Mindy and I just got back from an adventure that took us to New Jersey, Amsterdam and Belgium. The Amsterdam and Belgium part was a river cruise we booked with FI Friends Travel, run by my friend, Kristen. Here was the itineray: New Jersey Beach (3/26-3/29): First, we stopped to visit my good friend, Bob. […]
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Europe! (Now With Tap-To-Pee And Mega Mindy)
Recent Posts
F.O.O.L.I.S.H. Project Update: Big Money, Bigger Joy!
Back in November, I wrote about the F.O.O.L.I.S.H. Project: F*&^%$# Obnoxious Ostentatious Luxuriously Irreverent Silly House Mindy and I are doing something I NEVER thought I’d do; scrape a home and build a new one. Time for an update. F.O.O.L.I.S.H. Project: Update! This project started back in 2024. Mindy and I had purchased a decrepit home in a really great location. […]
Rant: The Fine Line Between Cheap And Frugal
I watched Spinal Tap for the millionth time recently. It has a load of great lines including this one: There’s a fine line between stupid and clever. There’s also a fine line between cheap and frugal… Don’t Be Cheap I went hiking a couple of years ago with a group of folks. Afterward, we went […]
Warren Buffett Bet, Year 8: Yeah Baby, Yeah!
Eight years ago, Dividend Growth Investor (DGI) asked me if I’d like to participate in the Warren Buffett bet. For those unfamiliar, in 2008 Buffett famously challenged the hedge fund industry: Can you beat the S&P 500 over a period of 10 years? Buffett won as the hedge fund got clobbered by the S&P 500. But I like […]
Random 2025 Thoughts: Money, Technology, Me
What a horrible title for a blog post! Hey, they can’t all be winners. 2025 was a great year for us! And if you were invested in index funds, it was a great year for you too. Money This blog is supposed to be about money. Let’s start there. Markets are up. Again. The S&P […]
Introducing The FI Collective
I was listening to a recent podcast with Morgan Housel. I have a lot of respect for Morgan, so was disappointed to hear him say this: Everyone I know who retired early has gone back to work. My experience has been almost the exact opposite of Morgan’s. I know plenty early retirees and almost none […]
Guest Post: Is Toilet Paper A Better Investment Than AI Stocks?
Today’s guest post comes from a friend I met recently at the last EconoMe. I didn’t know he had a blog until fairly recently. His work is pretty great, so I invited him to guest post! I didn’t give him any guidelines about what to write about. Most do their best work when they’re doing […]
Discovering FI, Our Town, And My Life
Two stories today and then two thoughts… Story 1: Discovering FI (Telling The World!) I learned that I could retire early in October of 2012. I was having an awful time at work and put this into Google: How do I retire early? It was a hail mary pass that I didn’t expect to lead […]
The Very Big F.O.O.L.I.S.H. Project
The Wayback Machine It all started about 40 years ago. I was a boy who enjoyed fart humor, pizza, LEGO and rockets. Except for my age, nothing has changed. My parents were fans of Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) and we visited a couple of his structures. The experiences and his unique designs made an imprint […]
Performance Update: Q3 Madness!
My main goal* was to build an investment and cash portfolio of $1,120,000* ($1,000,000 to retire on and $120,000 to pay off the house) in 1500 days**, starting from 1/1/2013 and ending in February of 2017. I made my goal in 2016, my 1500 Days are over, and I’ve left my job. In the interest of openness, I’ll continue to share […]
Is This What Will Disrupt Index Investing?
I once heard Morgan Housel say something like this: Something will eventually come along to displace index investing. The context of the comment was a discussion of Benjamin’s Graham’s famous book, The Intelligent Investor. Morgan mentioned that the book changed frequently because investing changed. What works now will not work forever. Will Private Equity Disrupt […]
Road Trip: California Coast
I meant to write more about my road trip, but FI Life got in the way. Our trip has been a series of adventures; hikes in state parks, walks around urban areas, live music, beaches, one very cool Taco Bell, and meetups with old friends. No time to write! But here I am. We’re in […]
Road Trip Part 2: Craig To Salt Lake City
For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be documenting my road trip to drop my kid off at school. Today we left Craig Colorado and headed to Salt Lake City (SLC). Utah is our first new state: In Salt Lake City, we saw a whale breaching from the center of a roundabout, the state capitol, […]
Road Trip Day 1: Longmont To Craig
For the next 10 days, I’ll be writing about my road trip to drop my daugther off at college in California. It’s going to be 3,000 miles. I’m taking a northern route to get there to avoid the heat for the first part of the trip: Old Me would maximize driving, putting in 800-1,000 miles […]
Maximum Fitness: The Best Benefit Of FIRE
You can have all of the money in the world, but it means nothing if you don’t have your health. Warren Buffett drove this point home at the first Berkshire Hathaway meeting I attended over 10 years ago. A young audience member asked a question about book recommendations. Buffett rambled on and changed the topic, […]
Recession? When?!??
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a local friend who is a building inspector. We had an interesting conversation: In my head: AHHHHHH RECESSION!!!!!! And then this came across my feed: And then I read that the Air Force and Space Force met their recruiting goals months early. Some think this is […]