So I came across an interesting documentary the other day called Spent: Looking For Change. It’s a documentary about four families who have fallen on hard financial times and have essentially been booted out of the traditional financial systems that most of us (including me) use every day. Even though I know a little about having financial trouble (I grew […]
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Our Next Adventure – Short Term Rental
Yes! We will be closing on our rental home sale at the end of this week and I’ll have a short break from being a landlord. Actually, we have one condo left, but it’s very close by and mostly maintenance free so it’s not a big deal. The break won’t be that long, though. We’re planning to do a 1031 exchange to defer the $40,000+ tax (federal and state.)
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June 2014 Dividend Research
Every month for the past two years I share my process to screen for undervalued dividend paying stocks that have increased their annual dividend payment for 20 or more years. Considering the market has been hitting new intra-day highs almost on a weekly basis I was afraid that I was going to find nothing undervalued,
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My Early Retirement Journey Recap
Recently, it dawned on me that Retire By 40 is a bit disorganized. It has been almost four years since I started writing, and that means there are a lot of blog posts. A new reader can drop in and read a few articles, but it’s not easy to get the whole perspective on this early retirement journey that I’m on. So I thought I’d put a recap together and ad
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How to Get a Great Deal on a New Car
My new wife and I have decided we needed a second car. We were sharing a 2000 Buick Century with over 140,000 miles on it, and we are honestly a tiny bit surprised every time it turns on. We were mainly looking at used cars, but on June 2nd it was the “last day of the month” for car dealers […]
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I’m Finally Closing My Bank of America Checking Account
When I went off to college, I signed up for a checking account with the local Bank of America branch. Free checking with no account management fees, no minimum required balance, and tons of ATM around. It was perfect for a college kid who didn’t have much money and had no interest in paying someone […]
I’m Finally Closing My Bank of America Checking Account
Revamping Our Early Retirement Backup Plan
Last time, we looked at the fear of outliving your money in early retirement. This is a real danger if you quit working in your 30s, 40s, or even 50s. You will spend much more time in retirement and that will greatly increase the risk of outliving your money. We put some safeguards into place so we’d get an early warning if our finances start to go south. Here
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When Debt is a Good Thing
Back in the post called “Back in Debt But It is Different this Time“, I mentioned that instead of buying my used Toyota Camry outright, I decided to take advantage of the cheap loan interest rates and borrowing the money from the banks and invest the cash that I would have used to purchase the […]
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6 Months Later How Has Meddling With my 401(k) Fared
Approximately 6 months ago I came up with a nonscientific plan for my 401(k). At the time I felt that the market was reaching a high it had to come down from and I should put my contributions into cash rather than my balanced portfolio. I would then allocate the cash reserves when the market
The post 6 Months Later How Has Meddling With my 401(k) Fared
Keys to Retiring Early
The following article is from Mike, our staff writer. Just about everyone I know dreams of retiring early. Usually it’s either because they’re stuck in a dead end job they can’t stand or because they want the freedom to spend more time with their family, traveling the world, or following their passions. For most people, the prospect of retiring early i
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