The Month Of Snow: January 2023 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Keto, Net Worth Update
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Happy New Year! I made it to a new year so I’m feeling grateful (though I guess my pessimism is showing 😉 …) . Anyway, this month was marked by snow and cold because I chose to spend the winter outside of tropical climates for the first time since I retired. Was it worth it? Am I losing my mind while looking out a frosted window? Let’s find out 🙂 . Here’s what I did this month:

I Went To Boston & Saw Hamilton Twice

…in one day 🙂 . And I regret nothing. After these showings, I reflected and realized that seeing this show live was a ‘full circle’ moment. My last job in NYC was literally next to Alexander Hamilton’s grave at Trinity Church. I walked by it all the time and thought about how Alexander and Eliza (as well as Angelica, Philip and Hercules Mulligan) were buried there.

This was before the Hamilton musical came out so the cemetery was deserted. I just passed by thinking about these historical figures being laid to rest right next to the job where I decided to take my life into my own hands and go for financial independence. Right after this, I moved to Seattle, partially to aid my goal to retire early. In Seattle, one of my first vacations was to go on a week-long camping trip with a dear friend through Olympic National Park.

A lot of that trip involved hours of driving around the peninsula and during that drive, she asked that we listen to Hamilton – the entire audio recording, which is basically the entire show. It’s all music. So we listened to it and I fell in love just with the music – not just one song like I had with other musicals, but the entire thing. Just that audio recording was a more full experience than some entire plays I’ve seen in my life.

I watched the stage recording when it became available in 2020 and loved it, but seeing everything live 8 years after first hearing it was more wonderful than I could have imagined. Basically, this is what happened:

To finish out this experience, a few of the cast members (including Hamilton, Eliza and Washington) “liked” my review of the show and I was shocked with how excited I got. It’s usually hard to warm my cold dead heart, but knowing that these artists saw my words and knew how much I appreciated them lit me up 🙂 .

I Moved To New Hampshire

I moved to New Hampshire and took Amtrak to get there, but the trip was sadly not without incident. About an hour outside of Boston, our train stopped and we were told that the railroad ahead of us closed because of a “trespasser strike.”

I looked up what that meant on reddit and learned that it unfortunately means that a person or car was struck and killed by the train. This is apparently also called “police activity.”

My seat mate said that she had experienced this outside of DC and that it had taken 6 hours for the train to move again. We were parked at a train station and were told that we could leave the train if we wanted to. I looked into ride shares since it was already 9pm.

I found a ride share for about $70 and my seatmate asked to travel with me, so we went on that adventure together. I checked back later and the train took 3 hours to move again. Instead, I was in bed an hour after leaving the train.

Anyway, I’m now in New Hampshire and planning to stay for 2 months. This was originally a housesitting situation, but now we’re renting from her.

I Learned Spanish

After my 2022 challenge of going from 0% to Fluent in Spanish, it’s time to determine how I want to keep up my language learning without it taking up every waking moment 🙂 . So this month I tried some new ways to keep up my language ability with less of a time commitment.

Duolingo & Beyond

After finishing Duolingo Spanish against all odds, (aka them changing the entire system during my last month so I had 200+ lessons left instead of my original 1) my goal for this month was to finish Duolingo Stories since I found them to be the most helpful part of Duolingo.

Well, I’m not saying the universe revolves around me, but it seems that once again Duolingo is personally attacking me 🙂 because as of this month, Duolingo Stories no longer exist. I had 40 stories of 288 left to complete and noticed that stories had disappeared from the app in late 2022. Well now the stories section has disappeared from the desktop version as well. Stories can now be found buried in the lesson plans, but you have to do the (unhelpful to me) lessons to get to them, which doesn’t interest me. So that was a fail 🙂 .

As a result, I branched out to see what other app based practice I could get. I poked around the internet and tried the following apps:

  • Beelingua App
  • Langster
  • Babbel

What I was looking for was an app that ideally has a free tier that makes their money through ads that would provide audio and reading comprehension practice. Sadly none of these provided that and some unfortunately had such shady bait and switch tactics that means I’m never planning to pick them up again.

