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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 and have a pretty good idea of where my
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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 never followed the conventional wisd
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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 safety, nothing in here shou
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What does a post-growth society look like?

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  A recent article in The Morning newsletter from the New York Times rekindled a smoldering ember of thought that resides in a corner of my mind.  It has never burned hot enough to inspire me to serious study on the subject, but this time it has at least motivated me enough to write about it.  The topic is growth; how our society and economy are dependent on it, why I think that is problematic, and how it can change.  My thoughts on this subject are not well formed at this time and, unusually for Wisdumb, I offer no answers, only more questions. The Times article covered the aging population of Japan and showed the chart below projecting other major economies and the world as a whole being on the brink of a rapidly aging populous. The article primarily focused on the social impacts of this aging population, in particular that Japan is running out of workers.  It posits the only solution is to bring in more immigrants.  This is what bothers me and stokes that ember in the back of my min
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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 in it.  No new R&D to
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Car Shopping in 2023: The Exciting Conclusion!

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  If you recall my August post on starting a car search, I presented a list of requirements that I wanted my new car to meet.  If you don't recall, go ahead and reread it.  I'll wait.  I had to do that to remember what I wrote as I can't remember what happened yesterday, much less four months ago! As expected, I had to compromise on some of my requirements.  After test driving most of the cars on my list of options, I ended up buying a 2018 Nissan Pathfinder Platinum, shown here after hauling a bunch of scouts up to Vermont for a backpacking trip just hours after I drove it off the lot.   Incidentally, this photo has an easter egg for a future backpacking product review. Now that I have had the car for a month or so, let's check out the score card and see how I did: Good Highway Gas Mileage (7 out of 10) Reliability (7 out of 10) Good towing capacity (10 out of 10) Cargo Capacity  >40 preferred. (10 out of 10) Wireless Android Auto (3 out of 10) Heated and Ventilate
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