GandK's journal

[daylen]

Lawrence, Kansas is a great town. I grew up and went to college here. Just the right size in my opinion. More diverse and open minded than anywhere else in Kansas. Cost of living is reasonable. About 45 minutes away from a city with one million plus population (Kansas city). The one major downside is geographical diversity, but this is a problem in most of the Midwest.

[GandK]

Thanks for the opinions, all. I'm looking carefully at each suggestion.

@jennypenny I'm watching gluten like a hawk. I'm beginning to suspect that there's another dietary culprit as well, and I pray that it isn't dairy.

Confession, unrelated to the above: I find thinking about the future to be an escape. In a bad way, I mean. It's usually easier to focus on my future plans, or even on past mistakes, than face the messes and hard decisions of life today. It's depressing when I think about how much closer I'd be to my goals if I could just get better at swallowing my emotional frogs.

[jennypenny]

@jennypenny I'm watching gluten like a hawk. I'm beginning to suspect that there's another dietary culprit as well, and I pray that it isn't dairy.

Lactose intolerance is often a problem for celiacs. As I understand it, it isn't really the lactose but the damage to the small intestine that makes lactose consumption an issue. It can take 6 months to a year for your small intestine to heal after you give up gluten, After it heals, it's usually easier to consume dairy, at least in small quantities. I can have cream in my coffee, milk in my tea, and a little cheese without a problem. I can't do yogurt or ice cream anymore.

[Tyler9000]

There's a blood test for Celiac if you really think it might be that.

One thing I've learned about dietary intolerances is that it's not just about the problem food but also the body's reaction to the irritation. Food intolerance can affect how your body absorbs nutrients and even cause certain autoimmune disorders. Trying a restrictive diet and slowly adding foods back is a way to isolate the worst culprits, but in the meantime vitamin supplements might also be helpful.

I used to get really debilitating neck pain all the time, but it has notably subsided in the last year or two. I'm not sure if it's because of the huge drop in stress levels, a pretty significant improvement in my diet, or adjustments in certain (medically controlled) hormone levels, but between those factors I feel a lot better. You might look into all three.

[anomie]

I go back and forth about getting off LinkedIn completely, but I have a handful of friends who are only on LinkedIn. I'd rather keep my ethereal connection with them than quit the web site, so I stay. Did anybody choose to get off LinkedIn when they retired?

I have considered deleting my LinkedIn account, however I am not sure what the future holds few years down the road when it comes to work. After few years the technology runway may be long enough that I might be interested to pursue another tech domain. Another reason to not delete is that it may be difficult to recreate some of the connections -- I have may be 800+ -- but then who is counting

I have same concern about LinkedIn - maybe will need it in future to help with part-time gigs.

But I am seriously considering doing a total purge of my online identities. A digital enema, ifyou will.

Deleting LinkedIn would be a big one for me. It has done nothing for me but provide a vanity distraction, perhaps act as a resume backup when I applied for jobs a few years back, giving employers a place to land after googling my name. Think I did add a link to my profile in resume of last job I got. Ok so LinkedIn served its purpose. My LinkeIn connections are of no consequence career-wise, so I guess I could always recreate an account if I ever needed one. recruiters are probably just doing keyword searches on accounts, so you could create a new one and seed it with the job you are looking for..

In this age of no privacy, it would be nice to stop using or delete old accounts, and start fresh.

[GandK]

April 2016

March was horrible. We ended the month down almost 10%. I hated typing those numbers into the spreadsheet. It was almost nauseating. These are the moments that I tend to romanticize the phase of my life when I had no idea how much money was in the bank. Ignorance can indeed generate bliss. I wonder from time to time if it's possible to harness my ignorance in some way. Goodness knows there's a lot to harness... I am deeply ignorant about most subjects. Is it possible to shift focus in such a way that one can recapture one's ignorance in a deliberate way for the purpose of generating happiness, or would the mere act of deliberately shifting focus remove the potential benefit? Just thinking out loud here.

Finding a retirement location, Part 3 of X:

--Saint Augustine--

We managed to add a few days to the kids' spring break this year. During the trip, G and I left the kids with the grandparents for a few days and zipped across to the other side of Florida to check out the first of the 20 cities on our list of possible retirement spots.

