest egg needs to be to make them fully financially independent and empowered to walk away from their job into early retirement. The “other number” that people don’t talk so much about is life expectancy or lifespan. Clearly saving for retirement is a function of both … Continue reading Your ‘Other Number’ – Lifespan
People thrive with purpose. When you are working or have kids at home, your purpose is often derived from those things. When you early retire or become empty nesters, you need to find new sources of purpose. Some people do non-profit work, some get involved with their church, and some work on improving their community. People spend a lot of time looking for the right … Continue reading 40 Little Pieces of Purpose
Our son signed up for his company 401k plan as quickly as he could after starting work last month. The company has a good match, but he wants to make sure he is saving as much as he can to really put himself ahead in the future. He wondered how much more he needed to save – beyond the 401k to really be on track … Continue reading Playing The Percentages For Savings
A few weeks ago, a friend from high school posted that her brother had a bad heart attack and was saved by the use of stents, the same as had happened to me. She said he is doing all right, but asked me some questions about my experience as he was being released from the hospital. I hadn’t even realized that the day she contacted … Continue reading Healthy Six Month Check-Up
Inflation is one of the assumptions that our FIRE financial model is the most sensitive to. Even a half percent change in inflation over a 40 year retirement plan is hugely significant. We use an assumption that our spending inflation will be between 2.5-3.0% a year, which is slightly higher than what the official US Consumer Price Index (CPI) has averaged. I’ve read articles in … Continue reading How Fast Are Prices Really Rising?
At a backyard ‘social-distanced’ event last weekend, people were asking me about our early retirement. As is often the case, one person cut in and asked if my wife was still working while I was being a goof off. She doesn’t work, but the question always comes with a ‘gotcha’ tone as if they are suspiciously wondering if we are really retired – or am … Continue reading From This Day Forward …
You can file today’s post under the category, “You have too much time on your hands in early retirement.” But recently, I have unilaterally taken on the job of ‘rearranging’ the seasons of the year. You may not think the seasons need rearranging – nor that I am authorized by anyone to do this – but I have long noticed that the astronomical seasons are … Continue reading Rearranging The Seasons
People are doing all kinds of things to improve themselves during the pandemic and ‘Great Lockdown’. They are learning new skills, taking up interesting hobbies, and trying to improve their fitness. One effort I am making is to read more books. I recently saw a news report that if you read just a half hour a day, you will be 1,600 books smarter throughout your … Continue reading Summer Family Reading Club
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
