The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)

by A Purple Life, posted in Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates
This post may contain affiliate links. For more info read my disclosure.

Well, 2021 is 2/3 done. Time is meaningless 🙂 . Apparently Starbucks is already prepping Pumpkin Spice Lattes and yet it still looks and feels like summer in the Northeast. Weird. Anyway, let’s see what I got up to in August!

I Became A Plutus Award Finalist!

Thank y’all SO much! It was recently announced that I’m a finalist for the Plutus Awards in 2 categories: Most Entertaining Content Creator for my (apparently hilarious) Twitter and PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG OF THE YEAR!!!

I am SO honored! Thank you everyone who nominated me, voted for me or even just thought of me 🙂 . I’m proud that after 2 years of flaking on my goal of not being afraid to ask for self-recognition that I finally actually mentioned that this vote was taking place on my blog. And then this happened. Progress! It’s wild for me to wrap my head around. Anyway, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

We Moved Around NY State!

We started our nomad travels up again after visiting family in NY State for a few weeks. We moved to Saratoga Springs, NY for 10 days and then to the Catskills. Both places are way nicer and filled with things to do than we expected 🙂 . Here are a few of our Saratoga food adventures:

And as for the Catskills:

I guess randomly picking places to visit isn’t the silly strategy I originally thought 😉 .

I Went To California!

Basically, this:

And here’s the whole reason we were there:

Overall, we spent a week in California, had some lovely road trips and ate my favorite fast food. What a random and lovely time 🙂 .

I Attempted House Sitting

This was my first time doing this! I haven’t been interested in housesitting for strangers because I’d have to jump on new listings immediately, always have to be on and usually have to care for pets. No thanks 🙂 ! However, I actually enjoyed taking care of someone’s house that I knew. If you need your house (not pet!) looked after while you’re away, let me know – I have one great recommendation 😉 .

I Tried Being Alone

My partner left for a few days while we were housesitting and I realized that because of the pandemic, I haven’t been alone for a whole 24 hours for over a year and a half. My partner had nowhere to go overnight like that…until now, and I discovered some interesting things.

Apparently after trying it for 4 days, I don’t like to be alone…at night…in the middle of nowhere…where I don’t know anyone…and (probably) no one can hear me scream 🙂 . It was good to try it just to see, but I suspect that if I am in a situation where I live alone for a long stretch of time in a rural area, I might get a roommate…or a dog.

It’s also possible I just needed a longer time to get used to it or shouldn’t have attempted this in the middle of nowhere – those could be experiments for another time. In the meantime, it sounds like I’ll be sticking to cities and apartments for my alone time going forward.

I Re-Planned Travel

Of course nothing can go as planned 🙂 . As a result of people in the US refusing to get vaccinated, we’re having a 4th COVID wave over here. Because of this new wave, my partner’s work (understandably) cancelled their first work get together in Austin, TX that my partner and I had already booked travel to attend.

It would have been the first time my partner met his coworkers in person since he started this job basically right as the pandemic began a year and a half ago. Oh well. On the logistics front, this presented an issue for us since we no longer had a reason to be in Austin on those dates and the hotel his work booked for us was no longer an option.

So my Mom and I went into travel planning mode *queue the music*. I must admit she’s much better at it than me and actually enjoys the process while it stresses me out a bit if we have to figure shit out quickly as a result of an unexpected change like this one. Luckily within 24 hours it was resolved!

Basically, we were planning to fly from Austin to ABQ at the end of September and I wanted to know if we could change our flight to a different day as a result of American Airlines (AA) changing us to a different flight without our permission. After not finding a suitable answer on the AA website or on ThePointsGuy (my go-to travel website), I went to Twitter (like I explained works best in my free tools post) and asked AA if changing the date was possible.

They said no 🙂 . I then asked if the ticket was refundable (based on my research it would have been because of new covid rules, but only for a travel credit, which I didn’t want. I’m all about cold hard cash). Surprisingly they said it was refundable.

