The Journey That Is Your Life

I do believe that life is a journey. And like any journey it can be fantastic, harrowing, boring and everything in between at times. Life surely won’t be one of those things all of the time. Over time life offers many experiences and opportunities to people. Above all though, it’s wonderful to be alive!

Over the forty plus years of my life the one thing that has been most important to me to figure out is this. How do I stay at peace inside while on this journey? Because if you think about it if you are at peace inside many many things in your life seem to come together. Whether it’s sunny out or pouring. Whether it’s hot or cold. Whether you’re healthy or sick. Whether you’re wealthy or broke. Internal peace (or peace of mind) is something that allows people to not only manage but appreciate where they’re at and what they have at any given time.

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The Great American Housing Debate

There are many ways that you can kick off a feverish argument over a topic. You can declare in New York City that you know the best pizza place in town. You can declare in Austin, Texas that you know the best BBQ place in the state. You can argue to Europeans who is the best soccer player ever. And just about anywhere in America you can opine on whether it’s better to rent or own your place of residence. That’s a more universal opinion than any of the others I mentioned. Because while you may not care about pizza, BBQ or the world’s greatest soccer player you must have a place to live. For decades in America the conventional wisdom was that home ownership was a core principle of the American dream. I think that proposition changed during the US housing crash in 2007-2008 but there’s definitely still a solid debate over whether, in the long run, owning or renting your domicile is the better option. Having experienced many versions of American housing situations, including owning and renting single family homes, owning and renting apartments and even living in government owned housing while in the US Army, I finally feel qualified to give what I think is a well informed opinion on the subject.

What I’ve learning in the 26 years since I purchased my first home, a brand new construction house in Austin, TX, is that there are three main components to consider when deciding whether owning or renting your residence is right for you.

Money
Lifestyle
Risk Tolerance

Money, because for many people the housing debate comes down to comparing what rent prices are versus the cost of carrying a mortgage, assuming you don’t have the cash to pay outright for a property (and most people don’t). But the rent versus mortgage discussion is a gross oversimplification of the costs of owning a home. More on that later. Lifestyle, because I’ve found that not all housing decisions are compatible with certain lifestyles. I found this out early when my brand new home sat empty most of the time because my job had me traveling 4-5 days per week and I’d spend some weekends traveling with friends. Risk tolerance, because every choice of housing involves some level of risk. And not just financial risk either. Moving into a new place can change your life completely, for better or worse and often you don’t know how your life will change till you fully commit and move into a new place.

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Checking My Bank Balance Daily (And Other Anti-Fraud Measures)

Stories of financial fraud are rampant in the media from schemes that involve fake bank text messages to out and out street crime known as “bank jugging” where people rob a person shortly after they withdraw cash from a bank branch or ATM. Over the years I’ve taken notice of the various schemes employed by criminals and have developed some processes and habits that I believe are effective in either preventing fraud or catching on to fraud very early in the process. The first of these habits is simple enough. I have a main checking account that my pay has historically been direct deposited into. From that account I allocate money to savings and investments in other accounts, and pay bills directly out of the account. For that reason it’s a very important account for me. Which is why I check the balance on a daily basis and at least once a week I’ll review recent deposit and withdrawal transactions. Some people may equate checking your bank balance on a daily basis to the activities of one pathetic miser named Ebenezer Scrooge, but there’s a difference in what I’m doing. While Mr. Scrooge was pathologically counting his wealth due to his obsession with money I’m simply checking to ensure that nothing unexpected has occurred. And if something doesn’t look right on a daily basis I can take a look at what happened right away.

