I am now closing in on my first full YEAR of early retirement. I will hit the anniversary mark on April Fool’s Day this year. It has been a terrific rotation around the sun and I haven’t regretted it at all. Not surprisingly, everyone is asking me “are you doing all of those things that you thought you would?” I wrote this post last March … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Possibilities
More than a year ago, I wrote this article contemplating whether or not I was more of an introvert or extrovert. Some people think that being an extrovert helps you in the business world and being an introvert helps you in retirement. The difference comes down to your need to be with other people to ‘find your energy’. Here is a link to that article: INtroverts … Continue reading Introvert or Extrovert?
One of my team members told me today that they are now on their “final lap”. We were talking about great cities to visit – my favorite is Rome – and they shared their plans to start traveling more in early retirement. Next year! This person plans on retiring on 5/1/16 after 35 enjoyable years at our dear MegaCorp. They’ve been a company loyalist for … Continue reading Roman Holiday In Early Retirement
I had lunch with a good friend this week who is just six weeks from her retirement date. I am very excited for her. She planned on retiring in a few more months, but moved up her date because she has “had enough”. Unfortunately, she is a little concerned about her retirement nest egg – which could probably benefit from the extra few months pay. … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun -Don’t Know, Don’t Buy
I thought our health insurance drama was over this year when we settled on a new plan during open enrollment in November. I wrote about our new plan then, which included a premium jump of more than 30% despite doubling our premium to $13K and dramatically dialing back the doctors and clinics we could go to in-network. As I wrote then, the insurance market in … Continue reading Early Retirement Health Insurance – Open Enrollment (Bonus Chapter)
Regardless of your politics, you can’t help but notice the discussion around minimum wage that has been on the news over the last year. I won’t make this post political, but at the risk of great blogging danger, I wanted to share some information I researched (as part of my Sociology class) that describes who minimum wage workers are. Afterall, many people start their journey … Continue reading Minimum Wage Jobs – Worker Profile
I had a beer and some pretzels with an old friend & colleague on a snowy day last week and caught up on his life and plan for financial independence and retiring early (FIRE). He has a few years to go before his FIRE escape date, but had questions about asset allocation as he gets closer to it. His horizon is about 7-10 years, so … Continue reading Bucketing Assets For Early Retirement
Of all of the posts that have been published on this site in the last two years (over 265 articles), one of the most consistently popular reads is this one about the FIRE Milestone of Reaching Millionaire Status. As when I wrote it, I think there continues to be a certain power in the concept of being a millionaire and the fact that that the … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Millionaire Life
We’ve continued our effort to organize this January and continue to make progress. We keep our financial records pretty streamlined, but I recently looked at an official guide to how long you are supposed to retain records. MFS Funds – formerly Massachusetts Financial has a ‘handy’ guide they publish that covers financial records from A to Z. Unfortunately, as I compared it to what we … Continue reading Organizing for FIRE – Financial Files
It’s nice to start the new year in an organized way and my wife and I have long practiced a habit called “Round-Up Day” to get our financials in order. Jane Bryant Quinn wrote about this useful concept in her book Making The Most Of Your Money. Once a year, you spend a day rounding up all of your bank statements, investment accounts, and checkbook … Continue reading Organized for FIRE – Round-Up Day
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