Spending

My 3 Rules and My 3 Favorite Indulgences Cruise Vacations

Cruise Vacations – My 3 Rules and My 3 Favorite Indulgences

16 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Spending / By / October 21, 2022

Ah, the world of cruise vacations… some people love ’em and some people hate ’em. Without a doubt, I’m in the former camp. Cruising is my absolute favorite type of vacation and I’ve even dug into what it would take to live on a cruise ship! I guess I’m not the only one either. My friend John over at ESI Money wrote a deep-dive post into the subject a few years ago titled, Is Retiring on a Cruise Ship an …

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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 / February 21, 2023

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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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 / By / September 25, 2022

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 / By / November 10, 2022

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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On the Road: The Wrap-Up and Some Fun Stats!

On the Road: The Wrap-Up and Some Fun Stats!

10 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Spending / By / July 2, 2022

And we’re back! We just returned from 31 days on the road. Even though we didn’t plan for a specific number of days, we ended up traveling for a full month pretty much on the nose! We had so much fun and got to check out so many places we’d never been to before. Along the way, we had our share of headaches as well (that comes with traveling!) but I’m glad we did this trip while our daughter’s still …

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4 Easy Ways We Were Able To Save Money in Las Vegas… BIG Money!

4 Easy Ways We Were Able To Save Money in Las Vegas… BIG Money!

8 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Life in Early Retirement, Spending / By / February 14, 2023

I’m always happy to save money in Las Vegas. I’ve been there a lot over the years and every time it’s a little different. Regardless, of the trip though, I’m always all about “finding the best deals.” We’re currently on our month-long road trip around the country and just spent a whopping 8 nights in Vegas! That’s the longest I’ve ever stayed there in one trip. In that amount of time, we crammed in a lot of fun including walking …

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Our Summer Road Trip So Far Includes a Flood, Wildfires, Freezing Temps, Blistering Heat, Strong Winds, and a Thrown-Out Back!

Our Summer Road Trip So Far… Mother Nature’s Vengeance!

8 Comments / Travel and Vacation, Health and Fitness, Kids, Life in Early Retirement, Spending / By / July 17, 2022

Yeah, there’s a lot going on there, right? Looking at a title like this, you might feel convinced that our summer road trip has been a bust. I can’t argue with that line of thinking. There’s not one thing on this list that sounds positive at all. So you might be surprised to know that the first two weeks of our summer road trip have actually been a ton of fun. And two of Mother Nature’s natural disasters made us …

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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, Spending / By / July 5, 2022

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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Solving the Puzzle To Make It All Work… That’s Life, Folks!

Solving the Puzzle To Make It All Work… That’s Life, Folks!

16 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Motivation, Spending, Travel and Vacation / By / May 13, 2022

We’re currently attempting to put together the puzzle of integrating back into the U.S. and trying to make it all work is tough. There are so many details with these pieces that don’t want to line up together the way we want them to – everything from scheduling to availability to cost. We’ll make it all work in the end – I’m sure of it. It might not be perfect or exactly the way we want everything, but things always …

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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

25 Comments / Life in Early Retirement, Real Estate, Spending, Travel and Vacation / By / April 30, 2022

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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