Search Results for: $5,000 tax return

Why a $5,000 Tax Return Refund is Actually Good News

Why a $5,000 Tax Return Refund is Actually Good News

22 Comments / Taxes and Financial Planning, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

There are some folks out there who are enthralled by the idea of taxes.  The idea of working on their tax return actually excites them every year. I’m far from being one of those people. Taxes… borrrrring! Unfortunately, love ’em or hate ’em, if you’re in the U.S., you’re stuck with doing a tax return every year. There’s a part of taxes though that I don’t really get.  It’s the idea that if you get money back on your tax […]

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Squeezing Out Higher Returns – 5 Minutes of Work for Short-Term Gains

Squeezing Out Higher Returns – 5 Minutes of Work for Short-Term Gains

28 Comments / Investments, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Saving / /

Being aware of opportunity can be extremely valuable in building your nest egg. This doesn’t mean veering from the path – sticking to your investment plan is highly important to growth. You put the money in (broad-based index funds for this guy) and then just leave it alone to do its thing… with some regular rebalancing once or twice a year. But what about taking advantage of higher returns for the short term? As early retirees, we get our annual

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Getting a 7.12% Return With Series I Savings Bonds

Getting a 7.12% Return With Series I Savings Bonds

20 Comments / Investments, Saving / /

Yeah, you read that right… a 7.12% return with Series I Savings Bonds. Sounds pretty good, right? Right now, it’s a real struggle to figure out what to do with the cash you’re just sitting on. I talked about that in a post earlier this year, “We Have a Lot of Cash in Hand Now… Too Much!“ The problem is that interest rates are so low. While that’s great if you’re buying a house, it’s not so good on the

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Unveiling the Pros and Cons of ACA Healthcare in Early Retirement: Our Story

Unveiling the Pros and Cons of ACA Healthcare in Early Retirement: Our Story

36 Comments / Insurance, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement, Product and Service Reviews / /

There are likely thousands of blogs and websites dedicated to pursuing financial independence and early retirement if desired (FIRE). These can be extremely beneficial for the motivation you’ll likely garner and for the potential of finding new ideas to streamline your approach. That said, there aren’t a ton of blogs from folks who have made it to the point of reaching early retirement. Figuring out the math and how to get there is one thing, but knowing what actually transpires

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RV Boondocking: Spending a Little Money on 3 Changes Now to Reap Huge Savings and Enjoy a Better Trip Later

RV Boondocking: Spending a Little Money on 3 Changes Now to Reap Huge Savings and Enjoy a Better Trip Later

4 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Road Trip, Spending / /

This past spring, Lisa and I bought an RV travel trailer – a 2022 Jayco Jay Flight SLX 7 184BS to be more exact. We’ve never owned an RV and we didn’t know much about them. All we knew was that our family of three had two incredible month-long road trips in our Honda Pilot in 2020 and in 2022. So why not try something bigger just because we can? That led us to planning a 9-month road trip, buying

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Opening the Books to Our Investment Portfolio

Opening the Books to Our Investment Portfolio

49 Comments / Investments, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Saving, Spending / /

Ah, how time flies! In February 2019, I wrote a post called The Breakdown of Our Net Worth Savings & Investments that detailed our investment portfolio at the time. As you’d expect, it broke down all our assets and liabilities and gave a good snapshot of our financial picture. This was just a couple of months after I had retired from the corporate world so it gave us a pretty good baseline to start our retirement. But holy schnikes –

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The Fascinating Reason We’re Traveling Over 500 Miles To Buy All Our Furniture

The Fascinating Reason We’re Traveling Over 500 Miles To Buy All Our Furniture

27 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Real Estate, Spending, Travel and Vacation / /

Yes, you read that right – we’re going to be traveling over 500 miles just to bring furniture back to our place… an apartment we don’t even have yet. After two years and eight months of living in Boquete, Panama, it was time to move back. We took a bus to Costa Rica, traveled to Ajijic Mexico where we spent 8 nights, and then enjoyed 3 nights at an all-inclusive resort in Cancun that surpassed our expectations. As of last

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We’re on a Bus to Costa Rica Right Now! Here’s Why…

We’re on a Bus to Costa Rica Right Now! Here’s Why…

14 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Panama, Spending / /

You read that right… I’m typing this entire blog post while on a bus to Costa Rica. We took a taxi from our home in Boquete, Panama to David (also in Panama). Then we got on a Tracopa bus around 9 am that’s taking us all the way to San José, Costa Rica. By the time it’s done, we’ll have been on this bus to Costa Rica for probably 8-9 hours. You might think of this as a grueling day,

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The Rent vs Buy Dilemma… Does It Matter?

The Rent vs Buy Dilemma… Does It Matter?

28 Comments / Real Estate, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Life in Early Retirement, Saving / /

One of the most debated topics in the personal finance space revolves around the question of rent vs buy. On one side of the fence, you have the folks marching to the beat of, “You’re throwing money away when you rent… when you buy, you have something to show for it down the line.” And on the other side of the fence are those that say, “Yeah, but renting can cost a lot less money with excess to be invested…

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Health Insurance in the U.S. – How We'll Keep Costs Low

Health Insurance in the U.S. – How We’ll Keep Costs Low

33 Comments / Insurance, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Health and Fitness, Life in Early Retirement / /

The subject of health insurance in the U.S. tends to make people cringe immediately when thinking about it. And rightfully so! I don’t think anyone can argue that the system in the U.S. is broken. It’s overly complex, the costs are out of control, and something needs to change. Now, we might all have different thoughts on what should be done, but we all know that something needs to be done. Unfortunately, though, the choices are pretty limited. If you

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