It’s important to note that although you are not liable for fraudulent activity on your bank accounts that doesn’t mean that it can’t be hugely inconvenient while you and the bank attempt to sort out what happened and why. Banks also have established time frames for the reporting of fraud and beyond those time frames you may have a lot of trouble reversing fraud. So don’t sleep on your financial accounts, especially accounts that hold money you need to pay day-to-day expenses. It’s also comforting to know that financial institutions have sophisticated systems in place to identify fraud when it occurs, but sophisticated does not 100% guarantee they’ll catch all fraud. Which is why as a customer you need to be aware of your balances as well as the expected ebb and flow of money into and out of your accounts. We usually have regular deposits (like a paycheck or pension payment) as well as regular withdrawals (such as utility bills and those ever growing internet subscriptions) that we expect to impact our balances. Get familiar with what those are. As I mentioned above at least once a week I do a run down of charges to ensure that I understand all of the ones that have occurred. Understanding your banking activity is the first line of defense against potential fraud on your accounts.

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My (Almost) Daily Walks Are Essential

If there’s one thing that I do almost every day that helps support my physical and mental health it’s taking walks. Walks are perhaps the simplest form of exercise and one that most people can engage in, even as they move on to their later years. I’ve been exercising on a regular basis for decades but it’s only in the past few years that I’ve come to value the benefits of a vigorous walk. Many decades ago when I was a professional fitness trainer I was introduced to walking as a primary exercise (rather than just a warm up or cool down technique) via a program that was called Reebok Power Walk. It was something that Reebok was promoting to help sell their cross training fitness shoes and they sent people to gyms around the U.S. to advise the trainers on power walk workouts. At the time I can’t say I was immediately convinced but it was impressive how, with the right technique, a walk could translate into a strong cardiovascular workout.

Many years have passed since those days and I continued to favor things like running outside, running on a treadmill and using a stationary bike for my cardiovascular exercise. That started to change for me about eight years ago when on a brisk run in a hilly neighborhood I took a bad step and fell forward near the bottom of a hill. As my body launched forward during the fall I had an instant decision to make regarding impact. My hand or my face! I chose to put my hand out front to save my face (mostly as it turned out) and the result was a thick gash in the base of my palm. I was a mile from my apartment at the time but it was all up hill on the return. I found, of all things, a discarded Starbucks cup to press into my palm to stem the steady flow of blood. Gross I know, but any port in a storm! I cleaned and bandaged the wound at home but I knew that stitches were required and luckily my primary care doctor was able to see me on short notice and he cleaned and sewed my hand up. From that point forward I reassessed my desire to run outside. It was too painful to run for a few weeks till the hand healed so I began walking more for cardiovascular exercise.

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Trying Early Retirement On For Size

For the better part of 18 months now (since January 2025) I’ve been planning on retiring “early” at age 57 at the end of 2026. It’s a pending decision that I’ve been thinking about often for years. According to the calendar the time is just a little more than 6 months away. Wow! What I’m planning is a significant life change and as it gets closer I must admit that there is some nervousness regarding the taking of the step into what will be a kind of unknown for me. After all, it’s 35 years since I graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree and full-time work has been my life, except for a few brief periods, since then. In a way it feels like I’m breaking a 35 year habit.

What I told myself back in January 2025 was that in June 2026 (which it is now) that I would make my final decision in terms of whether I would actually retire at the end of 2026. There were two reasons for keying in on June 2026. First, with 6 months to go I figured it would be a good time to assess whether or not my retirement financial goals had been met. They have been, and then some. Second, I wanted to make a decision in advance so as to offer my employer sufficient time to plan for my departure. My position with my employer is not one that can easily be filled on short order and I’m not looking to burn bridges or greatly inconvenience my current co-workers. That being the case my plan has been to inform my employer by the middle of July 2026 so that they have a good five and a half months to recruit and train a person to take my place.