Let me begin by saying that Saint Augustine was not our favorite potential retirement destination. It meets all the surface criteria that we laid out, but this is a location that is isolated from places that we normally go as a family, and it had nothing to distinguish it on paper other than climate. There would be no reason for us to ever go to Saint Augustine... unless we happened to fall in love with it and chose to retire there.

So what was it like?


(The old fort.)

Saint Augustine is a great small city, and is definitely worth a visit as a tourist. If you've never been, it's on the northeastern side of Florida, about 45 minutes south of Jacksonville, and the population of the whole area is about 75k. It's the oldest European-founded city in the United States (1565, I think?), and the flavor of the area is decidedly Spanish. Way more so than the other areas of Florida that I'm more familiar with. I once heard Saint Augustine referred to as, culturally, the northernmost part of the Caribbean. I would agree with that statement. In addition, it's big enough to have good restaurants, good shops and a solid local winery, and small enough to be decently walkable/bikeable. Picture bright colors, it's busy but not packed (even during Spring Break), white buildings with red clay roofs, and tons of pirate references, memes and themes. If you think the Caribbean would be perfect if it was about ten degrees cooler, Saint Augustine is worth a look for you.


(Me looking out at the bay.)

That said, there were problems from a retirement/living standpoint. For one thing, the walkable parts of the city were almost entirely tourist spots. (I expect that would be so in a lot of places in Florida.) And the local-frequented areas are nowhere near as nice, unfortunately. There's one enclave to the north of the city called Vilano Beach that's a promising place for the ER-minded. One could get a small home there for less than $250k and be in a situation where he could give up a car and just walk everywhere crucial, including the beach. But that community is basically a beach, a nice grocery, a handful of stores and some homes. And that's it. Unless your life was all beach all the time, you'd be bored out of your gourd. Everywhere else in the greater Saint Augustine area was either too touristy or too expensive (frequently both of those), or it is suburban to the point of being unwalkable... which to me removes 90% of the allure of being in a climate like Florida's.

The areas to the south of Saint Augustine all look remarkably like midwestern suburbs. The only major differences are that the buildings are pastel-colored and one sees the occasional palm tree. We stopped at the local church of our affiliation and spoke to the staff members, trying to get a feel for what our lives would be like if we moved there. We got more usable information in that 20-minute conversation than we did in two days of looking around on our own... school districts, living situations, demographics, etc. Churchgoers should definitely do this (interview the local clergy). We haven't decided yet whether to school or unschool our youngest, who is currently 5, but the rest of that conversation confirmed what we already suspected: this is probably not the place for us to retire. Broadly speaking, this part of Florida seems to be divided into three major demographics: tourist-oriented salespeople, pocketbook-oriented retirees, and farmers. Of these socioeconomic tranches, I personally prefer farmers by a mile, and I came away wondering if we should be aiming for central Florida instead of anywhere near the beach.

The best part of this trip for me was the conversations I ended up having with G. I really thought we had beat the retirement horse to death conversationally, but driving around in an unfamiliar area and envisioning aloud (seriously) what our lives would be like if we lived there full time turned the physical getaway into a psychological one for us. All of you in committed relationships should go do this together. We had the Zillow app out, going, "Where would we live? That house over there is $175k. If we bought that house, where could we walk to from here? (Then we'd drive around and explore.) Where would we go to buy our groceries? Where would C go to school? Where's the church? What would we do on Friday nights for fun? Where's the nearest hospital? I don't like the look of this area. Too snooty. Do you think you could live on a boat in the harbor, K? Let's just go look at campers." And there was lots of laughing.


(Could we live on a boat? Could you?)

Big-picture issues in the area were also negative: the city is literally at sea level, hurricanes are a threat, the level of tourism focus in the area makes me uncomfortable as an introvert, housing prices are heading nowhere but up, and the city is oddly lily-white for Florida (Wikipedia confirmed this peculiar observation).

As we drove away from the city, we each rated Saint Augustine on a scale of one to ten:

G: 5.5
K: 6.5

Given these numbers, we doubt we will ever return. But we're glad and grateful that we went this time. The bar has been set for all future destinations, and we're more excited than ever about finding the place we will one day call home.

