Early Retirement 10th Anniversary reflections from Mrs. Fire Station … It’s been 10 years since I piped in on this blog of my husband’s. When we were having lunch in Washington DC a few weeks ago, he asked me to reflect on my thoughts on the 10 years since we both retired. Related: The Better Half / Thoughts From Mrs. Fire Station I’ll admit … Continue reading Cheers to 10 Years – Mrs. Fire Station
When I left the office 10 years ago this month, I never could have imagined the incredible good fortune our equity investments would benefit from over the full decade of our early retirement. As you can see below, S&P 500 returns over that period of time have average a hefty 14.1% with dividends reinvested! Our portfolio also includes bonds, real estate, and cash – but … Continue reading Cheers to 10 Years of Good Fortune
Today’s the day. 10 years. No April Fool’s Day. It’s been a full decade since I stopped working on April 1, 2016. Related: Blasting Out of MegaCorp Naturally, such a foolish anniversary has gotten me wondering what I have done with all of that extra time. If you take 60 hours/week of working & commuting time and multiply it over 48 work weeks/year across … Continue reading Cheers to 10 Years!
If you just glance at raw numbers, it looks like housing has gone completely off the rails. This Certified Foolish Planner – with over a half million followers – thinks so at least. He wants to know “who broke housing”? He writes that the public has been victimized by high housing prices … It’s true that in 1976, you could buy a home for $44K … Continue reading No One “Broke” Housing!
Every year I play the game with my Sirius / XM Radio service. I have it in my SUV and use the app on my phone. I’m not a huge user, but I do like having it. The ongoing problem – as with many subscription services – is that they jack up the price every year if you don’t renegotiate. Over the last year, I’ve … Continue reading AI-Driven Savings
It’s been about three years since we started playing the “Savings Rate Game” (LINK) with Bank CDs and Treasury Bonds. That is, having to manage the savings rate of our cash holdings closely. The 3-Year Treasury rate is now at about 3.5%, down -0.6 pts from one year ago today. When Biden took office in 2021, the 3-Year Treasury was just 0.3%. We didn’t even … Continue reading Savings Rate Game Revisited
I took Monday “off” this week from posting. I’ve kept a pretty tight schedule of posting on Mondays & Fridays for years, but I figured I’d just post once this week. The reason is that we were simply enjoying early retirement. There’s something about the winter in Florida that makes retirement feel more real and enjoyable. If retirement is like “permanent vacation”, it feels especially … Continue reading No Responsibility January
Since we’ve been chatting about 2025 investment returns, I thought I’d share this article about Dave Ramsey advocating an 8% “safe withdrawal rate” (SWR) for retirees. I generally think Ramsey is a pretty sensible guy – encouraging people to get out of debt, invest in index funds, and build generational wealth. Still, the idea of an 8% SWR seems more than a bit wild to … Continue reading How High Can You Spend?
Frequent contributor, Klaus Wentzel, mentioned that his dividend-driven portfolio was roughly +8.5% in 2025, after netting out the year’s living expenses. I’m watching the Sugar Bowl right now, so I thought I would add up how our portfolio ended the year. For benchmark’s sake, the S&P 500 was +16.6% (x-dividends) and the bond market (VBMFX) was +3.0%. We finished the year with a pleasing +14.3% … Continue reading Terrific 2025 Returns
Wednesday is the last day of 2025, so I thought it was a perfect time to assess the “expert” predictions from New Year’s Eve last year. I looked up a bunch of predictions at the time, and at the end of the year, only 6 of the 14 have been resolved positively. 8 of the predictions were worse that expected. 🟢 +11.5% – S&P 500 … Continue reading New Years Predictions Assessed