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Dealing With Corporate Job Related Stress

A few years ago, after 25 years working in corporate America, I began to feel as though I could not shake the effects of stress off anymore. I can’t be sure if it’s the amount of stress I was dealing with, the type of stress, my age or all of the above. I just knew that I was handling stress differently than early in my career. The bottom line is that I didn’t feel myself handling stress well. Instead of a good night’s sleep or a three-day weekend, or even a week’s vacation, putting me back on level ground nothing seemed to shake the feeling inside of me that was at best unsettling and at worst nauseating when it came to performing my work duties. Since my tendency is to seek rational approaches to problems in my life I took some time to study the possible remedies to the situation rather than throwing up my hands in defeat and retreating to live in a trailer up in the mountains or something.

What I found both in my research and my personal experience in seeking remedies for my stress were common recommendations that ultimately don’t solve the issue of stress in the modern workplace, but rather act as window dressing so that corporations can assure themselves that they’re not working their employees into the ground. It seemed to me (and still does) that the priority in terms of corporate remedies for stress management lies in keeping employees productive to the level that modern employers expect from their employees. And modern employers expect a heck of a lot from their employees! Why shouldn’t they? Employees have more tools than ever, such as smartphones, laptops and nearly limitless access to internet connectivity, allowing them to do the bidding of their corporate employers at the office, at home, in transit and just about everywhere in between. Work life balance was a corporate buzz phrase in the early 2000s because that was the time when such technologies were ramping up and people felt the change in the pace of their work and their employer’s expectations. I’ve noticed that in recent years you don’t hear so much about work life balance anymore. I think that’s because employers, who for years touted work life balance as a reason why their companies were different (i.e. better) than other companies, have finally normalized a productivity all the time culture in which work is life.

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The Stuff Paradox

Lately as I ponder a planned retirement from full time work by the end of this year I’ve been thinking about what I’d like life to be like post retirement and have decided that downsizing my life in general will be an important part of that time. I’ve been on sort of a downsizing journey in my life over the past 12 years since a divorce and although I feel that I’ve made good progress getting down to a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment I would like to do all I can to reduce my fixed costs by downsizing even further. The problem I’m running into with these aspirations comes down to…stuff!

Stuff are the things that we accumulate over the years that manage to stick with us wherever we go. In this modern era stuff is easy to come by, but strangely difficult to get rid of. Most people living in modern American society understand this I’m sure. When visiting family members that live in a housing development I often see open 2 and 3 car garages packed with…stuff! Have you ever wondered why you have so much of this or that in your home? It could be books, coffee cups, linens, plates, stuffed animals, shoes or boxes filled with…stuff that you haven’t even thought of for years. Only recently I’ve been working on addressing things I have around my apartment that I either have too much of or pay absolutely no attention to. The goal is to reduce, if not eliminate, such things from my life in service of my plan to eventually live in a one bedroom apartment. But while it’s easy to identify the things that could be gotten rid of its SO…DAMN…HARD to pull the trigger on those plans.

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Eating Like A Cat

I recently heard a veterinarian comment that the ideal situation for a cat’s diet involves the cat being just a little bit hungry. With this approach a cat will stay closer to its ideal weight and avoid the pitfalls of gaining weight that lead to certain diseases and lack of mobility as the cats age. After making that comment the vet then added that it’s an approach that would help humans with their overall health as well. Basically what the vet was saying was to not feed the cat too much. Many cats gain weight as they age since their metabolism slows down and their humans associate a full tummy with a well taken care of cat. This turns into a vicious cycle where the cat becomes accustomed to more and more food as it burns less and less calories, ultimately leading to obesity. Hearing the veterinarian describe this I realized that the same exact things happens with humans as we age.

My own experience with weight as I’ve aged (currently mid-50s) reflects the challenges that many people have. My job is sedentary. I spend hours a day sitting and working at a computer. That certainly does no good for weight management. My job can be quite mentally stressful at times, which leads to what I call stress snacking, which is eating just to calm myself down. I work almost exclusively remotely from home these days, and while I mostly enjoy it I have settled into eating habits that aren’t serving me well. While I’m careful about what I eat and even what I have in the house available to eat I’ve gotten used to regular snacking that is adding unnecessary calories to my diet. Hence, while my weight is just a little over what it should be for my age and height I don’t feel comfortable at this weight. I know that I should be at least 5-10 pounds lighter. At least.