FYI, for those traveling by car through the south this summer: some idiot at TDOT has decided to repave every major road in Tennessee simultaneously. They should have the silkiest roads in America this fall, but in the meantime, save yourself a 5-hour headache: either go around Tennessee or take a plane. There are no good options for through traffic. Seriously.

[FBeyer]

Now, before you move on and test other potential retirement locations, be aware of Anchoring

I'm conscious of how much a few pictures add to my perception of your post. I think I just learned something (trivial but important) about communication.

[George the original one]

You're asking the right questions at the right time.

LOL, I was liking the pictures and noticed how flat it is and the hurricane thought struck me right away, so am glad you mentioned it, too.

[GandK]

Gluten-free diet and migraines update -- WIN

It's now been 6 weeks since I stopped eating gluten. In that time, I have gone from an average of 5 headaches per week to 1 headache per week.

One of the headaches I had (the worst one) happened about 24 hours after I accidentally ate wheat. The others were all weather-related.

I'm hoping the frequency will continue to decline. But even if it doesn't, this is the best I've felt in over a year. I have pain-free unclaimed time on my hands, and can make progress towards my personal goals again.

Anyone else who gets migraines: this may be worth a try. 80% less pain is pretty cool.

[GandK]

In Manhattan for our 10th anniversary. Not a budget-conscious trip so far. I'm being spoiled.

Having fun. Although had too much caffeine last night trying to stay up later than normal and am now wide freaking awake at 5:16 am.

[GandK]

10th Anniversary

I'm freshly back from the surprise 10th anniversary trip. G took me away for 10 days, most of which (once we left NY) was a bed and breakfast tour of various locations in Maine. I didn't take a lot of photos on this trip (deliberately avoiding my phone to immerse myself in the experience), but here are a few:


A harbor in Camden, Maine


Midway through a hike on Mount Desert Island


Asticou Azalea Garden, also on MDI


More Asticou Azalea Garden

This trip was in no way frugal. I was not permitted to look at price tags or receipts, but I'm absolutely certain that the excursion cost more than 1 Jacob. One example: G did not pack any clothes for me because part of the experience was me buying 10 days' worth of new ones. About 24 hours in, when the running total in my head became alarmingly high, I asked G (who is not ER but desperately wants to be) why he was getting me so many pricey things. He became uncharacteristically quiet and serious, and then said, "You never ask for anything." I became sad a few days into the trip when, after he bought me a pair of earrings, he then spent half an hour talking about how much he was looking forward to retiring, buying a used camper and schlepping around the country with me and our youngest. At that point I suggested we find a laundromat and wash my existing new clothes rather than buy another five days' worth of garments once I'd used the new ones I already had. He did agree to that, thankfully, or we might have spent a second Jacob.

I think maybe I do not fully understand the strength of the male need to provide, or perhaps to appear to be providing in a certain manner. And I wonder how this need will play out in G's ER.

We met some interesting characters on our journey. I make few friends on trips, being generally quiet, but I did befriend a wry Dutch innkeeper in Kennebunk named John. Retired engineer. I'd go back to his inn just to be with him, never mind the location or the price. I could listen to him talk for hours.

And G, who will generally talk to the wall if no humans are present, made friends of everyone we encountered, including every Uber driver who collected us. One of them, in New York, was an elderly man from Uzbekistan who's been in the US for 7 years. They came over when his wife won a green card lottery. He's a devout Muslim who arranged his children's marriages in their culture's traditional manner. He talked about that, and G bonded with him over how scary it is to be a father of young women in a permissive and overtly sexual culture like America's.

That guy also talked about how, when he grew up in what was then a communist country, there was no status anxiety (he did not use that term, but that's exactly what he meant). And now that Uzbek culture is capitalist, and everything is unequal there, people are pursuing money not to get money, but to get status. And how bad that is, especially spiritually, when one is supposed to be serving others and not just oneself. I admit I'd never thought of communism as a potential remedy for status anxiety, or for anything else. It was a new point of view for me and I picked at it internally for several hours.