So I cancelled my ticket, applied for a refund (it sucks you have to apply for a refund separately, but I did receive refund confirmation within a day regardless). While the return was processing I booked us 2 tickets on a Southwest flight a few days earlier than we originally planned to leave.

That flight is actually nonstop (our OG itinerary had 1 stop in Dallas) and was $165 each while our original AA flights were $214. On top of that, Southwest offers 2 free checked bags per person and no change fees if something else happens. Sweeeet! Crisis averted. We successfully rolled with the punches!

I Tried A Period Cup…And Loved It

Yeah I’m talking about periods on here. It’s something that happens to me and about half of the global population every month. If that’s not your thing, feel free to skip ahead.

After lots of encouragement from some female family and friends, I tried a period cup and was shocked at what an amazing game changer it is! I’m totally converted and excited to use it exclusively. Since I didn’t know that much about it, I’m going to be adding the brand I’m using to my ‘random things review’ series and talking about all that next week. So, brace yourselves 😉 .

I Read 6 Non-Fiction Books

This month I read:

  1. Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist by Kate Raworth
  2. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
  3. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy by Stephanie Kelton
  4. Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Atler
  5. The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions . . . and Created Plenty of Controversy by Leigh Gallagher
  6. The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom by Paris Woods (To Be Released)

While reading Doughnut Economics, I couldn’t stop thinking about this amazing scene from the lovely Knives Out:

Also, does anyone else spell it “donut”? Just me? Anyway, Collapse was a mammoth follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, which I read last month. And you might notice, I read more than 4 books this month! I think my competitiveness kicked in once I realized there are only 17 weeks left in 2021.

I don’t like losing – even self-imposed challenges 😉 so I’m cranking it up to see if I can still achieve this 52 non-fiction books in 52 weeks goal! I’ve put at least an hour blocked on my calendar every day to read these books. No longer will it be willy nilly! There’s too many naps to take, people to chat with and birds to watch so now this shit is scheduled! Let’s see if I can make it 🙂 .

I’ve also been so excited to see all the people telling me they’re reading books I recommended! Thank you all for telling me that – it really makes my day 🙂 .

In that vein, here’s my latest review:

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 5 posts!

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

  1. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
  2. Celebrating 1 Year Of Nomad Life: Revelations And Answering Your Questions
  3. How I Manage My Money In Retirement
  4. A Visa Misadventure: That Time I Was Stranded in London
  5. How Laziness Saved Me From Bad Financial Decisions

Basically:

In addition to that, the teacher of the financial education class I was a guest speaker in last month, wrote an article for Business Insiders and mentioned me in it: I didn’t join the FIRE movement to escape the working world. I did it to build a life my ancestors could only dream of.

The website Female Invest, reached out to have me as a speaker in their live webinar “How to retire early.” They are based in Denmark and have a large membership of women from 60+ countries. It was a fun experience and different from anything I’ve done before because the audience was mostly from Europe and had assumptions that don’t reflect what’s happening in the US – like the existence of pensions 🙂 .

Anyway, we ended up having almost 1,000 people RSVP and 300 attend, which is my largest live audience to date. It was nerve-wracking, but fun. Since this was an event for paid members only that give Female Invest $19/month, I requested payment for my time. I have yet to be paid, but luckily I don’t need the money to pay my rent and am in no rush. Another benefit of financial independence 😉 . If for some reason I end up not being paid I’ll let y’all know to help other people not be caught in that kind of situation. We’ve got to look out for each other!

I also had a new kind of plagiarism issue this month. Usually people copy/paste my articles and post them on their own website and when I find out I go to their hosting site, tell them what’s up, and they take down the websites. This time someone submitted an article I wrote after tweaking a few words and then this happened:

After being called out, the company did take down the article and then came to me mentioning the plagiarism and asked to publish the article with proper attribution. I was actually surprised they did that and acknowledged what had happened and as a result I gave them permission. Phew – such drama 😉 .