I’m not at all against paying for things, especially education – I mean, I dropped like 1/15th of my 2022 budget on Spanish lessons, but there are so many free ways to learn after that initial hump (like speaking to a hispanohablante friend in Spanish and then switching to English so they can practice too), or ways I already pay for (like Netflix) that these kinds of apps need to be worth their price and so far I haven’t seen that be the case.

Beelingua App

I downloaded and signed up for this app and then turned off notifications in the app settings…and still got notifications 🙂 . I had to go into my phone’s setting and disable the app from sending notifications, which wasn’t the best start.

I then started actually using the app and found that I really like their short audio and reading comprehension exercises. They read you a story or news clip out loud while you read it and you have the option to remove any English translations from the screen unless you press on a word, which I preferred (immersion for the win!).

However after using this for a day, I realized that they have very few stories for free even though the app has ads. I quickly went through all of the free ones in a matter of days. They also have reading comprehension questions at the end of a clip that I thought was a great idea, but the questions are memorization, not comprehension based. For example they asked what year did Y happen: 1945 or 1946…who gives a shit 🙂 ? That doesn’t prove I understood this story. Then I just got a flashback to how this is indicative of part of what’s wrong with the US education system. Don’t get me started 🙂 .

Overall I was disappointed to see how little was included with the base app. It wasn’t a full bait n’ switch, but it felt close since the app becomes unusable in less than a week unless you pay them monthly for it.

Langster App

This was a straight up bait and switch. They told me to sign up for a free version and then there was no free version so I deleted the app.

Babbel App

Another bait and switch. They say it’s free, I download the app and then they say that you have to pay a minimum of $7.50/month if you’re on the annual plan. So I left and hilarity ensued:

  • They sent me an email trying to entice me with 1 free exercise. Lol no.
  • Then 6 hours later they offered me 6 months free…Nope.
  • 3 days later they offered 12 months free, which I was morbidly intrigued by so I clicked the link and it said Great! Pay $90 for your free 12 months….I don’t think they know what “Free” means. It wasn’t even asking me to buy 18 months to get 12 free – just this:

  • Then the adventure continued with 6 more emails over the next few days telling me that these offers were expiring, then extending them and then finally offering me 60% Lifetime Access. Just wow. No thank you.

Activities

Outside of those disappointments, I did find a way to keep up with my language: Spanish FilmTube! I watched 1 video per weekday of these creators:

The last time I watched a lot of FilmTube I barely understood it because they speak so fast and in a casual way that’s more difficult than listening to voice actors dubbing movies, but now I understand them!!! I also watched the classic Legally Blonde (Legalmente Rubia) in Spanish with my Mom, which was fun.

Progress

My phone is still in Spanish, my Mom and I have a Spanish call weekly and I also read a book this month that had a lot of Spanish phrases including creative curse words, which was fun to learn 🙂 . In addition to that, I think I’ve officially ‘made it’ because some of my scam DMs on Instagram are in Spanish now 🙂 . But seriously, it’s great to see that I’m still making progress even with less time devoted to Spanish.

I Planned 2023 Travel

Basically, this:

Here is officially where I’m going to be in 2023 in case you’re curious or if you want to meet up while I’m there:

February: New Hampshire
March: New Hampshire
April: Sacramento, CA
May: Seattle, WA
June: Chicago, IL
July: Montréal, Canada
August: Troy, NY
September: Australia
October: New Zealand
November: Puerto Vallarta, México
December: Puerto Vallarta, México

While planning these trips, I also avoided a possible scam, which was a new experience:

I Played (A Lot Of) Video Games

I gamed and I gamed HARD 🙂 .

The awesomeness of the game Jurassic World Evolution almost makes up for the abomination that’s the Jurassic World trilogy…yeah, I said it 🙂 . Anyway, Jurassic World Evolution is sadly a PC only game so I can’t play it on my MacBook Air like all my other games. We had access to my partner’s gaming PC this month, but he was using it to help his brother run data for his degree so I couldn’t play for a few weeks. What a tragedy 🙂 .

Then my partner suggested I play it on his Steam Deck. I wasn’t sure it would work as well with a much smaller screen and how different the controls are, but I actually prefer those controls for everything except sidewalk placement in this game. Using it would be difficult with something like Cities Skylines where that’s most of what you’re doing, but not in this game. My mind is changed!

