A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Where are you and where are you going?
IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

theanimal wrote:
Sat Nov 12, 2022 10:51 pm
In AK we are almost always beneath that 120 mark. I had a dry suit for a while but didn't feel i used it enough to justify the expense and sold it. If you have enough exposure in a drysuit you will still get cold. The lower level workaround is to wear whatever insulating layers underneath a rain jacket and rain pants with neoprene socks. That should keep you plenty warm, especially if you are just on lakes. If you want to get a little more fancy you could get a paddling jacket with wrist gaskets.
Sorry I didn't get back to this sooner, theanimal.

Early in the summer and again very late, and even sprinkled throughout there were instances where I was out in the yak when the conditions didn't meet the 120 rule. Except for the last week when I already pulled the yak out of the water, so to speak, the water temp ~6" below the surface ranged from 60F-73F, and many-a-morning I ventured out when the air temp was in the 45-55 degree range. I learned about the 120 criteria from the local kayak shop, and their rule is they won't take clients on the water at all unless the condition is met. I don't know what medical implications are associated with that threshold.

What I customarily do is more/less what you describe. I have decent rain gear that I'll layer up under if I might get caught in the rain on a chilly day. And for the most part it works okay. But I'm getting older and less tolerant of crap weather. Plus the last two state record walleyes in Illinois came out of a local river ~10 miles away, one caught in January, one in February. So I have a hankering at times to get out on the local rivers in the Nov-Mar window. Even in a hydrodynamic tug like my kayak, despite it's stability, there's always the possibility of winding up in a "sweeper" (getting pinned by the current against a downed tree or other obstruction) which greatly increases the likelihood of going overboard (inadvertantly or purposefully) and that was the situation that would drive a dry suit more than what I might hit up on the lake. Once acquired though, I would likely adopt it on the lake whenever there was a possibility of gnarly chilly conditions. One can never be too comfortable versus the elements when in a small plastic boat miles away from shelter and heat.

That said, for now I've decided not to venture out locally this late fall/winter/early spring and maybe look for some warm wading bibs for the worst of it next summer. That's what the neighbors I fish with up there wear in their boats (and I tag along frequently). I'd also expect that a dry suit isn't perfect for long frigid exposure, I just look at it as a way to buy some time before hypothermia paralyzes me.

The suit I was looking at is designed for anglers rather than adventure kayakers, and it's actually classified as a "semi-dry suit". The sleeve gaskets are neoprene, but the neck gasket is some sort of high tech fabric that's highly water resistant but not water proof. After several hours of immersion you'd start taking on water. I'm religious about wearing a life vest which might keep my neck mostly out of the water in some circumstances, but still not perfect.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

November 2022 check-in

Didn't get to visit the site this month as much as I normally do. Hope everyone is doing well. I'll probably peruse the active topics or a few minutes after this.

This month I became glad I never got the crypto bug. Haven't been following the news too closely, but it sounds like there's been some disruptions. Hope no one here had significant losses.

November was a pretty good month spending-wise. Even with the customary bump in the food bill due to Thanksgiving I came in about 32% below the annuity deposit. Still running at about 2.4% cumulative instantaneous equivalent withdrawal rate and an actual withdrawal rate of 0%.Don't have a finally tally yet but the stash got a dead cat bounce still down around 14% for the year and 12% since pulling the plug.

I finally got around to starting the search for a local primary care doctor. What a nightmare! I started by going to the website of the outfit that administers benefits for my former employer and hitting the "Find a Provider" button. Found one listed as "family practitioner" accepting new patients, called, found out he was an urgent care ortho specialist who retired two years ago. Next up was a "family practioner" who was really a renal specialist. It went on like that for some time. After about three more calls to "family practitioners" I wound up talking to someone in a different orthopedic place that was affiliated with a larger network tied to a local hospital, and they fortunately operate a physician referral service that I was forwarded on to. I was forwarded around to three different people in the referral service which led to getting an "new patient visit" appointment with someone. Next May. Good think I'm not sick. I also found out that the "urgent care" clinic they operate had to switch to by appointment only. Dunno if that's the case for urgent care facilities in general (other than ERs) but there's definitely a supply/demand imbalance around here.

