Running through my links and found these two at the instapundit:
Carnival of Personal Finance
Carnival of the Capitalists
Which led to finding this list of "carnivals": Carnivals for week of 1/9/06
Custom Search
Monday, January 16, 2006
Sunday, January 08, 2006
A retirement link
Found this on a quick google search:
retireearlyhomepage.com
Gonna poke around in it over the next few days to assess worth.
UPDATE: Strange cold is leaving me real tired all the time, so I haven't gone over the link in detail.
From what I see, there is an emphasis on saving. I see this in many books and links I've skimmed over. I've been discounting them as common sense items. But then I remembered that people don't save and routinly live outside of their means. So, I guess it is good.
Noticing an alignment with the ideas at the coffeehouse investor. Buy and hold methods. Starting to get interested in that method. Like the idea of not spending forever studying companies.
Observation: why is it that most investment methods today sound like cults? "A coffeehouse invester does this... A coffeehouse invester thinks that".
bah
retireearlyhomepage.com
Gonna poke around in it over the next few days to assess worth.
UPDATE: Strange cold is leaving me real tired all the time, so I haven't gone over the link in detail.
From what I see, there is an emphasis on saving. I see this in many books and links I've skimmed over. I've been discounting them as common sense items. But then I remembered that people don't save and routinly live outside of their means. So, I guess it is good.
Noticing an alignment with the ideas at the coffeehouse investor. Buy and hold methods. Starting to get interested in that method. Like the idea of not spending forever studying companies.
Observation: why is it that most investment methods today sound like cults? "A coffeehouse invester does this... A coffeehouse invester thinks that".
bah
A potential theme
or, "a new shiny thing has been found"
Something I've been working on for past few years has been how to retire early.
This idea started for me around 1995 or so when I decided that I just had no tolerance for debt. It just bugged me. I was unable to take my mind off of it.
So, I promptly bought a video game that I became enthralled in for a month or so. When the nagging worry came back I would buy another one. After a while the games didn't work anymore and I had to deal with the issue.
At the time I was renting an apartment with my wife and had some credit card debt and minor loans. Looking through the personal finance offerings at the bookstore indicated that CC debt had to go followed by loans. Many books and such indicated that I shouldn't worry about low interest loans and such, but I could not tolerate any debt.
It was also about this time when I began to lose any and all patience with the keeping up with the jones' people. You know the ones... The folks that go out to lunch at the $20+ spots everyday and $10 a beer bars every night. The folks that have the newest gadgets and a new car every 3 years.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't care how they spend *their* money. I just couldn't deal with them telling me how I should spend *my* money. And, should I take the time to explaine that I'm paying off my debt and building my equity, they would look at me like I'm some kind of leper. Or come right out and say I'm acting like a Jew.
I never understood that association. Nevermind that I have nothing against Jews, but, tending to the financial health of one's household means that I'm acting like a Jew? Really? I've known a few Asians and they seem to hold to the same idea as me. But they aren't said to be acting like Jews. I just don't get people.
Anyways...
It was at this time that I learned another lesson. Your employer is not your friend. And if you could make more money by job hopping, then do it. Shortly after I learned this I found out that if your ego allowed you to take a job that was junior to what you had been doing but paid more, you should take it. Granted, this opened the door to having to deal with both management and peers that always took a condescending tone with me. But, I had already grown used to this because I never pursued my degree. I did this anywhere from every 2 months to a year.
So, as my income grew, I paid off all my debts. I learned that vehicles bought a few years old were several thousand dollars cheaper and if I tended to the 3K mile maintenance they would last and last (my last vehicle was a 1995 Ford Explorer with 240K miles on it and the only reason I got rid of it was that I couldn't justify the 13mpg).
In 1999, I bought my first house. I purposely bought a house out in the sticks off of a dirt road on top of a mountain. My objective was not to make money, but to have something cheap that I could pay off fast and use as a down payment for someplace that I would live in for a few decades. 1999 was the start of insane pay rates in northern VA. Unlike my peers who bought $500+K houses and fancy cars, I paid off my mortgage.
When the dot com bust came, a few of my peers had to file for bankruptcy after being unable to find work for over a year. And just because of those fancy trophy houses, cars, and toys.
Again, I don't really care how people spend their money, but I will comment on what I consider stupidity.
Now this brings us to 2005...