Just like lots of first times playing new games, I quickly freaked out, got overwhelmed and stopped, but I got over that by doing what I did in Cities Skylines: looking up instructions! I’m not sure why I thought of this as cheating before, but I don’t see it that way anymore. It’s more like I’m reading The Sims manual like I did before playing Sims for the first time.

So I watched some videos and (obviously given the time commitment) got way farther in the game this time! I also learned lots of dinosaur names 🙂 and about their preferences though I’m not sure how true to facts those are. This game was mostly about being calm under (fake, video game) pressure and multi-tasking. The game is really well-designed and addictive once you know how to do things. So watch out 🙂 .

I also continued playing my beloved Cities Skylines and started trying different maps to attempt their unique geographical challenges. It made me realize why playing slightly different versions of the same game can be fun – there are new challenges to overcome.

Insta Is Messing With Me

Have y’all had trouble with posts on Instagram lately? I don’t know what’s going on, but if you’ve noticed that some of my posts look a little ‘off’, that’s because the app hasn’t been saving my changes or randomly decides to get wild with a photo’s alignment as it’s posting.

I don’t know what’s going on there and have tried troubleshooting, but I haven’t been able to solve it. So if you see random white lines on my photo borders or a photo that is canted ‘artistically’ – I’m sorry in advance 🙂 . Also if you’ve had this issue and resolved it, feel free to let me know.

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly Spanish call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

  1. The Menu
  2. Flee
  3. I Care A Lot
  4. Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical

I also had a sleepover at the house of a college friend and met up with 3 readers that reached out while I was in Boston! This was my first time meeting more than one person 1:1 in a day from the blog and I was curious if it would sap my introvert energy, but it had the opposite effect 🙂 . I was jazzed all day from those interactions.

I Read 6 Books

This month I read:

  1. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
  2. The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World by Matt Kracht
  3. Educated by Tara Westover
  4. What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
  5. A Proposal They Can’t Refuse by Natalie Caña
  6. Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

I did a fair bit of reading this month. One reason was because I was sick for a stretch so I just slept and read in bed until I felt better (another benefit of retirement 😉 ). I am also intentionally trying to slow down this year, so I didn’t set any huge goals for January and tried to decompress from the holidays, and one of my main ways of doing that is reading. I guess all roads lead back to reading 🙂 .

I read a wide range of books this month including Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World which is a sequel to The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America that I read at the beginning of my interest in birds. Reading this sequel 2.5 years later is even funnier because I now know most of the birds it mentions, so the comedy hits even harder.

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, this month I published the below posts:

  1. How I Travel Hack: A Step-By-Step Guide To How I Saved $100,000 On Flights
  2. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap
  3. Is My Nomadic Life Immune To Inflation?
  4. Lessons Learned After 8 Years Of Blog Writing

This month I continued my Writing Group and was invited to Woven, an 0ff-Facebook Women’s Personal Finance space that’s now hosted through Mighty Networks. I joined Women’s Personal Finance years and years ago, but haven’t been very active since it’s on Facebook and that platform is not my cup of tea.

The Facebook group also has surpassed 65,000 members, which can be a little overwhelming. Being a part of Woven has been a completely different experience and I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s an encouraging, helpful and positive space.

Another fun thing that happened this month is that a reader told me they mentioned me when discussing the book I loved, Fluent Forever with the author (Gabriel Wyner) and he said this after checking out my blog, which was super cool to see:

I guess between this and Hamilton my fangirl tendencies still exist deep down somewhere 🙂 .

Physical

Sleep

As I mentioned, I was a little sick at the beginning of the month and was understandably grateful that I didn’t have to drag myself to a job and instead could just rest until I felt better, which happened in 48 hours instead of the week it usually seemed to take.

Sleep is harder when I’m stuffed up but after I got better, it got easier. I got back to my very important nap schedule 🙂 . Lovely.

Food

Eating was awesome this month on both fronts: cooking and eating out. I felt like cooking a lot this month and often did so by taste instead of a recipe, which is my mark of a good cook 🙂 . I also made dinners for large family gatherings weekly, which was a bit nerve wracking, but great to do.

