TakeAway | ‘We live a rather lavish lifestyle’: My wife and I are 33, live in New York City, and earn $270,000. Can we retire at 55?

A letter writer on his travel and dining out: “I justify it because we’re saving $50,000-plus a year toward retirement and have zero bad debt.” GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO

Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life.  A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload.

Now that you have an idea of what this write-up is about, check this out: A couple seeks answers for a retirement plan by writing to Quentin Fottrell, a MarketWatch's Managing Editor-Personal Finance and The Moneyist columnist.

‘We live a rather lavish lifestyle: My wife and I are 33, live in New York City, and earn $270,000. Can we retire at 55? We travel a lot, eat at nice restaurants and essentially buy what we want’

Courtesy, MarketWatch, read the letter below and follow up with Quentin’s response, certainly, you would learn something from it.

Dear Quentin,

My wife and I, both 33, are lucky enough to have high-paying jobs in New York City. 

Collectively, we make $270,000 a year.  We own a home in Seattle, worth $500,000, that is rented out and covers the mortgage and cash flow. We have zero debt outside of our mortgage. We have an emergency fund of $45,000. We rent our house in Brooklyn. Collectively, we max out our 401(k)s, and I receive a pension of $8,500 a year, so we’re saving approximately $53,000 a year toward retirement. 

We have about $75,000 in our retirement accounts from our work in Seattle. We have no kids and likely don’t plan on having any. We’d like to retire at 50 to 55. My question is: Are we saving enough? We live a rather lavish lifestyle. We travel a lot, eat at nice restaurants and essentially buy what we want. I justify it because we’re saving $50,000-plus a year toward retirement and have zero bad debt.

TakeAway | SHOULD YOU ADD A BANANA TO YOUR SMOOTHIES?

Banana Smoothie

New research now reveals why you shouldn’t add a banana to your smoothies. Disappointed? Please, don’t be.

A smoothie is a beverage made by puréeing ingredients in a blender, according to Wikipedia. A smoothie commonly has a liquid base, such as fruit juice or milk, yogurt, or ice cream. Other ingredients may be added, including fruits, vegetables, non-dairy milk, crushed ice, whey powder, or nutritional supplements.

On the other hand, a banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguishing them from dessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color, and firmness, but is usually elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind, which may be green, yellow, red, purple, or brown when ripe.

DATE-LINE BLUES | DEMO

 This recording was done in 2008 in anticipation of the programme's regular broadcast on Premier Fm, Ibadan. Although, this is a flash back, but it is intended to remind you that this show is going to debut in its original format on this blog soon. Don't miss a thing of it because, with D-LB it is all about a seal invaluable.

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CATCH-UP

CATCH-UP a.k.a CUP is a video/literary capture of products, services, organizations, and places across the globe designed to bring up to speed all that their target audiences need to know.  CUP is designed for weekly publication on the SEB.

FLAUNT YOUR LEISURE

Leisure is highly therapeutic to the human psychic and well-being. Aside from many not creating personal schedules or moments for relaxation, some persons have been saddled with leisure as a necessary routine for mankind. Yet we have some others who are living in ignorance about the essence and various ways of self-relaxation.

WAITING | It’s so funny a thing, this my poor little life. I still find it hard to believe she’s madly in love with me - THOMAS

ROSIE

Mother, please let’s drop this subject. Please …

MOTHER

Drop this subject, you say? Listen, Rosie, it surprises me that you still don’t realize how much pain your attitude is inflicting on your father and I. What is it with you? Your father disowned you hoping that would make you change your mind about Thomas Thomas. But ‘to hell with a father’ you said. And the poor man came back confused and apologetic. Now look at yourself – God! You’re growing fast overdue for marriage, Rosie. People bother me each passing day … such an embarrassment, I never could have the guts to tell any of them that Rosaline, my only daughter is engaged to a drunkard … “drop the subject”, you still say?  

Click here to get the full update on WAITING at this time.

WARD9ice | WAITING

Update coming soon!  

