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Early Retirement Part 3: Expenses

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  Welcome to the third installment of my Early Retirement Trilogy.  It is now time to talk about expenses.  If you missed the earlier parts or a search engine brought you here, go back and read Part 1 on the Early Retirement Mindset and Part 2 on Generating Income. How Much Income Do I Need? I approach the decision on when to retire from the demand side rather than the supply side.  That is, I figure out how much money I need to live the lifestyle I want and then will retire when I have a portfolio that can generate that.  Everybody has a different situation and there is no one number that is going to work for everyone.  You need to figure out what kind of lifestyle you want to live and how much that is going to cost you.  It turns out predicting how much money I will need is hard, so I plan to err on the side of caution.  So how do I get started doing that? It's spreadsheet time, baby!  I have tracked my yearly expenses for nearly 20 years...
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Early Retirement Part 2: Income

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In part 1 of this series, I covered a particular mindset that can help you retire early.  In this part I will cover ideas for generating income in early retirement.  Part 3 will address managing expenses. My income plans for retirement are focused on two primary sources: Interest/Dividends and Rental Income.  I would like some other sources to diversify my income streams but so far have not been able to find other investments that meet my criteria or turn this blog into a cash cow 🐄 The Stock Market I like investing in stocks.  It is fun to research and try to pick winners.  It is very tough to beat the market over the long run, however.  I typically put a large part of my nest egg in index funds and ETFs (low expense ones only) and invest smaller amounts in individual stocks in hopes of hitting a home run on one to juice my returns.  I have tried trading options to generate income and never did well.  I can't get excited about bonds and have n...
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Early Retirement, Part 1: The Mindset

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Since about the first day I started working, I've dreamed of retiring.  It's not that I don't like my profession.  It's more that I want the freedom to do what I want, when I want.  And I want more time.  I have so many hobbies and interests and not enough time to devote to them as I would like, not to mention the many new ones that would be fun to try out.  Working 40 hours a week takes up way too much time. I have lots of thoughts to share on this topic.  So many that I couldn't fit it into a single post, so I'm going to make it a series.  Like all great trilogies, mine will have three parts. Part 1: The Mindset Part 2: Income Part 3: Expenses The Mindset covers my philosophical approach to early retirement.  In part 2, I cover plans for income during retirement.  In part 3 I will detail managing expenses both to enable early retirement and while in retirement. Disclaimer: I am not a financial professional.  For your own financial saf...
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The Audio Industry Free Market is Failing Me.

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  I'm feeling pretty disappointed after looking for a receiver upgrade for my home theater system.  I recently ran across a spreadsheet comparison table I made ten years ago when I last thought about upgrading my 15-syear-old-so-obsolete-it-doesn't-even-have-HDMI-inputs receiver.  At that time, I decided it was not worth spending the money on a receiver that would probably be obsolete in another few years.  I was right! [pause for applause.]  That table showed that even the most expensive receiver I looked at, the $2K Denon AVR-4311CI is woefully out of date today.  It only supported HDMI v1.4!  That wouldn't be much use with my current 4K TV and computer.  In addition, none of those receivers were prepared for the rise of music streaming and wouldn't be able to play music from any of the streaming services available today. I recently struggled, and failed, to get the on-screen menus from either my receiver or SACD player (another obsolete piece o...
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The Old Car Files: Exhaust Hole

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 This is the first in what I expect is going to be a recurring topic.  Today's post is brought to you by my 2003 Honda Element which I purchased used in 2006.  When I was a kid, I heard that a car is considered antique when it reaches 20 years old. Cars have improved their quality and longevity since then.  Nowadays, based on my sampling of Google results, it seems ~25 years old is the threshold for considering a car a classic and ~40 years for an antique.  This car has spent it's 19 years in New England.  Winter snow and road salt is harsh on vehicles causing them to deteriorate faster than they would in say, Southern California.  New England car years are like dog years, so by that measure, my E is a New England antique! While the E is old, it is still in pretty good shape and only has about 100K miles. Because there is no currently available vehicle that is its equivalent in terms of versatility and practicality, I'm determined to keep it on th...
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Dolphin S200 Pool Cleaning Robot Drive Motor Repair

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 I've spent the past two weeks doing battle with my pool cleaning robot and want to share what I've learned so others can fix their own if they run into the same problem. My robot is a Maytronics Dolphin S200.  The internals are probably very similar or identical to other models, and I think there are even rebranded versions, so the details below likely apply to a fair amount of the population.  These robots are pretty expensive to buy, but they are, in my opinion, the best way to clean my pool.  My pool is surrounded by pine trees and they are always dropping stuff in the water, so I keep my robot in the pool and it runs daily on its timer with little intervention from me and uses much, much less electricity than my previous pressure-side pool cleaner. Rant on Robot Manufacturer Greed There is a lot of markup on these robots.  The S200 I got for $600 in 2017 (and its equivalents) now sell for more than $1000.  The exact same design.  No new technology...
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A Call to End Discrimination

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  You are probably wondering what I, a white dude living in America, know about discrimination.  Sadly, I know more than I wish I did.  You see, I was born with a particular trait that was destined to make my life in our society more difficult.  I have never tried to hide it and I'm not ashamed of it.  I'm proud of it in many respects, and many people around me already know this, but never, until now, have I publicly announced it.  So, here goes:  I am left-handed. Obviously, the previous paragraph was tongue-in-cheek, and I in no way intend to marginalize the struggles of anyone facing discrimination for factors beyond their control.  Rather, it is the opposite.  I like to use humor to ease the tension serious topics.  This blog post is an attempt at empathy and solidarity on my part.  I'll let the reader draw the parallels between my seemingly minor inconveniences with being left-handed and their own experience with discrimination...
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Car Shopping in 2023

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It's new car buying time in the Wisdumb household.  Well, not "new" new (you've read my financial advice on cars , right?).  And not exactly "buying time".  Rather, it is time for the prep work to figure out what steed to add to our stable when the first Wisdumb young'n reaches driving age next year.  Boy am glad I'm starting early; finding the right car seems more difficult now than it has ever been.  This post is going to explore why I'm having such a hard time finding the perfect car. Is it me? You have likely figured out by now that I am very particular about product features, and my desires often run counter to the mainstream.  I blame the mainstream for that, not me!  Things I want in no particular order: Good Highway Gas Mileage Reliability Good towing capacity (3500lb min, 5000lb preferred) Minimum 35 cu ft usable cargo capacity with 4 passengers.  >40 preferred. Wireless Android Auto Heated and Ventilated Seats Adaptive Cruise Control...
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