Recent content by 2lhasas

My husband and I retired at 50 and a ton of my co-workers asked me how. I explained we got married at 30 and both had our own households, and seeing as two people in the same household shouldn’t cost twice as much, we agreed to try to live on one of our incomes. Part of this wasn’t with FIRE in...

We just bought a home in Athens, Georgia for our son to live in while he is in school. Large university in a relatively small city seems to translate into a lack of housing in general. We decided to purchase, in part because the rental market seemed out of whack, and the rent we will collect...

After looking at the cost of apartments in my son's college town, we decided it would be worthwhile to purchase something instead of renting. We were looking at properties under $250K, which was probably a sweet spot for first time homebuyers. Starting at the end of the year, we would schedule...

I volunteer with a trail club, maintaining a section of the Appalachian Trail. Most of our members are retirees in their 60s and 70s and they are running around up there, hauling tools with them, often several miles into the forest. Because most of our area is designated wilderness, all the...

I backpack and volunteer with my local trail club. Gear can cost a bit at the start, but once you have your set up, it's pretty cheap. Occasional expense to get new shoes, but it's mostly free but for the gas to get to a trail.

We have a huge basement and fitted out a pretty large space as a gym space. We have a squat rack, bench, dumbbells, bars and plates. For cardio we have a stationary bike, treadmill and rowing machine. My husband is a pretty hardcore runner, and tore up our old treadmill. There are several...

We bought our house from a couple that was moving into a condo. Inherited their pool table. We've enjoyed it.

So many great suggestions here. I'll go with a couple of little things I've come to appreciate. We have a very large and deep kitchen sink. If there are dishes left in the sink, they aren't visible which is nice. As someone else mentioned, we also did drawers instead of cabinets for most of...

My husband retired at the end of January, following my retirement in April of 2018. I think it has been toughest on him as he didn’t really have retirement routines in place. A lot of people initially struggle with he transition from full time work to retirement, but quarantine has really meant...

I loved hiking before retirement, but more time has led to a huge backpacking habit. I can take a month and go do a LASH on the Appalachian Trail. I joined the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club, and work as a trail ambassador and on trail maintenance. It’s been great to be able to hop in the car...

I do not think it's wise to consider SS as part of retirement at my age, unless something about what has been going on in Washington leads you to believe our Congress can do anything the protect it. Deficit is growing. Interest on our debt is becoming a larger and larger percentage of the budget...

If you have a passion for teaching young people about money, consider putting together a program you could teach as a camp or perhaps peddle to an organization like Boys & Girls Club. There are several money management camps offered in our area every summer. If you don’t want to develop your own...

Thanks for the feedback. I was doing some searching with BBB etc last night and it appears lots of folks had issues with this plan. One of the biggest complaints was that once you have a claim, they drop you. And them dropping you isn’t a qualified event, which could leave you uninsured until...

As someone who has recently navigated these waters (DH and I are 51 and 52, DS is 17) there are a few things to consider as you look at options. 1) if your kids do not live with you or in the same area, it may not make sense to keep them on the plan. As plan availability varies by county, your...

We will likely not qualify for subsidies, and off exchange this plan will be about $400 per month cheaper than the cheapest ACA plan in our county. It doesn't cover pre-existing conditions for the first year, but that's not a concern for us. We would pay a bit out of pocket for preventative...