The Month Of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)

I mentioned in a recent post that I self-named April the month of optimism and I’ve maintained that thought through the end of the month. I am a pessimist at heart and 2020 challenged even my sense of what a hellscape could look like, but I’m currently feeling…hopeful 🙂 . Let’s see why:

I Moved To Atlanta,GA!

When it was clear that the pandemic was here to stay, my partner and I had to change my post-retirement plans from international galavanting to local, contained shenanigans 🙂 . As a result, I cancelled my travel hacked first class flights to Australia, New Zealand and Thailand and instead booked an economy flight to Georgia.

I’m actually a born and raised Georgia girl so I guess I moved…back? Anyway, up until this point, we have been living in a tiny house in rural Georgia and now I have moved to the center of the city. It’s actually way closer than I’ve ever lived in Atlanta previously and I shockingly…love it.

I booked a month long Airbnb in the Decatur neighborhood of Atlanta for $1600 (a steal). I knew it was a hip town, but I had no idea that it would basically be a transplanted Seattle:

The many Love is Love🏳️‍🌈 and Black Lives Matter✊🏾 signs in our new Atlanta neighborhood combined with these intricate recycling instructions makes me feel like I'm back in Seattle 🤣. You've changed since I moved away ATL and it looks good on you😍!! pic.twitter.com/50ONvXq9et

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) April 2, 2021

This was further driven home when I went to grab takeout at a restaurant on April 20th and everyone in there – staff included – were silent and staring at the TV screen. They were reading the verdict for George Floyd’s murderer: Guilty on all counts. The restaurant was filled with white people almost exclusively and people started cheering. I was in shock.

Basically, either Atlanta is completely different than when I lived here 10 years ago or I never gave this place a fair shot. To be fair though, all the houses around here go against the main reason my family has moved to Georgia: reasonable housing prices. Every house on this block is at least a million dollars despite age or disrepair, but since I am able to live here temporarily because of our nomad travel and Airbnb lifestyle, I’m taking full advantage 🙂 .

I Got My Second COVID Vaccine Dose!

Thanks to https://t.co/sP3qgAyFzM and some wiliness I got my 2nd Pfizer 💉 3 weeks after the first (Walgreens originally scheduled it for 4 weeks after and wouldn't let me change it🤦🏾‍♀️…) Anyway, I'm so excited that I'll be fully vaxxed before we move to Maine next month🙌🏾✈️🦞! pic.twitter.com/HwTpNpGPv8

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) April 8, 2021

To summarize a too long story, Walgreens is where I originally found my first dose and I loved that they scheduled the second dose at the same time (and gave a choice for when it would happen which appears to be a bit of a rarity).

However, to make their lives easier, Walgreens just scheduled all of their second dose vaccine appointments (Pfizer or Moderna) for 4 weeks later despite the CDC giving different guidance (3 weeks and 4 weeks respectively).

I talked to a few personal finance friends and learned that only people who were past the 3 week mark could reschedule their appointment, but when I tried it they said I had to cancel my current one to reschedule. I didn’t want to take that risk. So instead I got a little wily.

I signed up for Walgreens again with another email address, but all the same legal information. I told them I was only seeking my second dose, which was true. And despite putting in the date of my first dose, I was able to schedule my second Pfizer dose 3 weeks after the first even though that hadn’t been possible on my original double dose appointment.

Long story short (though not really…), I got my second shot after taking a fun 50 minute road trip with my Mom and navigating the weird social interactions we have in this pandemic world. And instead of getting the shot behind a weird pile of boxes like the first dose, this Walgreens actually had a patient tent-type thing with a door! Such luxury 😉 .

However, the check-in person (who was ‘dickmasking’ siiiigh…) did forget to add my vaccine lot number to my card so I had to go back to the pharmacy to ask her to do so. Just a heads up in case this happens to any of y’all. Make sure you have that lot number!

I read 1 non-fiction book

1. The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living

Heads up that Hygge is pronounced “Hyoo-guh.” Now I’m going to be honest – this 52 non-fiction books in 52 weeks challenge I set for myself did not go well this month. We moved to Atlanta with the objective to combine bubbles with my Mom and see her as much as possible before we took off to the Northeast for the foreseeable future.

As a result, I have been hanging with her most days and it’s been absolutely amazing. The one thing I forgot though was that I need a lot of recovery time even from social interactions I love. Between my new social time and recovery time, I didn’t build in non-fiction book reading time. There were too many birds and trees and things to see and explore!

