Recent content by heyyou

12 years 120 with no-cola pension covering our bare essentials at the start

For us, the rain in Hilo feels warm. Since you are wearing swim trunks with pockets, flip-flop "slippahs", an all-polyester T shirt, and maybe a hat to keep your glasses dry, a little warm water doesn't matter. Your phone and your wallet are in zip-lock bags. It isn't a rain storm, it is just...

If I said I was going to do it, I will do it when I get around to it. You don't have to mention it every six months!

Beachfront is cheaper outside the US. Panama uses US money, so there is no exchange rate. Their only minted money is a one dollar coin, a Balboa. Puerto Armuelles Panama is a village on the Pacific coast. The cost of beachfront real estate there is missing a digit. The tiny beachfront lots...

ER has been the best years of my life. Having leisure time is joyous. Sometimes my day is full, when I have no spare time since I sat in the recliner and read a book, cover to cover, that day. That is my version of a full day in retirement! x2 on the avoiding the weekend recreators. When I...

Big Island costs less Look into more affordable Hilo on the Big Island (BI). Maybe skip the Puna hinterlands 15 miles away from there. On BI, Kilauea-Kona is too warm (needs A/C) and too expensive, but the temperature drops as the elevation rises higher on the side of the mountain. The...

Headed for Big Island of Hawaii in November since the spouse is now through in the garden for this year. We like the shoulder season between the summer families and those snow birds that look just as old as we do. The return flight from there, late on Thanksgiving Day, was cheap.

11th retirement anniversary today. I thank you all here at e-r.org for helping me into what became the best, the most enjoyable and carefree years of my life.

17 GC trips I've been down the river, through the Grand Canyon, seventeen times. Once as a passenger on a commercial trip in 1979, once in my kayak with commercial support, and fifteen times in my own raft on those private permit trips in the 1980s and 1990s. All of the river guides are very...

been there x6 We fly non-stop to Kona to avoid changing planes in Honolulu. Costco is near the Kona airport but is across the main highway. We stay on the 3rd floor for the breeze at the Manago Hotel in Captain Cook when we are on that side of the island. The nearby local grocery store is...

Muddle through We retired in 2005 with a buffer of cash. As tightwads, we just spent less during 2008-9 by watching expenses, traveling less, eating out less often. Currently with 35% in bonds, next time we will just sell from them. As mentioned by others, don't sell from the assets that...

IIRC, in the late 1990s from Mutual Fund magazine, Goldman Sachs had an S&P500 index fund with an annual fee of 1%. So yes they did have the hot mutual fund, the 500 index fund, but it was not low cost, it was the highest cost 500 index fund on the list sorted by expense ratios. GS stock might...

It is likely graft, expensive investing fees, chasing hot investments, and promising higher benefits to get votes to stay in office. The Western States Teamster Plan was busted for being so crooked in the 1970s? that a federal judge was looking over their shoulder for the next 30? years. The...

So far, delayed gratification has worked well in my life, so I'm delaying SS and converting tIRA to RIRA from retirement day until RMDs start. At the top of the 15% bracket, for Married Filing Jointly, the effective tax rate is 10.8%. Probably won't get any better than that, although the tax...

We moved from the city into the small town (5000 population) in the 1990s, then moved five miles away from it in 2005 for retirement. DW loves it here with the raised bed gardens that I built. I'm tired of the half hour round trip to town plus the time in the store for anything we need. In...