Saving

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 / By /

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. …

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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 / By /

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 …

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Masterfully Crafted: How ChatGPT Wrote a Compelling Article on the Power of Saving and Investing

Masterfully Crafted: How ChatGPT Wrote a Compelling Article on the Power of Saving and Investing

23 Comments / Blogging, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Investments, Product and Service Reviews, Saving / By /

I’m both excited and scared about the concept of Artificial intelligence (AI) including ChatGPT, which is currently all over the technology news. The technical and engineering side of my brain is fascinated by the whole idea. The potential of artificial intelligence growing up and being able to make our lives easier in different aspects is incredible. We have 3 of those Google Nest Minis in our apartment (we got 1 for free and paid $1 each for the other 2). …

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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

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

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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ETFs vs Mutual Funds… Why I'm All-In on ETFs

ETFs vs Mutual Funds… Why I’m All-In on ETFs

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

In my last post, Opening the Books to Our Investment Portfolio, I broke down our entire portfolio. This included every holding and the values of each (rounded slightly just for security). This turned out to be a pretty popular post and generated a little bit of fun discussion – both in the comments and through email several email conversations I had with readers. One fair comment was about why I choose to buy the Vanguard ETF VTI instead of the …

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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 / By /

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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Entitled Kid Syndrome… Our 4-Part Preventative Strategy Entitled Kid Syndrome…

Entitled Kid Syndrome… Our 4-Part Preventative Strategy

18 Comments / Kids, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Saving, Spending / By /

“Wow, that’s one entitled kid for sure!” Words you don’t ever want to hear about your child. We’re blessed to have saved enough money to be able to enjoy early retirement. As a millionaire family that doesn’t live extravagantly, a lot of the money stress tends to subside (though not completely). It’s been wonderful to be able to spend my days with my wife and daughter. In fact, being able to be a bigger part of my daughter’s life while …

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10 Secret Library Resources That Can Save You a Ton of Dough!

10 Secret Library Resources That Can Save You a Ton of Dough!

23 Comments / Saving, Education, Here's Why I'm Liking..., Spending / By /

You might have noticed that I didn’t write anything last week. Last year, I “gave myself permission” to take time off from blogging periodically. That’s not an easy thing for me. In the year and a half since I wrote that post, I’ve only skipped a few weeks of writing… it’s hard to let go! I enjoy writing for the blog but I sometimes struggle by making it more of an obligation than a fun hobby. Nevertheless, it was nice …

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3 Ways a Financial Aggregator Can Help Save You Money

3 Ways a Financial Aggregator Can Help Save You Money

12 Comments / Spending, Consumer Protection, Debt, Investments, Saving, Taxes and Financial Planning / By /

A financial aggregator is sort of a broad term that generally refers to software or services that can pull all your financial data into one place. We’re talking about balances and transactions for your bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, loans, and more. You might already be familiar with some of the older players in the game like Quicken, which is still a huge competitor. I used Quicken from 1999 until 2019 (20 years!) until I switched to both Empower …

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Lisa’s Now a Secret Shopper… Is This Legit or Even Worthwhile?

Lisa’s Now a Secret Shopper… Is This Legit or Even Worthwhile?

14 Comments / Self-Employment, Financial Independence / Retire Early (FIRE), Life in Early Retirement, Saving / By /

Have you ever heard of those mythical jobs where you’re hired to go into a store or restaurant as a customer and then report back and get paid? Generally, that person is known as a secret shopper or a mystery shopper. Yeah, well, here’s a little treat – they’re real. I had forwarded over a link to Lisa for a company called Market Force Information that acts as a liaison for this exact purpose. Sure enough, after Lisa dug into …

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