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The scary thing about Fentanyl is how very small a dose can be lethal. With illicit drugs from another era - even the hard nasty ones like cocaine, meth and heroin - one could generally try a small amount and have a reasonable expectation of not dying. I'm not saying that kind of playing with...

$250K/mo for a police scanner app? Boy, did I choose the wrong career.

And that is precisely my situation. Pension plus returns on my taxable accounts put me into the 22% range. I have $2M+ in my tIRA/401K. How much of that could I realistically convert before RMD time without going into the 24% bracket? If I bit the bullet and converted to the top of the 24%...

I have a disproportionately large fraction of my assets (about 60%) in traditional IRAs/401Ks. I've been pretty consistently in the 22% income bracket since ER at 55 and have been dutifully doing Roth conversions ever since, but not always to the top of the 22% bracket. Anyway, halfway from...

Thanks for pointing this game out. I didn't see Strands on the first day, but ever since it's been part of my morning ritual (along with Spelling Bee and Connections). I haven't needed a hint yet, but some days (like today) I have to stare at the grid for a good long while before something clicks.

This brings to mind the tongue-in-cheek excuse my former colleagues gave for staying at work when I bailed, "You can always use another million bucks". Even though our salaries were a fraction of that, we all know how it all snowballs once the first million is in the bank. And sure enough...

Spelling Bee, Strands then Connections - my new 3AM ritual (usually enough to put me back to sleep until dawn).

Thanks for pointing this new one out. I'd been doing Connections since Day 1 of Beta. but missed the first day of Strands. Spelling Bee, Connections and now Strands are part of my middle-of-the-night insomniac routine.

I don't have any hundreds in my wallet these days, but still have a couple of 100 Euro notes in there that I never bothered to convert after the our trip. I expect they'll just sit there till the next time we go.

I thought of heading to Texas for the eclipse, but as others have pointed out, every driveway and campsite is being hawked for $500+. That plus the inevitable crush of traffic just puts a bad taste in my mouth, so I think I'll skip this one. Gibraltar or Egypt in 2027 and Australia in 2028...

I missed this thread until now, but I'm probably more Spelling Bee obsessed than most so here's my story. I'm a bit of an insomniac and wake up most nights around 2-3 AM, play the spelling bee and do some reading then usually fall back to sleep around 5-6. This "second sleep" gives me just...

In 2007 I carried a DSLR, 5 lenses and tripod (30+ lbs total) around Australia for 3 months. In 2012 I carried a DSLR and 2 lenses (10 lbs total weight) around Croatia for a month. In 2023 I carried a Pixel 7 Pro (< 1/2 lb) around Europe for 2.5 months. The pictures from the DSLRs are a bit...

Neither DW nor I have gotten it yet. We've gotten all our shots and still mask in crowded indoor settings, but have no illusions of invulnerability. I expect we'll get it sooner or later - we're just trying to make it as later as possible.

Let me tell you my recent "I'll keep an eye on that" crown story. DW and I planned a fairly long (10 week) trip around Europe this past fall. In preparation I had my periodic teeth cleaning and dental check up about 10 days before leaving. During the check up the dentist found an area of...

Just run an isolated instance of whatever execrable new Windows version is required in Virtual Box. It's what I've done for TurboTax ever since W10.

Given the shared interests of most ER.org folk I guess we had to get today's "yellow" group.

I hear you about thinking I wouldn't make 30. I did all sorts of risky stuff when I was younger. The irony is that I've gotten far more risk averse now that I'm an old guy and have so much less to lose.

Very similar to our situation. My parents lasted to 90/98 while DW's went at 65/76. Even with the gender difference we assume I have maybe 10 years more than she does - a prospect I'm really not looking forward to. In any case the real issue is healthspan not lifespan. My father was in...

DW and I are being fairly extravagant right now (for us anyway). We're midway through a 10 week ramble through Europe. Cost sounded high until we realized it will end up being about 0.6% of our NW - meaning we could do this every year without blinking and should have started 10 years sooner.

For the classic WWII movie I like both: The Longest Day and The Battle of Britain For a bit different take I thought the series "Five Came Back" on Netflix was very interesting. It's the story of Hollywood directors volunteering for service and the way in which their experiences shaped...

To summarize: The OP has a household net worth exceeding $6M, a paid off house and projected annual expenses under $100K. Even at the relatively young age of 49 I would say they've been financially ready to FIRE for quite some time. Congratulations.

Though the obituaries largely talk about her troubled life I hope we don't forget what a powerful performer she was. Most folks talk about the SNL performance where she ripped up the Pope's picture, but I've always felt that her earlier appearance on 9/29/1990 was even more memorable. Her...

It seems to me this isn't about retirement so much as one's satisfaction with life at any stage. If you always want MORE while you're working you'll probably want MORE and be dissatisfied in retirement. A big part of ER for most of us is deciding that a certain lifestyle is good enough and...

A thing with older cyclists is to "ride your birthday" - i.e. go X miles the day you turn X. My wife was game to turn this into a little adventure, so a couple of days ago we rode our bikes 66 miles up the California coast to Santa Barbara and stayed at a hotel on the beach. Since we're more...

Apart from this being a Rohrschach test for how you feel about unions in general I think the big issue here is AI. Both writers and actors can see the writing on the wall and know that sooner than later much of their work will be outsourced to non-human providers. They're just trying to get a...