So, based on my original goal, I am behind. However, I’ve read 12 non-fiction books so far this year while I read 7 in all of 2020. In normal working years, my goal was 12 books total. By that comparison I’m killing it!

However, this does expose what I thought might happen: that this pace was totally possible in my solitary, tiny house, bird watching life, but not so much when we’re moving and exploring and actually seeing people again. People take precedent. Seeing the world while I still can takes precedent.

So I might change this challenge going forward – or remove it all together. It does seem to go against my ‘Do Nothing’ mandate 😉 . I’m still considering and will keep you posted.

If you’re curious about what I’m reading and my ratings of these books, I have a Goodreads account you can check out here.

I wrote 4 posts

In case you missed it, I published the below posts in April:

1. Is Retirement Everything I Dreamed? A 6 Month Check-In
2. The Month Of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
3. My Favorite Free Tools: Trick People Into Thinking You Have Your Life Together
4. LugLess Review: An Easy Way To Travel Light

In addition to all that, a few fun things happened as a result of the blog. I was featured in a Plutus Awards post about the 10 Best Personal Finance Blogs in 2021 – what an honor 🙂 ! I was also quoted in an article of the 21 Best Early Retirement Tips To Help You Retire Early on Making Sense of Cents.

And on a more random front, a masters student in Amsterdam reached out asking to interview me about FIRE for a research project he’s doing. We chatted and that interaction was the inspiration for this tweet – my bad:

I think I just earned my official retirement badge. I forgot what day it was and slept in until I was 10 minutes late to an interview about FIRE😬. Wow. I don't even recognize myself anymore. I've never been late to anything in my life. Maybe I need a wall calendar or something. pic.twitter.com/uwDSOlUxR2

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) April 19, 2021

Even more out there and random, someone from an ABC talk show reached out to interview me about why I’m never getting married. I turned that down for obvious anonymous reasons, but it was cool to remember that my weird words could lead to such opportunities. I am once again in awe of the random opportunities that pop up just because I started posting words on the internet. Life is wild.

I Hung Out With People!

Yes – real, human people 🙂 ! As I mentioned, the main point of being in Atlanta was to see my Mom so April was filled with social time! Most days I hung out with her for most of the day. We walked all over Atlanta identifying plants, birds and trees and talking. I usually walked 2 hours a day, which is a lovely improvement from my more sedentary tiny house life.

What I didn’t expect was that I would get the opportunity to see a few other friends as well, such as rich & Regular and the elusive personal finance powerhouse Seonwoo:

And of course, my normal weekly virtual hang outs continued. I’ve kept up my weekly movie night with my college suitemates and this month we actually made a plan for when we could all meet up in person during the summer when we’re fully vaccinated! I’m super excited about it, but in the meantime, we watched these movies online together this month:

1. Booksmart
2. Chef
3. George Of The Jungle – My review here
4. Stowaway – My review here

In addition, my NYC turned Seattle bestie and I watched the new Pacific Rim: The Black animated series on Netflix, which blew our minds:

My partner and I also met our former commune at a park to say goodbye before we head north. I continue to be impressed with the park selection in Georgia. All that to say, April was jam packed with social time both in person and virtual, which is what led to me dropping the ball on some of my other goals. Oh well 🙂 !

Physical

Sleep

Sleep has been weird this month for several reasons, but luckily I think I’ve identified all of them! I talked in a previous post about realizing that it takes a few days for me to get used to sleeping in a new space so that’s fine and accounted for. Well then I got my second vaccine shot and that messed up my sleep for a few days. I kept waking up, couldn’t think of anything else that was different and couldn’t go back to sleep. Luckily naps to the rescue!

But the main issue with sleep I had this month was a new one: FUCKING POLLEN! Growing up in Georgia, I always noticed Spring AKA Pollen Season because the cars are usually coated in a yellow dusting of pollen. Every car becomes yellow for a time. Well, I haven’t been back to Georgia in the spring since before I developed asthma (I should really look into how that happens, maybe because I had pneumonia? No idea – gotta do some research).

Anyway, I was not prepared for the war this pollen would wreak on my lungs now that they aren’t at 100%. I usually just have my inhaler with me at home if needed, but in Georgia, I had to carry it around with me because outside is the treacherous time with all this pollen. And as a result of that, my breathing at night was not ideal, which I think affected my sleep.

Other than a pollen induced haze, my sleep was sweet. I close my eyes at night and open them to the morning. I was disappointed that it seemed to have decreased for the reasons above compared to previous months, but improvement doesn’t seem to always be linear and now I know what to look out for. Still, I am SO grateful I can take a nap whenever I’m tired. It truly is the best.