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The Rainy Day Always Comes

If you’re aware of the news lately (and I’d be shocked if you weren’t) markets have turned bearish and commodity prices have risen sharply, basically turning the dynamics upside down compared to where they were in 2025. It’s a trend driven by the military action in the Middle East, whose long-term impacts and ultimate conclusion are greatly in doubt at this time. Hence, it’s unclear when things will turn around and stock markets will once again become bullish (meaning that stock values will once again continue rising) and gasoline prices will come down. Welcome to the world folks. The little people (which is just about all of us) never know when the great powers will make moves that turn the world upside down. We also never know (for sure at least) when things will go right-side up. So welcome to the proverbial rainy day. This being a time when prudence reigns over risk taking and when the people who eschewed the proverbial financial umbrellas (those are for losers, right?) are drenched in fear for their financial future. The thing is that everyone needs a financial umbrella because as many people are learning now, and I’ve learned over decades of saving and investing, that the rainy day ALWAYS comes eventually.

Now if you look at media coverage of financial topics in this time you’ll find lots of opinions, as always, of what investors should do next. Most of that coverage promotes a changing strategy to meet changing times. As far as I’m concerned such advice only makes sense if you’re one of the (far too many) people who think that prudence in terms of investing is for losers and wimps. What I will be doing, as I’ve always done, is to stay the course and continue to buy low cost index mutual funds at regular intervals, thereby taking advantage of good old Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) which, over time, will more than offset any temporary paper “losses” for the mutual fund shares that have reduced in value. For 25 years I’ve purchased in down markets and I’ve purchased in up markets, only selling shares when money was needed and I couldn’t cash flow a cost out of my salary or other cash savings. A great example of this was cashing in mutual fund shares when I needed a down payment for a primary residence. Another example was when an older vehicle of mine ceased to be reliable and I decided to buy a new car for cash. These examples are the exception rather than the rule though. Most mutual fund shares that I have purchased years ago I still hold, and market downturns like the current one have only deigned to chip away a small amount of my returns on those shares. Even then, that’s just on paper. In real terms the only loss taken when the value of a share falls is if a person panics or is otherwise forced to sell that share at a loss. Sometimes that is truly necessary but usually only if a person has failed to consider a financial umbrella in the event of a rainy day. More about that follows.

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Life’s Tactical Decisions

Lately, for whatever reason, I’ve been thinking about some of the key decisions I’ve made in my life. I call these Tactical Decisions. Tactical decisions are undoubtedly very important ones in life but their ultimate impact is usually not known for years. I’m talking about decisions such as accepting or departing from a job, getting married or getting divorced, staying where you live or moving someplace else, buying or selling a home, pursuing a graduate degree or taking that dream vacation. Those are just a few examples, but many of them all of us are likely to contemplate throughout our lives. One thing to notice about tactical decisions is that there is almost always a ying vs. yang relationship to them. Such as entering into a marriage vs. exiting a marriage via divorce. It’s possible that over time you will experience both sides of each coin. I know that I have. I’ve found that when some of these decisions have gone wrong (from my perspective at least) there has been a tendency to second guess them. I’ve also found that there’s really no point in second guessing after a decision has been made. It’s just a mental exercise at that point, and usually a painful one at that. We can only accept that we made the decision that we made and move forward from there.

