As expected, the financial markets are having a very crazy week. Starting Monday, with a shocking -3,000 point DJIA drop (-13%), the week was filled with volatility. It wasn’t the environment I expected to find any opportunity in, but on St Patrick’s Day (Tuesday), I think I found the ‘Luck of the Irish’. Longtime readers have heard my woeful tale of crashed MegaCorp stock options … Continue reading Lucky Inflection Point?
It’s hard to know even what to say this morning. I’ve heard that “every bull market is the same, but every bear market is different” because they are triggered by a unique economic disasters. That’s certainly the case now as I fear the market will open today with another 1000 point drop based on the DJIA futures. While these are unique times, they are causing … Continue reading Advice From A Century Ago
We just got back from our Florida snowbird experiment and we really enjoyed ourselves. We stayed at a terrific villa in a sprawling Orlando resort complex. The weather was great for the most part, we met up with a lot of friends, and we enjoyed many of the fun things to do. While the villa is just a fraction of the size of our home … Continue reading Downsizing Day Coming?
If you travel internationally a lot, you may have what I have: little ziplock bags with extra bills & coins in foreign currency. I probably have a hundred US dollars worth of Japanese Yen, Israeli Shekels, UK Pounds, Czech Crowns, and EU Euros from trips we’ve taken over that last 10-15 years. It seems that at the end of each trip I have local currency … Continue reading Funny Money
We had a frosty beverage with an old friend recently that we had not seen since before I stopped working 4 years ago. He was astounded that I had retired early and asked if we had made any lucrative investments to make it happen. I told him that our investment strategy had been pretty vanilla – simple index funds in our 401ks and after-tax brokerage … Continue reading Keep Savings Simple
Consumer confidence is a big part of the economy’s ongoing performance. If people believe that things are going well, they are more likely to go well. It’s not a perfect correlation, of course, but it is better than the opposite. With that in mind, I was encouraged to see the latest numbers from Gallup on how Americans are feeling right now. They polled people on … Continue reading Americans Feeling Positive About Their Financial Positions
Paul Simon lamented “all the crap I learned in high school” and I tend to agree with him. I wasn’t a great student, but most of the coursework wasn’t great either. Much of it was too specialized or abstract to have value to most students. A new North Carolina state requirement is putting a personal finance course into their classrooms. I think this is terrific. … Continue reading Financial Literacy In The Classroom
A survey in a recent online group asked early retirees if they work with a professional financial advisor. I was surprised to see that the great majority (about two-thirds) of folks did not. While I always tell people you need to be knowledgeable enough to be your own primary financial advisor, it’s nice to have a professional financial advisor as a secondary resource. That is, … Continue reading Do You Have A Financial Advisor?
This Wednesday, the high temperature in Minnesota where we live will be 0F degrees, while in Orlando FL it will be a balmy 82F. While our home, family, and ‘life’ are here in the cold, we’ve decided to engage in some ‘weather arbitrage’ and escape to Florida this winter. I wrote about Snowbirding a few years ago with the advice of my friend Russ and … Continue reading Snowbirding Practice 2020
I think we’ve made it! The biggest concern that most early retirees have is how they will manage the cost of health insurance between leaving MegaCorp and gaining retiree benefits or Medicare eligibility. It’s a topic I’ve provided many updates on over the last 5 years because health insurance is an expensive and dynamic market. This is the last year of open enrollment where we … Continue reading Health Insurance – Open Enrollment
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