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I just got a letter in the mail yesterday from Mercedes Benz Financial Services. They are offering to let me loan them money and they will pay me 1.6% but that rate can change. I can get the money back with no waiting so it's at least as accessible as a money market or at worst a 1 year CD so...

It seems that for some reason that the national parks may not be open or have very limited services this year. I've got some plans for a few trips to them in my first full-year of retirement. We've already booked a trip taking us to the Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Coyote Butte. However, we're...

He who shall not be named: Is this the end of the Early Retirement Forum much like what happened to the No Fee Boards?  I already know of at least one poster who has taken this as a sign of the end times and has plans to leave.  Does it get to destroy this board too?  Will it only be happy...

I posted before about planning to replace my record collection (or at least a subset of it) with CDs. Well the event I was waiting for is now at hand. The CD music club I belong to has brought back the "buy one CD at regular price get an unlimited number at $1.99". Of course they jack the price...

Sparky: Interesting. Is this true of other ERs too? Why didn't you carry out your plans? Were they unrealistic? Found other things you wanted to do more? Some other reason? For those of us planning but not ER yet what would you suggest about making "to do" plans for ER? Thanks.

I was out running an errand this afternoon and on the way back to the office I was listening to the local PBS station which was playing the audio for today's Lehrer NewsHour. One of the pieces was about getting health care outside the US - in particular Thailand. They talked with two people...

http://www.ishares.com/newsroom/detail.jhtml?start=1&pr=/repository/press_release/2005/pr_28_january_2005.xml

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?050124ta_talk_hertzberg First a quote from the Wall Street Journal interview with Bush on Social Security that I think sums up his "thoughts" on the matter. So when does the surplus run out? It depends on whose numbers you use. What if you use the...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050126/FASS26/TPComment/Features

I promised that I'd write up something on The Birth of Plenty by William Bernstein after I got back from XMas.  I've been pretty busy so this will have to do.  I'll give the summary first that I think anybody planning to FIRE and be in such a state for 30 or more years (with the kind of asset...

I know that some of you here have/had Netflix.  Anybody here tried the Blockbuster version?  Anybody tried both?  The Blockbuster version is 3 movies at a time plus two instore rentals (movies or video games) / month for $14.99 / month. Netflix is $17.99 and no instore rentals. How good are the...

http://www.comboverthemovie.com/

Do you retired folks miss the cube farms?  Do you wannabes want to pretend that you're a pointy-haired manager?  Looking to play out scenes from Office Space? Then what you looking for is the The Cubes(tm)! http://cubefigures.com/home.html

There was some discussion a while back on LTC and LTC-insurance.  At least one person (IIRC Jane) was wondering about this for Canada and there are other Canucks here too so this might be of interest.  Over XMas I was involved a bit with the LTC arrangements for my grandmother who is in her...

Free University courses - or at least bits of them. http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm

Well, I'm off soon for the holidays (I'll probably pop in once and a while) but here's wishing you all a Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah! http://www.chrismahanukwanzakah.com/

I ran across this in the news and considering that we had been talking about "risk" and comparing it to putting it "all on red" this seemed apropos. Though it does seem that it does require brains and probably some work to implement...

Link is probably good for up to a week. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041204.wxdollar1204/BNStory/Business/

Considering that we have so many geeks here (as per the thread "What Do/Did You Do?") this might be of interest. A friend of mine who recently collected a large sum in stock options is thinking about this. I haven't looked a lot at it yet but it could be a worthwhile way to spend some of your...

This comes out from the discussions on mikey's house cleaning habits and I as a non-US citizen wonder about US habits. Do most people wear shoes in the house? Why?

It appears that we have a few audiophiles here so I'm going to ask about vinyl - not the kind that you wear.  ;D I'm trying to decide whether to get rid of the old albums (400+) or to get a new turntable.  If I get rid of the albums I would hope to pull in some money to buy replacement CDs.  If...

Interesting article in today's Globe and Mail (Toronto/Canadian national newspaper) on investing in China.  The link will be good for about a week before it goes from free to pay.  It discusses a bit about the new FTSE ETF for China - FXI.  This new ETF may be the investing vehicle that I and...

I know the whole series of discussions on keeping a mortgage and investing versus paying it off. This is a sub-topic of that discussion that I didn't see discussed. Let's set up a scenario: - person in accumulation phase for FIRE - asset allocation has a set %age towards bonds - home with...

Given all the discussion about home prices many of you might find this interesting. I found this site a few years ago when I was doing the "due dilligence" research before buying our home. Case - Shiller - Weiss (that Shiller is the same guy who wrote "Irrational Exuberance)...

I've been playing with Firecalc to model my savings and investment pre-FIRE along with withdrawals. What I do is set the starting portfolio to be my current portfolio value, the withdrawal is set to a negative amount to account for savings, set a future change to the withdrawal to cover my...