I mentioned in a reply above I've got a bit of a surplus of annuity income after my HSA is funded (finally figured out the mechanics for that this month too). Been trying to figure out if I just want to toss it in the stash, or try to play some sort of accounting games and hold it in stasis and using it to cover future expenses when inflation or circumstances dictate the annuity no longer covers everything (to extend my 0% actual withdrawal streak a little), or just call it mad money and spend it on something I don't need. When I caught myself machinating over that I decided I'm too much of a nerd for my own good. :)

This coming month I'll spend a lot of my time working on year-end recording projects and maybe a couple other creative endeavors. In the short term, my aunt came rushing in this morning because ... a branch fell out of a tree last night (too big for her to manhandle). It's laying there, only the tip pointing out of the wooded part of the lot, not readily visible from the street. In other words, very low on the 911 scale. But I'll probably be out there hacking it up today in sub-freezing weather even though we're supposed to have vastly improved weather in 48 hours, and even better weather, say, next April. Quirkiness runs strong in my lineage.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

2022 in Review.

So, 2022 is in the books. Might as well get the administrivia out of the way first. Some of the numbers will change a little depending on what happens in the investment markets today. If there are significant changes I might stealth edit sometime next week

December spending was okay considering I got hit with a coupla-three hundred in medical bills and I upped my Christmas gift budget to $650 this year. For the month I was about 29% below annuity income. For the year I averaged spending about 22% below annuity income. 2022 was my lowest annual living expense spending since 2017. In the interest of full disclosure I actually spent a good bit more than that, but those were long-planned expenses that I funded with a little mad money skimmed from house sale proceeds. The only reason I am tracking income versus spending is to evaluate how my recurring general living expenses compare to my fixed income, so made an executive decision to exclude certain one-offs funded from house proceeds. The lion's share went to improvements/renovations on the cabin, and a smaller amount offset part of the cost of buying/outfitting the fishing yak. I did the same from 2019-2021 with expenses to prepare the house to go on the market, so I'm at least comparing apples to apples going back in time.

Coincidentally, 2022 spending came in slightly below the optimistic (i.e., lower) retirement living expense bogey I used in the endless parametric analyses performed with the now mothballed iDaveSim3.0. So, I'm pretty much on track with my goal spending level so far.

Q3 2022 saw a modest increase in invested assets (about 6%), but was the third consecutive quarter with negative 12-month trailing net worth change. These most recent 3 quarters were the only ones with that metric being negative since I started curating data in 2012. Invested assets were down almost 13% for the year and almost 11% since retirement.

Actual withdrawal rate remained at 0% for both CY 2022 and since retirement. My 2022 equivalent instantaneous withdrawal rate came in at 2.41%, meaning that if I had no annuity (or it suddenly vaporized) and had been pulling money from the stash, I would have withdrawn 2.41%. Actually, if I made the calculations "correctly" it would have been a lower figure since the percentages would all be calculated against the stash balance the day I retired, which is higher than what the balance has been this year. I'm using spending for the month divided by stash balance on last day of the month as a proxy.

This week I made a couple of tax avoidance moves. I fully funded my HSA for the year so that's $4,650 I paid taxes on that I'll now get refunded. I also sold some muni bonds and booked about $9,600 in long-term capital losses. Not sure how much of that I'll be able to use this year, but anything I don't I can use in future years.

The thing I haven't done yet is to disposition the prorated 2021 performance bonus I received this year. I'm going to wait until next year prior to 4/15 to decide. I want to wait until my W-2 shows up to verify it was classified as earned income. I'm 99% certain it is, but it doesn't hurt anything to wait a few weeks to be sure. I'll probably just put it directly into my Roth IRA which means no change to 2022 taxes, the thought being that if I put it in a Traditional IRA, my income would in all likelihood be higher when I withdraw it, although right now not enough to push me up to a higher marginal rate. The last option would be to just set it aside as unbooked income and use it for cabin upgrades or whatever.

In the next few days I'll likely follow up with another entry reflecting how I fared in 2022 from more of a big picture view as well as with an eye towards plans and goals for 2023.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Since my last check in a couple days ago the the last of the family dogs from my family man days had to be helped over the rainbow bridge. She was 18. Originally she was my youngest daughters dog that stayed with me for a decade when my daughter flew the coop. Then when I moved she went back to my daughter, with the original intent being that I'd get her back once my relocation was settled. But there were/are delays with that and over time we decided that due to the dog's age and degree of decline, and that she was always more deeply attached to my daughter than to me, to leave her to live out her days down in Alabama.

So that and a few other small unexpected thing bumped up my December spending by a few hundred bucks. When I get it all tallied I'll update my prior post although when looking at the year it's in the noise. The stash balance probably declined 0.2% or so the last trading day of the year. I'll have to wait until next week to recover the final numbers since the site for my 401k is down a few days for maintenance.

Looking back on 2022 there were plenty of small successes that probably don't mean much to anyone but me, none of which were particularly remarkable. I learned that for the most part the lifestyle choices I prebaked into my retirement plan are suitable for me at this juncture. It was my first full calendar year as a retiree and things generally went pretty well.