To end on a positive note:

I Hung Out With People!

It was a great month of seeing people. I met up with a reader in Saratoga Springs and will be seeing her again this month in the Catskills. I also saw my cousin and his fiancee quickly when I was passing through San Francisco.

I was also able to hang out with a friend I worked with a decade ago in NYC and have stayed friends with. It’s rare and awesome when friends forged at work stick around long after that. One benefit of working I guess – I can’t just be shitting on it all the time 😉 .

As I mentioned, I went to California with my Mom and it was awesome to spend that time with her. We were trying to think of the last time we’d been on a trip that was just us and decided it had been 5 years. That’s too long!

While we were in Saratoga Springs, some of my partner’s family visited as well. I also continued to have video chats with other friends, such as my weekly one with my friend in Argentina and weekly movie nights with my college suitemates. I also threw in a few virtual bad movie nights, bi-weekly calls with my ex-colleague and a movie night with a different ex-colleague. Phew! Too much social time – I’ll try to cut this down next month 😉 .

Anyway, my former college suitemates and I are re-watching the Underworld franchise. The first of which is one of my favorite movies and became an obsession when it premiered when I was 13..so if you’re wondering why there are so many of those movies on here that’s why 😉 . This month I watched:

TV Shows

  1. Lupin S1 & S2

Films

  1. The Green Knight (In Theaters) – My review here
  2. Annette
  3. Another Round
  4. Jennifer’s Body
  5. Bumblebee
  6. A Quiet Place Part II
  7. Palm Springs (Re-watch) – My review here
  8. Long Shot (Re-watch) – My review here
  9. Bats (Re-watch)
  10. Underworld: Evolution (Re-watch)
  11. Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans (Re-watch)

If you’re curious about what I’m watching and my ratings of these movies, I have a Letterboxd account you can check out here.

Physical

Sleep

My sleep continues to improve! I’m getting even better at falling asleep in new locations, which is very helpful with our monthly moving schedule. I’m also getting better at going back to sleep if I’m in a new place and hear a weird noise – it no longer completely ruins my dream time. Shockingly, I’ve rarely had to use my earplugs to get to sleep and have just been going with the flow.

For example, my flight back from California took off at 11pm PT/2am ET and I landed home at 10am PT/12pm ET. I barely slept that whole time and as a result, collapsed for 5 hours after taking a Lyft 45 minutes to our Airbnb. It was awesome to have the option to catch up on sleep like that. I never would have taken such a journey while working and lived to tell the tale. Naps to the rescue!

Food

Food continues to be a delicious balancing act that I think I’m finally getting the hang of! I have the rest of the year mapped out for the weeks where I will be off-keto, exploring all the different food in our new city and when I will be back on keto to reign it all in. After almost a year I think I’ve finally figured this out 🙂 .

This month specifically I was keto for about half of the month. The other half was spent exploring Saratoga Springs, California and the Catskills. However, despite all that delicious exploring, I still lost another 1″ around my waist! I’ve also found that since there isn’t anything I ‘have’ to do day-to-day, that it’s a lot easier to plan my keto meals. It’s really simple when I can just focus on making sure I hit all my macros and calories instead of shoveling any free food I can find into my gob between work meetings.

Cooking

I’ve been getting a lot better at cooking somehow! I used to rely on a recipe religiously and the other day was like “Well I have radishes – what should I make?” I glanced at a keto radish home fry recipe (Apparently they’re great subs for potatoes – I had no idea!) and then ignored the recipe, went wild with ingredients and cook times and it turned out really well!

My partner, who usually doesn’t eat my keto food, even said he liked it and ate it with me! The same thing happened with kale. My Mom made cooked kale when I was growing up with a turkey neck, which I could never find in my Seattle grocery store. I’d never made it on my own before, but I just put it in a pot with some water to steam it, added a shitton of salt and garlic powder, kept an eye on it and it turned out just like my Mom’s! Does this mean I’m becoming a real cook?!

