The Fun Bucket – Overcoming the Frugality Mindset

Many, if not most, people on the path to Financial Independence (FI) ultimately adopt the frugality mindset to reach their FI goal.

During this time, the focus is on accumulating enough assets (or passive income) to have the option of not working for money to support your chosen lifestyle. At that point one has reached Financial Independence. Continue Reading →

Moving Forward After the Loss of a Spouse

During the month of March, I had the honor of being a featured guest on The Retirement Answer Man® Show to discuss “Going from Two to One”. We explore the difficult topic of losing a spouse from both a non-financial and financial perspective. No matter how well we plan for life after early retirement, twists and turns are inevitable, however, losing a spouse and moving forward may be one of the biggest challenges of all. Continue Reading →

Grief, Growth, and Gratitude

You may have noticed that it has been a long time since I last wrote a blog post. A lot has transpired during that period. As some of you may know, my wife Marge was diagnosed with cancer (Sarcoma) in early 2019. She underwent multiple surgeries, radiation treatment and chemotherapy for over two years. She always maintained a positive attitude throughout this difficult period. Unfortunately, the cancer was persistent, and she passed away in July of 2021. The Benefits of Continue Reading →

What Is Your Why?

As you may have gathered from my previous blog posts, I am passionate about teaching financial literacy to others – particularly the next generation, which includes my daughter. One of my outlets for this is teaching a financial literacy class to high school seniors at our local public high school. We cover many key topics including tracking spending, calculating and monitoring net worth, discussing various assets and liabilities, understanding interest and compounding, appropriate insurance coverage, personal income taxes, etc. It Continue Reading →

Market Volatility – Friend or Foe?

You may have noticed some scary headlines recently… Dow Plummets 700+ Points – Stocks Post Largest One-Day Loss in 2019 U.S. Trade War with China Intensifies Inverted Yield Curve Predicts a Recession …and you may also have noticed the resulting increase in stock market volatility. Does this make you nervous? Should you alter your investment portfolio? What is an investor to do? I am here to tell you to take a deep breath. It is important to understand that market Continue Reading →