I've been feeling a need to be slightly more productive in 2023, although I can't say precisely what that means. It doesn't mean I have any inclination to go find a job or generate revenue. One thing I did late last year sign on for the fiction MMG and I intend to devote a good amount of time to that. It's an older hobby I rekindled a little this summer as it makes a nice complement to life at the cabin and doesn't come with much in the way of overhead costs. It's been fun participating in the group. I'm less ambitious than most but their motivation is infectious. I'll still be dabbling around with music as well. My holiday recording project got derailed due to a small procedure I had to have on my back which left a wound that prevented me from slinging an instrument over my shoulder. So I guess I just have a big jump on the 2023 edition. Once winter starts giving way to spring I have a few small projects making some adjustments on the kayak, but it really worked out quite well with the original setup. Still a lot of time to fill but plenty will emerge to occupy the void I think.

For financial goals for 2023 I'm just going to try to keep my spending levels close to what they were in 2022. I felt plenty flush at that burn rate but also very comfortable that it is a sustainable outflow even in the present rocky economic environment. Over the next month or two I'll probably do a little rebalancing in my stash accounts, nothing drastic, and finally get around to actually investing the funds in my HSA. And as mentioned in the prior entry I have to finish my tax strategizing and figure out to go with my little bit of residual earned income that dribbled in this year. Don't expect any more after that so 2022 should be the last year I have to file multiple state tax returns for a while at least.

What I like to call "personal well being" which for me is very connected to mindfulness and related ideas is something I want to focus on somewhat more this coming year. As happens every year, I've popped out of the holidays a little heavier than is optimal. I didn't do a very good job of ensuring regular outdoor physical activity. It happens pretty naturally the 5 months I'm up at the hideout, but I could/should be somewhat more diligent about it even there. During the winter I'm going to hit the rower daily. And eating better is a big part of the well being equation for me. I might have mentioned this but when I was having the other medical things attended to I had my blood work done. Some signs of ageing are starting to show, but in some of the metrics (especially cholesterol profile) I had marked improvement even though the test was done in the midst of holiday excess. Could have just been an anomalous occurrence, but it could be that existing in the corporate world was the source of some stress I'd simply adapted to and considered "normal".

Socially I have things pretty good up at the hideout. The group in the enclave is small enough it's comfortable for an incorrigible introvert like me, and it's a collection of people who are both kindred spirits and very accomplished in their career/professional domains. I feel like the neighborhood ne'er-do-well sometimes. Back in the real world I'm still living with my aunt while she continues hunting for her downsize house, see my dad at least a couple times a week, and my siblings and other family every so often. Having the chance to spend time with older relatives is something I am grateful for, and enjoy, but it does leave a bit of a gap that had once been filled by work friends and colleagues. I stay in touch with several of them, but we're scattered all over the US now so it's mostly email and phone calls. Bottom line is I don't feel any sort of deficit socially, there might be room for some optimization during the non-hideout months.

I always feel like I should have profound things to say at event horizons like a flip of the calendar or whatever, but what little of inner iDave I can put into words usually comes out very mundane. One thing I've mentioned to a few people is that I highly recommend ER. I may not be optimal in my self-direction but having agency over the lion's share of my time was among the top motivations to go down this path and I have that, and now 17 months in I wouldn't trade it for anything as long as I remain housed and fed.

MBBboy
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by MBBboy »

Sorry to hear about the dog. Sounds like she lived a long and full life though.

Thanks for the year end update and reflections. What typically strikes me in following along with your journal is how little time you spend on portfolio management and financial moves. It's easy to get the impression that once you retire you're constantly tinkering with spreadsheets, checking your taxable income to manage one or multiple tax thresholds, running simulation after simulation tied to latest CAPE/insert market metric of choice, etc etc. Your experience does not bear that out at all

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

MBBboy wrote:
Mon Jan 09, 2023 8:12 pm
... What typically strikes me in following along with your journal is how little time you spend on portfolio management and financial moves. It's easy to get the impression that once you retire you're constantly tinkering with spreadsheets, checking your taxable income to manage one or multiple tax thresholds, running simulation after simulation tied to latest CAPE/insert market metric of choice, etc etc. Your experience does not bear that out at all
Thanks for the sentiments regarding our little old dog.

There was a juncture starting around 2008 when I spent a lot of time reading and educating myself on investing (and overall personal finance as well). It was precipitated by the chore of shoveling out of a financially disastrous marriage/divorce. For the 3-4 years I was doing a lot of tinkering around trying to find the magic path to riches, bolstered by excessive faith in my IQ and aptitude for math. Long story short I learned in time that a largely buy/hold approach best suited my temperament. Sitting around stewing about moving say $50k (or even $10K or $20K) from investment A to investment B is somewhat stressful to me. Probably that's because of my upbringing--those were enormous sums in my nascent demographic. During my run up to retirement I was pretty active when it came to shoveling money into the stash, and deploying it in a way to achieve a fairly conventional AA over time. Now that accumulation is done, there really isn't much to do.