Gardening

When I learned that my partner’s family was leaving their house for two weeks, which are usually the best two weeks for their garden, I volunteered to care for it and nothing died 🙂 ! I also became even more in tune with weather and nature since what I had to do each day depended on the temperature and amount of precipitation. I was walking around barefoot in the grass while harvesting vegetables and watering plants with birds chirping over my head for two weeks and it felt really good. I guess I must now resist my inevitable transformation into a homesteader 😉 .

Calligraphy

I had more calligraphy practice this month on chalkboards, whiteboards and pieces of paper. I would write words from the book I was reading or words that were said in conversations around me. I also had a bit of a calligraphy party with my sister-un-law who is really good at it, and I learned new ways to write a few letters. I warned her that I’m stealing her way to do it for future use 🙂 .

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

The Northeast

I liked to read up on each city we live in. Here are some of the fun things I learned about Saratoga Springs, NY:

  • Saratoga Springs is called “The Spa City, ‘Toga or The Springs” and the name is because of the mineral springs in the area, which made Saratoga Springs a popular resort destination for 200+ years
  • Saratoga Springs is also famous as one of the big three locations for horse racing in the US along with the Kentucky Derby (which I’ve heard of) and the Belmont Stakes (which I have not). Saratoga’s race is called the Travers Stakes
  • For the history buffs, The Battle of Saratoga took place there in 1777 and was a turning point in the Revolutionary War

California

Here are a few things I learned based on the questions that popped up into my head while looking at all the farms and towns we passed on my California road trip:

  • Why is California soil so fertile? Because eons of erosion from the local mountains deposited rich sediment and created deep topsoil and sweet farmland. California also has a Mediterranean climate, which allows it to produce over 400 different agricultural commodities, which is more than any other place in the U.S.
  • The El Camino Real that we drove on is a route that was created in 1707 and is a California Historical Landmark. El Camino Real means “The Royal Road” in Spanish and is the name of the 700 mile California Mission Trail, which connects 21 missions, 4 military forts (presidios) and several towns (pueblos) from Mission San Diego de Alcala in the south to Mission San Francisco Solano in Northern California
  • We stayed in Paso Robles, CA and I learned that the city’s full name is “El Paso de Robles”, which means “The Pass of the Oaks” in Spanish
  • California sells beer, wine and liquor in grocery stores like Washington State – good to know 😉 . That was a refreshing change from the Northeast’s more Puritan approach

Astronomy

This was an amazing month for astronomy! Because we were in the middle of nowhere in NY State and California throughout the month, it was dark enough to see the Milky Way. Also luckily, even when we were in brighter areas, several planets were super bright and showing off, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Venus.

Jupiter in particular was at its closest point to Earth or “in opposition” this month so it appeared bigger and brighter than usual. It was also another great month for the Full Moon. In August the full moon was a Blue Moon, which is if a second full moon happens in one month. Unfortunately, it does not look blue. The month’s full moon was called the Sturgeon Moon because it’s the easiest time of year to catch America’s largest freshwater fish in the Great Lakes of North America…Random 🙂 !

And finally, the highlight of this month’s night skies: The Perseids Meteor Shower!!! After trying to see this shower earlier in the year and seeing one whole comet after freezing my ass off for two hours, I told myself I would plan a camping trip around the next one and then…totally forgot 🙂 . However, luckily we were in the middle of nowhere and got to see SO MANY FUCKING COMETS!!! We even saw a huge one that had a multi-colored trail. It was SO cool 🙂 .

For the star nerds out there, The Perseids Meteor Shower is a big deal because it has the most meteors per hour that you can see from the US. There are usually about 100 meteors an hour so you have lots of chances to see them! The meteors for this shower come from tiny space debris from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. That comet takes 133 years to orbit the Sun. The last time it was observed from the Earth was in 1992 and the next time it will visit us is 2126. However, despite being a rare guest in the inner Solar System, the comet leaves behind enough cosmic dust for us to see the Perseids every year!

