A Purple Life

Cronometer: The Best Free Food Tracking App

July 23, 2024July 23, 2024 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” →

Review: Greyhound/FlixBus – Albany, NY to Montréal, Canada

July 16, 2024December 18, 2024 by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

I’m here today with another travel saga for you. But first, I need to set the stage. In my retirement I’ve been chasing the sun. I prefer to go places that are 70 and sunny and move around the country and the world following that climate.

A few years ago I realized that even the Northeastern US was getting a bit too hot for me in the summer and I knew I never wanted to experience a hot as hell Georgia summer again if I could help it 🙂 . So I looked for another destination. Enter: Montréal, Canada 🙂 . Continue reading “Review: Greyhound/FlixBus – Albany, NY to Montréal, Canada” →

Cheers To 6 Years Of A Purple Life!

July 9, 2024July 10, 2024 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

July 2, 2024October 17, 2024 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

June 25, 2024July 12, 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.

My Previous Vice: Gadgets

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” →

Review: Qantas Domestic Business Class

June 18, 2024June 21, 2024 by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Hacking, Travel Reviews

Here’s another travel saga for you 🙂 . So my Mom and I originally booked a non-stop flight from Cairns (CNS) to Sydney (SYD) as part of our trip Down Under. However, a few months before the flight, we got an email that the non-stop flight we had booked no longer existed and we were now stopping in Brisbane along the way.

Later research would uncover that we wouldn’t be able to make the other non-stop flights on that day. So it’s good that we had built wiggle room into our plan because we had just turned one flight into two. Continue reading “Review: Qantas Domestic Business Class” →

My Favorite Travel Tools Of 2024

June 11, 2024June 10, 2024 by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

Our world keeps changing and in a lot of ways that’s a good thing 🙂 . I continue to be amazed by new free tools I find online that help make my travel easier. Some of these have launched recently and some have been around for a while and I just had no idea.

I’ve talked in the past about travel tools that help me live my full-time nomad life in the posts below: Continue reading “My Favorite Travel Tools Of 2024” →

The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap

June 4, 2024December 18, 2024 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” →