‘Tis the season for sharing. So, I decided to have a post where you can share whatever topic you think is of interest to others. Some possibilities:
- What gadgets Santa gave you for Christmas.
- Your thoughts on the biggest story of the year.
- The most important lesson you learned this year.
- Your advice for kicking off the new year.
As for me, I told Santa to hold off on gadgets for a while. I am still toying with the idea of getting an iPhone at some point, but I really cannot justify it to myself. Apple-related products seem to be doing very well, though. I read that Mac computers and iPods are among the hot sellers at Amazon this Christmas season. I’ve had my iMac for a year now, and I love it.
For me the “biggest” story of the year is Bruce Keener gets a “C” on his First Year of Retirement Report Card. Of course in the grand scheme of things, this story is really small, but it is an important one for me.
Why not an “A” on my report card? Mainly because I did not do a lot of the things this year that I had anticipated doing. I expected I would spend a lot of time studying theology, and gosh knows I have enough books on the subject to read through: I bought a bunch of them before I retired anticipating spending a good bit of time studying them. Instead, I have spent a ton of time on blogging, something I had not even anticipated doing. But, I give myself a passing grade because I have enjoyed retirement, even if it hasn’t gone exactly as I expected.
By the way, in a future article, I will discuss how I went about deciding to retire. I hope to write it in a such a way that you can learn something from it, as far as making a big change, whether you are thinking about retiring or not.
Back to gadgets: we all know they are not cheap, and gadgets often add to the debt burden for a lot of folks. To address that, I recommend reading JD’s recent article on The Architecture of Personal Finance. In addition to being a well-thought-out article, it also has some great links in it. JD’s Get Rich Slowly site is one you should consider adding to your feeds, if you haven’t already.
Well, I am still on my self-imposed vacation for a few more days. I just thought it would be good to get a conversation going on things you think are worth sharing.
Take care and chime in.
P.S. I did tweak the site design a bit more, so regular readers may need to hold down the Shift Key while hitting the “Reload” button in their browser to see the changes. I have tried to improve readability a bit more. I studied several of the top sites (CNN, Amazon, MSN, Yahoo, etc … the really big ones) and found that they typically use 12 pixel Arial fonts, so I decided to do so as well. I would suspect they have tested the heck out of their settings and found that setting to be optimum. As usual, let me know if you encounter problems with the tweaked design. I have tested it on a bunch of different browsers but there may be something I missed.
As always, I am very open to feedback and suggestions on the design.
My advice for kicking off the new year: forget “new year’s resolutions”. Yeah I know, old news, but people still do it. The problem is that new years only come around once a year, and there’s a lot of padding and time to waste in between. I suggest making resolutions when they first seem like good ideas, then reviewing progress or lack thereof daily, weekly or whatever.
Good advice, Capo. Seems like the only New Year resolution I ever kept was the one to not make any more of them … made it several years ago and feel no loss because of it.
Keener, I’m a little disappointed that you feel your efforts last year only merit a “C”. Maybe it’s the professional in you refusing to give up the wheel… I hope so. I think that simply making the decision to retire alone is worthy of a solid B+. If you had tacked on 50 lbs. in the process, THEN you would get a “C”. I don’t know you personally but from what I see I doubt you have would allowed that.
Regardless, You done good in my book.
For me, the biggest story of 2007 is the ongoing War on Terror. It’s a subject very near and dear to me because my twin sister’s household could have been torn apart by it; I thank God that He had other plans for my brother. It’s also amazing to me that people choose not to see that the economy is weak because of poor policy (including the war)… which in turn drains “our” reserves until the common man (you and me) who fuels the economic engine can’t afford to spend AND prepare for important things (like retirement).
Conspiracy theory? Not at all, just look at the trends in your own wallet. I’m making more money now than I ever have, and I have less choices than I did 4 years ago. And I’m not living above my means either.
Which leads me to my point; the next big thing is a THE converged device. We’re pretty much demanding it now. The iPhone is nice, but it’s not a business-class device. Definitely fun though.
Will we see it in 2008? Probably not as a physical manifestation. The common man can’t afford to pay 300%+ of manufacturing costs any more (right Mr. Jobs?) Just because demand exists. Two months before I got married in 2005 I stopped being an early adopter and moved to the back of the bus. I haven’t paid full price for any technology since then. If someone does come out with THE device and I can afford it I’d gladly wait in line overnight.
Kelvin,
You make some mighty fine points. I agree with you on everything you said: darned shame that policies have resulted in us, the common man and woman, losing ground.
You are being very sensible about technology. For once in my life I am, too. That’s why I keep putting off an iPhone purchase, because I know in my heart it is not the perfect converged device, although it may be closer than anything else to date. And I am just tired of laying good hard-earned money for something that doesn’t give me what I want.
Anyway, thank you for the comment and for the positives on my retirement.