Four Golden Albatross Financial Lessons

A Message to Future You

Four Golden Albatrosses take flight

If you’re reading my articles in chronological order, either in real time or at some undetermined time in the future, you’ll know that my two preceding articles were counter-points to other people’s financial ideas. As much fun as I had writing articles that used macroeconomics to argue against other people’s theories; doing so courts a certain amount of negativity. Granted, the counter-points needed to be made, and I believe I kept the articles congenial, lighthearted, and fact-based. However, at the end of the day, I still argued against someone’s work as opposed to building my own. As a result, I hit the pause button on the Risk Series this week, in order to focus on a more positive message.

Ironically, despite my online negativity I’ve actually been doing some positive stuff in the real world — which just might be the understatement of a lifetime in regards to the internet. Over the past three weeks, I counseled three different military members and/or their spouses on financial issues. Two of those counseling sessions took place face-to-face; while the third took place via email. All of them proved a great experience … for me at least. I learn a lot about myself and other people every time I counsel someone. Whereas I felt like a reluctant financial voyeur during my first counseling session; I actually enjoy them now. Continue reading →

Why I Trust My Plan … For Now

Posted on 05-March-18 by Grumpus

Procrastination Pays Off

Failure to properly plan …

I’ve had a draft version of this article sitting in my inbox for some time. It never gelled, so I left it alone. However, a blogging friend and mentor of mine, Doug Nordman, recently published an excellent article at his blog The Military Guide entitled “Don’t Buy A Home When You Leave Active Duty“. The article challenged several of my planning assumptions and acted as a catalyst to complete this post.

I consider challenges to my retirement plan a good thing. They force me to re-examine and update it as I gain more knowledge, and as facts on the ground change. As such, this article isn’t so much a riposte to Doug’s article, as it is an acknowledgment of it. It’s a confirmation that Doug’s article contained great points which forced me to re-examine my planning assumptions, but despite the challenge, my plan still passes scrutiny. It’s a healthy, Bayesian inference exercise that everyone should conduct with their plan routinely. Continue reading →

Post-Retirement Planning (Part 1): Teamwork

Posted on 17-November-17 by Grumpus

A Team Grumpus Victory Lap

This past week was a big one in the short history of the Grumpus Maximus blog. My first guest post on a much bigger website drove a record amount of traffic to mine. The guest post was a result of collaboration between myself and Darrow Kirkpatrick of www.caniretireyet.com. I am happy to consider Darrow one of my two main mentors in this blogging adventure. My introduction to Darrow was facilitated by my other mentor, Doug “Nords” Nordman, who founded the Military Guide blog. Darrow and Nords are both great guys, not only generous with their time but knowledge as well. Together they make up my team in the blogging sphere. Whether or not they know it, their willingness to help me succeed translates into a special kind of teamwork for which I am immeasurably grateful.

Da Komrades, we built this victory monument to commemorate your week.

I blogged recently that when I retire from the military, what I will miss most is working with the great men and women I’ve had the honor of serving with and leading. For some reason, I’m the type of person who draws great satisfaction from working successfully together as a team to accomplish goals. The military life, despite its many drawbacks, definitely offers plenty of opportunities for teamwork. While not the only career that offers this opportunity, if teamwork is one of your main motivations in life, I could think of no better occupation to enter.

The Post-Retirement Teamwork Challenge

It remains to be seen if I can successfully translate the satisfaction I derive from teamwork opportunities in my full-time career to retired life. For someone like me who needs the sense of accomplishment which comes with teamwork, it begs the question as to what outlet I will turn to when retired. Certainly, blogging might provide more and bigger opportunities to collaborate, and I look forward to the possibility. Yet, as I stated elsewhere on this blog, I started blogging as a means of therapy and to help a friend plot a path through a Golden Albatross moment towards Financial Independence (FI). I’m not ready to give those reasons up and place all my hope for fulfillment in retirement on blogging. Continue reading →

Test Your Retirement Plan: FI Numbers Don’t Lie, But … (Part 2)

Posted on 27-August-17 by Grumpus

Sister, I killed Colonel Grumpus in the Drawing Room with a lead pipe.

Grumpus The Confessor

I have a confession to make. I put off writing this post for a while. When I first started my blog, I had always intended to demonstrate how to test your retirement plan. I wanted to do this by using a high powered retirement calculator. Doing so would complement what I consider the biggest strength of my website: the series of practical “How To” retirement plan articles in the Planning section. However, I needed to tackle some other topics first. I wanted to walk financially novice readers up to a point where they could understand the subject matter of this article. Yet, I essentially hit that point weeks ago, and still, I delayed.

Part of that delay was due to the complexity of what I intended to describe. It’s hard to write effectively about the steps needed to test your retirement plan. A technically savvy blogger would simply post a video of how to do this, but that is beyond my capability at the moment. As a point of reference, I was happy enough when I figured out how to embed a spreadsheet into this post. Maybe someday I will circle back and create a video once I obtain the skills, and find the time. Continue reading →

Financial Planning (Part 2): The GRO2W Plan

Posted on 27-June-17 by Grumpus

As you see from the title, this post is a continuation of a previous post on the method I use to conduct financial planning. If you haven’t read the first post I suggest you go back and do so. The content below will make more sense if you do. I would strongly suggest you read my article on the need to track your money as well. Without that knowledge you will not be able to make many of the calculations I discuss below.

If on the other hand, you are continuing from Financial Planning (Part I), and you’ve read my Track Your Money post, it must be because you are ready to build your financial plan. So let’s get to it. Continue reading →

Financial Planning (Part 1): Time and Planning

Posted on 25-June-17 by Grumpus

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

I received several comments in response to my last post from people who were receptive to the idea of Financial Independence (FI) save but one factor – the amount of time it would take to figure out how to achieve that goal. I get it. Life has a knack of interrupting attempts to plan long term. From babies to hobbies to the day to day grind of work. There just is not enough time in one day, one week, or one month to sit down, study the problem, and conduct the planning that FI requires. No doubt FI takes time – I used a three month Temporary Duty (TDY) assignment to develop my plan. Since I was separated from my family, I decided to put my time to good use. However, you may not be so “lucky” as to get three months of TDY from life’s other responsibilities to conduct FI planning. If lack of time is your biggest obstacle to planning for FI, attached is an outline to follow in an attempt to save you some … time. Depending on how well you track your finances, using the outline will probably cut your required planning time in half. Speaking of the need to track your finances, if you do not already do so, please read my post on the need to track your finances before going any further with this one. Continue reading →