Northwestern Mutual does a nice annual study on the ‘state of retirement’ in the USA. It’s a pretty exhaustive analysis that looks at all aspects of life and our involvement and satisfaction with each dimension. Link: Northwestern Mutual 2025 ‘Planning & Progress’ Study I was surprised by a few of the numbers from this year’s study and thought I’d share them. First, Americans are pretty … Continue reading Retirement Confidence
About once a year, some dusty old post from this site will “pop” and go viral. My post on private label grocery products from May of 2017 is the latest. Link: National vs Store Brands For some reason, it’s the top read post of 2025, after sitting mostly ignored for the last 8 years. After its 2017 debut (with a few hundred views), it fell … Continue reading Store Brands Revisited
These two bags of groceries (plus a couple gallons of skim milk) were a whopping $107 at Target today. I’m old enough to remember when our grocery bags averaged $15 each. That rule of thumb was from 35 years ago (in 1990) when we first got married and watched every $ closely. Related: Cut Those Prices In Half! I know prices have been rising, but … Continue reading Sticker Shock
We’ve been trying to sell our rental townhouse for the last 3+ months with no avail. The housing market, which is now being called “the worst in decades” – has dropped precipitously under the weight of high prices, high interest rates, and low wage growth. In the last 3+ months, we’ve dropped our price three times, re-carpeted, and re-painted the unit – but nothing seemed … Continue reading Free At Last …
I continue to be a bit obsessed with learning about air conditioning, since our central air unit went out in our vacation place in Florida last week. We’re back home in Minnesota now, and have had a few hot days here, too. Our air conditioning is happily chugging along, set at about 72° – day and night. I know people who keep it much warmer … Continue reading Air Conditioning & Energy Costs
The country is in peak summer right now and I’ve never been more thankful for central air conditioning. Except … when it’s not working. I spent the last 4 days at our condo in the Sunshine State and it was HOT & STEAMY. How hot? This was Thursday & Friday … mid 90° temperatures with humidity taking the “feels like” to 120° …! On tropical … Continue reading Peak Summer & Air Conditioning
I recently saw an interesting thread that discussed “How Can You Tell Someone Is Rich?” That is, what are the signs that someone has money, even if you just met them? It caught my attention because high on the list was “they retired from work in their 40s”. Here are some of the responses that people said suggest someone is rich … In general, these … Continue reading Signs Someone is Rich …
The housing market has done quite a flip in the first half of 2025 and we’ve gotten caught up in it. Our rental townhouse is still sitting unsold after almost 90 days on the market. After several years of low real estate inventory, homes for sale have started to surge as buyers have disappeared. This chart from Redfin shows the issue … Even as more … Continue reading Where Have All The Buyers Gone?
It’s good to see the stock market trending up after the chaos of the initial Trump tariff actions this year. The S&P 500 today sits up +2.6% from where it started the year. Still, I’m not quite sure how to read my portfolio. The bond side of our holdings are flat, but the US Dollar – which all of these investments are enumerated in – … Continue reading Investment Returns vs Dollar Strength
The simplest route to FIRE (being financially independent & retired early) is to spend less than you make. That is, simply put … to SAVE. Unfortunately, Americans have never been good savers. I last lamented on this in April 2020, at the start of the pandemic lockdowns. We were told that Americans were such poor savers that the pandemic required the government to bail everyone … Continue reading Personal Savings Rate Update
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