The Month Of Amsterdam: November 2024 Recap

Here I am recapping the second to last month of 2024 while my brain is still in 2023. I really need to get on top of this temporal confusion, but in the meantime let’s see what I got up to in November 😉 .

I Moved To Amsterdam🇳🇱!

I’m back in The Netherlands. When I first visited in 2010, I declared that Amsterdam was my favorite city in Europe – and I maintain that ranking after living here for a month.

My previous visit was to see a friend from college for Queen’s Day and I left shortly after. This time around I got to stay for a month and catch up with a different friend of mine from college who has  been living here for 7 years.

And I’m happy to relay that I still love this city. Staying here longer has surprisingly not revealed many more of its flaws (I already knew about a lot of them 😉 ), but instead made me realize that my original quick assessment was surprisingly accurate. Amsterdam is a shockingly clean and quiet city with an abundance of good food and lovely canal views.

We stayed here basically for the month of November and I was warned that it would be way cloudier and rainier than the April weekend I had previously visited, but because of the abundance of water, nature and skylights, I barely noticed the clouds. I still think Amsterdam is my favorite city in Europe and I’m excited to return.

I Signed Up For The Healthcare Marketplace

My ‘income’ that I’m taking in retirement (aka investment withdrawals and dividends) surpassed the threshold for my previous $0/month WA Apple Health/Medicaid plan that I basically never used since I’m rarely in Washington State (my state of residence). However, I was required to have to sign up for World Nomads (the travel insurance I’ve paid for since 2020, but never used).

So I joined the Healthcare Marketplace and I just chose my plan for 2025 during the enrollment period that started November 1st. I’m also planning to try a new travel insurance in 2025, SafetyWing. I recapped all of this in the post below:

• I Joined The Health Insurance Marketplace

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly 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. Reacher (S1-S2)
2. The Bear (S2)
3. High Potential
4. Brooklyn 99 (Pontiac Bandit Episodes)
5. Dark Side Of Reality TV
6. Breakout Kings
7. It’s What’s Inside
8. The Happening
9. Old

I also hung out in Amsterdam with a friend from college who has been living here for years. It was cool to hang out and see an expat’s perspective of this city after living here for almost a decade.

I Read 17 Books

Here were my favorite reads this month:

1. Democracy In Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives by Sami Sage & Emily Amick
2. Final Boy At Randy’s by Loren Leigh
3. Malibu by Emmy Sanders

To see the other books I read this month and my ratings of them, I have a Goodreads account here. And I’ve surpassed my 2024 stretch goal of reading 200 books!

Now if only I could stop there and keep that nice, round number 😉 . But no – there’s a lot I want to read before the end of this year and the winter weather makes me want to curl up with a book so we’ll see what my number is by 2025!

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

1. The Month Of Switzerland & Italy: October 2024 Recap
2. Review: IcelandAir – Boston, MA to Reykjavík, Iceland
3. Medical Tourism: Dental Cleaning And Cavity Fillings In Bologna, Italy
4. I Joined The Health Insurance Marketplace

I also met up with 6 readers while in Amsterdam. I think that’s a new record! And it’s wild that it happened almost 5,000 miles from Seattle, where I wrote most of this blog. Anyway, it still shocks me that people on the other side of the world read this little blog and want to hang out. That makes me so happy when y’all reach out to me. It’s so wonderful to put a face to a username.

As December is fast approaching, I still need to decide if I’m doing PurpleMas this year, which is where I post every Tuesday AND Thursday in December. I haven’t done this since 2022 and I’m currently trying to figure out if I have the motivation to do it.

This month and the US election results took the wind out of my sails, but I have been finding solace in creativity and writing so I don’t know if I’ll do it or not. If PurpleMas is something you care about – feel free to let me know. Maybe that will help push the motivation button – TBD 🙂 .

I was also interviewed by CNBC this month. If that article goes live I’ll be sure to let y’all know (not all interviews go live as I’ve learned over the past few years). I was surprised to learn that for the first time a major publication didn’t immediately say “Nvm” after reaching out for an interview when I told them I’m anonymous online. So we’ll see what happens.

On a less fun note, I continue to work on Tech Issues y’all have been reporting to me. Two people told me that my site heats up their phone, which is concerning. I talked to my WebDev Partner and he doesn’t know why that would happen. I also talked to my ad network to see if this was somehow linked to something they were doing and they said it wasn’t.

