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
I turned 59½ this year. As we get close to the end of the 2025, that means we now have a green light into our 401Ks. With paid corporate board work behind me, our income has dropped sharply—in a good way. No W-2s, no consulting, just modest interest and dividends. We’ve been living off cash from selling our rental property, which has pushed our federal … Continue reading End of the Year Roth Conversion
This weekend, I met with my brothers (and wives) to talk about my Mom’s finances. We meet occasional over Zoom to discuss any pressing matters and I was getting a bit concerned about her exposure to scammers. So many people I’ve talked to have stories about their parent getting scammed over the phone or computer. My Mom has gotten some of these calls herself. They … Continue reading Locking Out The Scammers
Just a quick post this morning to share this chart I came across from Visual Capitalist. I’m sure most readers here understand the difference between “mean” and “median”, but the gap between these is pretty shocking. I’m sure many would look at the “median” column and think they are doing OK. The fact is that half of these people are in a tough place if … Continue reading Mean vs Median Wealth
We went to my Mom’s senior center apartment on Saturday and enjoyed walking around a Holiday Boutique they were hosting. One of my brothers was there, too. While I was there, I took care of a couple bills she had. My Dad passed away last year and I became the primary “money guy” for my Mom. I had started taking care of their checkbooks, … Continue reading Long Term Care & Insurance
A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to tag-along with a farmer friend, Andy, during his corn harvest. It was a beautiful October day and I took the above picture with my drone. The crew of 3 knocked out about 50 acres on that a single day – roughly 500,000 pounds of corn. Most of that corn, he told me, will eventually make … Continue reading Fields Of Fuel
Happy Halloween! Candy prices are up this year, but we’re still splurging on the full-size chocolate bars. We switched to the big bars 10 Halloween’s ago – the year I early retired. My AI research tool thinks that the price of Halloween candy has roughly DOUBLED since 2016, so you might think we’re cutting back. No, our stock market investments have gone up … Continue reading Happy Halloween Splurge
What is your “worry free” spending limit? A cup of coffee? A bouquet of flowers? A restaurant steak? A new golf driver? When we got to a certain net worth, I recall thinking that anything under $20 or so was basically “free”. That is, even if spent every day, $20 wasn’t enough to materially impact our financial trajectory over the longer term. It was … Continue reading Worry Free Splurges
The 2025 stock market has been a case study in “follow the bouncing ball”. We were up (inauguration), down (“liberation day”), way up (tariff pause & lower interest rates), and now not up as much (China issues). The volatility with Trump isn’t unexpected given his history, but it has been quite a financial ride in 2025. When we returned for the first time in 6 … Continue reading Follow The Bouncing Ball