I think for people following certain investment philosophies the image of sitting on a palm-shaded beach sipping pina coladas while executing brilliant trades at precisely the right moment might be apt. I'd rather sip a hoppy beer after a long day of fishing. There's a mantra of sorts that's popular on an investing forum I spent a lot of time on: many roads lead to Dublin. Essentially it means there is no single/unique right way to do things when it comes to saving and investing. For those that enjoy it, retirement can include quite a lot of tinkering and active ongoing management. For those that see it as more of a necessary chore, there are ways minimize the ongoing burden.

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

On Metrics.

One thing I wanted to do during 2022 was to streamline my whole data collection/metrics system. I never got around to doing much with it.

So far the only change since my accumulation phase ended/retirement began is that I've abandoned my old friend iDaveSim3 (it was focused on readiness projection) and in my historical record keeping I've added a couple of items related to how outflows compare to annuity inflow.

I like data. Fundamentally the only inputs I have are the information on my annuity "pay stub", my outflows, monthly stash balances, and quarterly account balances for other miscellaneous things. However, in an effort to keep my eye on the ball, I've somewhat overcomplicated how I handle things. By keeping my eye on the ball I mean having an ongoing understanding, backed by numbers, of essential-to-my-contentedness spending. Most of the complication is automated, but there is an ongoing amount of maintenance. So as a secondary goal I'd like to streamline some of that if possible. The ongoing maintenance can at times be an "intellectual energy vampire".

The main thing I want to do is identify a very small number of metrics that tell the whole story for me--a scorecard. I have a lot of metrics calculated semi-automatically, probably at least a couple dozen of which I've reported in this journal at various times. So a lot of information is available with little or no up front effort.

The three most important things I want to understand financially are:

Understanding 1. How is the stash balance holding up?
Understanding 2. How well does my essential-to-my-contentedness spending align with my means?
Understanding 3. Is my essential-to-my-contentedness spending the best number for me?

I'm not sure I can extract Understanding 3 from data. I'm open for ideas there, but I'm thinking I'll have to go back to the YMOYL appraoch of reviewing spending and making subjective judgements about it. Since I track spending in decent detail, this is something I do at least subconsciously on a near-constant basis. Being a little bit more deliberate and specific about reflecting on it may or may not help.

Understanding 1 and Understanding 2 are more suited for data mining.

The simplest approach I can think of would be to just track the stash balance on maybe a quarterly basis or something. I'm confident that I can use my intuition to get a reasonable sense of how the stash balance is holding up. That directly provides a metric for Understanding 1, and I could use the assumption: as long as Understanding 1 indicates things are okay with the stash, I can assume for Understanding 2 that overall spending fits my means which further implies the portion of overall spending that is essential-to-my-contentedness fits my means as well.

But like I said, I like data and I'm starting to gravitate to adding a couple of additional items to my scorecard. If we call monitoring the stash balance Metric A, the other 2 are

B. Percent of months I spend below my ongoing "fixed income" (currently the monthly annuity deposit net of taxes)
C. Percent of months I spend below the monthly allocation of a 3% annual stash withdrawal rate (stash balance/400)

Metrics B and C would be assessed in a sliding window. Currently I'm thinking maybe a 24-month window. Since I only have about 18 months of data for a while it will just be a cumulative since retirement figure. Metric B should give a heads up if I'm heading towards increasing my contribution to stash depletion. Metric C informs my judgement call on Metric A. Initially for B and C I'll identify 75% as the "good" threshold. 50% as the "keep a closer eye on this" threshold, and 30% as "possible corrective action required". So at this juncture my scorecard would be:

***************
A. Stash Balance: Adequate, trending moderately down.
B. Rate of monthly contentedness spending below annuity, since retirement: 93.8% Good
C. Rate of monthly contentedness spending below hypothetical 3% WR rate, since retirement: 87.5% Good

Contentedness: Essential-to-contentedness spending appears to support adequate contentedness
***************

I'll almost certainly play around with it a little bit over the coming weeks, especially how I handle grading essential-for-my-contentedness spending.

I'm curious from any who read this and don't mind sharing:

1. What are the key things you need to understand about your present financial situation (your version of my list of 3 understandings above)?
2. Which metrics that you track (assuming you track any to begin with) are the ones you rely on to maintain a sense of financial well being?

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

On being old and feeble-minded ...