The Perseids Meteor Shower is named after the Constellation Perseus because that’s the direction (or radiant 😉 ) from which the shower seems to come from in the sky. If you’re curious, one of my favorite free sites, TimeAndDate, has this amazing interactive map to help you see the meteors: check that out here.

Fauna

Because we were often in the middle of nowhere, we saw lots of wild life this month! For example, in NY State this happened:

We also saw a Wood Ground Beetle and Green Frogs. In California, we saw a Desert Cottontail Rabbit, an Emu and Llamas. We also heard from a vineyard head that the same farm that had the emus also has a Capybara that had escaped that morning and that they can run up to 22mph. Uh oh – go catch that giant rodent!

Birds

Birding was awesome this month! It was so wild to go to the other side of the country and try to figure out what kind of weird birds I’m looking at. I’m also getting better at bird calls. It’s been hard for me because each bird has multiple calls, but I’m up to learning the most common calls for: American Robins, Catbirds (which sounds a bit like a baby crying), Cardinals (which sounds like they’re saying “tee tee”), Wrens (which sounds like they’re losing their shit 🙂 ).

We also learned that birds have some weird behavior. My mother-un-law saw Tufted Titmouses lay down on their roof and American Robins lay in the road. It turns out that birds sunbathe! There are many theories for why they do it, but I suspect it’s because it feels good 😉 .

Tan on little buddy! (Image from Bird Outside My Window)

Another random bird story is that we were hanging in Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, NY and I couldn’t for the life of me identify a duck that looked like it was wearing a tuxedo by using my Audubon App. It told me it didn’t exist. So I took a picture and asked Google Lens what was up.

It turns out it’s a Pomeranian Duck from Germany! My Audubon App had only downloaded ducks that are supposed to be near me – not random German neighbors!

In addition to all that fun, I saw these birds in NY State:

Mourning Doves, Nashville Warbler, American Robin, Yellow-Billed Cuckoo, Blue Jay, Black-Capped Chickadee, Cedar Waxwing, Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, American Crow, Turkey Vulture, Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Fish Crow, Peregrine Falcon, Merlin, House Sparrow, Chimney Swift, 

And these in California:

Western Sandpiper, California Scrub-Jay, Loggerhead Strike, Turkey Vultures, House Sparrows, Anna’s Hummingbird, European Starlings, Wrentits (snicker… 😉 ) and Eurasian Collared-Dove

Flora

I can’t keep up with all the cool plants we’ve been seeing! In NY State I learned about:

Purple loosestrife, Viper’s-bugloss, Great mullein, Costmary, Bird Vetch, Madagascar Periwinkle or Old Maid (from Madagascar!), Southern catalpa, Copper beech, Coleus, Red Horse Chestnut,

And in California I learned:

California Palm, Mediterranean Cypress, Pinus Clausa, Cauliflower (we saw a farm full of it – cool!), 

Creativity

Creativity continues to be a wave that ebbs and flows with more flows than normal 🙂 . It seems like everything in my life happens on a cycle. There are days when I have a million ideas for movie reviews, tweets and instagram posts and days where I have none or am too wrapped up in living life to write about it. And that seems to be working for me 🙂 .

I’m still impressed with my output and how much my brain works when I give it time to rest. For example, some of my best ideas this month happened when I was staring at the California countryside on a road trip with my Mom. Rest is the best 😉 .

Emotional

Music

I didn’t really listen to music when I was in California and realized my mood was lower than usual as a result. I guess my theory that music helps my emotions has gathered another anecdote. When I got back I doubled down on my beloved music and found some new bops from Spotify’s weekly Release Radar and Discover Weekly. I love it so much 🙂 . Here’s the latest song to speak to my soul:

Money

I think this says it all:

The stock market continues to be on a tear despite all reason. Obviously it can’t last forever, but it’s cool to see these numbers tick higher than I could have ever imagined one year after retiring into a pandemic and recession.

