A friend's active-duty retirement reminded us of the potential surprises & pitfalls of the first pension payment. The first surprise you may encounter is the date of your pension deposit. When you're on active duty you're getting paid on the 1st and the 15th -- although the exact date that the money's in your ...
Sometimes putting up three posts a week is a problem. However, my blogging problem isn't deciding what subject to write about. My blogging problem is deciding which subject to write about first! Since I'm still incubating a half-dozen unfinished posts, I'll take the easy Monday-morning approach and talk about my ...
Old toilet, discolored porcelain, and mineral stains I was ready to wax our old toilet. But before I explain that teaser, let me talk about a critical aspect of financial independence: DIY-- doing it yourself. When you're working 60 hours a week (or deployed for a 168-hour ...
It's been nearly two years since my father wrote a letter to us two sons that his "slipping memory" made him stop using e-mail. Since then I've learned way more than I really wanted to know about managing his affairs, and I've included the four most important lessons at the end of this post. Dad's a retired engineer ...
A few months ago I was offered a chance to moderate a tiny part of the Dollar Stretcher community in Military Family Finances. I highly recommend Dollar Stretcher's weekly e-mail, and their website is a treasure trove of personal financial tips. One of the perks of being a Dollar Stretcher moderator is the ...
(The first part of this post is over at Jacob Lund Fisker's Early Retirement Extreme blog.) Now for the rest of the story... When I was an impressionable young teen, my best friend's older brother was attending USNA. Every time he was home on leave he wore a Navy sweatshirt and a three-day beard. He'd have a cold ...
Welcome to all the new readers who found this blog last week! The hits immediately doubled, and they've nearly doubled again!! Today's post actually starts over at Jacob Lund Fisker's Early Retirement Extreme blog. He says that ERE-infatuated teens have asked him about joining the U.S. military as a way of retiring ...
We're military veterans, not financial advisors. We're trying to share what we've learned and to pay it forward – but you have to make your own decisions.
What worked for us will probably work for you, but unfortunately, we can’t guarantee it. Let us know if something’s not working for you, and we’ll try to figure out a better way... Continue Reading...
Doug Nordman