Hull Financial Planning

21/09/2022

How do we determine what AirBnB listings and reviews *truly* mean?

What are hosts and renters truly saying about the places available on AirBnB? Find out what commonly used euphemisms actually mean.

19/09/2022

We just finished a little over a month in Manchester, England. How much did it cost, and what did we think?

We spent over a month in Manchester, England as long-term travelers. Find out how much it cost and what we thought of the city.

16/07/2022

We went to Split, Croatia for four weeks. Here's what we thought about it. https://www.hullfinancialplanning.com/trip-report-four-weeks-in-split-croatia/

15/07/2022

Did we like Izmir, Turkey as a long-term destination?

We just got back from a six day trip to Izmir, Turkey. We wanted to love it, but the lack of clean air affected our impressions.

31/05/2022

We took a quick trip to Vienna, Austria. Here’s what we thought and how much it cost:

This is what we did and how much we spent on our four day trip to Vienna, Austria. Your mileage may vary. This was not a budget trip!

19/05/2022

My wife caught COVID on our transatlantic cruise. Here's what happened:

This is what happened when I got COVID on a Norwegian Cruise Line transatlantic cruise. This was the NCL Escape.

06/09/2020

Why Life Insurance Companies Should Provide Financial Planners

If you’ve recently experienced a loss in your family and are looking for information on what to do with your insurance policy, please click here.

The financial planning industry paints a very incomplete picture of the outcomes in your life. We tell you to save money, get insurance, budget, and the like, and whoosh, we wave our hands around much like a weatherman does in front of a green screen telling you that there’s rain in Des Moines, but not really able to point at the exact spot where the television viewers are seeing Des Moines because he can’t actually see what the viewers are seeing.

It’s the same with us. We give a hand wave, tell you some things, and then, whoosh, off you go.

A lot of the time, everything works out just fine. You have 2.5 kids, the house with the white picket fence, work in a great job, and are happy ever after. We’re good at predicting the usual outcomes because they are,

If you’ve recently experienced a loss in your family and are looking for information on what to do with your insurance policy, please click here. The financial planning industry paints a very incomplete picture of the outcomes in your life. We tell you to save money, get insurance, budget, and the...

06/09/2020

Financial Independence and My Who Wants to be a Millionaire Story

"I have the same experience everyone watching the show at home has: You're shouting the answer at the TV and thinking it's ridiculous a contestant doesn't know."
--Julia Collins, women's Jeopardy winnings record holder

“Is that your final answer?”
--Cedric “The Entertainer”

As many of you know, I recently appeared on the television show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I won $6,250, and pledged to give 50% of my winnings to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Financial independence allowed me to make that contribution.

There are many reasons why we want to get more money. We want to reduce the stress over having little or no money left over after we pay our bills. We want to pay for our kids’ college. We want to retire without having to worry whether or not we’ll be the bag lady or the dumpster diver living under a bridge. We want to take trips and be able to see the kids and grandkids more. We

“I have the same experience everyone watching the show at home has: You’re shouting the answer at the TV and thinking it’s ridiculous a contestant doesn’t know.” –Julia Collins, women’s Jeopardy winnings record holder “Is that your final answer?” –Cedric “The Entertainer” As ...

06/09/2020

Fear and Loathing: Early Retirement Into the Coronavirus Pandemic This article is part of a series on personal finance during the coronavirus pandemic. Please check out the Coronavirus and Your Finances Series (link will open in a new window).

Sometimes bad luck hits you like in an ancient Greek tragedy, and it's not your own making. When you have a plane crash, it's not your fault.
--Werner Herzog

My wife and I decided about a year and a half ago that we were going to pull the plug and retire early at the end of 2019. We'd done all of the calculations and projections and felt very secure about our sources of passive income and our safety net going into retirement.

Three months later, most of the country is under lockdown. HUD just announced a moratorium on evictions. While we don't expect our renters to take that as a blanket moratorium on paying rent, we also are quite aware that some of them will face financial hardships, and we'll have to work with them. It will

This article is part of a series on personal finance during the coronavirus pandemic. Please check out the Coronavirus and Your Finances Series (link will open in a new window). Sometimes bad luck hits you like in an ancient Greek tragedy, and it’s not your own making. When you have a plane crash,...

05/09/2020

Why Me Caring About You Makes the Medicine Go Down a Little Better

“Be tough minded but tenderhearted.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

I recently went to the eye doctor. It’d been about twelve years since I had my LASIK surgery, and I hadn’t been since we moved to Texas. I wanted to find a local optometrist with whom I could establish a relationship and make sure that everything was still functioning the way it should.

When I had my surgery, my eyesight improved dramatically. I had 20/12 vision. I knew that my vision wasn’t quite as good as it had been after the surgery, but I felt like it was still quite acceptable. As it turns out, I was right on both counts; I still have 20/17 vision. I also got a test for macular degeneration, and passed that with flying colors. I was nowhere near the readings which might be a cause for concern.

So, with all of that information in hand, I expected to be given the clean bill of health, a thank you very much, and instructions to

“Be tough minded but tenderhearted.” ― H. Jackson Brown Jr. I recently went to the eye doctor. It’d been about twelve years since I had my LASIK surgery, and I hadn’t been since we moved to Texas. I wanted to find a local optometrist with whom I could establish a relationship and make sure...

05/09/2020

Revisiting SAFEMAX

“Retirement is just a nice way for the company to tell you that they have found more talented, youthful and skilled staff than you.”
--Unknown

Back in 1994, William Bengen came out with a seminal study evaluating just how much people could withdraw each year in retirement and not run out of money before they ran out of life. He did a historically based simulation, called aftcasting, to see how much retirees could have safely withdrawn for 30 years and still had money at the end of that time period. Retirees who started retirement between 1926 and 1976 and invested in a 50/50 split of equities and fixed income could experience a wide range of withdrawal amounts without running out of money. If there was a bull market right after retirement, they could potentially withdraw over 8% of the initial starting portfolio value, adjust it for inflation each year, and not run out of money.

Salad days.

What he was more concerned with, though, was the lean

“Retirement is just a nice way for the company to tell you that they have found more talented, youthful and skilled staff than you.” –Unknown Back in 1994, William Bengen came out with a seminal study evaluating just how much people could withdraw each year in retirement and not run out of mon...

04/09/2020

Paying Off Your Mortgage Early Will NOT Destroy Your Finances

A goal properly set is halfway reached.
--Zig Ziglar

Recently, Forbes magazine published an article entitled "Paying Off Your Mortgage Early Will Destroy Your Finances".

It was nice clickbait.

I clicked on it, after all.

The premise of the article was that, if you don't have your mortgage paid off, then, in a financial emergency, like layoffs due to COVID-19, the bank is going to foreclose on you, and having tried to pay extra down on your mortgage isn't going to help you. In fact, the bank will be happier because they'll have more equity when they sell the house.

This is half right.

First off, if a foreclosure auction gets more than the amount owed and what it cost to foreclose, , the bank does not get to keep the extra money. Bids in excess of what is owed go to the homeowner. So, there's not equity that disappears from the former homeowner.

However, that's not the main point of my disagreement

Forbes suggests that paying your mortgage off early will destroy your finances. Are they wrong?