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The importance of rebalancing your portfolio to meet your changing financial needs and goals: A journey of FIRE (financial independence retire early)…

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  Dave Ramsey:  “You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you.” In my early days of investing, way back in 1996, I honestly didn’t know squat about investing.  That is fact.  I didn’t know how 401k’s or IRA’s worked, nor did I understand what all different types of mutual funds did.   Back then, it was just too much to take all that new information in.  I mean, I was barely 25 years old.  I knew retirement was probably 40 years away and besides, why worry about the future when you need to enjoy life right then and there? I didn’t care to learn about investing.  I just took the advice of my colleagues and selected the mutual funds that they themselves chose.  It was investing on cruise control.  I didn’t want to know and I didn’t really want to spend the time to learn about any of this complicated stuff. After putting away portions of my paycheck every two weeks, I found out my 401k account was growing....
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Spending a week in Williamsburg, Virginia: Return trip to this city and doing nothing much at all…

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  Williamsburg, Virginia is one of those special places in America that beckons every American to come visit.  We were certainly one of those people. Our first trip there coincided with my wife and myself’s lease of our first brand new car together, a Saturn , made by GM (General Motors) .  Our car, a SL1 , was a simple car: a manual transmission, no power steering, no power windows/locks, no fancy stereo system, and rear drum brakes! Although it was a very simple car, we still loved it, as it was the first new car we would get to lease under our own names.  We were so proud to be signing that lease, then driving it to our home.  Who doesn’t love a brand new car smell? We would take that car on a long journey from New York to Williamsburg which back then, felt like an eternity, at a driving distance of roughly 400 miles.  As long as traffic didn’t back up, I was doing fine, but you know traffic is bad especially during the summer months along the infamous ...
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2 nights/3 days in Raleigh, North Carolina: Review of North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and Vic’s Italian Restaurant & Pizzeria

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  It had been over 5 years since my wife and I moved down south to North Carolina, but in all honesty, we barely got to see the downtown area of one of the biggest cities in the South, Raleigh .  One of the main reasons for this is because we were more interested in exploring the wide open spaces out in nature, focusing on national parks, state parks, and local parks. It made sense to go out to nature after spending many years working, living in the rat race, trying to pay our stupendous bills each month, and trying very hard to live our version of the American dream.  As tired as doing that was, we were frankly more tired of dealing with ever demanding people most of all. And to that end, we found true peace, solitude, and rejuvenation in nature after retiring early in August 2020.  Sure, we did explore cities like Savannah, Jacksonville, Albuquerque, Las Vegas , and more during our cross country road trips out to the west coast and the south, but it’s funny how we ...
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Spending a month in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Our return trip to the Grand Strand in 3 years

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  The last time we had visited the famous “ Grand Strand ” area, encompassing roughly 60 mile stretch of beaches along the Atlantic Ocean in South Carolina ranging from the town of Little River down to Georgetown , it was with our Pomeranian Toby.  We stayed at a golf course community in the town of Murrells Inlet , several miles south of Myrtle Beach, for a duration of 3 months. After a veterinary examination that revealed a serious kidney condition in early December, we realistically knew we only had maybe several months left with our fur baby.  It was some of the toughest times we had ever experienced, knowing our time together would come to an end, very soon. Knowing this, we strived to make the best of the situation, and decided to make as many good memories together as we could.  We went everywhere: local parks, state parks, community parks, scenic spots, city of Charleston , Myrtle Beach boardwalk, and many others. We knew Toby was having a hard time keeping ...
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