Personal blog on early retirement, a little traveling, and analytics projects. I write about what I learn as I am learning it.
Personal finance from an optimization habit: early retirement, Roth conversions, credit cards, and the arithmetic behind decisions people usually make by feel.
I’ve already blogged about Buffet’s annual letters twice: in 2018 I wrote about a few quotes, and in 2019 I wrote about some lessons learned.
Now I have to confess that after some six or seven years of reading them they are getting a bit repetitive, although there is always something new. This year the new thing is some interesting idea Buffett shares from a quasi-obscure book from 1924 I had never heard about before: “Common stocks as Long Term Investments” by Edgar Lawrence Smith.
If you dream of early retirement so that you can live comfortably, go on vacation when the mood strikes, and spend more and more time with your loved ones without stress, I admire your courage and creativity. If these traits weren’t present, you wouldn’t be reading “Early Retirement for Dummies”. Without insightful guidance, unlimited encouragement, and just a little bit of courage, you could never achieve the life you desire to live.
I myself also took early retirement to fulfill those desires that I discussed above, so I can understand what you are feeling now. But early retirement is not for all. Some who retire early are proud of their decision, while others struggle and face challenges. In this article, “Early Retirement for Dummies”, I will share some tips for early retirement from my personal experience.
But before I dig in on the tips for retiring early, I want to let you know what early retirement means, who it is for, or who it is not for.
Continue reading “Early retirement for Dummies”Have you heard of Parkinson’s law? The principle states that “work expands in order to fill the available time.” For example, if you organize a meeting at work and set it for 1 hour (as are most meetings), the meeting will last for the whole hour, even if the objectives are complete after 30 minutes.
In productivity circles, Parkinson’s law is often used as a tool to manage time, but I believe it applies equally to managing your money. In this case, Parkinson’s Law may be rephrased to read: “Spending expands in order to consume available money.”
Lifestyle inflation explains this phenomenon. Even if you get a raise at work, you may still be left with no extra money to save. A $100 shopping trip is more likely to result in you spending $100. You are also expected to spend thousands if you have that much money to spend.
Continue reading “Parkinson’s law and lifestyle inflation”I keep noticing a very annoyingly condescending attitude in the FIRE (financial independence/retire early) “community” towards people outside of it, the “normal” people. I think this is the consequence of early retirement groupthink.
Some of the symptoms of this problem are: mocking people that work full time, policing FIRE people that work on gigs or part-time projects, and idolizing people that reached FIRE. Ironically, those gig-and-part-time folks are often practicing what now has a name — Barista FIRE, and its quieter cousin Coast FIRE.
After a few years of reading the famous annual letter from Buffett (tag) to his investors, and three years of following the live Yahoo! stream of the annual meeting in Omaha, last year I shared my impressions for the first time. Here is the second installment.
