Saving

The Secret to Scoring the Cheapest Southwest Flights

The Secret to Scoring the Cheapest Southwest Flights

6 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Saving, Spending / /

Do you believe that decades ago, I used to hate Southwest Airlines? I thought it was just a mess of an airline and way too chaotic. Fast forward to the past decade and it’s my preferred airline to fly. I love how easy it is to cancel or change your flight. I love that they’re still not charging for checked bags (even though we only do carry-on bags nowadays). I love how the flight attendants generally try to put on […]

The Secret to Scoring the Cheapest Southwest Flights Read More »

Free Cruises with Just a Little Leg Work… Living Like Rock Stars!

Free Cruises with Just a Little Leg Work… Living Like Rock Stars!

14 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Saving, Spending / /

Back in May, I wrote a post called The Next Mission… Free Cruises Through Casino Status Matches! It was all about how we stumbled upon a way to get free cruises and what we planned to do to make it happen. Well, here we are several months later and I realized it’s time to update you on how it’s going and what’s next. It’s actually been a cool little adventure figuring out what we need to do and then taking

Free Cruises with Just a Little Leg Work… Living Like Rock Stars! Read More »

Breaking Up With PocketGuard: Why Quicken Simplifi Won Me Over

Breaking Up With PocketGuard: Why Quicken Simplifi Won Me Over

9 Comments / Spending, Debt, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving, Taxes and Financial Planning / /

Well, I’ve gone and done it again… I switched personal finance apps in my quest to find the right one for what I needed. I thought PocketGuard was the one, but it turns out I was wrong. I only used PocketGuard for about 6 months but it had some shortcomings that just didn’t work well for me… so I decided to bail on it. Fortunately, I think Quicken Simplifi will be the answer I have been looking for all this

Breaking Up With PocketGuard: Why Quicken Simplifi Won Me Over Read More »

The Case for a Little "Fun Money" in the Stock Market - My $800 Bet That Turned into a Mind-Blowing $43,000!!

The Case for a Little “Fun Money” in the Stock Market – My $800 Bet That Turned into a Mind-Blowing $43,000!!

12 Comments / Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Investments, Saving, Taxes and Financial Planning / /

I admit it – I’m a boring guy when it comes to my investment portfolio. Over the years, low-cost broad-based index funds now make up over 77% of our investment portfolio. REITs and bond funds account for another 22%. So what’s the remaining 1+% invested in? Well, that’s our fun money in the stock market. And that number accounted for a lot more until recently when I cashed in on some gains. But why have fun money in an investment

The Case for a Little “Fun Money” in the Stock Market – My $800 Bet That Turned into a Mind-Blowing $43,000!! Read More »

Why I Chose PocketGuard as the Best Mint Replacement for Me

Why I Chose PocketGuard as the Best Mint Replacement for Me

10 Comments / Here's Why I'm Liking..., Debt, Investments, Product and Service Reviews, Saving, Spending / /

If you haven’t heard, Intuit decided to shut down the Mint personal finance site/app on January 1, 2024. They made this announcement on October 31, 2024, giving users only about 2 months to decide what they were going to do. All I can do is shake my head at how disrespectful this is to their loyal customer base. UPDATE: I just I received an email from Intuit on 12/17/2023 stating that I can continue using Mint until March 23, 2024,

Why I Chose PocketGuard as the Best Mint Replacement for Me Read More »

Your Money, Your Choices: Why Personal Finance Is Deeply Personal

Your Money, Your Choices: Why Personal Finance Is Deeply Personal

12 Comments / Motivation, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), General Thoughts, Investments, Saving, Spending, Taxes and Financial Planning, Travel and Vacation / /

Personal finance is such an interesting facet of life. It’s a part of every one of our lives whether we like it or not and most of us think we know what’s best for ourselves… and everyone else. But the reality is that while we can learn as much as we want about the subject, we really should only focus on what’s best for ourselves. Why is that? It’s because, funny enough, personal finance truly is personal. You might have

Your Money, Your Choices: Why Personal Finance Is Deeply Personal Read More »

Running Out of Money To Save $52: Is It Worth It?

Running Out of Money To Save $52: Is It Worth It?

17 Comments / Spending, Life in Early Retirement, Saving, Travel and Vacation / /

Here we are cruising along into almost 5 years of early retirement. It’s been a heckuva blessed ride… life’s been good for sure! But now we’re at a pivot point that will likely make running out of money by the end of this month a good possibility. Wait, what? Aren’t you guys millionaires? How is that even possible and what the heck is going on?! It’s not as bad as it sounds but I’m pushing things right to the wire

Running Out of Money To Save $52: Is It Worth It? Read More »

The Surprisingly Boring Career Path That Brought Us to Financial Independence

The Surprisingly Boring Career Path That Brought Us to Financial Independence

23 Comments / Motivation, Debt, Education, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Real Estate, Saving, Self-Employment / /

There tends to be a stigma in society that you need to own a company, become some big real estate mogul, be a celebrity, or just come from money in order to find your way to financial independence. So then we like to come up with excuses reasons as to why we can’t do that ourselves… “If I was in that position, it would be easy! No way I can do that because of xxxxxxx [insert whatever rationalization you want

The Surprisingly Boring Career Path That Brought Us to Financial Independence Read More »

Limited Time, Unlimited Dreams: 3 Steps to an Extraordinary Life

Limited Time, Unlimited Dreams: 3 Steps to an Extraordinary Life

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

As I find my way closer to 50 (I’ll be 48 in a couple of months), I’m starting to see those small changes creeping up that I thought only happen to old people. Oh crap, am I old?!! Out of nowhere, my eyes have gotten a little weaker – both near and far! I can see close-up pretty well most of the time but I finally broke down and bought some readers for nighttime reading. The same goes for distance.

Limited Time, Unlimited Dreams: 3 Steps to an Extraordinary Life Read More »

Is Temu Legit? Here’s How I’m Saving Big With This Fun App

Is Temu Legit? Here’s How I’m Saving Big With This Fun App

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

So I’ve been playing a Mahjong game on my phone periodically when I get a few minutes here and there. My wife, Lisa, loves to rag on me and tell me that it’s a game for 95-year-old women but I enjoy it so I’ll just graciously accept my lumps from her. But the game does have its share of ads in it that you can’t pay to remove (though I’d probably be too cheap to do so anyway). For the

Is Temu Legit? Here’s How I’m Saving Big With This Fun App Read More »