Food

Sooo, basically this:

Finally updated my budget this morning. We're in our first nomad location and obviously I've had to eat all the new things. My average eating out budget last year? $75. This month? $350…so far🤣. Well,🤷🏾‍♀️: pic.twitter.com/tP8IwSqH4c

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) April 19, 2021

Atlanta is a powerhouse of good food and my budget and waistline have been reflecting that. Luckily, I don’t really give a fuck 🙂 . I still cook keto food at home, but my main goal is to explore this new place we’re living in to the fullest so I’m “fat and happy” over here. Here are some of the delicious things I’ve been eating:

Walking

As I mentioned above, I’ve been walking about a 2 hours a day with my Mom and my body has been feeling it! Often after we get back and sit down, we both laugh while groaning once we have to get up again. I’ve been using my heating pad for more than just cramps this month 😉 .

And to top it off, Seonwoo and I on one of our hangouts, walked 10 miles. I’m finally getting my walking stamina back and I’m loving it. The fact that I can birdwatch and identify new flora along the way is just icing on top 🙂 . Georgia is so beautiful:

Mental

What Day/Time Is It?

I joke that I don’t know what day or time it is and this month that bit me in the ass for the first time. I mentioned above that I almost slept through that interview with an Amsterdam masters student. I also almost missed several calls with friends because I didn’t realize it was that time.

Instead of being funny, this is becoming a bit of a problem so I’m trying to figure out a solution. Not knowing what time or day it is continues to be one of the things that I love most about retirement, so deciding what to do is a bit tricky. While I was working, I lived and died by my clock – down to the second. I don’t want my retired life to be like that.

I previously added calendar notifications to any meeting I have, but that doesn’t really help when I have my phone on Do Not Disturb or don’t have it with me at all, which is often the case.

So I’m not sure what to do about this problem…or maybe it’s not a problem, but something I should accept about myself while still making sure I’m cognizant of other people’s time? I’m not sure. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Learning

Overall this month I’m very upset because seeing people and exploring things has led me to be very curious about the world around me and as a result, I learned too much 😉 ….yes, that was all sarcasm. So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

The Sky

Shockingly, despite being in Atlanta, I can actually see some stars from our backyard. I used my beloved (and free) Star Walk 2 app to identify the brighest stars I could see in the sky and learned about Regulus and Algieba, which is in the Leo constellation. I also had to reorient myself because spring has sprung and as a result, the constellations I see in the sky have moved a bit. Time to learn new constellations!

This month also included the first Supermoon of 2021! It’s called the Pink Moon because of the pink wildflower Phlox Subulata (I’ve seen the purple version about recently!) which is native to Eastern North America and blooms in the early spring.

The day we moved from our rural GA Airbnb to our Atlanta Airbnb, it was POURING. Earlier that week we had been awakened by a lightning and thunder storm in the middle of the night and it startled me quite a bit until I realized that was because I wasn’t used to it anymore.

Seattle very rarely has lightning or thunder and I wanted to identify why. It turns out, it’s because Washington lacks the humidity required, which is lots of water vapor low in the atmosphere. Super cool – I never linked Georgia as being one of the most humid places I’ve ever lived with its tendency to have storms with thunder and lightning.

Trees

Simply put:

And as a result of our neighborhood being as tree obsessed as I am, I often would stop to read the plaques around town and learned lots of new trees such as: Alternate Leaf Dogwood, Blackjack Oak, Cherrybark Oak, Willow Oak, Southern Magnolia, Persian Ironwood, Littleleaf Linden, Yellowwood, Sassafrass, Ironwood, Pignut Hickory, Blackgum and a Chinkapin Oak.

It wasn’t only the neighborhoods that were obsessed with identification, some of the parks we went to had plaques as well and that’s how I learned that in one park called Deepdene, we were staring at the tallest tree in that park: a Tulip Poplar that stood at 185.5 ft (or 56.5 m for the smart countries that are on metric).

Lastly, there is a Weeping Willow across the street from our Airbnb and I got curious about why it looks like that. It turns out that a Weeping tree is more a description of its behavior than a type of tree species – it’s a tree that wants to grown down instead of towards the sky like most trees. Apparently this habit is because of mutations that are created when cuttings of certain species are grafted onto another standard species and trees that weep cannot be created simply by planting a seed because the weeping behavior wouldn’t be carried through….so basically they’re depressed Frankenstein trees. Cool!

