Retirement Planning Part II

Dr. Marley.
I will never forget him.

He was one of the best professors at Georgia Southern. Not only did he give me a tip on an investment that has since been fruitful in both growth and income (BP, in case you're wondering), but he also said one of the most inspirational things, I think, without even meaning to be inspirational.

His classes were mostly graduate-level discussions and so much of the class was conversational with him, the teacher, and us, the students. In one of the discussions that the following statement was relevant to, he briefly said, "I'm actually retired- I'm just teaching this course for fun."
And he was telling the truth.

I spent the rest of that particular class wondering... what? How old is he? He doesn't have any gray hair, he always wears these spiffy suits, and he drives a Mercedes Benz.  How could he be retired?!?!

On his LinkedIn profile, he was involved in various very successful start ups and knows a lot about everything in a lot of different industries (which made him a very good teacher). So basically, he got in, made a bunch of cash, and he got out.

As I've said previously, he was an awesome teacher. Could it be that his "just doing this for fun" is what made him such a good teacher? Other teachers are so concerned with grades, the structure of how they calculate grades, and meeting deadlines. But even on the very first day, he was like "I just want you to learn something useful." A phrase that is ironically rarely ever said in school.

I think there have been other studies that show that when you're not dependent on income, you're way better at your job. You do your best because it's fun for you and you want to, not because you have to because if you don't, you won't be able to put food on your family and your house will be foreclosed on and you will die in a sewer.

I love the idea of getting to do what you're really passionate about without financial consequence.

And I happened across a hard-core early retirement blog this past week and have found truth in the following sentence:
"Saving is money spent on buying freedom." - J. L. Collins

Short term goals (1-4 weeks):
1. Increase exemption on W-4 from 0 to 1
2. Hang dry most clothes
3. Set the thermostat to 81 during the day
4. Cook 6/7 meals of the week at home
5. Say "no" to cable and Direct TV

Long term goals (6 - 12 months):
1. Buy a bike, exercise more, drive less
2. Put down principal on house (get mortgage insurance to 0)
3. Invest savings strategically
4. Lay up treasures in heaven, not on earth

Eventual goals (4-5 years):
1. Wake up without an alarm clock on some random Thursday morning and have coffee.
2. Do something I'm really passionate about without financial consequence

Lamps throw all types of shade,
TWS

Butter Knife

I don't know how this happened to me, but my work e-mail gets all these ads for CPE that I don't recall signing up for.

And some of them are really stupid because they're like, "Become an enrolled agent!"
Becoming an EA while I'm already a CPA would be like asking your spouse to go steady with you.

Normal people probably wouldn't mind getting these e-mails. It's not like they're flooding my inbox. Maybe one or two a day.

Me, however? I cannot handle such nonsense, so I went ahead and marked them as spam.
I didn't know this until after I did it, but Outlook (or maybe just our work server) has a "feature" where sends you an e-mail that lists all of the spam it caught for you.

So now instead of getting an annoying spam e-mail a day, I get an annoying non-spam e-mail per day telling me about the spam e-mail that I didn't get.

Isn't that retarded?

I told Mike about it, and he was like, "Feed the spam!"

Accordingly, I added the spam report e-mail address to my spam list. Now every time a real spam e-mail comes through, it will generate the spam report e-mail. But since I also blocked the spam reports, then that e-mail will generate another spam report e-mail, which will generate another spam report e-mail and so on and so forth until it all blows up in my face.

Genius.

Faulty wiring,
TWS

Polyglot

There comes a point in every twenty-something's life when you just feel frustrated with all the progress you have (or have not) made in:

your job

your relationships

your financial savings plan

your Sudoku book on the back of the toilet

It's time to learn something new. It's time to throw yourself into something exciting and fun and challenging and rewarding. 

Those are the same words found in job posts by recruiters.

But I'm wise enough now to know that the only jobs that are actually exciting, fun, challenging and rewarding are volunteer work. 

Somehow, establishing a value to your time sucks all the fun out of it.

Think about that.

Like really think about that.

They should sell milk in 3 liter bottles, 

TWS