When I was starting in my career, it wasn’t clear to me how much we should have saved in our twenties & thirties. This was before the Internet and there was a real dearth of useful information available. Recently, my former MegaCorp Boss sent me an interesting article from Quicken that shared the median retirement savings and savings goals decade by decade for Americans. I … Continue reading Retirement Savings – Benchmarks & Goals
Once, two of my brothers skipped elementary school to “play hooky”. They left home, but instead of going to school, they went to the park. After they were playing on the playground equipment for a while, the younger brother said, “where are all the other kids?” “Other kids?” the older one replied. “Yeah – doesn’t it take a lot of kids to play the game … Continue reading Where Are All The Other Kids?
Someone recently asked online how much cash or other ‘safe/liquid’ investments did people carry into early retirement as a buffer against a market downturn. It’s an important decision to make heading into retirement and it was the final financial preparation we put into place ourselves. About 3 years before I left MegaCorp, we started accumulating a pile of cash equal to 3 years of spending. … Continue reading Benchmarking: Cash / CD Buffer
Here, I’ll say it: I would be willing to pay more taxes. Surprised? Well, there’s a catch. I’ll be willing to pay more taxes if it was combined with reduced government SPENDING to help eliminate federal debt. That’s a small ‘catch’ for ordinary Americans balancing their own checkbooks, but a seemingly impossible catch for politicians. I’m honestly amazed at the amount of taxes the Democrats … Continue reading Tax Increases
Our FIRE friend, PhysiciansOnFire.com, hosts a Facebook group called ‘FatFIRE’. It’s a place for folks living comfortably, financially independent & retired early (or aspiring to be) can discuss different personal finance topics. It’s a remarkable group with over 18K subscribers. A few days ago, someone posted an interesting question: “What % of your assets are in cryptocurrencies?” (Excluding real estate). I’ve had a long-running interest … Continue reading How Much Are People Betting On Cryptos?
In investing, it is often better to be lucky than right. I was very lucky with some predictions that I made this exact week last year and doubly lucky that the market didn’t behave the way I thought it would! Simply put, I predicted that Biden would win the Presidency, that there was a good chance the Democrats would take Congress, and they would work … Continue reading Great Timing (Accidentally)
I went to buy a Coke at a convenience store this week and the clerk accidentally said “good morning” when it was already pushing 1pm. When she realized her mistake, she happily said, “I guess time is going by fast … which is good for me!” Such is the nature of selling your time to your employer (or your clients). Time going by fast should … Continue reading Don’t Wish Your Time Away
That’s a picture of the pool house in our neighborhood. Our development is a great place for raising kids, although we are out of that business now. Other people our age are starting to move to smaller places. Sometimes we feel like we should downsize too, but I don’t think the benefits play out very well for us in today’s housing market. We’ve looked around. … Continue reading No Benefit To Downsize
For someone that writes a personal finance blog and loves driving, you would think I would be more attuned to gasoline prices than I am. My wife can always tell you what the current gas prices are, but I seldom even notice how much I’ve paid to fill the tank. If you also haven’t been paying attention, gas prices are up almost a full dollar … Continue reading Concerned About Gas Prices Yet?
I am so old, I can remember the day that Dow Jones Industrial Average permanently broke the milestone value of 1,000. It was in December 1982 – when I was still in high school. I was enough of a business & investing geek even then to recall reading about it in the newspaper. Now, with the DJIA pushing almost 35x that landmark, I’m astounded to … Continue reading Stock Market Volatility
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