Flora

Unbeknownst to me, Atlanta has turned out to be a florists dream. There are gorgeous flowers everywhere I turn and as a result, I’ve learned a bunch of new types of flowers and plants with the help of my Mom and my iNaturalist app, such as: Azaleas (like the above), Carnations, Leatherleaf Mahonia, Rhododendrons, Spiderworts (yikes on that name!), Bluebells, Mountain Azalea, Carpet Bugle, Chrysogonum, Hydrangeas, Japanese Cherry, Mophead Hydrangeas, Columbines, Wisteria, Oakleaf Hydrangea, Winterberry, Mt. Airy Fothergilla (which looks like a Dr. Seuss plant), Japanese Barberry, January Jasmine, Trumpet Honeysuckle, Partridgeberry, Wild Geranium, Elderberry, Bloodroot (awesome name!), Wild Ginger, Mapleleaf Viburnum, Indian Pink, Spicebush, Maidenhair Fern, Dwarf Crested Iris, Rue Anemone, Tulip Tree, Sweetshrub, Fothergilla Major, Blue Moon Phlox, River Oats, St. John’s Wort, Little Heartleaf, Heuchera, Toadshade Trillium, Christmas Fern, Mountain Sedge, Georgia Aster, Eastern Red Cedar, Persimmon, and Plumleaf Azaleas.

To learn about some of these plants, my Mom and I stumbled upon a place called the Wylde Woods on one of our walks. It’s a volunteer-based gardening haven. Most of the plants have plaques and information about them and we were able to chat up a volunteer with any questions we had. What a random and wonderful find!

Birds

Another surprise this month was how many birds were about in Atlanta! I thought since I was in the city, it would be Pigeon central, but that was not the case. This month I identified, with the help of the free Audubon and BirdNET apps: Tree swallows, Downy Woodpecker, Carolina Wren, White Throated sparrow, House Finch, Tufted Titmouse, Brown Thrasher (which is the state bird of Georgia!), Fish Crow, American Robin (their eggs are bright blue!), Red-Shouldered Hawk, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Bluebird, Northern Mockingbird, Carolina Chickadee, Blue Jay, Red-Tailed Hawk, Turkey Vulture, Chipping Sparrow, White-Breasted Nuthatch, and Red-Headed Woodpecker.

Also, speaking on Pigeons – I only saw TWO my entire month in Atlanta despite spending most of my time walking around the area. That rare pigeon sighting got me curious about those creatures and I learned that they’re also called Rock Doves and that they’re mostly in cities because we brought them there 🙂 .

Despite being native to North Africa, the Middle East and Europe, they are a staple of American cities and have thrived there because the urban cityscape mimics their native seaside cliffs, they can live on human leftovers and they’re amazing navigators which makes finding food in cities easier.

Cool Shit

My partner shared this video with me and it blew my mind:

As I mentioned above, I hung out with a friend from this personal finance space, Seonwoo and like always, he taught me multiple things throughout our conversation. One is that most Korean people lack a gene called ABCC11, which basically determines if someone’s sweat smells or not. It’s linked to producing a protein that transports sweat out of pores of our armpits, which attracts bacteria that causes body odor.

Apparently only 2% of Europeans lack the genes for smelly armpits, but most East Asians and almost all Koreans lack this gene. Fascinating! I’m jealous 🙂 . On a related note, I’ve found anecdotes of travelers in Seoul, Korea not being able to find deodorant anywhere – I guess this explains it!

Seonwoo also taught me that China has an age demographic problem and that the country of Norway is financially independent because of how they handled the oil they found in their country. For China, apparently their one-child policy has prepared China to slow its economic growth for years to come because there are not enough working individuals. The country is very top-heavy age wise.

As for Norway, they basically did what we should all do if we receive a large windfall like they did when they discovered oil in the 60s. They took the money, invested it and now it is worth more than $700 billion dollars – enough to carry its other industries. Sounds like Norway needs to join me in retirement 😉 .

Local History

I discovered why our neighborhood of Decatur is so amazing 🙂 . Apparently the building of this neighborhood focused on something called Smart Growth, which is basically creating a place with a small town feel and a pedestrian focus that avoids urban sprawl. Maybe we need to pick our destinations based on what US cities subscribe to this urban planning goal 😉 .

A reader mentioned to me that this awesome site exists – it shows you where food growth is in urban areas. Cool!