As for restaurants, I had some lovely experiences such as this one:

I also learned to make spices! I talked about doing this with Garam Masala a while ago, but this time I ran out of Curry Powder and thought it was its own spice, but turns out it’s a combo of about 10 other common spices. So my MIL and I made Curry Powder! This included me using a mortar and pestle for the first time in a long time, which was fun. I like smashing things 🙂 . Anyway, it was fun to think of things a little differently and learn to make a new spice.

Exercise

Running has been going really well! I was a bit wary after last January kicked my ass, but I think I finally have the hang of this winter running thing 🙂 ! A gaiter and layers have been my best friends. I’ve also been more diligent about stretching before and after my run and rolling out my muscles. I’m now traveling with a tennis ball to help with that. That’s also helped roll out my foot after this idiocy 🙂 :

Something new this month that I tried out was Map My Run. I’ve been using Strava to keep track of my running pace and heart rate, but I wanted to see what else was out there. Unfortunately I didn’t like Map My Run as much, but I’m happy to have another option.

Nail Painting

I had a great time getting back into nail painting over the holidays:

As y’all know, I love the night sky and was excited to find this gold polish that looks different every time I use it based on where the glitter randomly goes. It’s like making my own constellations 🙂 .

Singing

Unsurprisingly, seeing Hamilton reignited my love of singing so I worked through my favorite songs on the discography (listed below) and can now sing all of them!

  • Satisfied
  • Wait For It
  • Washington On Your Side
  • One Last Time

I’m an alto so I’m not usually able to hit all the notes at first, but I kept trying until I could!!! I’m glad this endeavor went well because this next one did not 🙂 .

Piano

I attempted to re-learn piano briefly this month 🙂 . And I discovered how much I’ve forgotten and didn’t find it easy to pick back up. Basically I learned that I prefer singing because I can just hear it and recreate it – like a less awesome version of Drumline 🙂 . I don’t enjoy the process of reading music – it seems to put up a barrier in my mind. So sadly this will not be me at the end of next month:

Mental

Learning

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

Spanish

This month I learned that I might have been using the incorrect term to tell my Mom that I love her when I said te amo:

However, I feel strange about the direct translation of te quiero, which is “I want you” even though the intention is “I (lightly) love you”. So now I tell my Mom te quiero mamá, sin incesto because that’s my messed up sense of humor and it makes her laugh.

Astronomy

Stargazing was lovely this month despite the cold 🙂 . There were a lot of clear nights where I could see Jupiter, Mars, the constellations and (when it was out) the Full Moon. I did want to see a meteor shower this month, but it was sadly too early (5am) and too cold (0F) for me to want to attempt it. Maybe next year 😉 .

Birds

I saw the usual suspects this month along with this badass, a Northern Harrier!

Source

This also made me laugh a lot:

Random

  • I don’t remember much from AP History, but I thought the American Revolutionary War ended with the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. NOPE! The timeline in Hamilton made me realize that wasn’t right so I looked it up: The war was from 1775 to 1783. Say WHAAAT?!
  • On a darker note, I learned that most suicide attempts occur on New Years
  • On a lighter note:

Creativity

I was understandably out of creative juices after NaNoWriMo and posting here twice a week in December. It took everything out of me 🙂 . I was worried that I wouldn’t want to write after all that, but I took a little break (without stopping posting, don’t worry 😉 ) and my writing inspiration flowed back after some down time.

Emotional

My emotions were good this month. I was around my loved ones, which lifts my spirits even if it’s cold and dark outside 🙂 . I found a way to deal with the cold while running and have been changing my waking hours to align with the sunlight (hello 6:30am sunrises 🙂 ). Overall this January was a lot better than the last one in terms of me dealing with actual winter. Maybe I won’t immediately run to Thailand in February like I did last year 😉 .

Money

I reviewed all my inflows and outflows of money for 2022 below in case you missed it:

After doing those analyses, I felt good about my money situation going into 2023. I still have more than a year left of my cash cushion even without any additional income. I also, as I mentioned, booked all of my travel and Airbnbs for 2023, so while that was a large chunk of change to see leave my account all at once – it’s handled 🙂 . The rest of my spending can be focused on delicious food, awesome experiences and helping people.

