I'm counting the days until my house is paid off (less than 2 yrs).......I wanna be like MH....'cept with health insurance somehow. Then I'm gonna buy a van......and live "you know where"....according to my wife anyway, if I buy a van.
My wife's tennis coach is also mine, and he's a great coach. I'm just curious...do you get a reduced rate on lessons if the wife is banging the coach? Asking for a friend.
You ought to pay him extra for taking on extra chores.....Then again, maybe he can teach her new tricks...win, win! Regarding debt reduction...it is the key to true financial freedom. It took me many years (decades actually) to figure this out. I'm on a cash only basis now. I don't have the ability to buy a Ferarri, but then again, I never wanted one. I did lust after a brand new liter bike with all the trimmings...no problemo. The truth is I still can't spend my income so savings are still growing. Having beer tastes instead of champagne tastes is another key.
I'll agree on the part about the tax penalty for cashing out retirement, the rest- not a chance. Nothing dungeon-y about it- suggesting a 50+ year old man take on a 30 year mortgage for any reason is a hard sell to me. I've got less that 3 years left on my mortgage, and only was able to reap any tax benefit the first couple years. The wife is hot to get into a bigger house. I'd love to, but I'd love being debt free a whole lot more. Bagging on MH is easy (and fun), but I'm frankly a bit jealous of his current situation.
My home mortgage rate is currently 2.9%. My retirement funds usually are making much more than that. So I'm putting my money where it pays most.
Paid off my house this year, paid off our company building and 150 acres of land, paid off our last piece of equipment too. All this done in the same year that we lost over $250k in the May flood. Not sure how all that actually happened in the same year. Ought to be on cloud nine, but it just feels like stuff. All I think about anymore is riding/camping in Utah and living out of a tent. (Sorry @brex) MH, you and @SpeedyE ought to pool your expertise and start building guns. Something completely new and innovative. You could call it SPEEDYHEAD. And your slogan could be, "Have you had your Speedyhead today?" Or, "You can never get too much Speedyhead".
MH, Bring me a large pepperoni with mushrooms and tomatoes. Hurry up I don't want to get it when it is cold. I will retire in less than 2 years with our retirement home paid off and with good insurance coverage. We have our retirement, social security and whatever we pull out of our annuities (I plan on taking out 5%, since we are getting a better average return so it will still grow, just slower). I don't really know that we can spend our fixed income on a regular basis, so I guess our savings will continue to grow.
You should have done this or you should have done that or this that and the other thing. No, he should have done whatever the f@ck he wanted to do. Hey, if he had cashed out and gone to Vegas and banged hookers professionally until his dick filed a complaint with equal opportunity commission over working conditions and over work it'd have been as much my problem and place to say as him buying a house for cash.
Good man Richie. Nothing sucks worse than owing someone money... Life is far better not owning a thing....
Meh. If the kids want to go they can figure out their own way. If they can't be bothered to figure it out on their own, why should they go?
I'm torn on this. Part of me agrees with you, completely, but a part of me says they should have some skin in the game also. I say that, because I know exactly how it feels to have zero parental financial assistance, and know how much further along I would be, had I had it. On the other hand, perhaps I wouldn't have the work ethic, and resolve that I do, had it been given to me. Who knows? Yeah, we have funds in place for them, but I'm not sure we'll be giving all of it to them for college.