Product and Service Reviews

Is It Worth It to Open a Credit Card With a Huge Annual Fee?

Is It Worth It to Open a Credit Card With a Huge Annual Fee?

8 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Product and Service Reviews, Spending / /

Yeah, this was something I was initially against. Why on earth would anyone pay that much money to open a credit card?! After several years of thinking that way, I’ve since changed my mind. And I recently applied for and got a credit card with a $395 annual fee!! It was something that we’d never done before. Premium cards like this are expensive and they never seemed worthwhile to us. Sure you get some good perks with them, but could […]

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This Set of Dumbbells Is So Good That My Cheap @#$ Just Spent $300 on Them!

This Set of Dumbbells Is So Good That My Cheap @#$ Just Spent $300 on Them!

20 Comments / Health and Fitness, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Product and Service Reviews, Spending / /

Working out is something I’ve made a priority in my life since reaching early retirement at the end of 2018. I’ve worked out at home, done different gyms, and even bought an over-priced set of dumbbells in the U.S. while we were living in Panama just so I’d have something to use when visiting. Now that we’re back in the U.S. to live, I needed to figure out what I’d use for my workouts here. I initially planned to use

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The #1 Best Way To Track Credit Card Rewards

The #1 Best Way To Track Credit Card Rewards

8 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Product and Service Reviews / /

We’ve been leveraging credit card travel rewards for several years now. It’s given us the ability to travel the world either for free or very inexpensively. The biggest hurdle though is figuring out a good way to track credit card rewards. I wrote in my post, Travel Rewards, 12 Free Flights Earned in 9 Months!, that I had created a spreadsheet to track credit card rewards for ourselves. I use it all the time and it’s a freebie I share

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Taking Stock – A Breath of Fresh Air on the Path to Financial Independence

Taking Stock – A Breath of Fresh Air on the Path to Financial Independence

4 Comments / Product and Service Reviews, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE) / /

Several months ago, Jordan Grumet asked me if I’d like to read an advance copy of his new book, Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life. I met Jordan at the personal finance conference FinCon a number of years ago. He was such a likable guy, interesting to talk to, and very insightful. That could also be why he’s run a successful podcast for years now. It’s called the Earn &

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Planning a Road Trip… Learning From 3 Simple Mistakes

Planning a Road Trip… Learning From 3 Simple Mistakes

12 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Product and Service Reviews, Road Trip, Spending / /

In 2020, we bought a 2012 Honda Pilot and took off across the country for over a month. Even though we were planning a road trip this big, we didn’t focus too much on every detail. Instead, the goal was simple – take advantage of the less empty roads and sites during the pandemic and tour the country. Sometimes we’d sleep in the back of the Pilot, other times we’d do some tent camping, and periodically we could stay the

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Why I Now Consider Visible To Be the Best Cell Phone Provider

Why I Now Consider Visible To Be the Best Cell Phone Provider

33 Comments / Product and Service Reviews, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Saving / /

The good news is that when you’re trying to find the best cell phone provider, you have several good options to choose from. The bad news is that the most well-known carriers are generally stupidly over-priced and they tend to nickel and dime you for everything. What many people don’t realize, however, is that you have other options. You can move to a provider where you can get the same exact coverage for a fraction of the cost. This is

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The #1 Easy Way We’re Getting the Southwest Companion Pass

The #1 Easy Way We’re Getting the Southwest Companion Pass

8 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Product and Service Reviews, Spending / /

The Southwest Companion Pass is considered by many to be the holy grail of travel rewards. By letting you bring along a second person for free on all Southwest flights (except for a few dollars in tax), it can be a huge money-saver! Not only that, but the airline makes the Southwest Companion Pass extremely easy to use. It’s simply a matter of booking a reservation and once confirmed, tacking on your companion to it after. We’ve had the Companion

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One of the Best Money Books I've Ever Read

One of the Best Money Books I’ve Ever Read

14 Comments / Product and Service Reviews, Debt, Education, Saving, Spending / /

I just finished one of the best money books I’ve ever read. It’s vastly different than other books I’ve read over the years… and that’s a good thing. Alternating between reading fiction, non-fiction money-related books, and non-fiction books unrelated to finance works well for me. I love learning new takes on money but I don’t want to become completely absorbed in it. I also want some time for fiction to take me away periodically and allow my imagination to take

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Estate Planning 101 – Getting Your Affairs in Order

Estate Planning 101 – Getting Your Affairs in Order

3 Comments / Estate Planning, Insurance, Investments, Product and Service Reviews, Real Estate / /

I just finished reading a book called Estate Planning 101 by Vicki Cook and Amy Blacklock. If you haven’t gotten your affairs in order yet, this book can really help get you on track. You can check out the book here. Let’s be honest – estate planning isn’t the most exciting topic. That said, it might be one of the most important subject matters you ever focus on. I dug into this quite a bit in 2013, a few years

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Switching to Ezoic Increased My Ad Income by 628%!

Switching to Ezoic Increased My Ad Income by 628%!

16 Comments / Self-Employment, Blogging, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Product and Service Reviews / /

I switched the ads on my website from Google AdSense to Ezoic a few months ago and I have to say that I’m astounded by the results! Seeing an increase in ad revenue of over 7x what I was making before is pretty crazy. Let’s start with this though – I’m not a big-time blogger. If you think this site was the catalyst for us to reach early retirement… yeah, not so much. The money we’re talking about is still

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