T.G.I.F. Friday: Volume 124
Welcome to “Thank God I’m FI” Friday, Volume #124!
Here are some things I really like and that you might too.
Financial Independence/Work Life/Retirement Articles
Am I as Rich as I Think? (Can I Retire Yet?) – “If you haven’t felt the pain of inflation the last three years, congratulations. Either you have money to burn or, as a cave dweller, your cost of living isn’t measured in currency.”
For the 14th year in a row, the S&P 500 did better than the majority of actively managed U.S. large-cap stock funds (MarketWatch) – “A majority of active funds focused on U.S. large-cap stocks failed to beat the S&P 500 index last year, extending their track record of underperformance, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices.”
Video
With the Olympics approaching now is a great time to take a close look at the insanity of what top gymnasts can do. The height that she gets on that last jump at around the 1:20 mark is astonishing. Go U.S.A.!
What I’m Grateful For
The huge 8.5 pound channel catfish that bit my hook last week.
Lyrically Speaking
I’m so tired of being tired
Sure as night will follow day
Most things I worry ’bout
Never happen anyway
From “Crawling Back To You” Tom Petty
I usually feature unknown and upstart artists here but sometimes the big names still have something to say. I was watching the excellent documentary Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free – The Making of Wildflowers (<-affiliate link) and some lines in the song “Crawling Back To You” hit me like a ton of bricks. Regular readers know I have this thing about ruminating on early retirement and catastrophizing possible things that might happen. It’s just in my DNA, my Mom was a big worrier and I am too. As the Beths put it for me, when it comes to being sure I have enough money I’m just shy of sure.
Mark Twain once said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which have never happened.” Well Mr. Petty put that thought in song in the way only he could, with simple chords and a haunting melody. But still my days are up and down. Some days I think “fuck it, just live, it’ll all work out”. Other days I retreat in self-protection mode.
After reading the horrible news of Jonathan Clements from The Humble Dollar I’ve been contemplating the fleeting nature of all of this, this life.
Miscellaneous
Time-restricted eating and high-intensity exercise might work together to improve health – “Improvements in body composition, cardiometabolic health seen among women with obesity.”
Ray Kurzweil explains how AI makes radical life extension possible – “He predicts that AI will combine with biotechnology to defeat degenerative diseases this decade. Then things will get really interesting.”
Oldest Shipwreck in the World Is ‘History-Changing Discovery’ – “An ancient cargo ship has been found at the bottom of the ocean, 88 kilometers off the coast of northern Israel.“
Dave, just wanted to say thank you for all your posts over the years. My wife and I finally pulled the trigger to retire at 55 and 52.5 yo on July 1st. You were one of six or seven FI bloggers that I have followed over the past 7-8 years that helped us pull the trigger. Not everything you posted was finance, but also about life, being active, laugh, and taking care of yourself.
It was time and so much more freedom to explore things we never thought of doing while working. We signed up for pottery classes starting tomorrow. Talk about being outside of my comfort zone. Who knows, I just might like it. Ha ha.
Onto the next adventure!
Wow – HUGE Congrats to you and your wife! I’m honored to be one of the blogs on your shortlist and thanks for your longtime readership and comments. I suspect the pottery class will be just the beginning of the new interests you will explore. It’s a big big world and so much to do – dive in and get wet!
So sad to hear about Jonathan Clements. A good friend only a few years older has been dealing with a recurrence of cancer as well. I don’t think I would do anything differently(??), but absolute clarity – in the face of aging family, friends with chronic illness and my own personal ruminations on death and dying, in addition to the wider world – still eludes me. I used to think regrets were for those who didn’t know what they wanted out of life, but as White Coat Investor wrote in his review of Rick Eigenbrod’s book “What Happens When You Get What You Want?”, success is just as disruptive as failure and, unlike failure, it comes without sympathy.
We are back off-grid in the north woods working out a more defined plan for summer living here, a spot close to those we love and plenty of convenience (less than 15 mins from a small international airport!). Not that 8 months living out of carry-on bags is really much of an imposition with the varied furnished accommodations at our disposal, but to be suddenly reunited with stuff in storage is like going to a pre-shopped yard sale with all items to one’s exact liking. (It’s a fact of life that we still manage to acquire STUFF from people passing it on, despite having no physical primary residence.)
Thanks for the long weekend update, hope you are out there living the dream!
Your off-grid adventures seem so amazing, and thanks for the link to that WCI post, that one sounds interesting.
Ha thanks – it’s a way of life that seems less amazing up close esp when all around are doing some version of it. I’m glad we’re able to regard belongings out of sight as out of mind — so even if it all got destroyed, we wouldn’t miss much apart from some artwork and documents.
Btw that book is a quick morning’s read at 90 pages or so, and available free to borrow on the Internet Library/Archive dot org – nothing terribly groundbreaking but the sort of friendly voice that says “You are not alone”…
The Internet Archive ROCKS!!