I also continued to be less than perfect about being frugal. Oops 🙂 – maybe I’ll remember next time:

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in January! I thought it mostly involved sipping tea under a warm blanket while reading, but the word count of this post says otherwise 🙂 . Next up, I’m planning to stay in New Hampshire and see if I continue to enjoy winter in the Northeast. We shall see 🙂 . Until next time!

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

Weekly (2020)

  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 (2021)

  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)
  8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
  9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
  10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
  11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
  12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap

Monthly (2022)

  1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
  2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
  3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
  4. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
  5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
  6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
  7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap
  8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap
  9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap
  10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap
  11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022 Recap
  12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap

How was your month?

26 thoughts on “The Month Of Snow: January 2023 Recap”

    1. I’ve been to PV before and really enjoyed it so we’re going back 🙂 . I think we originally went there because we heard it was gorgeous and LGBTQIA+ friendly, which I can confirm on both counts. I’m actually working on a post about my Airbnb selection process 🙂 , but overall I picked somewhere downtown that’s quiet, walking distance to the beach with a pool and washer/dryer near lots of local restaurants. There was a lot to choose from though, which is a great ‘problem’ to have.

      Reply

  2. Thanks for posting as usual Purple, awesome to have something to look forward to reading every Tuesday.

    Seems like your Spanish is very good now, not sure if you were considering taking on another language or two by chance? I’m not an expert but the Romance languages probably have some Carry over from what I read online lol

    Reply

    1. Of course! Thank you for reading 🙂 .

      I was originally going to spend a year on Spanish and then a year on French, but while my Spanish is pretty good it’s not where I want it to be 🙂 . So I’ll be continuing to learn Spanish for the foreseeable future, especially since I’m going back to México for the fall and will get to practice a lot.

      Reply

  4. Love this update! I’m extremely jealous of Hamilton haha! My brother-in-law finally got to see it live last year.

    Winter running is definitely hard until you get used to it. Getting the layers part right is key for me. Glad to hear it is getting easier!

    Reply

    1. I’m so glad you enjoyed it! And they have tickets for around $125 and I also saw they were doing some type of BOGO thing (that I sadly didn’t get haha) in Boston while I was there so it’s not extremely outside of reach. And yeah I think I have my layers down at this point – it’s definitely easier 🙂 .

      Reply

  5. I hope you come to Philly one of these years! We could bird together!

    My girlfriend and I have started Spanish in preparation for taking a sabbatical next spring and studying at the language school you went to – you’re a big influence! I’m using Duolingo and she’s using Mango, which comes free with many library memberships. If you still have a US library card it could be worth checking out. It focuses on audio comprehension, but I don’t know how advanced it goes so you might be beyond what it offers. One of my friends recommended Lupa, which is a paid app. It uses real Latin American radio journalism + some transcription help but is really geared towards audio comprehension. It’s very beyond my current skill level so I haven’t tried it. Finally, Duolingo has free podcasts that switch between Spanish and English to tell stories, which are actually quite compelling! But those also might be too easy for you now. I can tell the Spanish is spoken very slow.

    Finally, I don’t know about New Year’s Day specifically, but at the end of the year I saw several articles saying that it’s a myth that suicides spike during the winter holidays. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-12-07/myth-that-suicides-peak-during-the-holidays-could-cause-harm

    Reply

    1. I was actually in Philly a fair bit before retirement, but haven’t been back in a while. When I do get around to it, birding together sounds lovely 🙂 .

      And oh WOW!!! That’s so cool. Y’all are going to Mérida? I hope you enjoy it.

      Thanks so much for telling me about Mango! My library does allow access to it and I like their color coding system. Even their most advanced lessons were a bit too basic for what I’m looking for, but it’s awesome to know about other options!

      Lupa looks similar to Beelingua, which is cool. I have tried Duolingo podcasts in the past and yeah they were a bit too basic – I listen to regular Spanish speaking finance podcasts I find on Spotify now. I’m learning Spanish and finance vocab all at once, which makes the money nerd in me happy haha.

