Collins on Crypto

Since I keep getting asked, here’s my take on… It all feels very much like a religion to me. Believers revel in the glorious revealed truth of it. Nonbelievers think they are batshit crazy, and maybe dangerous. I am not a believer, but I am intrigued. Currency? So far, cryptos are too volatile to serve… [Continue Reading]

The Alfred Hitchcock Path to FI

Running from 1955 to 1965 Alfred Hitchcock, the famous director of The Birds and Psycho, had a weekly TV series. It was focused on crime, mostly murder. If you have cable, you can catch these as reruns even today. It is surprising how well they hold up, at least for me, in our modern day…. [Continue Reading]

Time to sell?

Story goes that back in 1929 Joseph Kennedy was getting his shoes shined and the shoeshine boy began offering him stock tips. Kennedy promptly returned to his office and sold all his shares. The market crashed and the cash he was sitting on suddenly became the most valuable thing you could own in the new… [Continue Reading]

My move from VMMXX to VBTLX

In my recent post Taking Advantage of Mr. Bear, I described how this current decline offered me the opportunity to move from VTSAX (stocks) to VMMXX (cash) in my taxable account while simultaneously moving an equal amount of VBTLX (bonds) to VTSAX in my IRA. This had the effect of maintaining my stock & bond/cash asset… [Continue Reading]

Taking advantage of Mr. Bear

  Updated June 15, 2023 Today (March 9, 2020) I decided it was time to cuddle up to Mr. Bear and let him help me avoid some capital gains taxes. As regular readers here know, for the past few years we have been homeless and nomadic. It is a lifestyle that agrees with us and… [Continue Reading]