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

Be very careful when using leverage… Warren Buffett:  “When you combine ignorance with leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.” Recently, I was reading about the whole Evergrande fiasco that is happening in China.  For those of you that don’t know, Evergrande is the second largest real estate developer in China.  They became a household name (well, at least finance interested people like me) when they failed to make their bond payments that were due in September.   Like what has been happening in China for the past decade (or longer), Evergrande has been using tremendous amount of leverage to build more apartments/condos/high end homes.  China’s speculative real estate market, where buyers would buy these real estate thinking they’ll always go up, is a common theme found in bubbles. I’ve personally lived through two of these bubbles in my lifetime.  One was the ‘dot com bust’ in the early 2000’s, when everyone and their cousin was buying stocks thinking the new technology (

  Congaree National Park, SC During our 3 months stay in Murrells Inlet (South Carolina), we discovered Congaree National Park , the only national park in the state of South Carolina.  We were debating whether to visit this park as it is about a 3 hour drive from Murrells Inlet area. In the end, we couldn’t resist the temptation of Congaree National Park after seeing awesome pictures of vast swamps and the iconic boardwalk that loops around the park.  We were glad we got to visit the park as the park is surreal and otherworldly. Congaree National Park is located in the town of Hopkins, about 18 miles southeast of the state capital, Columbia.  The park itself is 27,000 acres, and it boasts the largest tract of old growth bottomland hardwood forest left in the United States. Established in 2003 as part of the national park system, Congaree National Park is part of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve .  The park preserves some of the tallest loblolly pines alive today, as well as bald cypress t

  Prepare for involuntary termination… Steve Jobs:  “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.  The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.  It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” Recently, I was watching a TV show where main characters working at a technology company, were given a choice between voluntary retirement or involuntary termination.  Even though it was a make believe TV show, it brought back memories of my involuntary termination at a car dealership eons ago.   I walked in to the dealership after a week long vacation in early January, and was asked to come in to the supervisor’s office.  There was the used car manager and the finance/insurance manager waiting for me. They asked me to sit down, then told me that they were letting me go due to my low sales numbers.  I told them that January i

  Fox Tower, Foxwoods Resort Casino, CT Foxwoods Resort Casino was opened in 1992 to great fanfare.  The huge, sprawling resort located within the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation reservation in Ledyard, CT covers an area of 9,000,000 square feet.  It is still to this day, the largest casino resort in North America and offers 7 casinos, AAA Four Diamond hotels, tons of restaurants, golf course, state of the art theaters, and an outlet mall. Thanks to my parents, I’ve been frequenting this resort since its opening way back in 1992.  Back in 1992, Atlantic City (New Jersey) was the nearest and the best place you can go to gamble at casinos, near New York City.  When Foxwoods first opened, we were excited to pay a visit!   The driving distance from New York City to Atlantic City or Foxwoods is roughly the same at around 135 miles one way.  One of the major advantages of going to Connecticut is less tolls compared to going to Atlantic City when leaving from New York City, and arguably le

  Conway Riverwalk, Conway, SC Slow travel, where we’re staying at one place a month or longer, has allowed us to see places we normally wouldn’t have the time or the energy to see.  This way of traveling has afforded us the luxury of seeing well known places as well as off the beaten path places. During our pack’s (my wife, myself, and our Pomeranian Toby) 3 months long stay in Murrells Inlet (SC), we read about Conway , a town north of Murrells Inlet, in one of the local tourist brochures.  We had already visited many places in and around where we were staying the first two weeks, and we were ready to explore other places outside of Murrells Inlet. Conway is home to two major institutions of higher learning, Coastal Carolina University and Horry-Georgetown Technical College .  Numerous building and structures in downtown Conway are on the National Register of Historic Places.   City Hall Building , is one of those historic buildings, and it was designed by Robert Mills , the archite