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So many choices
Many people that I have spoken with about retirement say they aren’t sure where they will retire and aren’t sure what they want to do in retirement. Seems like not so many years ago, when people retired they stayed in the home where they raised their children, perhaps played golf or puttered around the house until time came for them to depart this world. Nowadays, people have many choices and the retirement path is not so clear cut. There are retired people traveling the world, opening new businesses, going back to school and it’s wonderful that retiring doesn’t mean fading into the woodwork. But with all of these choices, how…
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Food Friday – Paowalla – NYC
As I strolled along the path early this morning, I reflected back on all of the amazing meals we’ve had in New York City, and around the world. Since my walk was before breakfast I had visions of gustatory delight in my head as I walked and decided that I wanted to begin to recall those places where we have been lucky enough to feast. When I returned to my computer I sifted through my photos going back as far as I had them online and the first restaurant that came up was Paowalla, which is now sadly closed but was located on Spring Street on the lower west side…
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Morning walks
Just after NYC shut down in April of 2020, I realized I had to get out of the house and since this was the first time that I had ever been able to work remotely, I found it was the perfect opportunity to get up early and go for a run before anyone else was out roaming around. Turns out few people were out even during in the afternoon in those early days, but I knew once work started that it would be hard to get out for thirty minutes to an hour. Even though it was slightly scary running on city streets where there was no one else, I…
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Staying Healthy
Everyone knows as we age we need to take extra measures to stay healthy. Admittedly, I haven’t been good on a regular basis. I’ll go for days, or weeks focusing on my health, running, walking, working out, doing yoga, trying to eat a more healthy diet. But then, then it all falls apart. I go on vacation and drop the exercise or tell myself it’s okay to treat myself because I’m on vacation, and then I just don’t get back into the swing of things. There is so much information now available and so many apps that can help people reach their goals that there really is no excuse for…
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Passive Income
On one of my first dates with my now husband, he mentioned that he wanted to be in a position where his money worked for him, not him working for money. I’ve thought about this a lot and many times wished I had pursued the conversation more fully because though I had a concept of what he meant I didn’t know the intricacies of how to implement. Living overseas made things somewhat more complicated because the tax systems are different, and moving money between international locations was far from as easy as it is now. Fast forward many years and I’ve been digging in to the term and what it…
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“One more year” year after year
If you’re anywhere near retirement age, or are contemplating retiring early, you might have heard the term “one more year”. Essentially, it refers to people who can retire but for some emotional reason, they feel like they need to work one more year, pad the savings, set themselves up emotionally for not having a set schedule, whatever the case may be. It differs for everyone I am sure, but I am solidly in the “one more year” camp, unfortunately for me. We have saved a fair amount of money, enough for us to retire comfortably and even more so that my husband is going to work for a while longer,…
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I hate budgeting
There I said it – I hate budgeting. I do, I always have and I know I’ll never like it and will never stick to a budget. What I mean is I won’t sit down at the beginning of each month and say I’l spend no more than $300 on dining out and no more than $200 on groceries or whatever. You can already see my priorities in that I listed a higher amount for dining out than for groceries. I know it’s important to establish an amount you can spend and we do, but we do it more organically. If it feels like we’re spending too much for the…
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January 20, 2025
I have no desire to make my writing about politics since I get enough of that rammed down my throat in the daily news, but I want to put this here for my own reference to be able to easily look back on over the coming four years. I saw this on a Bluesky post, so here is where we stand today, January 20, 2025. Unemployment 4.1%, Gas $3.12 a gallon, but here it is $2.68 a gallon, S&P 500 5,996.56, Inflation rate 2.9%, and Dow Jones 43,487.83 Just a few indicators of where the US economy stands right now. I’m intrigued by what it will be next year at…
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Goals Update
I read the other day that 25% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by the end of the first week and about 43% give up by the end of January. Not following through was the main reason I decided not to set resolutions, but rather set some goals that I could check in on throughout the year or change/adapt as necessary. As a reminder (I won’t write this every post but just to summarize here in this update) my goals were as follows: We have been out to eat only twice since 1/1 ( record for us), the 20% reduction is still in progress, looking good on…
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Welcome 2025!
One of my previous yoga teachers gave all of her students a blank journal with a note that the year is like the journal, blank and ready to be written, so write it well. I hope to do so in 2025. As many may know, while there were joys in 2024 there was a lot more heartache for my family. Hoping that this year is devoid of anything like last year brought. Many Americans create New Year resolutions, generally, things that they want to change about their life – lose weight, save money, exercise more. According to some data, about 80% of New Year resolutions fail. As such, I have…