Another Uber driver was a 40 yo Kurdish man who is currently writing his dissertation about Middle Eastern politics. He picked us up the day after that big mess in Turkey, so as soon as G found out he was Kurdish that dominated the conversation. He too, said many interesting things. He arrived in the US about a week before 9/11, and was stunned that after that happened, he was not arrested or even harassed. "If you were living in Egypt and a dozen Americans bombed it, or in Russia or even in France, the people there would have hated you for being American. They would have abused you. But no one here abused me. My neighbors even reached out to me and asked me if I was okay. That would not have happened anywhere else in the world. It changed my whole perspective on America. I've been here ever since."

He also said that it's his view that our nation's abject diplomatic failure in the ME is due in large part to the fact that almost no American diplomats who are assigned to the ME understand enough about the region's culture to work effectively there. He said they're focused almost exclusively on Islam, and on the different flavors of Islam, whereas 'racial' (e.g. Arab vs Persian) and tribal affiliation is much more important and predictive of a given ME person's attitudes and behavior than their, to use an American term, religious 'denomination' is. Which makes sense, but again, all one hears about in the media over here is radical Islam vs moderate Islam. I came away from that car ride feeling extremely ignorant about all things Middle Eastern. And wishing I could visit the region safely, as I've yet to meet anyone from that part of the world that I do not like.

Other random observations from the trip:

Unless one is shopping for lingerie, in which case it rocks, Fifth Avenue is way way overrated.

Maine in June (past trips) is preferable, and cheaper, than Maine in July. You'll need a light jacket in June, but odds are it won't get too hot to hike, which it did for us a time or two last week. Assuming August is Maine's hottest month, this means September is likely also desirable in Maine weather-wise, although probably less green and flowery. June in coastal Maine is about the perfect place in the United States WRT both the temperature and the views, IMO.

Campgrounds in Maine (in the summers, at least) average about $10 per night more expensive than those in the Midwest. Anywhere from $20 to $65, IOW, depending on location and type of hookups required. But we were never issued a parking pass at any B&B we stayed at, or even asked what we drove. It would be possible for someone with a stealth van to stay at all the same places that we did and see all the same sights for free, simply by staying in B&B parking lots. Even right now, in Maine's peak season, odds are no one would say a word as long as you chose a different B&B each night, because no one running these places has any clue who's driving what. Parks, most of which I noted are further from the ocean, would be a much more costly way for van campers to go than B&B parking lots.

No one north of New York has any clue what nachos are. Every menu in New England has "nachos" on it as an appetizer, but the farther north you go, the weirder it gets. And in Maine, "nachos" seems to simply mean "assorted foods and sauces served over chips." Since nachos are often the only gluten-free item on a restaurant's menu, I ended up eating many of these concoctions, which contained such absurdities as asparagus, lima beans, blueberries and Hollandaise sauce. Yet these were always just listed as "nachos" on the menu. It became a guessing game for us as to what was actually going to emerge from the kitchen when the meal was served.

Yankees and Maine-iacs can cook a mean burger, however, G informed me more than once. Much better than Midwesterners, apparently. They're also better at understanding the concept of "black coffee." There's something about the Indiana-Ohio-Pennsylvania corridor that creates mental confusion around this. When you order "black coffee" in one of those places, you are immediately asked "cream and sugar?" anyway, as if either they or you must've be mistaken. Because who the hell would drink black coffee. Southerners and Northerners don't do this. Not only do they not ask stupid questions, because who the hell would say "black" if they meant "cream and sugar," but they bring you your brew in a hurry since they know that only a serious coffee drinker would order it without any pixie dust.

Finally, it was beyond great to have G to myself for 10 days without the kids, and we should definitely do this way more often. Without the spending, next time. I know he was trying to express the amount of his affection with the amount he spent on me, but I'm still feeling guilty about all the new things I returned with, and I'd ten times rather have him retired sooner so I can have more of his actual affection.

[IlliniDave]

September is a spectacular time in Northern New England--people argue it's the best fall foliage anywhere in the US. So better than green and flowers!

Being a displaced Midwesterner (from a real Midwestern state, not those Mideast wannabes ) in the south, I have to decline cream and sugar no matter how I order coffee. In the Boston area they just acted angry at you for disturbing them by asking to purchase coffee. Back home I order "coffee, black" and they seem to get it okay. In the south (Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee) it's, "Are you sure you don't need any cream or sugar, I don't mind getting some for you." I'd agree on the burgers. I come from pizza and steak territory, where burgers are mostly an afterthought you fix for the kids at a picnic. Even now with the proliferation of restaurants over the last 20 years, not a lot of burger places back home.

