With most of the population in Washington state getting vaccinated by the end of May, things have finally started to open back up again. The pandemic is subsiding here, and it seems like life is (slowly) returning to normal.
As you might expect, our travel adventures resumed in May as well. We took full advantage of the fine May weather, and went camping on Washington’s coast, near a small town called Ocean Shores…
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Ahh spring!! Spring really starts to hit the Pacific Northwest when April rolls around. Things finally start to green-up again. It’s also the time of year when our weather starts to turn towards “dryer” and “slightly warmer”.
This is typically when I emerge from my winter hibernation, and start spending a lot more time outside…
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Have you noticed? The cost of a trip to the grocery store or hardware store has risen in recent months. This has the news media doing plenty of fear mongering about inflation.
To be fair, prices of commodities like corn, soybeans, lumber, and iron ore have all more than doubled over the last year. This is an undisputed fact, and certainly concerning…
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If you’re one of the many young people just starting-out on the path to financial independence (or even an older person just trying to catch up), the numbers can seem a little daunting. Using common retirement rules like the “4% rule”, a $1 million dollar portfolio can safely generate a mere $40,000 of income per year.
For many, this seems like a ridiculously small amount of income to earn from such a large amount of saved money. Perhaps you were hoping for a much larger income in retirement…
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People can pick up and move homes for many good reasons. Sometimes it’s a job, sometimes it’s to be closer to loved ones, and occasionally it’s to retire to cheaper location.
This process of moving to ensure a wonderful retirement is commonly known as geo-arbitrage. It’s very common for retirees to move, and something the Tako family has been considering for quite awhile now.
Along with a cheaper cost of living, we’ve been looking for a nice, safe, quiet place to finish raising our kids…
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February is always an interesting month. Not only is it the shortest month of the year, but it’s also right smack in the middle of winter.
Like many other families living in the northern hemisphere, we received a giant blast of winter weather this February. We got “snowed-in”…
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Another month another dollar. That’s how I like to think about these regular monthly reports anyway. Every month we turn the crank one more time on the Wealth Machine. While our net worth actually increases a whole lot more than $1 in a single month, I like to think in simple terms — Dollars at a time.
It’s the KISS principle applied to wealth building!
Turning the crank means saving, investing those extra dollars, and then compounding any additional value…
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Living off passive income is a bit like spotting a snow leopard in the wild. Snow leopards are (of course) one of the most rare and elusive creatures on the planet. They live in the Himalayas at significant altitude (9,800 to 14,800 ft), and it’s estimated there’s less than 10,000 of these extremely rare cats alive today.
Seeing a snow leopard in the wild is exceedingly difficult. Hardly anyone ever sees them. Naturalists can spend months in the Himalayas looking, and never actually see one. Despite this fabled difficulty, it is actually possible to see a snow leopard in the wild…
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Yes, it’s that time once again! Every year I make one of these “net worth” blog posts in January to add-up all the different accounts, and calculate my net worth. I do this only once per year, so it’s a complete surprise to me when I see the final numbers!
Honestly, I have no clue what my net worth is the other 364.25 days of the year…
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