Finance

A few months ago, Scott and I updated our estate plans to switch from a will to revocable living trust structure, as well as update key documents to reflect that both of our kids are legal adults (i.e., age 18 and over) and that our primary residence is now Florida. We are almost done with all the moving parts, but it will still likely be a couple of months before [...]

We are not financial advisors so nothing in this post should be construed as specific financial advice. However, with $3 million being the new recommended retirement target, I was intrigued by a reader’s retirement plans. Stephanie, currently a US resident in her early 50’s, wrote to us with questions about Costa Rica, as she is investigating possibly retiring there and on much less than millions of dollars: We own our [...]

I have never been a fan of budgets. I don’t like budgets because I already am risk averse and hard on myself. Budgeting plays into scarcity thinking -- no, thank you, I can do that so well on my own! It helps that I’m naturally attuned to looking for deals – e.g., waiting for sales, aware of discount policies – so I didn’t need a budget to save money. My [...]

This post is inspired by a back-and-forth I had with Accidental FIRE about his post on Earning More and Spending Less. Accidental Fire wrote about the tendency to spend more as income rises, which causes a surprising amount of credit card debt among high-net-worth households. I then commented about how dual-career couples with kids often experience increased costs, not just because of lifestyle inflation, but also the steep costs associated [...]

If you don’t know about Jeff Bezos’ take on decision-making – specifically what he calls Type 1 v. Type 2 decisions – it is definitely worth checking out. There are good summaries in Inc, Business Insider and Forbes. To quote Bezos directly from a letter to Amazon shareholders: Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible – one-way doors – and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, [...]

One of the linchpins of our FIRE plan is that we’re not relying on just one pool of money to get there. I have always been fascinated by multiple streams of income – it made sense to me, so it was an easy beacon to follow. The four pillars of our FIRE plan, and how they have been affected by COVID-19, are: 1) rental real estate – the effects are [...]

I am a member of a personal finance forum, and a spirited discussion has erupted this week among the participants – of course, the global markets are in freefall. There were many signs pointing to a market downturn – e.g., high P/E ratios unsupported by underlying economics, low and even negative interest rates. The moderator was emphasizing these signs (he’s big on taking a risk managed approach), but since he’s [...]

A few months ago, we moved into one of our Florida rentals and have made Florida our primary residence as of 2020. The rental needed a lot of work, as we had a tenant in place for six years. A longtime tenant is great financially because there is no lost rent due to vacancy or turnover costs in-between move-ins. However, when you do turn over the unit, there is a [...]

During the morning of Christmas Eve, our family of four was in midtown New York City, but not for the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Instead, we were at a law office signing important documents everyone should have (and more paperwork than a typical real estate closing!). Our daughters signed their power of attorney documents, which name who can take over their financial accounts and decisions if they are unable to [...]