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?
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 …
It’s as if the financial press WANTS people to be poorly prepared for a happy retirement. This chart from CNBC – dubiously thought of as a business channel – suggests the amount of savings people should have at different ages before retirement. A friend sent it to me a while ago and I think it’s simply terrible. First, the chart starts with the frequent financial … Continue reading Inadequate Advice for Saving
Northwestern Mutual just published their 2022 Retirement Planning & Progress study. It’s not a surprise that people are quite worried about the huge drop in their retirement accounts & soaring inflation over the last year. As a result, people are concerned their savings are way behind. Still, this chart was quite surprising to me. It shows that almost one-half of Americans have no idea how … Continue reading Ignorant Is No Way To Go Through Life
With inflation (CPI) running a hot 8.3% for the twelve months ended in August, the Federal Government is busy adjusting numerous spending & tax parameters for the new year. Social Security is leading the way with a 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment for 2023. Here are some of the other changes due to inflation: IRS tax bracket “break points” are going up 7.0%, on average. The standard … Continue reading IRS Changes Don’t Keep Up With Inflation
With Halloween in the air this month, perhaps it’s fitting that regular reader and disciplined dividend investor, Klaus Wentzel, sent me this outstanding case study in fighting ‘Vampire Fees’. You know, those hidden fees and billing changes that companies increasingly tack onto our routine bills? Klaus has had extraordinary success in getting into the details of his monthly bills and uncovering hundreds of dollars in … Continue reading Fight Those Vampire Fees!
My son sent me this hopeful chart today. It shows how the stock market has fared following a 25% decline in the S&P 500 over the last 70 years. Of course, as they say, past performance is no predictor of future performance. Still, it is nice to see that big market drops have historically turned back to growth rather quickly. I had hoped that our … Continue reading When Will It Turn?
We’ve had a new round of bad economic news, but I can’t get too excited about it, even though it seems like a pretty severe storm. I think I’ve fallen victim to “bad news fatigue” after two years of the pandemic, rising inflation & interest rates, and declining investments. Just in the last couple weeks … ⁃ The stock market erased all the gains since … Continue reading Weathering The Storm
We’ve had a lovely time staying at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island this week. It was a terrific place to spend our anniversary and the weather was fantastic. The Victorian island experience here with no cars – only carriages & bicycles to get around – is really enchanting. As I wrote recently, staying at this hotel has long been one of my wife’s Bucket … Continue reading Midwestern Getaways
It’s hard to find good financial news lately, so today I thought I would take a step back and look at a longer period of time. It’s easy to get get caught up in the day-to-day headlines, but if you are going to reach financial independence and retire early (FIRE), you have to be focused on the big picture. The chart below shows the S&P … Continue reading Taking The Long View
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