Spending a lot of time with my dad is starting to make me a little concerned about my fate as I age. My dad even in his prime was almost a poster-boy for absent-minded professor, and I think I've mentioned before that once my mom was gone my dad's air-headedness was exposed since she was no longer around to serve as his memory/focus. Added to this is a clear degradation in his faculties due to age (entering his mid-80s). He could stand up and give one of his old chemistry lectures no problem, but ask him what you told him 10 minutes ago and he has almost no chance of remembering.

Mentally I've always more closely resembled my mom (and her side of the family). So I've always sort of believed my body would give out before my mind. But there are no guarantees. So one of the things occupying my mind is coming up with some sort of plan to navigate the event where my mind starts swirling down the toilet. Because of the amount of money involved I'm starting to think I'll have to go down the path of setting up some sort of trust sort of arrangement and figure out the appropriate guardianships. The problem I have with that is I don't trust anyone (lawyers, financial managers, and the like). And right now I don't even trust my daughters. One is on the right path and I trust her to try to do the right thing, but she's still figuring the whole adult thing out. The other is similar but she's not yet even on the path of getting things figured out yet. Plus, I don't want to heap too much burden on my kids. Parenting your parents and making the hard decisions required sometimes is not at all fun.

Curious if anyone else has looked into making these sorts of plans. It'll be something I'll touch on here from time-to-time as I learn things.

Henry
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Henry »

The only plan I know of is that upon detecting or being informed of a steadying decline in cognition is to move into an assisted living center with a memory loss wing. You start with basic autonomy until the staff determines that you need to be moved to the 24/7 care center. Had family members go that route. Husband remained in their original residency and would visit his wife who moved into the 24/7 area.

ertyu
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by ertyu »

I know someone who made an arrangement with a Philippino family, as long as they care for him, they receive X income per month (which goes a long way in the Philippines) + some token amount when he dies (the incentive is that more money is gotten by keeping him alive)

Alternatively, move to an eastern european country with overburdened state-owned facilities. There is a waiting list and you need to bribe people to get your relatives admitted. The more admissions, the more income. Newly admitted people die within 2-4 months. So if you wanted someone to euthanize you, that's the way.

Alternatively, euthanize yourself.

bostonimproper
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by bostonimproper »

Presumably your daughters will be about your age when they’d have to make such decisions on your behalf? Seems like plenty of time for them to mature before you’d be reliant on them.

ffj
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by ffj »

Well you are going to have to trust somebody to set these arrangements. Because once you are declared incompetent all bets are off. And here's hoping it never comes to that.

I would open a trust and designate them Power of Attorney. That's the easy part, although you will be paying fees the rest of your life as long as they manage your assets.

What is harder is finding the right person that is your healthcare Power of Attorney. Hopefully one of your children if you don't remarry. This is the person with the legal right to petition your trust to fund your long-term healthcare, wherever you may end up if it comes to that, and an attorney can draw up the legal documents stating your wishes while you are still of sound mind.

And of course at your age you need an updated Will. If you love your family, this has to be done so that there are few complications after your death.

Good luck

IlliniDave
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Henry wrote:
Fri Jan 13, 2023 2:36 pm
The only plan I know of is that upon detecting or being informed of a steadying decline in cognition is to move into an assisted living center with a memory loss wing. You start with basic autonomy until the staff determines that you need to be moved to the 24/7 care center. Had family members go that route. Husband remained in their original residency and would visit his wife who moved into the 24/7 area.
Thanks, Henry. At this point I wasn't even thinking about what exactly to do with me but that's probably the ultimate best approach. At this juncture I'm thinking more about an interim financial plan in the event I hit a stretch where I'm still okay living outside of a facility but my cognition is such that I would lose my ability to do a good job managing day-to-day finances. That's sort of the juncture my dad has been at for the last several years. But ultimately what you mention has to be part of the plan too. Good reminder.
ertyu wrote:
Fri Jan 13, 2023 7:57 pm
I know someone who made an arrangement with a Philippino family, as long as they care for him, they receive X income per month (which goes a long way in the Philippines) + some token amount when he dies (the incentive is that more money is gotten by keeping him alive)

Alternatively, move to an eastern european country with overburdened state-owned facilities. There is a waiting list and you need to bribe people to get your relatives admitted. The more admissions, the more income. Newly admitted people die within 2-4 months. So if you wanted someone to euthanize you, that's the way.