Sounds like a really great trip. Glad you two got to do that for yourselves.

[GandK]

August 2016

G and I have recently met some important goals in our personal life, and as a result, we have recalculated what we need on top of our current retirement savings in order for him to pull the plug. That number is $450k. Our savings goals are definitely on the high side for ERE folks (we're not very extreme, so ERe in our case), but our pot does have to include expenses like child support owed in the future.

Starting with an empty plain vanilla brokerage account that was at $0 mid-July, we now have $16k in it toward this purpose.

Percentage to our goal: 3.55%

G's income is extremely erratic, so this number will not go up at all some months and will go up a ton in others. We're roughly aiming for April of either 2021 or 2022, though.

We're also now in the market for an older conversion van. Now that our youngest is starting AM kindergarten and I'll have to drive him back and forth (all this tax money for schools but no bus service, grumblegrumble), we will need a second vehicle for school trips most days. And I'd like to get one that will double as a weekend getaway camper. Our tent needs replacing, too, and G wants to move away from tents toward a camper or popup. We debated getting one, but (a) that wouldn't solve the second vehicle problem, and (b) our condo association doesn't allow any type of campers to be stored here, and we don't want to pay a storage fee for one. A conversion van is permitted, though, and would give us both a camper and our second vehicle.

Speaking of starting kindergarten: we finally finished the enrollment process today. I haven't done this in 11 years, and boy has it changed. Nineteen pages of forms (a third of them medical), four pieces of identification, two different clinics visited... UGH! It's easier to get a US passport than it is to send your kid to kindergarten in Ohio in 2016.

And the medical forms are completely over the top. Gone are the days when you just put your number and your doctor's number in case of an emergency. Now it's like the crap you fill out when you apply for insurance. My kid has no allergies or medical or behavioral conditions. But I still had to document his nonexistent medical complaint history, submitting six pages of front/back forms indicating "None" over and over again. And this was after I'd already checked boxes on a different form that indicated that he has no allergies or medical or behavioral conditions. Now, these forms make perfect sense for a kid with, say, epilepsy. The school needs that stuff for him, although my confidence that they could find it quickly if he had an attack is almost nonexistent. But why is it no longer enough in the case of kids with no medical concerns that they have our doctor's number available, and mine? Oh, and "Who should we call in the event of a serious medical emergency?" Uh... 911? Are you seriously asking me this? Have some sense!

Anyway. Rant over. That's my tax dollars at work. Yours too, probably.

[GandK]

Exercise Insights

For most of the last 14 months, I've been wearing an athletic tracker. I'm not sure I'm in better shape at present than I was 14 months ago, other than weighing a few pounds less. But I've finally managed to collect enough data about how exercise affects my body to set different, more helpful personal goals going forward.

Exercise, in my case, is 95% walking and jogging. Over the last year, I tracked my step count, weight, and overall feeling of physical well-being, each through a different app (Jawbone and later Misfit*, MyFitnessPal, and Maya, respectively). And I've collected and crunched these numbers.

I had two basic questions I wanted answered through the data:

1. Above what step count do I tend to lose weight? Turns out the answer is 6,000 steps. I'd assumed this answer would be at least a thousand steps higher. But 6,000 is the tipping point for me. Every time I averaged above 6k steps for 3 days or more, my weight started dropping. (Also worth noting: above 10k steps per day, I saw no additional advantage other than sometimes noting fatigue the next day.)

2. Below what step count do I tend to feel bad physically? Answer: 4,000 steps. When my step count dipped below 4,000, I pretty consistently noted sluggishness the next day, and in some cases for two days after. I assumed this number would be around 2,000, to the point that on days when I've had or even expected to get a migraine (based on incoming weather), I have lowered my self-imposed step count to 2,000. Bad idea.

I'm really surprised by these findings. 4k to 6k steps is not a huge window. It's small enough that I'm sure I would never have noticed this trend had I not deliberately gone looking for the data. But now** I know what my goals should be, depending on whether I want to lose or maintain my weight.