To get back to the original amount I retired with, the market would have to crash 26% and that seems wild. I’m not saying it won’t do that at some point, but the fact that it needs to fall that much just to get back to what I thought I would have at this point seems beyond comprehension.

And of course another side of the coin is spending and that’s going shockingly well too:

I’ll share all the dirty deets in an annual spending post soon, but overall I’ve continued to not think about money, spend whatever I want, and still somehow come out under budget. It’s weird 🙂 . I expected to be a little over my goal $20,000 annual budget that I’ve set for the first few years of retirement before increasing that amount, but nope! Even being a bad influence hasn’t moved the needle 😉 :

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in August! Next up we’re going to enjoy our last few weeks in the Catskills before I spend a few days in NYC and then we head to Austin, TX to visit my stepbrother before starting a tour of the National Parks in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. To fall!

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)
  4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
  5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
  6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
  7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)

How was your month?

26 thoughts on “The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)”

  1. Wow, I’d love to be a potential reader to meet up with! Been silently following along since a few months before your retirement, have read a ton of the archive, & even used your referrals for credit karma’s free tax filing (same boat as you I’d been getting tricked last minute by turbo-tax) & an HSA with Lively (thank you!!). I’m a qpoc currently further west in Upstate NY (originally from Washington State) & am growing my net worth with inspiration & entertainment from your blog – very cool to see you were somewhat close-by enjoying New York!

    Reply

    1. Let’s do it! I’d love to meet you. Email me at apurplelifeblog[at]gmail.com with the town you live in and we can coordinate! I doubt I’ll have time this month (I leave in a week), but I’m coming back for December/January. Also so glad those recommendations helped you out – that’s awesome!

      Reply

  2. That California exhibit looks otherworldly. So glad you got to see that!

    Yes, we spell it “donut,” too. Just gonna chalk that up to “efficiency.”

    The astronomy stuff is so cool! We’ve been in massive cities so long it’s hard to remember what stars even look like. It seems like the last time we saw any were in the Before Times. We did a night sky Ranger Talk at Acadia National Park where we laid on the beach as they pointed out the planets and the ISS moving across the sky.

    Reply

    1. Yeah it was sweet and I do love efficiency! That’s wild y’all have been in cities that long. The Ranger Talk at Acadia sounds amazing – I’ll have to do that when I visit. Thank you for stopping by!

      Reply

  3. CONGRATULATIONS ON THE NOMINATION! YOU DESERVE IT!!

    Question, you retired early on October 2020, which is when we were feeling the effects of a recovery from COVID. In your opinion, do you think it’s not a good idea to retire early in a bull market?

    I saw a study where if you early retired at the top of the tech bubble (2000 – 2001), you would have had to go back to work by March 2009 (bottom of financial crisis) or something like that. I think the study was a little biased where if you actually did still hold through the financial crisis until 2021, you still would’ve been more than fine.

    Do you have an opinion or are you all about the FIRE lifestyle ASAP?

    Reply

    1. Thank you 🙂 . You’re too kind!

      As for your question, the market is on a bull run 75% of the time so retiring during one seems pretty standard. As for if that’s a sub-optimal time to retire, I don’t have an opinion on it in general, but obviously I think it’s fine for me because I decided to do it 🙂 . So far the market has proven that was a fine decision, but I had contingencies for if I was wrong and that 33% drop last year lasted for years itself. Luckily none were needed.

      That’s a weird study – it assumed you sold it all during a crash? That doesn’t make sense to me. Anyway, I’m all about individuals doing what makes them feel best – I felt safe in my plan, but that differs person to person.

      Reply

  4. You’re on fire (pun intended) and we love to see it! August was crazy busy! The art exhibit looks incredible. If you like that and Tokyo is on your travel list, check out the teamLab Borderless digital art exhibit there.

    I spell it “doughnut”, the correct way 😉

    The markets are definitely a little nuts. The index I’m following is peaking over and over each month. Given there’s been a crazy bull run over the last decade, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop – it has to eventually. However I’m not going to change anything in my investing plan! I’m just trying to mentally prepare myself for it.

