Category: Early Retirement

How I Stay Organized While Enjoying Life

by A Purple Life, posted in Early Retirement, Hobbies, Jobs, Relationships

I’ve encountered a problem in retirement that I never had while working. Maybe I’m alone in this, but when I was working, I was ALWAYS aware of my calendar – I would look at it every few minutes it seems, to know what meeting I needed to prep for next during a work day. I would also glance at it often to make sure I knew what social appointments I had on a weekend and – more depressingly – how much time I had before I had to return to work 🙂 . Continue reading “How I Stay Organized While Enjoying Life” →

The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Investing, Keto, Musings, Net Worth Update, Travel

2022 continues to pass by with the speed of a bullet train. I guess I’m having too much fun 😉 . This month we continued our exploration of the northeast – we like to come here in the summer if possible since it’s cooler than other parts of the country. We started by saying “hi!” to family in New York State and then moved further east. So let’s see what I got up to!

Continue reading “The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap” →

How My Definition Of ‘Optimal’ Has Changed In Retirement

by A Purple Life, posted in Early Retirement, Hobbies, Musings, Travel, Travel Hacking

When working towards FIRE, I at times thought that any money that wasn’t optimized was wasted because it didn’t go towards my end goal. For example, if I bought a plane ticket and the next day (for some reason) the cost of that ticket dropped 20%, I thought my decision was suboptimal. Continue reading “How My Definition Of ‘Optimal’ Has Changed In Retirement” →

From Insomnia To Sleeping Like A Baby: How I Improved My Sleep In Early Retirement

by A Purple Life, posted in Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Musings

So I have always had trouble sleeping. And given that this pattern has continued for over 30 years, I assumed that this was just an unavoidable trait of mine. I’ve always had trouble quieting my racing brain enough to get to sleep and then had trouble staying asleep throughout the night. Continue reading “From Insomnia To Sleeping Like A Baby: How I Improved My Sleep In Early Retirement” →

Purple’s Partner Spills All!: Answering Your Questions & Concerns

by A Purple Life, posted in Early Retirement, Finance, Jobs, Relationships

I have a surprise for y’all today. For several years I’ve been asked questions about my partner and I’ve done my best to answer them after asking him for his opinions. However, after y’all enjoyed when he wrote his first blog post here about making awesome coffee anywhere in the world, I asked him to tackle your questions himself 🙂 . So back by popular demand, here is my partner answering the questions you submitted on Instagram and Twitter. Take it away my dude! Continue reading “Purple’s Partner Spills All!: Answering Your Questions & Concerns” →

The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Keto, Net Worth Update, Reviews, Travel Reviews

Well, 2022 continues to barrel through time at a break-neck pace. Another month down and I need to start thinking about more seriously about the broad strokes of my travel in 2023. Oh the problems of retirees 🙂 . In the meantime, let’s see what I got up to in July!

Continue reading “The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap” →

Show Me The Money: All My Financial Info & Answering Y’all’s Questions

by A Purple Life, posted in Budget Check-In, Early Retirement, Finance, Investing, Net Worth Update, Spending

Perception is funny. I am (obviously) “me” so I know the answer to all the questions about my finances people ask me every week on Twitter or Instagram. I’ve also written about all of these topics on this very blog, but that’s over 7+ years of posts so they’re spaced out across almost decade. My bad 🙂 . Well, this is an effort to put all that knowledge in one place. Continue reading “Show Me The Money: All My Financial Info & Answering Y’all’s Questions” →

The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Net Worth Update, Spending, Travel

2022 is half over…which is strange since my brain still seems stuck in 2020. Oh well. This month we headed back to the States for the first time in several months only for the supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade and take us back 50 years…Welcome back to America I guess.

Continue reading “The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap” →