• Traveling Healthcare

    Travel Assignment #6: Prescott, Arizona

    As most of my posts recently have been pretty heavy on investments due to the growing market fears.  I figured it would be a good time to mix it up this week and discuss my next travel assignment on my path to financial independence.  My previous assignment was my second stint in Boston during early 2019.  This contract ended near the end of March and I had already decided that I was planning on leaving the state. About halfway through this assignment, I decided on Arizona as my landing spot.   Getting My Arizona License So I started my transition process to begin this new assignment across the country.  I began…

  • Finances

    Embrace the Ride: Investing for the Short Term vs the Long Term

    As I talked about in my previous post on Market Timing, I start out by stating that the majority of us are and should be investing for the long term.  Long term meaning expected retirement dates 10, 20, or 30 years out. I say this again now, because I think it’s important to look at the market history over a short time frame vs a long one to show that the recent events, albeit scary, are right on track with history. If anything, the recent extended bull market may have been the outlier.   What may look like extreme stock market volatility on the micro level is really just a small…

  • Finances

    Market Timing: Is Now the Time to Get Out of the Market??

    This week especially I have received questions and have seen countless Facebook posts asking if “now was the time to get out of the stock market”.  So I think it’s time we address this oft asked question to hopefully help decrease fear and avoid some of these costly mistakes.  So to start out, the majority of us are and should be long term investors.  Meaning, we have a retirement goal set for 10, 20, 30 years into the future. If you are a short term investor, you are either beginning the transition to retiring soon which usually equates to moving more towards bonds or you are gambling.  Market Timing (i.e.…

  • Finances

    Coronavirus: The Importance of a Financial Crisis Plan

    It was Sunday at noon when I received a call from my secretary.  I had missed her call earlier in the day and it was her off day so I figured it was important for her to call again, so I answered.  See, at this time, I was hiking a trail in the outskirts of Sedona, practicing social distancing. So I found a spot with okay service near the peak of the trail and answered.  I was supposed to be hiking Zion National Park, and visiting Las Vegas this weekend for the first time during possibly the best sporting event of the year, March Madness.  I had even taken two…

  • Finances,  Traveling Healthcare

    Cutting Your Housing Costs: Americans Spend ⅓ of Their Income on Housing Alone

    2019 was a crazy year for my living situations so I knew I wanted to write an article about it.  I’m not writing this article to say these are the necessary steps to reach financial independence or even to improve your financial position.  I’m simply writing it to show that there are sacrifices or small changes that all of us can take to decrease our monthly spending on housing. And sacrifice may be a strong word choice as well.  Possibly re-framing our thoughts may be a better way to put it.  Housing is expensive so if we can find different avenues to cut this cost we can save a lot…