      Reply

      1. Mérida is the plan! We’ve both been saving for a sabbatical since 2020 (independently before we even met!) but without concrete plans, and then as we discussed it more, one of the things we were both interested in doing with a work-break was an intensive Spanish language school in Latin America. Your reviews of both the school and Mérida were so great that I thought, why spend hours researching this (with endless choices since we were open to many countries) when someone we both respect has already done all the research & work for us? So, thanks!!

        I actually didn’t even remember the color-coding on Mango because my girlfriend and I have been using the autoplay/hands-free version, which is super helpful because we can learn while cooking or cleaning (or puzzling in my case). It’s also a bigger challenge in a good way to only go by audio comprehension.

        It makes sense that all these apps are too basic for you now. In Lupa’s description of their methodology, they defined fluency as “”You are fluent when you can improve faster by using a language than by studying it.” You are definitely at that point! I thought their article on their method was interesting even if the app isn’t for me right now. https://www.jiveworld.com/en/our-method/

        Reply

        1. That’s so cool 🙂 . It’s also awesome that y’all listen while doing something else to double-down on audio comprehension. And that’s a great description of fluency – I hadn’t heard that before! That’s definitely been my experience so far. That’s a really cool article – thank you for sharing!

          Reply

  7. Which portal are you using to get points for Airbnb purchases? I’ve been getting Delta miles for my Airbnb stays (when I remember to go to their special site before clicking to the Airbnb site).

    Reply

    1. Yeah – I’ve never done it before, but I was planning to use the Delta portal for the first time…until I forgot lol.

      Reply

    1. Oh yes – plenty of time for that as well 🙂 . The abundance of that was why I was surprised this post was so long haha. I’m glad you enjoyed it!

      Reply

  9. Glad you made it safely to the Granite State, one of my Favs! That’s a horrible story about the Trespasser Strike, did you ever find out what the specifics were about it? Anyway I still have yet to see Hamilton, I’ve heard great reviews (obviously), but I live in a rural area and unfortunately they dont have a theater near me. Look forward to your travels this year!

    Reply

    1. You’ve taught me something new 🙂 . I didn’t know it was the Granite State – I’m adding that to my Fun Facts Nobody Asked For for next month!

      I looked it up on the news the next day and if I remember correctly a vehicle was on the tracks with someone inside and the train struck it and the person died. I just tried to find the article again and wasn’t able to unfortunately.

      And thank you! I’m looking forward to them too 😉 .

      Reply

  10. Hey Purple, it sounds like a fun month, which at this point is pretty much usual for you in retirement. 🙂

    I do have a burning question for you: I saw on Twitter that you’ve filed your taxes already. Would you please explain how you manage to be SO EARLY every year?!? Seriously, for me, my brokerage 1099’s aren’t even complete until right before the February 15 deadline, so I can’t file until right after February 15!

    Reply

    1. Hi Natalie! And yeah it was a good one 🙂 . Vanguard releases 1099s in the beginning of January and that’s the only thing I have to wait for. I’m not sure who is sending yours, but it sounds like they need to get their act together 😉 .

      Reply

      1. I actually have Vanguard too! (I love Vanguard.) But when you log in, it tells you that the deadline for brokerage 1099s is February 15. Since they have so many clients, I guess it wouldn’t be surprising if they complete them in waves. Like some people’s are done early in January, then others’ later in January, and some in February. I wonder if that’s what’s happening because I have never, in my 10-ish years of investing, received a brokerage 1099 more than a few days before the February 15 deadline, LOL. They must be super slow when filling out mine!

        Reply

        1. Oh interesting! I just checked and I’ve always gotten my 1099s from Vanguard in January so yeah I guess they batch them and I got lucky.

          Reply

  11. I live just outside Boston and just saw Hamilton at the Opera House as well two weeks ago. What a show!! I’ve been listening to the soundtrack ever since. Thanks for all the work you put into your blog, I’ve recently discovered it through a YNAB FB group (someone listed your blog among others as good ones to check out!) and you are inspiring me to step things up both financially and hobby/life-wise. Thank you! 🙂

    Reply

    1. That’s so cool!! And haha I’ve also been listening to the soundtrack more than ever 🙂 . The show really reinvigorated my obsession there.

      You’re welcome 🙂 ! Thank you for your kind words. That’s very cool about the YNAB group – I didn’t know about that. Thanks again 🙂 !

      Reply

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