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Why staying invested in the stock market at all times is one of the most important things you can do: A journey of FIRE (financial independence retire early)…

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  Warren Buffett:  “Successful investing takes time, discipline, and patience.” The year 2025 has been a strange year so far.  Stock market, which had been chugging along in early 2025, met some interesting turbulence right around the end of February, thanks to Trump tariffs placed on countries at that time. Starting from that time, the S&P 500 index , the most watched stock market index in the world, dropped almost 20% the next few weeks.  It wasn’t until June that the index recovered from this precipitous decline, scaring one too many investors in the process. I also watched my investments drop close to 20% those couple of months.  It’s never fun to see your hard earned money go down the drain.  But it is in these exact moments when everything in your being screams “ Do something! ”, that we must do something that is really, really difficult.   That is, to do absolutely nothing … I have lived through something like 5 different shocks to the stoc...
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4 nights/5 days back in Ocean City, Maryland: One of our favorite places on the East Coast!

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  Sunrise at Ocean City, Maryland  For those of you who have been following this blog for awhile, Ocean City Maryland , was the first location we stayed in using Airbnb, following our early retirement in 2020.  Back then, we were trying to adapt as best we can to our new chapter in our lives. We didn’t really know what early retirement would be like, nor did we know how we would spend our time.  One thing we did know for certain was the idea of traveling throughout this great country called the United States of America. We had visited Ocean City previously and found it a cool place with a beautiful beach, ocean, and plenty of things to do.  Of course, back when we did our month long AirBnB there, we still had our Pomeranian Toby with us. It was a month of us trying to make sense of early retirement, of how we were going to live day by day, and how we can live more fulfilling and stress less lives.  As tough as first days were adjusting to our new lives, by ...
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3 nights/4 days in Williamsburg, Virginia: Top attractions including Historic Jamestowne and Yorktown Battlefield

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  Historic Jamestown, Virginia  Despite having a rather short history as a nation state, United States somehow managed to become the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation.  Compared to some countries like China, South Korea, Iran, France, whose history began easily roughly 1200 years ago or earlier, America’s history only began in 1776, with the “ Declaration of Independence “. As a young impressionable, immigrant student living in the United States, the rather short history of this great nation was a fascinating thing.  How could such a young nation be the leader of the free world when some of these countries mentioned above easily beat the US in terms of their respective histories? I count American history class in high school as one of my favorite subjects.  It was always interesting and at times harrowing to learn how this young nation got its start.  Starting out at Jamestown, about 2 miles from the present day Williamsburg Virginia, the young c...
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