    I read in a few places (I know Millennial Revolution was one of those places) that the first five years of retirement are what indicate how well retirement pans out overall. If you get through those five years well, even with a market crash, then your portfolio and thus retirement should be solid afterwards. From what you’ve written, you’re 1/5 in and going strong.

    As always, loving the content. Congratulations on the well-deserved nominations!

    Reply

    1. Haha thank you! And ooh – thanks for the recommendation. I’ve added it to my list. And oh there’s a correct way eh 😉 ? Fair on being wary of the up market though technically we had a bear last year. The next one may happen tomorrow or in 10 years – no idea 🙂 !

      And yeah first 5-10 years are where the sequence of returns risk is based on my research (many of the same studies MR was referencing). And yeah so far I’m a 10th closer to fine forever – and it feels pretty good haha. Thank you so much for your kind words!

      Reply

  5. If you ever want to house sit in Newport, RI, I’ll take their dog (sorry, I’m allergic to cats). I recommend any time except the summer, we are too busy with traditional tourists during that time :).

    I wish I had known you were in Paso Robles. I hope you got a chance to visit a winery or two. My wife and I used to go every year for their Valentine’s Day wine-tasting event.

    Reply

    1. “Their” dog – whose house are we breaking into lol?! And thank you so much 🙂 . We did indeed enjoy wine in Paso Robles – beautiful place. A Valentine’s wine tasting sounds lovely!

      Reply

  6. Interesting post! How did you get into housesitting? I’d love to housesit but have also felt reluctant to look after strangers’ pets.

    Reply

  7. Congratulations on the Plutus nominations! Much deserved.

    “I’ve put at least an hour blocked on my calendar every day to read these books.”

    This really interests me. I just assumed you didn’t use a calendar for your days anymore now that you don’t work. I know you have various virtual dates with friends in the evening/weekends that you’d need to calendar, but tell me more about scheduling your days. I just FIREd from corporate life last month (spending minimal time on a fairly hands-off business we own) and haven’t really figured out how to structure my days yet. I spend entirely too much time on unproductive things (*gestures broadly at the internet*) and need a better balance.

    “Since this was an event for paid members only that give Female Invest $20/month, I requested payment for my time.”

    I’m glad you’re going to get paid, but think it’s crummy a female-focused money org wouldn’t proactively offer to pay you when they ask for your time and expertise.

    If you have any desire to housesit in the Ohio suburbs in early 2022, I’ve got an opportunity for you. 🙂

    And lastly, I’m looking forward to your period cup review!

    Reply

    1. Thank you! Hilariously I do use a calendar, but in reverse. I’ve been recording what I do during the day after I do it, but not using it to map out my day unless I have a call with a friend and if I do I set an alarm on my phone because I never know what time it is 🙂 . However, to answer your question, one of my posts coming up is going to detail what I’ve been doing with my time and include pictures of that calendar. I hope that helps and congratulations on your retirement!!

      As for the event, I completely agree 🙂 and was very surprised they claim to want to help women be paid fairly and then offered no money upfront. Luckily, they were open to me pushing back on that. Now to see if the payment actually comes through lol.

      Ohio suburbs you say? I must admit I’ve never been, but if ‘early’ 2022 means winter I am sadly out lol. I haven’t seen snow in like half a decade and would like to keep it that way haha.

      And YAY I’m glad one person besides me is 😉 !

      Reply

    1. Oh no!! Maybe I should make it more clear in advance where I’m going to be – like in a pinned tweet or something. But anyway, we’ll be back in that general area in December/January if you want to meet up then instead! If you’d like to send me an email to apurplelifeblog[at]gmail.com.

      Reply

  9. Have you thought about doing a post for what your retirement expenses would be if you were single and living your current lifestyle? Yes you keep a lot of your expenses low, but the major expense for a lot of retired people (without a paid off house) is housing, which you have the benefit of splitting in half with your partner.

