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  • Buckets of Money: Tax Planning

    Let me say this in a way so that I come off precisely nerdy: I love taxes. It’s my equivalent of studying game tape. This past fall, I spent an enormous amount of time thinking about and mulling over the concept of bucketing our money according to tax treatment. I wanted to narrow in on how money can go in to our portfolio for the lowest tax rate, and how money will come out of our portfolio at the lower tax rate. First, let’s review the three types of tax-treatments for money (per the tax man): To date, our FIRE…

  • 2023 Year End Wrap Up

    Welcome to 2024 🙂 I’m excited to be starting my year by writing out another post with my FIRE Flowers! These year-end wrap ups are so cathartic to write. Hopefully they are just as fun to read! Ha! The topics to wrap up 2023 include: Travel Updates This year the has a heavy travel year. I took my PTO balance down to low double digits, which is a first for me, and well worth it! My travels included: Cancun, Chicago (IL), Lake Okoboji (IA), Baltimore (MD), Greensboro (NC), Shallotte (NC), the Florida Keys, and Phoenix (AZ)! Woohoo! In November, my…

  • 100 Reasons to FIRE

    Hola FIRE flowers! Happy October:) My spouse and I love October. Admittedly, I startle easily from horror movies, so we add  horror movies and series to our Netflix list throughout the year, and then come October 1st, let the frights begin! And we move from light spooky in the beginning of the month to deeply mentally destabilizing creeps for the final Halloween weekend. That’s what I’ll be getting up to this month, starting tonight! Our topics for today are: 100 Reasons to FIRE It’s all about the MOTIVATIONS babes! Every proper FIRE blogger has at least one post that lays…

  • A tale of Student Loans

    Hello FIRE flowers! I’m excited to be back to writing you again today! The topics I am going to write about today are: The Tale of my Spouse’s Student Loan Payoff: Disclaimer: This is going to be like one of those true crime podcasts where you [hopefully] get fully engulfed in the story, and then at the end it was never solved and you leave without full resolution. Admittedly, I wrote this filled with a misplaced hope that the supreme court would wrap this tale up in a bow the day before publishing. LOL did I single-handedly jinx us? And…

  • Phases of Life & Bonus Strategy

    Hey there FIRE flowers! The topics I am going to write about today are: One exciting piece of news for the new year: two weeks ago we adopted a 5 year-old grey boy cat – named Moe! 🙂 He has been adapting so well to our routines. It’s great to be a mama! And the required pet-tax: Bonus Savings Strategy: March is Bonus Season for my company! Since many corporate companies operate on a similar schedule, now seems like a good time to review how I try to make the most of my bonus. Here is my multi-part, highly complex,…