FI for the People

Hello, Dear Reader! It’s been a minute since I wrote a rant post (I think this one was the last one). So, it’s high time for one now. Because you definitely wanna read hear some ancient, embarrassingly over-privileged guy complain about petty things. Right?! Right . . . ? Bueller? Well, I’m the one tapping…

Hello, Dear Reader! Welcome the third (troisd?) and probly last installment of my series addressing a May 29, 2025, Morningstar article by Christine Benz in which she recapped her takeaways as an attendee and speaker at CampFI Spain earlier this year. In the post, Benz remarked how disappointing it is that some people pursuing FIRE…

Hello again, Dear Readers! For the 1s of you who are regular readers or happened to stumble on my last post (Control Factors (Part Un)), you’ll recall that in said last post I began a multipart series addressing a May 29, 2025, Morningstar article by Christine Benz in which she recapped her takeaways as an…

Dear Reader, as you’ll shortly discover, the subject of this post is pretty simple and straightforward. But, hoo boy have I had a devil of a time tackling it! I meant to publish last week, but the trouble I was having and my usual procrastination led me to hold off and work on the post…

As I ‘splained way back in the Stone Age days of this here blog, finding out that there are mountains in the . . . Mountain West (a term and region of the country that I assure you, Dear Reader, I was aware of) . . . and discovering and learning about FIRE was what…

I had lotsa reasons for FIREing at the end of 2021.  Cuz I had long tired of didn’t love (or, to an ever-larger extent, like) the work that I did? Check! Cuz a lot of the lawyers I painfully had to endure people I worked with were increasingly grating on me? Yep! Cuz there was…

In my last post I bored you with discussed the nuts and bolts of my experience getting subsidized Obamacare health insurance on my state’s health insurance exchange. An experience that included several challenges. Some expected. Others not so much. I left off at a point where I’d become more knowledgeable about cost sharing reductions (CSRs)…

Hello, Dear Readers who did not ask for this post but are getting it anyway! In my last post, I bored you to tears regaled you with the story of how I finally got health care exchange health insurance with subsidies this year, after learning at last year’s Econome conference that the rule preventing me…

As I mentioned in a blog post last year, I went to my first formal FIRE conference in March 2024: Space Camp for Money Nerds Econome. The conference was well run, and very fun. I give it two thumbs up. My one “problem” with the conference was that I already knew much of what was…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am a staggeringly dim-witted buffoon the optionality that financial independence provides is hands down the best part of FIRE. It may not be worth a death march to obtain. But a few bumps and bruises? Probly, yes. Or at least a broken whatsitcalled. You know,…