Alternatively, euthanize yourself.
Thanks ertyu. Those are creative solutions for the end game. As I mentioned to Henry above at this time I'm just looking for a wise tack to offload financial management should I hit a point where I'm still day-to-day somewhat functional on my own but unable to do a good job keeping up with finances. I don't see myself moving to another part of the world though, I anticipate my desire will be to remain reasonably close to family. And no matter what direction I go in terms of physical care, still need to have someone in charge of the money. :)
bostonimproper wrote:
Fri Jan 13, 2023 8:33 pm
Presumably your daughters will be about your age when they’d have to make such decisions on your behalf? Seems like plenty of time for them to mature before you’d be reliant on them.
Thanks bostonimproper. Yes, hopefully any such situation is many years down the road and one or both daughters would be capable of navigating power of attorney or court-appointed guardianship if that day comes. Part of my thought is having a plan to separate the financial part of it from the rest to make it less burdensome if they are looking after me or having to make decisions on my behalf in terms of medical, care facilities, and the like.
ffj wrote:
Sat Jan 14, 2023 9:41 am
Well you are going to have to trust somebody to set these arrangements. Because once you are declared incompetent all bets are off. And here's hoping it never comes to that.

I would open a trust and designate them Power of Attorney. That's the easy part, although you will be paying fees the rest of your life as long as they manage your assets.

What is harder is finding the right person that is your healthcare Power of Attorney ...
Thanks, ffj. Maybe I should say first that at this point my health is pretty decent for my age and there's no reason for me to believe I'm at higher risk than anyone else for severe forms of cognitive decline. But I see it on an ongoing basis with my dad so it looms disproportionately large in my consciousness.

I'm a little hesitant to create some sort of trust at this juncture, mostly because it is relatively expensive like you mentioned and for now my SWAN factor is higher having direct control. However I envision a trust for my financial assets as a very viable part of a solution a way down the road. I'd like to set something up a priori that would be triggered either by me if I see trouble coming or by some diagnosis of incompetence if it's a sudden thing. I suppose I'll have to bite the bullet and consult an attorney to see what my options are here.

I don't have a concern with one of my daughters having medical power of attorney, it's more the financial side I worry about. And not that they are untrustworthy in the sense of potentially dishonest, but just having the savvy to handle all the retirement stuff, RMDs, sensible allocation/deployment, taxes, etc. I've been trying since they were teenagers to get them interested in their finances beyond check-account-balance->spend. I'm making some headway with my younger daughter, she's at least started contributing to a 401k, but that's all the deferred gratitude she feels like she can afford.

And I agree one should revisit estate plans on a regular basis. I'm starting to think that for the older daughter I'll change to setting up a trust for her to at least ensure the money will last for some amount of time, maybe put it on an RMD-like schedule with a stipend of an increasing percentage of the residual to at least provide something when she's too old to work.

I should also probably go back over to bogleheads and hunt around. This topic was one that showed up over there with regularity. I remember a good number of people who's plan called for converting everything into annuities at a certain point (say age 80 or something) so that they no longer have to deal with asset management. Turning things over to fiduciary financial management firms is popular too.

Hopefully in a coupla-three months when the weather warms and I start thinking in earnest about prepping for the 2023 hideout season my thoughts will be less bleak and morbid, ha.

Henry
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Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Henry »

IlliniDave wrote:
Sun Jan 15, 2023 7:04 am
But ultimately what you mention has to be part of the plan too.
Understanding that this correlation will most likely be eviscerated (albeit politely) by The Man With The Name Written in Red Letters, I invoke the 2nd law of thermodynamics ie things only get worse. And it's especially true for people who live alone because no one is there to notice that this was the third time you took a dump in a houseplant.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

January Scorecard
iDave(2/1/2023)=iDave(2022)-9.4 lb.
Rolling 12-month monthly expense < monthly annuity rate: 92% Good
Rolling 12-month monthly expence < instantaneous monthly equivalent 3% WR rate: 84% Good
Stash Assessment: Fair, trending up.

Random Stuff

Stash still down around 7% since retirement but up about 4% for year. Spending a little on the high side which is somewhat expected since a number of annual fees/renewals fall in January, but still well below annuity income.

Also embedded in the uptick is little bit of spending in the health/fitness category. Usually part of my New Year's resolutions is to get my size a little more optimal. In addition to that, once the holidays were over I took some time to look over the blood work done on me in December and I wasn't real happy with it. Too many indicators I'm falling into what I think of as "Western Metabolic Disorder": elevated blood pressure, elevated body weight, and elevated cholesterol, being the primary superficial markers. I'll have my first visit with my new primary care doc in early May, so I've set a number of goals with nutrition and physical activity in the months leading up to the appointment so that the next set of measurements represent a more optimal me. It's easy enough to track weight and BP on a continuous basis (been tracking weight in January, starting today I'll be tracking BP daily). Cholesterol and other chemical markers will have to wait until May to get a new data point.

