About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Cross-device tracking technologies: yet another invasion of our privacy. They say “The only factor that hinders the receipt of an audio beacon by a device is distance and there is no way for the user to opt-out of this form of cross-device tracking.” I wonder if that still applies if the audio is turned off. I switch my volume on my computer off when ads play. Maybe I’ll have to turn my phone off as well… must look into this further because I refuse to be this easily tracked without doing something to thwart it.
Invisible stripes: “Each one of us started out as a single cell, and then a little glob of cells. As the cells divided, they differentiated. Some became muscles, others bones, still others organs. And some became skin. As those skin cells continued dividing, they expanded and stretched to cover a quickly growing body. One cell line pushed and swirled through another like steamed milk poured into an espresso to make a latte.”
I broke this out of my 2017 year end review because it was too unwieldy. Besides, fresh new goals deserve their own post. Correction – some are goals, some are just habits to build.
At first, I thought my trouble setting goals this year was because I don’t know exactly what I want next for our family and that makes it hard to plan for the next 1-3 years. That’s true. But there’s another aspect to it. I’m instinctively doing something sensible.
Being laser focused on one thing, wealth building, is a good Right Now habit. It’s that habit that gets me to the goal. But it doesn’t prepare me for achieving success in the big picture. Like coming into money when you’ve not had any before and haven’t had time to build good money management habits retirement, whenever it happens, is a huge transition.
On the micro scale, obsessing about money when you’re making it is easy, replacing that obsession when you’re retired and only spending or managing it is likely much harder. On the macro scale, I’m starting to envision the person I want to be in ten years. I want to be someone who has the time and energy to go on adventures, someone who explores the world a bit and then comes back to her books and little gardens at home, who doesn’t have to work for income and can relax with her family at home most days and entertain herself doing volunteer work. I want my family to have the best shot at education and opportunities they can handle, and the confidence and support to go for them.
To become that person, I’ve got to start working on improving our health and fitness (for PiC and me anyway, we’re Old), improving our finances, researching soil pH and garden planning.
I tried to leave a comment on Four Pillar Freedom’s post about meaningful lives but it rejected me so here are my thoughts: I loved that documentary as well, though as a small person with a big appetite, I slightly took exception to the idea I’d be served a smaller portion since I can eat as fast as my bigger dining companions. I hope that if we ever had the pleasure of dining at Jiro’s, he’d notice and adjust accordingly. 😉
As a longtime money blogger, I’ve noticed the trend of romanticizing the digital nomad life. I think it works wonderfully for Michelle from Sense of Cents who works from an RV, who has also had resounding success with her money blog, but the most important component of building a successful life is to know yourself. I love the digital part of her life, and have made that happen in my life, but I’m not built to be a nomad so I’ve instead built a home base that I love working from and living in. I enjoy short stints on the road but not much more than that!
My day job income increased a little, PiC’s increased a bit more. I’m annoyed that I’m still behind in our secret race but excited to hit an earnings milestone this year, and overall, no matter who’s winning, we both win with increases.
Unlike last year, we did end up with a jumbo loan for a new place, five years ahead of schedule. We’re safe and love our new home, so I’m going to call this as a good thing.
We maxed out PiC’s 401(k), my IRA, his IRA, and made big contributions to JB’s 529.
We increased our official deductible charitable giving by 50% but it’s still low. This is a work in progress.
Interesting: Hungarian mushroom soup. For completely random reasons (which I don’t remember), I was trying to think of Hungarian culinary specialties. Maybe it was floated as a possible vacation destination? That would make sense. I travel by stomach so the first thing I’d do is research the foods of the region to see if I must eat there.
Looks like neither Linda or we will be able to fully deduct our SALT and property taxes with the new cap. Neither of us deliberately chose our homes at the prices they were because we counted on the deductions, but having them did help relieve the sting of our HCOLAs.
GYM on finding happiness after heartbreak. In relationships, I think it’s always important to value yourself more than you worry about whether you can find someone else, lest you settle.
Scott talks about his first six months of parenthood.
