Category Archives: Personal Finance FAQ

Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good. –Elizabeth Edwards 12 1/2 months ago, my wife and I retired.Continue reading “Lessons Learned One Year Into Early Retirement”

People always live forever when there is an annuity to be paid them. –Jane Austen When I had clients who wanted to retire before they were eligible for Social Security, I would create models based on claiming Social Security at the appropriate time, giving them a secondary source of income beyond their investments. In theory,Continue reading “Should Early Retirees Who Will Depend on Social Security Buy Life Insurance?”

When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target. –Geoffrey Fisher It’s coming upon the end of the year, and, if you are on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) healthcare plan, otherwise known as Obamacare, it’s time for you to start doing your end of year tax planning. Why, you may ask me,Continue reading “Optimizing Your AGI to Maximize Obamacare Credits”

Creativity is great-but not in accounting. –Charles Scott 2021 will be the first year that we are using the healthcare marketplace provided by healthcare.gov through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Previously, we’d used my board work through the private equity fund I co-founded to pay for our healthcare, but given that I am dialing backContinue reading “ACA Subsidy Thresholds, Using Rental Real Estate for FIRE, and Why You May Need a Traditional IRA”

“Eat your betting money but don’t bet your eating money.” –Unknown Even though we hit our FIRE (financial independence, retire early) target at the beginning of the year, my Apple News feed seems to think that I am still looking for quick ways to make a buck. I mean…I am…it’s in my blood… Joking aside,Continue reading “The Sure Way to Put Out Your FIRE: Try to Hit Home Runs”