I’ve been writing about personal finance and early retirement for more than two years now and have managed to not mention the topic of life expectancy once. Since there are only three real variables to use in planning for retirement – spending, investments, and life expectancy – after over 250 posts to this site, you can see how clever I’ve been in avoiding this ‘inevitable’ … Continue reading FIRE Planning For The Inevitable Future
. If you ask many people what defines the American Dream, they would say ‘owning your own home’. For decades, home ownership defined what being independent and successful looked like. More than just shelter, a home is viewed as an ever-giving fountain of financial security and status. That being the case, it is not surprising that Americans have poured more and more of their wealth … Continue reading Financial Analysis: The Impact of Trading Up Houses on Early Retirement
It’s hard to think about financial independence and retiring early separate from the concept of AGE. I’ve been early retired for a year now and I get the questions constantly: How old are you? You look too young to be retired? What will you do for the rest of your life? I retired two weeks short of my fiftieth birthday last year, and TODAY – … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Birthday Freedom
“If the value of the dollar goes crazy, owning gold gives me peace of mind,” says a friend of mine that is a certified ‘gold bug’. He believes that gold – as the ultimate basic currency – is a hedge against a sudden global geopolitical event that undermines the international system of currency. Gold is frequently in the news, featured on late night TV, and … Continue reading Gold – An Investment in Fear?
There is probably no one more quotable when it comes to personal finance and lifestyle advice than Ben Franklin. A prolific quipster, his proverbs on money and our relationship with it are short, snappy, and typically spot-on. Much of our cultural ethos on work and money come from Ben’s writings in his Poor Richard’s Almanac. It is a book I think I will add to my … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Cleaning Stuff Up
Now that we are past the one year anniversary of our early retirement in 2016, I promise I will get back to more posts that focus on the personal finance side as opposed to the lifestyle side of the change … I’ve written about a lot of the MILESTONES that led to our early retirement last year, but someone recently pointed out that I haven’t … Continue reading FIRE Milestones – Six Steps For Planning Retirement Spending
Tomorrow – April Fool’s Day, appropriately enough – marks the one year anniversary of leaving MegaCorp for early retirement last year. The year has gone very fast and filled with a lot of fun and terrific memories. I don’t have any words of wisdom to share other than TIME is the ultimate luxury and the sooner you can reach financial independence and early retirement (FIRE), … Continue reading FIRE Milestone – One Year Anniversary of Early Retirement!
A number of readers have been chatting about how many months they have until their own early retirement dates and how anxious they are getting. I started this blog when I had 15 months left before my FIRE escape date from MegaCorp. That seemed like a really long time at that point, but now when I reflect on it, it seems like no time at … Continue reading FIRE Station Fun – Let Me Count The Ways
This is the third chapter in a series of four posts that look at how our first year in early retirement has gone. This chapter covers activities related to Family/Friends and Work/Money. These are two of the busiest areas on my Life Wheel map and have been very satisfying. (Here are links to the FIRST and SECOND posts of this series) My goal wasn’t to … Continue reading First Year of Early Retirement (3) – Work/Money & Family/Friends
My Mom & Dad called recently to get my take on their Long Term Care (LTC) insurance. They’ve had a policy for fourteen years and recently got a notice from their insurer that their rates would be going up. The increase – stepped over the next few years – totaled a little more than +50% versus what they were paying now. If they didn’t want … Continue reading Long-Term Care Insurance – Cost/Benefit Tradeoffs
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