Stanomad

Author: Stan

  • Financial Fundamentals

    Financial Fundamentals

    This is not financial advice or a sales pitch for lifestyle or financial planning resources.  I have nothing to sell. Everyone’s financial path and circumstances are different. This was my path to financial freedom.

    My lifetime sources of income and wealth include:

    • Non-fixed Income
      • Salaries
      • Wages
      • Tips
    • Fixed Income
      • Social Security
      • Pensions
    • Investment Returns
      • Dividends
      • Interest
      • Capital Gains
    • Inheritance

    I was self sufficient and living on my own at sixteen.  For 47 years my income was non-fixed.  I either worked full time or part time while attending school.  I was mostly employed by others and had a boss.  I have little experience with self-employment, property management, real estate speculation, trading financial instruments and other income sources.  I have fundamental knowledge and experience in long-term buy-and-hold investing which I began doing in 1987 with passive contributions to deferred compensation plans offered by my employer.

    I transitioned from non-fixed income (salary) to fixed income (pension, Social Security) when I retired in 2010 at the age of 63.  My employer-managed deferred compensation plans were consolidated and rolled over into to a single self-managed IRA account.  I inherited liquid assets and real estate n 2012.  I did not need the money or want the house.  The real estate was sold and the entire inheritance was invested in self-manage investment accounts.  All my expenses are meet by my pension and Social Security benefits with money left over to add to my investment portfolio.  I have never withdrawn any money from my investment portfolio.

    I feel fortunate to have had a stable job with a defined benefits pension, deferred compensation plans and Social Security.  In other posts, I examine:

  • Lonely Hammock

    Lonely Hammock

    I am a hammock hanging in the shade of two palm trees on Sámara Beach.  A gentle breeze sways me on a perfect Costa Rican day.  I should be a happy hammock.  But, I am not.  I am lonely, incomplete and unfulfilled without a human partner.  So many stroll by on the beach.  How can they not want we?  Is there something wrong with me?  Is something wrong them?  How long must I wait?  I am a lonely hammock hanging by the beach.

    I am a hammock hanging in the shade of two palm trees on Sámara Beach.  A gentle breeze sways me on a perfect Costa Rican day.  I should be a happy hammock.  But, I am not.  My aching hands and feet grip the palm trees rough bark.  I dread human weight collapsing into me, stretching my limbs and joints as if on a medieval torture rack.  Please pass me by.  Do not notice me.  Do not use me.  Do not hurt me.  Leave me alone.  Let me be just another lonely hammock hanging by the beach.

  • Spreadsheet of Health 

    Spreadsheet of Health 

    “That which does not kill, only strengthens” is nonsense.  Numerous forces destroy people leaving them alive but permanently weak and miserable until they die.  Survival is not enough.  The correct expression is, “that which does not destroy, only strengthens.”  Although more logical, it leaves undefined things that do not destroy (stressors), what is not destroyed (stressed) and what is strengthened.  Does the expression imply direct connections between stressors, the stressed and resulting strengthening?  Examples are recovery of stressed but not destroyed body tissue, finances and relationships.  What if parts of a person’s life are actually destroyed but the whole person becomes stronger by compensating mechanisms and use of alternatives?  It’s complicated.

    It is useful to break complex phenomena into discrete understandable parts arranged on spreadsheets.  The most familiar are numeric spreadsheets like financial balance sheets.  They can be incomprehensibly complex but the basic concepts are not. They are collections of numbers and ridged mathematical relationships between them used to calculate outcomes called bottom lines.  Bottom lines let one know where they are today and might be in the future.

    My health is a complex phenomenon that I cannot break down into numbers and calculate precise numeric bottom lines on a spreadsheet.  However, I can identify things that I know affect my health.  They are not discrete and the relationships between them are complex, fluid and individual-specific.  It is not possible or necessary for me to assign numbers or rigid relationships between them.  It is only necessary for me to know what they are and what their effects are. A pseudo-spreadsheet can be made up of things with positive, negative or neutral effects and how they affect the bottom lines of my health.