So I’m currently at a loss and continuing to research the issue. In the meantime, if this problem or anything else weird is happening to you while reading this site, please let me know! More information is always helpful and I want this to be a great reading experience for everyone.

I Played Video Games 

Last month I mentioned that in a surprise to no one, The Sims had another sale and I bought another pack 🙂 . I bought Discover University Expansion Pack for 60% off, which is a change of pace for me and I’ve been playing it nonstop ever since.

I was originally not interested in this pack at all UNTIL I heard from a friend who has it. She said that after going through college in the game, you start at basically the top of a career, making a boatload of cash…now that might be worth it!

I’ve found going up the career ladder in The Sims annoying and tedious in the past (kinda like how I view IRL career ladders 😉 ), but this expansion pack sounded like an interesting alternative. And I’m super glad I bought it because this expansion pack is the only one in The Sims that I’ve found to be difficult, but the rewards match the difficulty so it’s very satisfying. It’s great that I can still find new ways to enjoy this game after it’s been out for a decade (Yes – The Sims 4 celebrated its 10 year anniversary a few months ago. Wild stuff).

In other news on games I’ve played before, I’m back to sailing the high seas!  It’s been a bit, but I accidentally rewatched a 17 hour livestream of one of my favorite YouTubers playing Sea Of Thieves, so I got the itch again and have been pirating several hours a day ever since.

Also, I discovered that my beloved Safer Seas will be increasing its rewards from 30% of what you get in High Seas, to 100% in December, which is super exciting!!! Now a smart person would save their gameplay for then to make that coin, but I’m having too much fun at the moment so I’m just going to keep exploring despite the lowered rewards.

As for new games, I started playing The Case of the Golden Idol with my Partner! It was suggested to me after I LOOOOVED Return Of The Obra Dinn. Then this month, my Partner realized he’d bought Golden Idol as part of a humble bundle a long time ago, but never played it. So we started it this month and had a fun time! The art wasn’t jaw-dropping like it was in Obra Dinn, but it’s still cool and the music is lovely and the cases are very interesting.

Physical

Sleep

My sleep has been up and down this month which seems to be based on my stress/emotions, which makes sense. Overall my sleep improved as the month went on and I’m clinging to that improvement 🙂 .

Food

My eating this month was alright 🙂 . I ate keto for 63% of the month and took 11 days off keto. I thought that I wouldn’t take a lot of days off keto this month because the last time I visited Amsterdam, I wasn’t blown away by their local cuisine. However, this time around, I found some absolutely delicious places to eat – from restaurants to pre-made food at the local grocery store.

Later in the month (when I started feeling better) I found it easy to buy keto-friendly food at the grocery store and cook some delicious homemade meals. Overall I ate carbs for more days than I planned, but I’m still ontrack for my 2024 goal of eating keto 70% of the year so that’s awesome.

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Exercise

My exercise overall this month was pretty good, but my Running definitely decreased. I was both not feeling up to it, wanting to make sure my knee was 100%, and I also really don’t like running in the rain – which it often was. Luckily I made up for it by Walking all over Amsterdam.

I also continued doing my PT Exercises to keep my knees and hips strong while doing Bodyweight Squats. I’m also still doing Yoga at least after every run and continued my Meditation practice as well. My theme for this year is The Year Of Fitness and it’s living up to its name.

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 Netherlands

• The Netherlands has a population of 17.88 million and Amsterdam itself has 921,402 inhabitants as of 2022
• The entire country is a little bigger than the US state of Maryland and a little smaller than West Virginia

• The city of Amsterdam has 165 canals and more than 1,500 bridges, which is about 1,000 more than Venice
• The streets of Amsterdam have remained mostly unchanged since the 1800s and the city has one of the largest historic city centers in Europe with over 7,000 registered historic buildings
• I was confused about the difference between The Netherlands and Holland before I arrived, and it turns out that the confusion was warranted:

• According to my friend who has lived in Amsterdam for almost a decade, the iconic look of Amsterdam (thin houses with giant windows) was apparently created as a result of how taxation worked at the time. People were taxed on the number of windows, so in response homeowners installed only a few giant windows. They were also taxed on the width of their house along the canal, so many houses were built tall and thin while expanding far back away from the canals.