    Anyway, just a thought, I have been enjoying your adventures!

    Reply

    1. Thanks! I like to stick to hard numbers here so I don’t feel comfortable writing a post like that – it would just be me guessing. If you want those I’d suggest checking out single people who do expense reports. However, if my partner and I break up and I’m still blogging I can do that post then.

      Reply

  10. I’m looking forward to your menstrual cup review! I purchased one myself a couple of years ago and after a bit of a learning curve (the stem was causing me crazy itching until I realized that was the problem and cut it down) I did wind up liking it a lot. I haven’t used it in some time since my partner was weirded out by the fact that I was boiling it in the same pot in which he cooks food, so I’ve switched to period underwear, which are even more low-maintenance (a win for someone like me). Now that my partner and I have found a menstrual cup cleaning compromise (I bought a separate pot that will only be for my period cup and my food) I hope to alternate between the two options.

    P.S. Thanks for showing people there’s more to New York than NYC and Niagara Falls!

    Reply

    1. Yayyy!! I’m so happy to hear that. I wasn’t sure how it would be received 🙂 . And YES – I love that the stem is customizable, but figuring out what length is best/if that’s what’s wrong seems challenging. And that’s interesting about your partner – mine hasn’t voiced those kind of concerns. Awesome on the period underwear – I actually mention those in my post as well because I didn’t know they existed! Haha and yay for having your own pot and reaching a solution. And NY State is totally so much more than that – happy to share (and to learn more about the state myself – I knew it was cool, but didn’t know it had all this stuff until we lived here. Love it!

      Reply

  11. A note regarding The Deficit Myth – I spent a while reading about MMT, back before/during the pandemic, though I didn’t read this book specifically.

    I’d recommend looking up both sides of the issue and drawing your own conclusions. But basically, there are two schools of thought on the subject: MMT and Austrian Economics.

    In sum, according to my understanding, the MMT position is that the U.S. is a sovereign issuer of currency and can therefore carry whatever amount of debt it chooses. The Austrian school says that debt is dependent on trust, and if/when that trust starts flagging, the promise to pay becomes worthless.

    There is incredibly fierce debate on the matter–the kind of fierce, vicious debate that only exists in academia 😂

    It sounds like The Deficit Myth supports the MMT position. I just want you and your readers to be aware that there remains considerable debate on the matter.

    Reply

  12. “That flight is actually nonstop (our OG itinerary had 1 stop in Dallas) and was $165 each while our original AA flights were $214. On top of that, Southwest offers 2 free checked bags per person and no change fees if something else happens. Sweeeet! Crisis averted. We successfully rolled with the punches!”

    Whew.

    So, true story:

    Not all that long ago at a Starbucks in a Dallas suburb I saw a black lady with purple hair and glasses typing away on a laptop and was a 1/10th of a second away from blurting our “Purple!”.

    Fortunately, I hadn’t had my coffee so my reaction time was dulled and I caught myself before shouting across a Starbucks at a complete stranger.

    It super bugged me because I knew fincon was somewhat around that time and I know DFW is a big stop for a lot of flights to dallas but:

    1) I’ve been a little lax on my blog reading recently so I didn’t even know if you were going.

    2) This suburb is pretty far north and there’s really no reason for anyone with a layover in DFW to venture that far unless they knew someone up here.

    Very glad to finally know that it wasn’t you and that I didn’t embarrass myself and annoy a stranger just trying to enjoy their coffee.

    Reply

    1. Oh wow! You’re making me re-think my name entirely because if someone were to call out the random color of my hair I would probably respond “yes?” My online name is out there causing problems! Thank you so much for sharing that with me – it made me laugh out loud. And yay for lack of caffeine slowing reaction times 😉 .

      Reply

  13. Yep I spell it “donut” – we’ve got a little piece of artwork in our apartment that says:

    “Donut Lose Hope” and it’s a cartoon of a donut, giving hope.

    Reply

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