Recent content by eastnortheast

I am not who the question was directed to, but I will chime in. LOL I saw the same or similar article and I believe it said something like 80% of the population in Thailand uses this. I dont know where this number came from, but I do not think it is anywhere close to being correct. I used to...

Except for the last sentence and a half, that is us. Out in the country. No DSL, etc. Rely on line of site to the tower of the local internet provider. We typically get about 2-4 Mbps download and ~1 Mbps upload. Since we dont know any better, it works for us. Able to surf the net with...

@Ready2Go, I was in a similar situation - figuring I would retire at 62 -65. Things changed, work become more of a slog, a good friend my age passed away, and I realized that I did not need to replace my salary, only my expenses. Retired 2 years ago at 53 and have not looked back. The...

+1 on the congratulations!

I just went on Redfin - actually the first time I had heard of it. The estimate it is giving for my house is ~ $200K over the Zillow estimate. :facepalm: Live in a rural area with non tract houses, so difficult to estimate value, but not sure where/how redfin came up with their number. If...

My (admittedly) simplistic take on when to take SS is based on returns. I believe that SS goes up about 8% per year for every year a person delays taking it. If I think my investments will do less than 8% per year, then I will probably not take SS until 70 years old. If the opposite is true...

i never had a traditional expat assignment, but spent a number of years overseas on various assignments. The toughest non-work thing was understanding that life back in the US for family and friends goes on without you. I had this irrational belief that people, things, etc would stay the same...

+1 (and +1 to the other poster to mentioned low cost index funds in your 401K)

The part I bolded will only happen if YOU let it happen. When you reach the point of being able to retire, YOU control the narrative, not the company. When I told my boss of my plans to retire, I went in with the worst case scenario - i.e. that they would walk me out the door that afternoon...

We have a cousin and her husband who have used trusted house sitters to housesit for other people. (They are kind of nomadic and do not have a place of their own). They have had really great experiences in a variety of locations - from the Caribbean to Europe. Downside is you have to pay for...

I have Global Entry and used to use it all the time when I was working. (Overseas trips 10+ times a year). Since the rest of the family does not have it, in recent overseas trips with the family (total 7 people), we have cleared passport control using the regular lines before our bags...

90% of the time, just walk in the area by our house. We live in a rural area, so any walk will take us past a mixture of farms, open fields, and some woods.

With only a few very minor edits, I could have written the above. :) I’m 1 year into ER which started at 54. Zero regrets so far. I do worry about health care, balancing income from investments, current 10 year bull market coming to an end at some point, college costs for the three kids...

Stop investing as I am retired (yay!), but on the other hand, I have not changed my allocation. I am still 85% in stocks and have no plans to change that.

Family of seven. Three are currently at college, but I tracked expenses pretty closely both before and during the time they have been at college. We have averaged about $1100/month for groceries (food only) and dining out. Typically, it has been about $800 for the groceries and $300 on dining...