The housing market had grown so expensive in the DC metro area that increasing amounts of people started to move out my way. This meant that my previously 1.25 hour one-way commute grew to 2.5-3.5 one-way commutes.
I was unable to deal with that.
Then an idea that had been brewing for a while came a little closer to the top. What if I move to a low cost of living state (like NC)? With the insane VA housing market, I could buy a NC house outright with the proceeds of selling my VA house.
And so I did...
Now I'm at another crossroads: I find that the more independant I am, the less tolerant I'm of the sociopathic folks that populate the tech sector. Yes, Dilbert does reflect reality... only through rose tinted glasses. It is much worse.
So, do I try to retire now and live under the poverty line? (which in the US really isn't as bad as it sounds) Or, to try to suck it up for a few more years in order to sock more away into my investments?
I'm starting to do some research into a safe early retirement and I'll be posting a few links that I find along the way.
Let's see where this takes me....
Something I've been working on for past few years has been how to retire early.
This idea started for me around 1995 or so when I decided that I just had no tolerance for debt. It just bugged me. I was unable to take my mind off of it.
So, I promptly bought a video game that I became enthralled in for a month or so. When the nagging worry came back I would buy another one. After a while the games didn't work anymore and I had to deal with the issue.
At the time I was renting an apartment with my wife and had some credit card debt and minor loans. Looking through the personal finance offerings at the bookstore indicated that CC debt had to go followed by loans. Many books and such indicated that I shouldn't worry about low interest loans and such, but I could not tolerate any debt.
It was also about this time when I began to lose any and all patience with the keeping up with the jones' people. You know the ones... The folks that go out to lunch at the $20+ spots everyday and $10 a beer bars every night. The folks that have the newest gadgets and a new car every 3 years.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't care how they spend *their* money. I just couldn't deal with them telling me how I should spend *my* money. And, should I take the time to explaine that I'm paying off my debt and building my equity, they would look at me like I'm some kind of leper. Or come right out and say I'm acting like a Jew.
I never understood that association. Nevermind that I have nothing against Jews, but, tending to the financial health of one's household means that I'm acting like a Jew? Really? I've known a few Asians and they seem to hold to the same idea as me. But they aren't said to be acting like Jews. I just don't get people.
Anyways...
It was at this time that I learned another lesson. Your employer is not your friend. And if you could make more money by job hopping, then do it. Shortly after I learned this I found out that if your ego allowed you to take a job that was junior to what you had been doing but paid more, you should take it. Granted, this opened the door to having to deal with both management and peers that always took a condescending tone with me. But, I had already grown used to this because I never pursued my degree. I did this anywhere from every 2 months to a year.
So, as my income grew, I paid off all my debts. I learned that vehicles bought a few years old were several thousand dollars cheaper and if I tended to the 3K mile maintenance they would last and last (my last vehicle was a 1995 Ford Explorer with 240K miles on it and the only reason I got rid of it was that I couldn't justify the 13mpg).
In 1999, I bought my first house. I purposely bought a house out in the sticks off of a dirt road on top of a mountain. My objective was not to make money, but to have something cheap that I could pay off fast and use as a down payment for someplace that I would live in for a few decades. 1999 was the start of insane pay rates in northern VA. Unlike my peers who bought $500+K houses and fancy cars, I paid off my mortgage.
When the dot com bust came, a few of my peers had to file for bankruptcy after being unable to find work for over a year. And just because of those fancy trophy houses, cars, and toys.
Again, I don't really care how people spend their money, but I will comment on what I consider stupidity.
Now this brings us to 2005...
The housing market had grown so expensive in the DC metro area that increasing amounts of people started to move out my way. This meant that my previously 1.25 hour one-way commute grew to 2.5-3.5 one-way commutes.
I was unable to deal with that.
Then an idea that had been brewing for a while came a little closer to the top. What if I move to a low cost of living state (like NC)? With the insane VA housing market, I could buy a NC house outright with the proceeds of selling my VA house.
And so I did...
Now I'm at another crossroads: I find that the more independant I am, the less tolerant I'm of the sociopathic folks that populate the tech sector. Yes, Dilbert does reflect reality... only through rose tinted glasses. It is much worse.
So, do I try to retire now and live under the poverty line? (which in the US really isn't as bad as it sounds) Or, to try to suck it up for a few more years in order to sock more away into my investments?
I'm starting to do some research into a safe early retirement and I'll be posting a few links that I find along the way.
Let's see where this takes me....
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