The Reluctant Financial Voyeur

Foreclosure From The Great Recession

Over the past two work weeks, I helped financially counsel a fellow officer whose residual financial issues from the Great Recession stood to impact his career. There we were, almost 10 years from the start of the downturn, looking at foreclosure documents starting in 2009. He’d only settled the foreclosure within the last year, and the DoD wanted answers. In some ways, I could hardly believe it. In other ways, it was a sobering reminder about the lasting impact that event will have on American society for years, possibly generations, to come.

It also proved an interesting glimpse into another financial way a life. I found a life almost alien to mine because decades ago my fellow officer chose to build wealth through rental properties. Despite my personal negative history with a 2004 property purchase (as related previously on this blog), I hold no ill will for those who choose property investment as a method for building wealth. If it works for them, that’s great. However, my comrade-in-arms had specifically chosen a highly leveraged method for acquiring rental properties. As I questioned him on the simple details that he should’ve known from using this strategy, I quickly realized he lacked the acumen for it.

Continue reading →

The Pension Series (Part 1): Pension Safety

Posted on 03-September-17 by Grumpus

The Grumpy Labourski

I just realized the serendipitous nature of the topic I chose for this Labor Day weekend’s post, which is pension safety. Of course, for my one international reader, I refer to U.S. Labor Day. Don’t confuse it with the rest of the world’s International Worker’s (Labour) Day, otherwise known as May Day. The U.S. celebrates its laboring workers in September due to May Day’s association with the Haymarket Affair and the Communist Party. There’s no way this Cold War kid would celebrate some Commie Red version of Labor Day. Of course, now I feel torn between shouting either “WOLVERINES!” or “YeehaaAAAWWW!” in homage to one of the two greatest Cold War movies of all time. I’ll let you decide which one is laced with more irony. (Grumpus Maximus is an Amazon Associate, see Disclosures for more details.)

Seriously Dude, Wolverines!

Jokes aside, this article marks the start of a new series of posts centered on pensions. My choice of Labor Day weekend to begin this series, while fitting, was coincidental. In all honesty, I don’t plan that far in advance. I decided to write about pensions because I noticed that the blog’s kind of light on pension discussions. That’s not good for a blog “Where Financial Independence (FI) and Pensions Meet to Create a Better Retired Life”. Thus, I felt it was time to rectify that oversight. 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 →

FI Numbers Don’t Lie, But They May Mislead (Part 1)

Posted on 19-August-17 by Grumpus

Stop What You’re Doing …

Cuz I’m about to ruin the Grumpus sense and style that you’re used to?

In the now timeless words of Chris Farley, “Holy Schneikes!”. I saw a lot of negativity on the interwebs this week, which made me regret getting a Book of Face account. I only got an account in order to run a Financial Independence (FI) blog. Prior to that I was as anti-FB as they come, and had never had an account. In fact, I still do not have personal account, just this semi-awesome public persona with his two avid followers (thanks kids!).

I used to simply listen to podcasts about the cognitive dissonance people engaged in on the internet, now I get to see it first hand. I used to read well thought out news articles that would lay out facts, points, and counter-points forcing me to think about all sides of an issue. Now I get sucked into the visceral, opinion laden, and nonfactual diarrhea that spews out from peoples’ minds, through their thumbs, and into their comments box. Is it me, or do people just like to shout “fake news”, strap into their echo chambers, and argue past each other with no intent, or hope, in reaching common ground. It’s enough to make a grumpy guy like me point out that people suck … I mean REALLY suck.

What does any of that have to do with personal finances, FI, and retirement planning? I don’t know, but I felt it needed to be said. If that loses me an occasional reader, so be it. As Bob Dole once said, “…the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you…“. Continue reading →

Retirement Planning: How to Calculate Your “Gap Number”

Posted on 24-July-17 by Grumpus

Grumpus Maximus Comment: I originally wrote this post with the intent to create a clear and concise step-by-step on how to calculate your Gap Number. Turns out I wrote another tome. Some of you may prefer my ramblings. If so you are probably one of my relatives or friends. Or maybe you are waiting to laugh at another of my $750,000 dollar financial mistakes. Fair enough, all I can do is laugh about it too. But in case you don’t prefer my ramblings, I thought I would quickly refer you to some other resources that are clear and concise.

First off, check out Darrow Kirkpatrick’s website Can I Retire Yet?. I’ve talked about him before, so I won’t rehash my book and website review for him. On his site under the Index link, if you scroll down to the Retirement Equation section, he walks you through everything you need to do in order to make your calculations. The Mad Fientist also has a Planning section under his archive, which has several useful articles. Finally, check out the two booklets I reviewed in my book review section entitled Early Retirement Solutions: How Much Money Do I Really Need to Retire & Achieve Financial Independence? and Retire Sooner!: How to Optimize Your Plan to Achieve Financial Freedom by DJ Whiteside. They are what I used to make my calculations.