Birds

I was expecting my birdwatching in Amsterdam to be pretty standard since it’s a city and there are some usual city birds that hang about. However, I was surprised when I saw a bright green Rose-Ringed Parakeet just hanging out at a park. What is going on here?! Apparently, enough of these birds were (accidentally I hope) let free by their owners, that 4,000 of them now reside in Amsterdam. They’re quite a sight.

Outside of that unexpected discovery, birding was pretty normal, but still filled with some lovely sightings of birds we don’t have in the US that I haven’t seen before. Here are the birds I saw in Amsterdam this month:

Eurasian Blue Tit, Common Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Great Tit, Eurasian Jay, Carrion Crow, Eurasian Blackbird, Common Raven, Eurasian Nuthatch, European Robin, Goldcrest, Eurasian Siskin, Long-Tialed Tit, Fieldfare, Eurasian Wren, Yellow-Billed Chough, European Greenfinch, European Goldfinch, Willow Tit, Mistle Thrush, Red Crossbill, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Rock Pigeon, Common Wood-Pigeon, Mute Swan, Eurasian Magpie

Creativity

Feeling creative was a challenge at the beginning of the month, but by the end, it was like it had all welled up inside of me and I found myself writing more than ever, which was a good feeling. So maybe PurpleMas is possible if I ride that creativity wave and get ahead on posts so writing that much doesn’t seem as daunting.

Emotional

As I alluded to above, my emotions were not great this month 🙂 . The election results fucked me up emotionally, but after a lot of thought, I’ve decided to focus on a few things: one is that I’m so glad I started this journey to FIRE in 2015 so that I have the financial means to combat unfortunate circumstances me or my loved ones might face in the future. I’m also very grateful that since I’m retired, I also have unlimited time to help with those endeavors.

I’m also proud of myself that unlike during the 2020 election, I didn’t doomscrool for a week straight and instead this year I successfully distracted myself by re-reading books I love and playing The Sims until the results were basically called. And I’ve barely been online since, which I’m proud of – though if you’ve noticed, I went dark online for a bit there and that’s why. I needed to take a step back for a bit. Overall it seems like I’ve successfully broken myself off from the addictive part of the endless social media scroll so that’s great.

Another reason I suspect my emotions weren’t great this month is that because of the above, I fell off my routines for a hot second. Running, yoga, meditation and cooking healthy meals fell by the wayside while I tried to get back to just being ok, but I suspect dropping all those things that make me feel better as a person, made it worse 🙂 .

I also think that only having 8 hours of sunlight (instead of the 12-16 I’m used to in the sunny locations I typically choose to live in) and seeing clouds for weeks on end for the first time since I retired 4 years ago, started to wear on me. I knew I was a sunchild and now I have my proof. I guess I’ll continue my sunbird ways.

Anyway, despite all of that, I had a fantastic time exploring Europe for almost 3 months (getting close to that Schengen visa limit 😉 ) and am excited to head back to see family and friends in the northeast for the Christmas season, despite the cold. My main lesson from living in Italy for 6 months in 2010, was that the people I love are more important than anything and I still agree with that. So I’m excited to spend the holidays surrounded by the family I chose 🙂 .

Money

I hit a $900K net worth for the first time this month:

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I also hit another all-time high of $907,012 and my net worth ended the month like this:

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There’s only one more month in 2024 and it’s looking like I’m going to hit my 2024 spending goal of $23,400, which is really exciting. As always, I’ll have all those official spending, income and net worth numbers on the blog in my usual annual finance posts.

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in November! As I mentioned, next month I head back to the US for the first time in almost 3 months to see family for the holidays. It’ll be nice to recharge for a little bit before I tackle my 2025 adventures. Spoiler: 🇯🇵🇳🇿🇺🇸🇵🇪🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇸.

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

Monthly (2023)

1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023
3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023
4. The Month Of California: April 2023
5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023
6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023
8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023
9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023
10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
11. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
12. The Month Of Warmth: December 2023

Monthly (2024)

1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
2. The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap
3. The Month Of San José: March 2024 Recap
4. The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap
5. The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap
6. The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2024 Recap
8. The Month Of Canada: August 2024 Recap
9. The Month Of Iceland: September 2024 Recap
10. The Month Of Switzerland & Italy: October 2024 Recap

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?