While I was hanging in a park with Seonwoo, we saw a super old (and creepy) looking house:

We were so curious about what it might be. Well, the next time we hung out there, we walked a new way and discovered a plaque (I love plaques!) that described what was up. Apparently, this house was the house of the Swanton’s, a family in Antebellum 1842. We kept walking down the street and saw another, more modern, house that belonged to someone described as a “confederate hero” so of course we “noped” right out of that neighborhood. Cool to see such old houses though.

On a separate walk with my Mom and partner, we passed an old warehouse that I thought looked familiar. I looked it up while we were there and it turns out it’s a historic landmark, Pullman Yard, that was purchased in 1904 and used in World War I munitions manufacturing. It’s also been featured as a filming location in some movies I enjoyed, such as Constantine, Hunger Games, Baby Driver, and Fast and the Furious.

Creativity

Creativity has continued to flow. I’ve obviously kept up my weekly schedule here though a few times, I’ve wondered a few days before Tuesday “What should I write about?” Luckily something interesting has popped into my head a bit later each time, but it’s interesting that I’m not as planned out as I used to be. I guess that makes sense since my whole goal is to “go with the flow.” It just feels weird for my planner heart 🙂 .

I’ve also obviously continued posting mini-movie and TV show reviews on Instagram as well as mini-reviews of the restaurants I’m getting takeout from. The creative juices continue to happen effortlessly way more than when I was working overall.

Emotional

Discover Weekly Music

I realized that I have a new thing I look forward to every Monday that’s a little weird. Spotify drops a 1.5 hour playlist based on your music preferences, every Monday and I always look forward to listening to it. I have so much music on there that the algorithm knows me pretty well and most weeks I come back with a new favorite song. I actually put aside time on my calendar to just listen to this music and it’s a new highlight of my week.

I am usually listening to music constantly – when reading, writing, driving, whatever, but it’s my 500 go to songs that are downloaded (Spotify Premium lets you listen offline). In each of my annual accomplishments posts, I always mention what kind of new music I’ve learned about, but it’s usually from word of mouth or cinema like my current pump up jam from The Falcon and The Winter Soldier trailer:

Well now I’m taking an active role in finding new music and expanding my horizons and it’s amazing. Music helps me regulate my emotions and seeing all the awesome art out there makes me feel good about the world 🙂 .

Lack Of Stress

My Mom asked me the other day “Do you feel constantly on edge?” and I responded honestly with “No.” Despite her being retired, we dug in and figured out a few life things that were stressing her out. This interaction once again made me grateful that we are retired, have removed the major stress of work, and now have the time to focus and figure out if something actually important is stressing us out and find a solution. That’s a true luxury 🙂 .

The Rhythm

Talked in previous posts about trying to follow my internal rhythm – doing ‘productive’ things like reading non-fiction and writing when I feel like it even if I planned to just veg and nap originally. Well my partner said something that made me realize I might have gone too far in one direction 🙂 . I was so focused on doing what my body needed at any particular moment that I didn’t properly weigh that despite me being sleepy and wanting a nap for example, if my partner wants to go for a walk at that moment, that’s a rare time when he’s not working and we could do something together.

I realized that I should value that higher than my body’s wants in that moment 🙂 . I hadn’t really thought about it because we do spend a lot of time together, we obviously live together and have basically just seen each other this past year, but he was right. Being completely attuned to what my body wants and giving into it isn’t the highest calling in life – spending time with people I love is 🙂 . So I’ve been more cognizant of that so I can find a balance between what I need and the opportunities to be with others. Hence this tweet:

Me: Oh wow – this week is going to be busy! I'm hanging out with someone every day. I might not have time to take naps or read my books!
Me Realizing What I Just Said (#NotARealProblem #SillyRetiredPeople #HowQuicklyWeForget): pic.twitter.com/7oOReM2cwI

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) April 18, 2021

Money

I don’t know what the fuck the market is doing and it’s causing me to blame others:

Yo @TreadLightly_RE and @FrugalPharm – Y'all seriously need to knock it off📈. If I hit $700K I'm going to faint (I'm 2% away…🤷🏾‍♀️). pic.twitter.com/eqtrF6qJrZ

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) April 15, 2021

This month I hit ANOTHER net worth high and I feel like I’m saying that every month:

Strangely, I checked my cash cushion, and I have more than my 2 year $40,000 despite quitting work October 1. Maybe I should figure out my cash flow being a personal finance blogger and all 😉 . But in the meantime, I’m going to keep treating my friends, tipping really well, and buying whatever the fuck I want.

Conclusion

So that’s what I got up to in April! It was an amazing last month in Georgia before embarking on more far-reaching nomad life. Maine here we come!

And if you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly

1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly

1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)

How was your month?