My current nerdy obsession is with nutrition and I've been down the rabbit hole of that topic. I'm typically a big believer in restricting "bad carbs" as the most effective way for me to improve BMI. Historically there's a positive correlation between the amount of excess iDave and BP. So I think improvement in those areas should go hand-in-hand.

What's piqued my curiosity is some relatively recent findings about ketones. I don't do anything resembling a proper ketogenic diet because I can't handle the amount of fat intake required, but restricting sugars and starchy carbs tends to push me into moderate ketosis. The prevailing wisdom regarding ketones was that they are some sort of super fuel. But there's emerging evidence that that's not the case. While they can be metabolized by an array of cells, their bigger role might be in how they interact with mitochondria. Gut bacteria have a big role in that process too.

All I did in January is the usual cutting of bad carbs and made some efforts to improve my gut microbiome (combination of adding a wider variety and larger quantity of plants to my diet, some prebiotic and probiotic supplements, a fiber supplement, and a few polyphenol supplements). I also started to add a little bit of exercise, mostly just the rowing machine so far. My plan is to start ramping that up in earnest in February now that I've gotten (re-)acclimated to the motions. Also going to start some body weight exercises and some very low level weight training with a few dumbbells I have laying around. Unfortunately I'm in an older house without any space having the proper ceiling height/floor composition combination to get back into all the Olympic-style lifting I enjoyed so much in Crossfit. Aside from body weight I'd like to improve strength enough to make slinging the kayak on top of the Pilot a little easier. We'll see if I can get there from dumbbells and body weight exercises somehow.

My longer term goal with nutrition is to develop metabolic flexibility--being able to bounce in and out of ketogenic metabolism quickly (after a long bout of bad eating it typically takes me 1-2 weeks to make the glucose metabolism->ketosis transition). If successful I can then use intermittent fasting (daily 2-4 hour eating window) and complementary nutrition to cycle in and out of ketosis on a daily basis. The theory is that I can enjoy the benefit ketone signalling to my mitochondria (in combination with healthy gut biome signalling) without the physiological stress of long-term ketosis. It's not an invention on my part, I'm sort of following the "keto code" nutrition regimen, although I'm just now taking a deep dive into the specifics.

My creative endeavors have taken a little bit of a back seat while I make the lifestyle transitions, but I'm still writing and picking up the guitar more days than not.

Still don't have a specific fallback plan for financial management in the event I fall prey to cognitive decline in the out years.

Other than that, not a whole lot to talk about. In my spare time I'm starting to think about the summer up at the hideout. I probably won't take much action on that front until March or April. Just looking forward to the ebbing of winter so I can more readily start adding some casual hikes to the activity roster.

Dave
Posts: 545
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:42 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Dave »

Nice work on the weight & stash.

What has your recent workout routine looked like?

I hear you on the height limitations. Have you thought about some sort of doorway or garage pull-up bar, a suspension trainer (TRX, NOSSK, etc.), & dumbbells for a nice hybrid bodyweight/dumbbell program?

IlliniDave
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Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Dave wrote:
Wed Feb 01, 2023 11:56 am
... What has your recent workout routine looked like? ...
Thanks, Dave. My first month of clean eating usually comes with a hefty weight drop just due to shedding water (i.e., lowering inflammation), although last year weight loss came much tougher for me. That's one of the reasons why I've geeked out over nutrition this year. I'm really curious to see what February looks like now that I've dialed in on an eating regimen that seems to feel pretty good as I adjust to it.

My workout routine for January was pretty weak. I started with rowing as hard as I could sustain for 10 minutes, 5 days on, one day off. I gradually increased that to 15 minutes. Interspersed with that was 7-8 snow shoveling opportunities that I turned into semi-HIIT activities. Decent-sized driveway to clear here and the most recent one lasted over 2 hours. Lately I've changed over to working in some HIIT on the rower (5 or 10 minute) followed by a longer "aerobic" row totaling 20-30 minutes altogether. Today I did a 2K for time that was nearly as bad as my first attempt as a Crossfit kindergartner back in 2010/11. Didn't even break 10 minutes!

I guess the best answer is that my routine is evolving. My New Year weigh-in was the highest ever recorded, and one thing I learned without doubt through January is that my physical conditioning is pathetic. No wonder my medical parameters are swirling down the shitter. I'm back to having to work out to get myself in good enough condition to really work out, if that makes sense. Been very humbling.

I'm not familiar with suspension trainers so I'll check those out. I did think about a pullup bar, but in semi-ere fashion I concluded that there's a half acre of trees here and surely one of them has a limb or two that will suffice, haha. Putting together a hybrid bodyweight/dumbbell program is the direction my thoughts have been going. No specific plan yet. From a functional perspective the main thing is making loading/unloading the kayak a little easier, which isn't a high bar, and being able to paddle the yak for longer distances and still have enough energy to fish for a few hours and then paddle home. An informal goal this year is to do at least half my commuting in the yak by rowing versus using the little motor. Last season it was under 10 percent.