I'm pleased with my athletic tracker use, as I think this data will now help me improve my health. I've adjusted my step goals accordingly.

Looking at the numbers, I can't see that my step count has any effect on my headaches. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

* I started with a Jawbone Up2 and have since moved to a Misfit Ray.

** I assume I'll need to run through this exercise again every 5 years or so to account for the age-related slowing of metabolism. My guess is that either my step count will need to climb with time, or my calorie count goal will need to drop, or both, in order to keep me at the same level of weight and health.

[GandK]

Random musings

What constitutes an 'adventure'

G, who has never been a blog person, has recently begun reading through the old Go Curry Cracker blog entries because my oldest stepson, who is 28, is a big fan of that guy and wants to engage with his dad about what he's reading. I think G started with the first blog entry and is now about a quarter of the way through the archive. He's recently been engaging me about how 'fun' it would be to travel constantly like them. In trying to explain to him today that no, I seriously do not want to travel constantly, and trying to hammer out why I think this difference exists without using labels that G finds very unhelpful, I think we stumbled on a new idea:

G defines 'adventure' (and its cousin, 'novelty') as a strictly physical or external experience. And I do not. Adventure for me can also be a new idea or an emotion I wasn't expecting to feel. I don't necessarily need for my 5 senses to be involved in order to accomplish novelty. But he does. And this opened up a new layer of understanding between us. It makes total sense from the S/N perspective, but until this point, we've both been operating under the (oversimplified) assumption that he's just a nomad and I'm just a homesteader and that's that... whereas the truth seems to be more that we do have a lot of the same needs but we are going about meeting them in completely different ways.

This knowledge will be important as our retirement destination search continues.

Speaking of which: the whole Zika virus thing really gives me the willies. I'm glad we have a few more years to make this decision because most of the places that I'm enamored of - in the US and out - are south of here. Definitely not anxious to take my kiddo, in particular, to those places if brain damage is a possibility.

And why size matters!

In housing, I mean. And secondarily, in vehicles.

We love camping. But I always feel way more comfortable in campers than G does because the space and the furnishings are small. They consistently feel cramped to him but they feel great to me. I'm 5'5" and... well, unless you're between about 5'9" and 6'2", standard homes are just not made for your body size. I'm not even a particularly short female, but sometimes my feet don't touch the floor when I sit on furniture, sometimes I can't reach the upper shelves of standard size cabinets, sometimes I can't pull the chains on ceiling fans even on tiptoe, etc. When I worked in a cube farm, my arms would fall asleep because the cubicle desk (at standard height) was too high for me, and when I'd rest my arms on it, it would cut off my circulation. But if I raised my chair until my desk was at the right height for my arms, my legs would fall asleep because my feet would dangle. (Final solution was them ordering an expensive footrest for me to put beneath the desk because they refused to lower the desk 2 inches because "not everybody would fit then"... ). Basically in all standard built homes, furniture and vehicles*, everything assumes you're within a few inches of 6 feet tall (an average sized caucasian male, IOW). Unless you're in a camper or a tiny house, that is, where everything is travel sized! Like me, apparently, LOL. So paradoxically, even though G's the one who wants to travel constantly, I'm the one who loves being in campers. And after a recent podcast when people were musing about why more women than men prefer tiny houses, I was like, "Well, duh! They're the only people-containers we may ever set foot in that are actually built to our proportions instead of some guy's.**"

*Unless you're in the Coach section of an airplane, in which case even I feel cramped. Those seats truly suck.
**Not saying that homes etc. should not accomodate "some guy." Just pointing out that they very rarely comfortably fit smallish females (or very large males).

Walmart is winning the prescription drug pricing war at present

We pay outright (no insurance involved) for our family's one and only prescription drug, which is G's blood pressure medication. He buys in 90 day quantities. But sometime over the last 90 days, Kroger discontinued its discount drug program where a lot of common prescription meds were either $4 or $10 each to fill. So picture this: we have this med that we're used to paying $10 for every 90 days. We shopped around, and this is what the folks around us are now charging for non-insurance-based payment for this drug:

Kroger: $31
Meijer: $41
Walgreens: $60
Walmart: $10
CVS: not sure, didn't check... they're usually neck and neck with Walgreens here.