My marriage and ultimate divorce 11 years later are two of those tactical decisions that have weighed on my mind. The marriage produced two children which yielded many wonderful family moments. The anticipation of a new pregnancy. The joy of a new birth. The sometimes exhausting but often joyful process of raising little ones. The process of the relationship with my ex-wife produced many wonderful moments. The first kiss. Falling in love. Discovering each other. The feeling that you were going to walk the world with that special someone. Alas, I experienced the downside of both marriage and family. The feeling of growing apart from a spouse and not knowing how to reverse that process. The frustration when I knew the marriage was not going to make it. The dread of being separated from my children post divorce. The feeling of the children’s love slipping away due to the phenomenon of parental alienation, which is more common than I realized. The financial and emotional cost of all of the above are staggering. On the one hand I mourn the past at times. On the other hand I marvel at how resilient I’ve been. I haven’t allowed the setbacks in life to break me. But yes indeed I have bent! I’ve come to realize that the process of bending in the wake of pressure is likely what prevents one from breaking. Divorce, and the related family fallout, have been painful but I have resigned myself to the fact that they were necessary since my ex-wife and I were drifting hopelessly apart. Hanging on to the marriage may have done more damage in the long run. Since then my next tactical decision with regard to relationships has been one to clearly avoid marriage. Because for all the joy of the upside, the pain of the downside is a more frightening proposition.

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The Power Of Frugality In Wealth Building

Over the years people have called me cheap. Okay, perhaps they’re right about that but I prefer the categorization of frugal. From where I sit people who can be called cheap just don’t want to spend money…for whatever reason. But my perception of frugal people is different. I see frugal people as those who fail to spend…on some things…with a purpose. My purpose in not spending, where possible, is related to my desire to retire early and live well for the rest of my days. With that goal in mind I’m happy to pay for the necessities of life and to enjoy life where possible without joining the masses who worship at the altar of consumerism. Things, in particular, have never excited me too much. Things like a fine leather sectional sofa or a new car or an expensive watch. There are so many things people love to spend their money on these days. We used to think back in the 1990s that the Home Shopping Network (HSN) was a niche channel on cable that catered to shopping addicts. But today the near immediate satisfaction offered by the internet has revealed just how much mass there is in mass consumerism. Not being excited by things I have not joined in the orgy of internet spending, at least not to the level of most American adults. I enjoy my 25-year old IKEA couch. I enjoy my 15-year old dining table and chairs. I enjoy my 20-year old mattress, to name a few household items I’ve had for a stretch. Because when I think of those things, and others, in my apartment the thought of replacing them doesn’t move me as much as the thought of retiring early and living well in later years moves me.

Oh sure, I’ve been known to love technology in my day so I do have a MacBook Air, an iPad, and a Windows laptop. But when I buy these things I keep them for years, not trading them in every year or two when new versions come out. I confess I went a few early iPhone cycles upgrading every year. I quit that somewhere around iPhone 6 though. I now have a Samsung Android phone that’s 2.5 years old. I’m quite happy with it and don’t feel the need to have the latest and greatest phone with Artificial Intelligence (AI) features. When I do buy a new phone I usually get one that’s been out for at least year, has been discounted, and doesn’t include all the pro features that top of the line smartphones are known for. When I moved last, about 3 years ago, I was really wanting an updated 4K TV so I gave my ten year old 50-inch LCD TV to a maintenance guy at the apartment complex where I was moving from. When I arrived at my new home I bought a new 50-inch OLED 4K TV. I also decided I wanted to have really nice sound to enjoy those 4K action movies I love so I added a companion soundbar. So I’ve been known to splurge on things from time to time! But my spending on things like that are the exception rather than the rule. After I moved into a condo I purchased in late 2022 I had problems with the refrigerator. People I talked to about it urged me to get a new refrigerator. Now there’s no shortage of places where you can order a refrigerator online, have them bring it to your door and have them take the old one away. I looked at comparable new refrigerators and they all cost over $1,000. So I decided to call a repairman. The person I got diagnosed the problem as a circuit board issue. He happened to have a circuit board because it’s a common fault of my quite common refrigerator. For $300 the fridge has worked well for almost three years since. The way my mind works doing what I did a) reduced the waste of having to junk a refrigerator; and b) freed up $700 that I could save and invest for either retirement or something more critical I’ll need to spend on down the line. That’s my mindset…for better or worse.

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