The Month Of Warmth: December 2023 Recap

December’s theme of “warmth” had two meanings 🙂 . First was the fact that I spent half of the month soaking up the sun in Puerto Vallarta, México where it was literally warm (75F), and the second was that I spent the rest of the month in Upstate NY with family that makes my heart warm…in an emotional way, not a concerning medical condition way 🙂 .

I Left México

Sadly after 6 weeks of exploring, we left México. We stayed at the same Airbnb during that time and my Partner mentioned that he would have been happy to stay another 2 weeks so I might book even longer stays in one location in the future. Then we left sunny weather and turquoise beaches for…freezing temperatures back in the Northeast US 🙂 .

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Purple Life l Early Retiree (@apurplelife)

I Went To Upstate NY

We landed in Upstate NY and when I got outside, despite wearing all the layers I own, I started shivering 🙂 . Oops. I needed some time to acclimate after having lived in warm locations for almost a year. However, after I started piling on even more layers and drinking hot tea constantly, I got used to it.

We spent our time visiting my Partner’s family and my Mom even came to join the fun for the first time in over a decade, which was really fun. It was exciting to see worlds colliding like that. We also did a lot of Christmas-y activities that she’s never done, such as caroling and festive cookie making. After she left, the fun continued with lots of games, laughter and enjoying the decorations of Christmas.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Purple Life l Early Retiree (@apurplelife)

I Booked 2024 Travel

…yes, all of it. I’ve given up on pretending that I’m spontaneous and now I’m leaning into being the far-in-advance planner that I actually am. So I have all of 2024 planned out and most of it booked (with free cancellation policies 😉 ).

So I’ve listed where I’m going to be below. If you live in the area feel free to let me know if you’d like to grab a coffee!

Jan-March: San Jose, Costa Rica🇨🇷
April: Austin, TX (for the Total Solar Eclipse!!!) & Sacramento, CA🇺🇸
May: Phoenix, AZ
June: Upstate NY
July: Montréal, Canada🇨🇦
August: Montréal, Canada🇨🇦
September: Iceland🇮🇸
October: Switzerland🇨🇭 and Italy🇮🇹
November: Amsterdam, The Netherlands🇳🇱
December: Upstate NY🇺🇸

I Did My Roth IRA Conversion

Basically, this:

Every year this process feels easier since I’m more used to it. And yes I did reference my own post on the subject to submit my conversions 😉 :

• How I’m Using A Roth IRA Conversion Ladder To Access Retirement Funds Early: A Step-By-Step Guide

I Submitted My Global Entry Renewal

My Global Entry is set to expire near the end of this year so I thought I’d poke around and see when I should renew it and discovered a few interesting things:

• You can start the renewal process 1 year before your expiration date
• If you start the renewal process before the expiration date, you can still use your card for 2 years after your expiration date (I assume this is to account for their delayed timelines recently)
• Another interview might not be needed for renewal (I hope not), but if it is they have virtual remote interview options (Cool!)

So I submitted my application for renewal and am checking back regularly to see if they pre-approved me. It’s annoying they don’t email you when your status changes, but I guess I’ll live with this small inconvenience 🙂 .

And if I do need to do another interview, apparently you can also do the interview when landing in the US from an international flight, which I will be doing in a few months in case they get back to me by then – I doubt they will because I’m a pessimist when it comes to these things, but we’ll see 🙂 . I’m also curious to see if I’ll have issues with my application now that I’m retired and don’t have a job or a home base. We shall see 🙂 !

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Purple Life l Early Retiree (@apurplelife)

I Reflected

For the past 20 years or so, I’ve kept a quote list for each year to remember all the ridiculous and hilarious things that are done and said around me. I love re-reading these throughout the year and especially at the end of the year to reflect on the ridiculousness of life and to laugh my ass off.

I also re-read my How Did I Get Here Series to remember what my career was like. I might make this an annual tradition because as I get farther and farther from my career, it’s harder to realize and remember what my life used to be like. And reflecting on it helps me be even more grateful for where I am now.

1. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 1 “Is This Adulting?”
2. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 2 “Avoiding My Problems With Exercise & Consumerism”
3. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 3 “Discovering FIRE…And Ignoring It”
4. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 4 “Catching A Unicorn”
5. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 5 “A Seattle Bait & Switch”
6. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 6 “Searching for Bigfoot”
7. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 7 “The Goldilocks Zone”
8. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 8 “The Boring Part”
9. $5K to Retirement In 9 Years: Year 9 “The Final Countdown”

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups with friends 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. Underwater
2. Nimona
3. Gran Turismo
4. How The Grinch Stole Christmas
5. A Charlie Brown Christmas
6. Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas!
7. ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas
8. Rebel Moon
9. Minari
10. Magic Mike
11. Silo S1
12. My Neighbor Totoro

I Read 20 Books

This month I read:

1. Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal
2. Poverty By America by Matthew Desmond
3. Like Real People Do by E.L. Massey
4. Like You’ve Got Nothing To Prove by E.L. Massey
5. All Hail The Underdogs by E.L. Massey
6. They Hate Each Other by Amanda Woody
7. Wolfsong by TJ Klune
8. That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Human by Kimberly Lemming
9. Icebreaker by A. L. Graziadei
10. Blind Match by MM Farmer
11. Mating The Huntress by Talia Hibbert
12. Wrapped In You by Talia Hibbert
13. Hoarded By The Dragon by Lillian Lark
14. Top Secret by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy
15. Clueless Puckboy by Eden Finley & Saxon James
16. The Fating by Dianna Roman
17. Freefall by Roe Horvat
18. Nimona by ND Stevenson
19. Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon
20. Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

I ended 2023 with another new-to-me author I now love: E.L. Massey! This has really been the year of discovering new authors while intentionally reading more books by queer authors and with queer protagonists (my book theme of 2023) and in doing so, discovering some wonderful gems. I found these great authors and felt the urge to read their entire bibliography, which led me to reading way more than planned.

I mentioned this in my 2023 Accomplishments Post, but I read 250 books this year, which is so wild. Never thought I’d go farther than the 100 I read in 2022, but here we are. When I saw myself surpassing 200 in the fall, I thought I’d finish the year around 230, but then a Black Friday Kindle Unlimited deal of 3 months for $0.99 total put a wrench in that 😉 . I’m curious where I’ll net out in 2024. Maybe I’ll actually read less and focus on playing more video games like I intended to this year 😉 .

One funny thing that happened this month is that I read physical books for the first time in a while (given that eBooks are necessary to read given the amount I do, while traveling full time). Hilariously I found myself wanting to press a word to see a definition or press a sentence to highlight it while reading a physical book. Oops! It made me laugh and reminded me of my Mom touching every computer screen because she uses a touch screen. Adorable 🙂 .

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 Made $8,594 While Retired In 2023
2. The Year Of Reading: 2023 Goals & Accomplishments
3. Review: Los Arcos Snorkeling Tour in Puerto Vallarta, México
4. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023 Recap

My big blog accomplishment this month was that I was included in Jamila Souffrant’s new book Your Journey To Financial Freedom. Seeing myself in a published book continues to make my brain not compute 🙂 .

Other than that, an interview I did with US Bank and a travel magazine went live:

• How To Save Up For A Bucket-List Trip
• Meet A Purple Life

I was also asked to be on a podcast panel, but had to decline because I wasn’t available that day (I’m busy ok 😉 ). I was also included on a list of Card Rate’s Best Personal Finance Bloggers, which is cool:

• 10 Best Personal Finance Bloggers for 2023

Physical

Sleep

My sleep this month was lovely 🙂 . I took naps when I wanted, fell asleep when I wanted and awakened when I felt like it. Perfection 🙂 . I hope this trend continues in 2024.

Food

My new keto experiment is still going well! Taking a day off keto instead of an extended period of time seems to be working well for me to try new cuisines and also make health gains. Balance achieved! I’m excited to try this for all of 2024 and see what happens 🙂 .

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Purple Life l Early Retiree (@apurplelife)

Exercise

Running continues to be a lovely past time, especially since I discovered the below miracle workers! I was about to buy new running shoes when a (slightly suspicious) running store employee said I should just buy new running shoes because I’m getting toe holes. Turns out that was not necessary. My shoes feel brand new and still have miles left on them before I need another pair.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Purple Life l Early Retiree (@apurplelife)

Physically running in the cold after having been in tropical climates for basically all of 2023 has been a challenge. I’ve got my gaiter and my layers, but don’t like how I feel weighed down wearing it all compared to the freedom of just heading out in my running shirt and pants. However, I’m glad I’m still getting out there and even making new PRs despite the weather 🙂 . I also hit my running stretch goal of 3x a week for the second month in a row!