Contrast this with a few years ago when pretty much every pharmacy in southern Ohio had a lengthy $10 drug list because somebody (I forget who) started doing this and then everyone else did it too so they didn't lose business. Looks like those days are officially gone and we didn't even notice... Walmart looks like the last pharmacy here that's doing it.

Those of you who pay out of pocket for your meds: definitely shop around, even if you've done that in the past.

Incidentally, Walmart also only wanted a third as much as our regular optometrist for my teenager's upcoming eye exam. (Question: are we contributing to the Fall of Mankind if we get drugs and eye exams at Walmart, or only if we buy goods that were made in Southeast Asia?)

[cmonkey]

He's recently been engaging me about how 'fun' it would be to travel constantly like them. In trying to explain to him today that no, I seriously do not want to travel constantly

This sound like DW and I. As much as I hate driving/traveling I often think I wouldn't mind living in a van and like to bring it up to DW whenever C40 updates. DW not so much....but she does like the old volkswagen vagabond.

I think I like the idea of van dwelling/travel life because of the romance of it more than anything. In reality I am a nester and would be miserable after just a week. At least I can follow the bloggers.

[George the original one]

Question: are we contributing to the Fall of Mankind if we get drugs and eye exams at Walmart, or only if we buy goods that were made in Southeast Asia?

I would vote we are not contributing to the Fall of Mankind since drugs & eye exams need to be lower cost. As yet, for USA citizens, if a company can provide that lower cost without sacrificing quality, purity, or safety, then there's nothing wrong with it.

Where Walmart has gotten evil is in killing off alternative grocery stores and hardware stores that were perfectly adequate and then selling "Walmart-specific" electronics that appeared to be the normal item, but were in fact inferior.

[heyhey]

I've been catching up and reading all about your trip. Thanks for posting so much. It sounds great and seems it helped you question and clarify a lot of things.

One beginner question. What is 1 jacob? Is it the amount that is required to sustain a given household for a year?

[GandK]

One beginner question. What is 1 jacob? Is it the amount that is required to sustain a given household for a year?

A jacob is the amount it takes this site's host (the guy whose username is jacob) to sustain himself for a year. Last I heard, that was $5k. Periodically it drops, and we all ooh and aah a little and then revisit our own expenses.

So glad you're enjoying the journal. I'm not very methodical about it.

@GTOO You're right about WMT and the death of Mom and Pop shops.

@cmonkey Yes, blogs FTW. I follow a handful of small living folks. Enjoying the present involves more dreaming than doing for us until G pulls the plug. It just unnerves me from time to time how different the specifics of those dreams can be. I'm constantly looking for ways to merge the two and for QBQs I hadn't considered.

[GandK]

October 2016

Savings goal: $450k in our regular brokerage account (in addition to retirement accounts).
Once this goal is met, G intends to pull the plug.

2016/08/01 -- $16,000/3.55% to goal
2016/09/01 -- $23,042/5.12%
2016/10/01 -- $33,675/7.48%

I'm pleased with our current progress. Hopeful ER date for G -- either April 1, 2021 or April 1, 2022.

Other significant things that happened last month

Our kindergartner transitioned from half-day to full-day. This was wonderful for everyone. He's very happy to have more social time with his new friends. And G and I are having a lot more... ahem... couple time. The lack of regular child-free hours in the day has been a source of frustration for a long time in our house, as some of you will remember from an earlier journal entry of mine. Well, problem solved, thank heaven. A great time is now being had by all.

Over the course of the last few months, my novel-writing has completely stalled. This is disconcerting to me. I've written since I was old enough to hold a pencil, so I always assumed I'd spend all my retired "spare time" writing novels, too. But lately I can't even make myself write. I've been volunteering a lot instead (gratis programming projects, missions, etc.). While I'm pleased with the effects I've had and felt from these endeavors, I'm unsure what's going on with me internally. Maybe I'm afraid, maybe I'm burned out, maybe some extended family drama is taking its toll. Much more upsetting is my current inability to envision what my future will even look like if there won't be writing in it. If writing is part of my identity, and I'm not writing, who am I? This is a scary question to me, and there's an emotional cloud over my current situation. G thinks I'm worrying over nothing, but I think I may be transitioning. To what, I do not know.