I'll start experimenting with adding some of those (dumbbell and body weight calisthenics) in later this week. I might get an oly bar and a few bumper plates anyway. I can do dead lifts and cleans, squats if I get a rack too.In a couple months I could do some overhead stuff out in the driveway, although I feel kind of weird about doing that sort of stuff in full view of the neighborhood.

Dave
Posts: 545
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:42 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Dave »

Right on, I hope the new eating regimen goes well!

Sounds like some solid workouts between rowing and shoveling, haha. Nice work! Progress is progress.

I see. I suggested a suspension trainer (I recommend NOSSK given the combination of multple anchoring systems & very affordable, but these things can also be DIY'd fairly easily) because it allows for a wide range of training with minimal other equipment/setup needed. If interested, I recommend checking out NOSSK's page for their "Twin Pro Suspension Bodyweight Fitness Strap Trainer" to get a sense of what it is and how it works. My thought was this would allow you to begin comprehensive "bodyweight" training with a single piece of equipment: you can do dips, push-ups, tricep extensions, rows, pull-ups, bicep curls, shoulder flies, and more using it, and can anchor it on a door frame, a sturdy ceiling bar/pipe, a bracket fastened to the ceiling, on one of those trees, and so on. A suspension system (+ dumbbells for some lower body focus, if you want that) can go a long way in building a solid strength training program with a pretty easy and minimal setup.

Running through the exercises in circuit form might reduce the strength stimulus, but allow you to get the full-body workout with more cardio involvement to help with those fishing adventures!

The traditional equipment is always fun, too. Can't go wong with that stuff!

Scott 2
Posts: 2825
Joined: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:34 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by Scott 2 »

Is there anything you can do to make the activity social? Grinding away by yourself is rough. I find it hard to stick with.

Examples - I signed up for a running race. My wife and I explore new forest preserves and parks on foot. I volunteered to register people for a bike race. I take yoga class with my mom. I socialize my lifting goals with my friends. Etc.

One idea - Have you looked at the concept 2 logbook website? It could be engaging to work your way up the ranks. If you log a million meters, you can order a t-shirt. There are also various monthly challenges, with rewards to work towards.

IlliniDave
Posts: 3845
Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2014 7:46 pm

Re: A Journey of Mindfulness--the Remaking of Life in Midstream.

Post by IlliniDave »

Scott 2 wrote:
Thu Feb 02, 2023 5:34 pm
Is there anything you can do to make the activity social? Grinding away by yourself is rough. I find it hard to stick with.

Examples - I signed up for a running race. My wife and I explore new forest preserves and parks on foot. I volunteered to register people for a bike race. I take yoga class with my mom. I socialize my lifting goals with my friends. Etc.

One idea - Have you looked at the concept 2 logbook website? It could be engaging to work your way up the ranks. If you log a million meters, you can order a t-shirt. There are also various monthly challenges, with rewards to work towards.
Hey Scott. I haven't given much thought to socializing the endeavor yet. In part it's just because it's the dead of winter here. I do very much appreciate the power of community in fitness, though. It's one of the takeaways I had from Crossfit. Some things I've thought for activity (not really workouts) is trying to hook up on a few of the events the kayak shop runs in the spring. I've even wrestled with the recognition that at some point joining a gym might be worth the cost. Once I get up to the hideout I'll have a walking/hiking buddy or two. Several of the neighbors kayak around the lake, but they have real kayaks and I could never keep up with them in my tub of a fishing kayak.

But for now it's a solo venture. I'm pretty good about sticking with that sort of stuff when I have an overarching motivation and some specific goals. Reversing what I'll self-diagnosis as the early manifestation of "pre-diabetes" is a pretty big one. I've transitioned from doing things to prevent some bad things that might happen later to bad things are starting to happen now and I've got to snuff them out now before it's too late. In other words, it's in the important and urgent quadrant.

One of the things I have been pleasantly surprised with regarding my overhauled nutritional plan is that after only a short time is that I am starting to crave additional physical activity. It's s different feeling than the semi-addiction I recall from the crushing workouts and mythos of Crossfit.

It's fun to amuse myself by imagining I am just a spaceship for gut bugs. I have to do my part to gather resources to keep the crew hale and hearty and they'll handle maintenance of the ship. With a healthy and balanced crew to maintain it, the ship should run pretty good. If I mistreat them the crew will start grumbling, some will be driven away, the maintenance will suffer and ultimately devolve into sabotage.

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