LivingAlmostLarge

Today was my Mom’s offical last day of work 3/30/2007. She is 55 years old and has been a state employee for 33 years. She has stuck with her job because of the amazing medical and retirement benefits. Earlier this week I discussed early retirement, well here I’m going to examine her [...]

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Right now I have the goal in mind of retiring at 55 and DH 57. I think it’s a really ambitious goal and one I doubt we’ll be able to reach. But there is nothing wrong with dreaming.
As I stated in my previous post, my biggest concern is covering our medical costs associated with retiring [...]

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What define early retirement? I think that anyone retiring before 62 is retiring early. At 62 people are able to collect social security, which will supplement their retirement income. Another important age is 65, when Medicare kicks in and provide medical coverage for free. However what are the risks of retiring [...]

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According to a recent article published by Bankrate, 34% of homeowners had no idea what sort of mortgage they were carrying. How is this possible? I find it very strange that about 1/3 of homeowners pay a mortgage, yet have no idea what sort of mortgage they have.
Does this mean that people are in over [...]

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The #93 Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Tired but happy. This carnival was the first I made the editor’s choice, with my article about children as a retirement vehicle.
Other top picks were “why you don’t need an EF“, which brings up good things to think about when establishing if you need an [...]

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What are trust deeds? They are deeds which are basically mortgages. However these deeds do not transfer the property to a buyer. Instead the trust deed transfers the title of a piece of property to a “trustee”, usually a title company or trust. This deed is held as security for the [...]

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We have been doing mypoints for years now just clicking on ads. We do nothing fancy and we earn 5-10 point here and there. Strangely earning the points have been beneficial. We fortunately managed to trade in our points for 3 $25 gift cards to Olive Garden, Maggiano’s group, and the California [...]

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The USDA posts every month, January 2007, the average cost of food that should be spent per family or single based on 4 different spending levels. The levels are thrifty, low-cost, moderate, and liberal spending plans. The USDA assumes all food is purchased at the store and prepared at home.
A couple between 20-50 for the [...]

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Well this year our CPA charged us quite a large amount, $585 to file our taxes. Last year we were charged $475 for 2 states and 1 federal return. And it was complicated without our moving situations. This year it was one state and one federal return.
I’m not exactly sure why he charged us more. [...]

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Okay so last week DH went out to eat with coworkers for a going away lunch for someone. Of course they split the check for the person leaving. No big deal. However they also split the bill for everyone’s meal, and included beers for those who ordered it and did not segregate it out for [...]

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