Wandering Money Pig - A journey of early retirement and FIRE (financial independence retire early)

  Be aware of the next great stock or investment ‘tip’ Warren Buffett:  “If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes.”   My wife and I are early retirees at ages 51 and 48.  We’ve been slow traveling with our Pomeranian dog Toby, since our early retirement in August 2020.  We’ve visited various destinations on the eastern parts of the United States including Ocean City (Maryland), Atlantic Beach (North Carolina), the Poconos (Pennsylvania), and few others.   We plan on living this nomadic lifestyle in the foreseeable future. In this post, I’d like to share my thoughts on latest & greatest investing/stock tips. It’s easy to fall prey to a ‘hot’ investing or stock tips from a fill in the blank (YouTuber, friend, friend of a family, friend of a friend, a stockbroker friend, you get the idea...).  I look at these tips this way.  If it was so great, why would they tell me about it?  Wouldn’t you think this person would keep all t

  Port Jefferson, Long Island, NY Colin Powell:  “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.”  Looking back at my life (all of 49 years or so), I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve always tried to find something good out of most situations so I can better cope with a tough situation.  With few exceptions, this has kept me going through the thick and thin. How many times have you faced adversity or tough situations in life and you had to deal with it in your own way?   Well, if you’re human, then you would’ve done this hundreds of times (and continue to do so every single day)… The ability to see a positive in any situation is something we can all get better at.  I believe it’s a learned skill and not an innate skill.  We can train ourselves to get better at this with practice and more practice. At age 17, I was lucky enough to be gifted with my first car.  It was a sports car that I had been eyeing for years during my early teens.   You can imagine how excited I was at getting my firs

  Walkway Over The Hudson State Park, NY Our family had booked a week long stay at Mountain Creek timeshare for the month of September back in May, not knowing then, that our mother would pass away towards the end of August.  We had, as usual, wanted to spend time together like we did twice previously in November 2020 and in March 2021. After the funeral was over, my wife, myself, and my sister-in-law decided to go to that timeshare as that was what she would’ve wanted us to do anyway, to spend quality time together.  It was during this particular trip that we explored Walkway Over The Hudson   State Park and New Jersey State Botanical Gardens .   Both of these attractions are about an hour drive from Mountain Creek area.  We were glad we explored both of these places, as they were absolutely beautiful in their own unique ways. We left our condo at around 8:00 a.m. hoping to be back at the condo before we hit any traffic when coming back from Walkway Over The Hudson State Park.  As w

  Money is one of the top reasons for divorce in America  Egyptian proverb:  “If you marry a monkey for his wealth, the money goes, but the monkey remains as is.” Money matters is usually listed as a top 10 reason for divorce in America.  Why is handling money so difficult?  Isn’t love enough to overcome a trivial thing like money? Well, not exactly… The older we get, the more difficult life gets.  We simply have way too many financial obligations and responsibilities.  We have student loans, credit card bills, mortgages, rents, personal loans, car payments, and the list goes on and on and on… I think most of us really don’t worry about money matters prior to college.  Most of us will probably open a credit card for the first time while in college.  I know none of my friends (nor I) had credit cards in high school, but that changed in college… The opening of a credit card is the beginning (for most of us) of our credit history.  Now, just because we have a credit card doesn’t mean we k

  Toby meeting a friend at Hawn’s Overlook, PA During the month of August, our slow travels took us to central Pennsylvania, to Altoona.  During our stay, we got to enjoy our cozy trailer home rental that was refurbished with modern 'decor, and best of all, had a covered porch, which we really loved. We got to explore nearby area attractions like the World Famous Horseshoe Curve, Headache Hill Scenic View and Fort Roberdeau .  We were happy to revisit several parks near the town of Hollidaysburg, which we had visited during our month long stay in the town of Claysburg, back in April.   It almost felt like a homecoming when we revisited places like Chimney Rocks Park and Natureworks Park.  We felt nostalgic and felt good coming back.  After covering all these places though, we wanted to find other destinations that were within a two hour drive from Altoona, so we can be back before dinner time. I did plenty of research on where we should see and came up with these three must see a