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Hi, folks. GratefulEd here...a voice from way back. Old-timers might remember me from this post: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/done-17029.html Where are we now? The Cinnamon Girl & I split the corporate world in June of 2005 and have done very well since. We relocated from an...

http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/ I've posted this before but it's worth a re-post since the thread's come back up. Check this list for a way to access a human directly on many corporate customer service phone systems. For instance, if you're trying to call Visa, press "000" and ignore the...

If there's a waste of life more egregious than a corporate 1-800 "customer service" number I have yet to find it. You know: press one for cow manure, two for ox dung, three for bovine flatulance, four to be placed on hold until the next Ice Age, etc. This page shows how to immediately hack to a...

After four months of ER my buddy popped the question.  "Whaddaya do all day, man?" It was the first time anyone had asked me this, and from the befuddlement on my friend's face I'd say he hadn't expected me to laugh at him. It was eight PM and I ticked off that day's list on my fingers...

I have not posted for lo, these many weeks, because the Cinnamon Girl and I have been neck deep in the enjoyment of our ER, and also in our cups. It's been six or eight weeks now since I hung 'em up...who counts?...and the relentless low-grade irritation is sliding off me like an old dry skin...

It's claimed US workers waste up to two hours per day, not including the lunch hour. Does this come as a surprise? http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/life_workers_waste_dc;_ylt=Ajoi.Oy2jJBRdvJdrOaswYOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ- Ed

I am done, my friends. Just hung 'em up. Life is a pie in the face, or perhaps the kiester. Irony is everywhere, and even the sad clown is guffawing. I was planning to leave my job this year, with a FIRE in my belly, until my CEO called me into his office and informed me that, ahem, he was...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/05/12/retirement_changes_eyed_for_priests/ Wow. It will not stop. Corporate execs are one thing, but the Pope? Ed

Survey question: you guys find that you're drinking more or less since ER? Ed

The financial aid thread jives with some thinking I've been doing. My theory: retirement is no longer a viable option for the bulk of the American workforce, and especially for new entrants. It's a dream for most people, and that's all it's ever going to be. A few contributing causes (and in...

Sucks. Ed

This is an FYI, not a sales pitch, but I just found out that Berhshire-Hathaway shareholders get an 8% discount of GEICO car insurance rates. I know there are a few other BRK-heads on this board. Studying the GEICO quotes made me realize something about the cost-of-living spread, too. My...

So it's generally held that 11% is the plug-in rate for long-term nominal equities returns, based on history. Problem is: prove it. The number I'm most inclined to use in my own modeling is the SSA's estimate that long-term real equities return has been 6.5%. Great, so if I use that I can avoid...

A fellow Gen-X'er in my office is having a kid, and I'm sitting here wondering if my generation is compounding its Social Security trouble by having fewer children, later in life. (I've seen studies to this effect but can't pull one out of the hat, or I'd link it.) Here's my theory: our...

I contributed to another thread on a similar topic and I figured, what the heck, I'd go ahead and point out a couple of my favorite music sources. They say there are four doors to hell for an artist: government sponsorship, corporate sponsorship, crass commercialism, and obscurity...

From a story in this morning's Boston Globe about how Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin is investigating one possible effect of the P&G/Gilette merger: (quote) Meanwhile, Galvin broadened his inquiry into the proposed sale of Gillette to include retiree benefits. That was sparked...

My wife and I love gardening and though we haven't had the space or time to keep a kitchen garden for the last few years, we're already planning next year's post-ER patch. Cost savings may vary. Everyone has different tastes, methods, lives in different climate zones, etc. However, what's the...

I'm looking down from my living room window at the 5-foot snowdrift that buries my grill. It's maybe 10 degrees out and they're calling for another foot of accumulation in the Boston metro area before 6 PM. The Governor has declared a state of emergency and the Mayor has blockaded himself in his...

Yesterday at my commuter train stop there was a train-vs.-pedestrian accident, and while I won't get into the details I will say that if it hadn't been for the quick action of bystanders the victim would probably have died from his injuries before paramedics arrived. And none of those bystanders...

My wife has just quit her job and I'm maybe a year behind her. We're planning to move from a high-dollar area of the Northeast to a low-dollar area of the Southeast. We currently exceed the IRA income limit so when she lost access to a 401-K program she lost access to pre-tax retirement funding...