CATCH-UP | ENVIRONMENT TODAY

CATCH-UP at this time focuses on ENVIRONMENT TODAY, a weekly magazine programme regularly broadcast on Africa Independent Television (AIT), produced and anchored by ace broadcast journalist, Nkoli Omhoudu whom we ran into a while back to package this interview below:

DATE-LINE BLUES | BACK ON TRACK

DATE-LINE BLUES a.k.a D-LB is in its entirety reverting to its original format of simply being a 'radio broadcast'. 

Consequently, we would henceforth bring the service to you in its original radio format. 

If you would wish to be our guest on the programme kindly click on the "Whatsapp for Business" logo on the sidebar of this blog to chat with us or simply click here to do so.

FEEL MY PULSE 070823

One of the ways of loving your wife is to "call her when you're going to be late".

Do you agree?

BE MY GUEST | U-REPORT

BE MY GUEST a.k.a BMG, a regular feature on this blog is now a full U-Report Service. 

As such we urge you to report newsworthy events and happenings within your community and beyond by using this service. Your report must be verifiable and should be supported with appropriate still photos or videos. 

Simply click here or do so using the Whatsaspp Business logo on the sidebar of this blog and chat us up on any situations you would want to share with us and the general public.

WARD9ice | WAITING

We present a play titled WAITING, classified as STATE BLAST from the WARD9ice franchise.  “Waiting” is published and updated weekly on this blog for your reading pleasure.

SET

Rosie’s Room

Father’s Bedroom

Thomas’ Livingroom

CHARACTERS

Rosie, a college student

Michael Majek

Mother

Father

Thomas, a football coach

Mary, Rosie's girlfriend

Ben, Rosie's younger brother

WAITING

SYNOPSIS

ROSIE is just been informed that MICHAEL her fiancé is dead. She’s informed that he died in a bomb explosion in his living room. But Rosie refuses to believe the story despite all available evidence. Instead, she chooses to wait for a different report even if it means doing so forever. What then becomes of her under the circumstance as her father suddenly disowns and sends her packing from his house rather than show love and sympathy?

 

PROLOGUE

The actions here are partly in mime. Lights meet ROSIE returning to her room from lectures, drops her books and handbag on the reading table, and puts on the radio set, while a rap musical begins to play she prepares herself a glass of water, takes a sip, dances to the music in a manner showing she is in tune with the times. Now the phone (landline) rings, she stops dancing, lowers the volume of the music, and picks up the call.

ROSIE

(on the phone)

Rosie, speaking. Who’s on the line? … Oh, Michael, Darling … I’m fine. And you? (the voice on the other end seems in a hurry) Darling, what’s the hurry? I mean, your voice is shaky, and … where? … but-but why – Hello! (no response) Hello, Michael! (no response) Hello! (no response).

Seems confused for a moment,  she attempts to call a number from her mobile, hesitates, picks up her handbag, starts for the door, hesitates, attempts it again, enter MOTHER, weeping silently, tears welling up her eyes, stripping her cheeks.

MOTHER

(toneless)

Rosie!

ROSIE

(curious)

Yes, mother. What’s the problem? Why are you crying? (no response) Mother, please talk to me … what’s the problem?

MOTHER

Michael … Michael Majek is dead …

ROSIE

(confused)

Dead? No! No, mother. He couldn’t be dead. I mean, I have just spoken with him on the phone and he said he –

MOTHER

Rosie, he’s dead … Michael is dead …

NEWSROUNDUP | RESTED

Dear esteemed readers, we at this point regret to announce that one of our services "NewsRoundUp' is hereby rested on this blog until further consideration to allow us to focus more on providing you with evergreen content that will always catch your fancy on your. We do regret any inconvenience this sudden change might cause. 

... The SEB Team.

CATCH-UP | PalmPay

CATCH-UP at this time spotlights PalmPay, a leading Africa-focused fintech platform committed to driving economic empowerment across the continent. Given its secure, user-friendly and inclusive suite of financial services, PalmPay brings top-tier products into the pockets of everyday Nigerians by offering money transfers, bill payments, credit services and savings on its smartphone app with a network of 500,000 mobile money agents.

Since its official launch in Nigeria in 2019 under a Mobile Money Operator license, PalmPay’s platform has grown to 25 million users and over 300,000 merchants are part of its cashless payment ecosystem.

According to a recent report by Ynaija “PalmPay celebrates 25 million user milestone in Nigeria, network of 800,000 mobile money agents and merchants”.