Category: Hobbies

Slow Travel Review: San José, Costa Rica – The Land Of Pura Vida

by A Purple Life, posted in Budget Check-In, Finance, Food, Reviews, Spending, Travel, Travel Reviews

So I mentioned in my monthly recaps while in Costa Rica all the reasons that I chose to move there for over 2 months, but one of those was because I was shocked at how affordable it was to get there.

I’ve worked out that my flights are usually $200 one-way anywhere in the US. I’m able to get those prices even for longer flights because I book early and I am able to plan my travels around when flight prices are lower. However, despite Costa Rica being way farther than any location in the US, it only cost me about $200 to get there.

Specifically I paid $201.78 on American Airlines to fly from Albany, NY to San José, Costa Rica and $232.34 to fly from San José to Austin, Texas on COPA Airlines to see the Solar Eclipse. Continue reading “Slow Travel Review: San José, Costa Rica – The Land Of Pura Vida” →

Cronometer: The Best Free Food Tracking App

by A Purple Life, posted in Food, Keto, Reviews

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I have tracked my food intake for years. I love tracking things in general and find it really helpful to know and analyze what I put into my body.

I used to use MyFitnessPal (MFP) to track my food and was shocked to check my profile and see that I’ve been using them since 2012 – a whole 12 years ago. So we go way back 🙂 .

In 2012 I was very discerning about which free food tracking app I wanted to use. I downloaded a bunch of them and used them all to see which I preferred. I ended up choosing MFP because it was the most user friendly for me, and it seemed to have the largest database of food already in there so I didn’t have to input everything myself. Continue reading “Cronometer: The Best Free Food Tracking App” →

Cheers To 6 Years Of A Purple Life!

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Hobbies

I’m still here! It’s been 6 years since I took this blog public, which is 50% longer than I’ve ever held one job and this is by far my longest running hobby. In that time, I’ve published a post at least every Tuesday. I never thought I would be able to keep up that kind of consistency despite everything life can throw at us. So let’s celebrate!

Continue reading “Cheers To 6 Years Of A Purple Life!” →

The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap

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

Time seriously needs to slow down because this is getting ridiculous 🙂 . 2024 is half over and I’m barely used to saying the year correctly. Oh well 🙂 .

After a too wild April, I had a pretty relaxing May, which was much needed to recover from a social April and because June was going to be another (wonderfully) social month. So let’s see what I got up to!

Continue reading “The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap” →

My Search For The Best Affordable Headphones Of 2024

by A Purple Life, posted in Hobbies, Reviews, Spending, Travel

Let me set the stage. Back when I was a woman in my 20s living in NYC who was basically throwing cash out the window, I owned a pair of Bose QuietComfort 15s.

After several years, they started to break down and the sound wasn’t fully working so I wanted to replace them, but this was after I was fully into financial independence and balked at the $300 USD price tag. I suspected that I could find similar features for much less money. Continue reading “My Search For The Best Affordable Headphones Of 2024” →

The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap

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

I’m going to need time to slow down a little because this is getting ridiculous 🙂 . I’m still not used to writing “2024” and we’re almost halfway through, so either my brain needs to catch up or time needs to slow down – obviously I’m picking the easier solution 😉 .

This month was luckily way less frantic than April. Hopefully I will remember not to over-schedule myself and my travels so I don’t make that mistake again.

However, it still makes me laugh that traveling once per week wore me down so much when I used to travel just for a weekend. No wonder I was tired all the time 🙂 . Anyway, let’s see what I got up to during my less wild May and try to get my brain to realize it’s now June 2024.

Continue reading “The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap” →

How I Use Notion To Organize My Life

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Hobbies, Reviews

About a year ago I mentioned in my annual accomplishment post that I had started using Notion to organize my life. I didn’t know that I was looking for an organizational solution to my ‘busy’ retired schedule 😉 , but a YouTuber I watch mentioned they use Notion and I loved the look of it so I decided to try it out.

Doing so was easy because it’s a free service and was simple to set up. I was then immediately blown away by learning that it’s completely customizable. Anything I want to create – I can. Continue reading “How I Use Notion To Organize My Life” →

The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap

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

This might have been the fastest month of my retired life. I had a great time, but fast travel is definitely not for me because while I had a lovely time, I can’t remember the last time I was this tired. It was probably during my career 4 years ago and I don’t like it! So let’s see what I did this month that was worth messing up my sleep schedule and my relaxed lifestyle 🙂 .
Continue reading “The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap” →