Mental

Learning

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

Topical

• The last day of 2023 was “123123” as in 12/31/23. This happens every 100 years
• During the month of December in Puerto Vallarta, they have Fiestas Guadalupanas, which is twelve days from December 1st to 12th where people from all over the city parade towards the church to celebrate the patron saint of both Puerto Vallarta and México
• A volcano erupted in Iceland and there was a livestream of the lava flowing. I had no idea such technology existed

Astronomy

One thing I love about being on the west coast, like in Puerto Vallarta, is watching the sun set over the Pacific ocean. It’s magical 🙂 . Other than checking out full moons and some bright stars briefly, I didn’t do a lot of stargazing this month. It was too cold 🙂 .

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Purple Life l Early Retiree (@apurplelife)

Fauna

Puerto Vallarta, México

Luckily I didn’t spot one of the big crocodiles that live in PVR, but I did see a few Asian House Geckos and a lot of Green Iguanas (including a baby! I have a video of it in my PVR Story Highlights). I also learned that the strange bobbing they do with their head is not a silly gesture, but a warning that they’re feeling aggressive and to not get in their territory. Oops! Luckily I don’t have a habit of approaching wild animals, but that was NOT how I interpreted that adorable head bob.

Upstate NY

Animals I saw in NY included the usual White-Tailed Deer, Eastern Gray Squirrel, Red Fox, and Virginia Opossum. Interestingly, a Red Fox sounds like this (it’s weird):

Birds

Puerto Vallarta, México

In the courtyard of our PVR apartment, I saw this gorgeous Broad-Billed Hummingbird. They only live in that part of México and I’m obsessed:

Upstate NY

This month involved the usual NE winter suspects below. They were still cool to see though 🙂 .

Northern Cardinal, Dark-Eyed Junco, Tufted Titmouse, Black-Capped Chickadee, White-Throated Sparrow, American Goldfinch and Downy Woodpecker

Random

• I read the phrase “jury-rigged” in a book and realized I had only heard of “jerry-rigged,” which is apparently a variant of “jury-rigged” that may have been influenced by “jerry-built” meaning poorly built.
• I learned the caffeine content of coffee and various tea (infographic below) because I’ve been drinking coffee regularly for the last month as a treat (it tastes like chocolate with enough heavy cream – yum 🙂 ) and to help with my intestinal health (don’t ask 🙂 ). However, after all this, my Partner said I’m likely addicted to coffee now since I had it regularly for a while. This was a surprise to me. He said that as a result, I would need to have coffee every day or face consequences, such as migraines. No thanks! So I went cold turkey and didn’t have caffeine for several days. I had a bit of a headache the first few days in the morning, but after that I was good to go. Now I’ll only go back to sparingly having coffee.

Creativity

My creativity this month has been going well 🙂 . It’s been nice to slow down and have time to write again since I’m not galavanting around the globe. Also, writing posts while looking outside at snow falling and sipping hot tea is kind of magical. I’m going to try and find this same kind of peace and calm when I start traveling again so I can try to maintain my posting schedule without feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day (retiree problems am I right 😉 ).

Emotional

My emotions this month were really good surprisingly. It was surprising to me because I know I need a lot of sunshine and usually warm weather to feel my best, but I somehow brought my own sunshine to the cloudy and cold northeast and continued to feel great despite the lack of sun. I’m sure having so many family and friends around helped my mood as well, but overall I’m happily surprised. This would usually be the time I have a depressive episode, but it’s no where to be found 🙂 .

Money

My money continues to feel like pieces of paper in Monopoly 🙂 . I hit $700,000 again in mid-December and below was my net worth at the end of the year. My investments making almost $200,000 AFTER I quit my job is almost too wild to fathom.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Purple Life l Early Retiree (@apurplelife)

In addition to those wild gains, I also posted my annual income and spending reports to breakdown what I made and spent this year. I spent $23,290 and went slightly over my $22,700 budget by $590.26 or 2.6%, which is no big deal since I was way under budget in 2022 and 2020. I also reflected on how wild it is that I get money for doing things I do for free:

• How I Made $8,594 While Retired In 2023
• How I Lived On $23,290 As A Global Nomad In 2023

In 2024 I’m planning to spend $23,400 to account for 2023’s 3% inflation and see what happens 🙂 .

Conclusion

And that’s what I got up to in the final month of 2023! 2024 is already jam packed with some fun travel adventures and I can’t wait to see what else the year brings 🙂 . Thank you for being here.

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

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?