Recent content by lark_L

It hit me hard Monday with a visit to the new cardiologist. Not a fraction of the bedside manner of the old one. I guess he thought he needed to hit me over the head with the heart murmur and deeper issues that aren't going away. DW was totally freaked until she sent the details to a...

You know they just have to write this article every year and yes i think there's a dart board involved. It's interesting reading and all, but our desires are so varied, it's practically worthless. I know it may spur you to consider a new area and that's good. I can imagine the time the local...

When my Dad passed away, we dug into the records and figured out that my Mom had $70k. And my Dad hadn't worked any appreciable amount in 10-15 years. After she moved to an $800 apartment (that included all meals - believe it or not. It was really just a converted hotel room), we sold her...

Only $50 difference (2.8%) for mine stopping work at 57 vs. 60. Good news for me!

I think 'harvesting' cash out of your equities the last few years before you retire, if the market is good is a great means to secure some gains and sleep better at night. One of my take-aways from Otar's book was how much better it could be to retire when the market wasn't doing well. Of...

If you want to do LBJ and a winery tour, I'd hit the ranch (between Stonewall and Johnson City). Then on toward Fredericksburg area for wineries. There's quite a few in the Stonewall, Johnson City, Fredereicksburg area. I haven't been to most of them, so I can't make a recommendation. The...

Here's where I'd go (and yes it's a long list). Many of these would be great retirement options if you don't need a retirement community (like Del Webb). Personally, I'd live in the Hill Country and travel into SA, when I needed. Obviously that's a personal choice Austin - 6th Street etc. if...

I'm WAY jealous. I grew up in Waco, but Mom was from Fredericksburg and Dad was from Kerrville, so we spent a lot of time in the Hill Country. My aunt married a rancher when I was 11 and we spent a lot of time out in the country on his place between Ingram and Harper. I'm in Iowa now and...

Update - Session II They've been back for their second session. This one was focused on retirement income planning. same MAP business, but now we're looking at getting our age% on retirement income into the bottom part of the map, which is the fixed income and steady income stream. This...

I sort of did this for years in my 401(k), although not by sectors. I had four equity funds (Intl, large cap, small cap, growth) and when I rebalanced, I also rebalanced these four back to equal parts of the equity slice. I never tested or back-tested it to see how much difference it made, but...

You just boot your existing PC with a Linux LiveCD OS, here's a source (do a search for Live Medium). Burn a CD, boot of it and use the browser there. Another option is to create a Webconverger USB stick or CD. The use of this just for online banking is discussed a lot in the forum ...

Not retired yet, but I'm using $1500/mo or $18k/yr in my planning spreadsheet. My company retirement medical is ~$1000/mo now. We probably haven't lost it because the retirees pay nearly the entire premium. Hopefully, Medicare will still be around and the $1500 will drop WAY off at 65.

Well, these guys (Money Management Educators) came to my place of employment and gave their one hour "Tax Favored Investing" seminar. Interesting. The guys are financial professionals doing this on a volunteer basis and supposed not selling anything. Big part of the presentation is the "Macro...

I'm 53, DW is 57. Still working, but this topic is quite interesting as we've struggled with this for years (meeting others). We've either lived in Houston, where everyone goes home, locks the door and doesn't do much or in small towns where there just wasn't much going on. We're childless...

Interesting, but for myself, there's no way I can continue to do the work that I do if I want to live where I want to live. The options are just too limited. Sure, I could quit and get a job that pays 1/3 of what I'm making now. I have a couple of years to decide what to do. I may do just...