How will you be After Covid (AC)?  How is your life different—better—than Before Covid (BC)?

Most of us long for the return to a (mostly) BC lifestyle.  A life where we can go places and be around people without the concern of a possible deadly virus lurking nearby waiting to attach to our cells.

Most people I know have thoughts—some even a list—of what they are going to do AC.  They’ve been storing up multiple “when I can, I’m going to…” items.  That makes sense.  That makes sense now, but also made sense BC.  Shouldn’t everyone always have a list of things they want to do–a list of things they love to do?

What I wonder right now is, how have you made yourself better during Covid?  Yes, I know there were thousands of articles/posts/stories about taking advantage of lockdown and doing something good, great, or amazing.  Then after a few months, I saw posts lambasting productivity posts and how they were often just a popularity post rather than a true hope to motivate people to do great things.

I can say that I’ve done a few cool improvements in my life.  I can say my wife has bettered herself as well by taking music lessons, etc.  But of course, neither of us had grand plans to write a novel or create some new business venture.

I would say that during lockdown we really concentrated on having stable, solid days.  Making sure we had some structure to our lives.  We implemented replacements to many of our BC activities (home spinning bike, home gym workout, better webcams, more time on Kanopy, Great Courses, Curiosity Stream, etc).

I also found the time to help others, most often it was through using zoom for online meetings and making sure people could come together to get some inter-personal communication.

I wrote earlier about my experiment with Intermittent Fasting and the surprising results.  I spent time sitting (or running/biking) and thinking about the good things in my life.  I’ve always had a sense of gratitude, but this year, as much as other years, I’ve tried to be even more grateful for my life.

Early on I wrote about working to Make Progress.  Grow.  Learn.  Improve.

At this point (maybe halfway through the pandemic?) I give myself about a “B” for the whole. 

I really wish I could give myself an A-, but I found that I improved on many things, and sat back and reflected in gratitude (which is a nice plus in itself).

I have more I can improve on, and I will, but I have no plans to go out all and become some super-person.  Actually, I’ve never had that goal, and “you are who you are.” 

I have been making my AC list of things to do.  Some of them I should have done BC, like two trips to visit old friends and explore a little, but that’s OK.  I believe we’ll all be safe and can meet up again.

We did some projects around the house.  Some projects were planned and others were not.  We just decided to go ahead and get some stuff done.  Get to work on some things.

I really have learned—not because of the Covid, but in general—that life can change at any time with a visit to the doctor, for yourself or your family/friends.  Enjoy your days NOW!!!

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

So this year I left my 40s.

I left the decade of being “not really that old yet.”  Of course, being 40-something is NOTHING like being 30-something.  Yet, being 40-something still gives you a little sense that much of the world lies ahead.  After completing your 50^th year, you realize in every way you are on the downhill slide to “poof.”  There’s no way you can truly avoid the truth of the “downhill.”  It’s very clear you are in the second half of a century.

Am I leaving 40s or entering 50s?  For me personally, I’m entering my 50s.  I’ve finally “grown into the man suit,” especially related to my thinking.  Funny thing, I don’t—nor have I ever—wear suits…especially in FIRE.  I mean, I barely wear socks now thanks to Sanucks. 

I’ve always been older than my age.  I’ve always had older friends, I was a college professor when I was 21, I worked as an umpire for Little League Baseball when I was 12 and my classmates we on the field, and lived a mentally older thought driven (cautious?) lifestyle.  This age/decade is going to fit me fantastically.

Experience

I also like the fact that I have enough decades (as an adult) to be a little wiser and have many, many experiences to base my thoughts around.  I also love that none of those experiences can ever be taken away from me.

At this point in life, some may realize they care less about what everyone thinks.  Wait, maybe that’s only me?  Yet, I believe the odds of pleasing everyone are lower than the odds of winning the lottery, especially in this age of Twits.  It’s important to be true to yourself and hopefully, you are a good, caring, helpful, productive person.  Doesn’t that seem like a good way to live your upcoming half-century?

Normalness is different for everyone

For normal folk, retirement is 62, 67, 70?, etc.  Early retirement is 60.  Really early retirement is 58, 55.   Super early retirement may be 50…an entire decade+ earlier than normal.

There is an AMAZING feeling of having so much time to tackle activities and passions.  Anything…everything, is available for you, if you only go for it and grasp the adventure ahead.  I know this is the case based on my 6 years of activities in FIRE already.  Note: I may learn a different perspective in the future, but for now I operate with amazement, each and every day.

I would like to say thanks to Joe at Retire by 40. I saw his blog when I was 40 and ready to leave work.  I thought “wow, other people have this same plan, position, and passion.”  I could have left work at 40 but I loved my job and stayed 3 more years.  No need to rehash those posts here.

So, for some, their 40s are a significant time to optimize the growth phase.  They can grow in life, income, spending, but hopefully saving as well.   The 50’s are often considered your highest earning years.  That’s an important consideration to deal with when considering turning off the direct deposit spigot.  However, if you’ve “lived like no one else, so you can live like no one else-Ramsey” then you can let “your army of dollar bills march off to work each morning so you don’t have to-TheMoneyGuy(s) or Mr Money Mustache.”

I’ve noticed changes in myself

Before, I absolutely enjoyed meeting and discussing personal finance with everyone.  People in their 30s or even 20s had interesting ideas.  You could see the fire in their eyes when they realized the opportunities ahead (yeah, I saw the pun). The lesson of living your smart lifestyle and not living your income-to-the-max is so empowering.  It was great to see others grasping hold of this concept.

Once you’re past the big 5-0, you’ve become an old dude (on the outside…well, maybe inside too?)

You care more for your specific life/time.  You don’t want to waste 30 min, or an hour+, doing something that is not in your core interest.  (see how I shortened my typing a little there, without using U R 4, etc)

You get the sense that you’re moving on, or have moved on from some interests, tasks, actions, even discussions.  Sometimes you realize the discussions are similar to one’s you’ve heard many times before and chose not to participate in (Twits)—maybe because they seem to never lead to a resolution, or even progress.

I wonder if that is “aging out” or “aging up” or “giving (something) up” or something entirely different.  Maybe it’s refocusing onto new matters or more perceived important (to you)-matters.  Maybe it’s a Rewire of yourself.  It’s a very interesting time of introspection.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice. This post is not a piece of literary mastery, just a random thought I had.

How will you emerge from your time inside, your lockdown isolation, your quarantine, your cocoon?

Did you/are you growing yourself (and your family) into something beautiful upon emergence?  I sure hope you are not the opposite—sitting around depressed at what you cannot do.  Instead look at the opportunities that have arisen while in lockdown:

1. The appreciation of most everything.  Starting with the amazingness of life itself.  It’s not often we actually stop and think about being a living being.  A growing, aging, energy source in the universe.  Of course not, we’re too busy rushing around to our next task/obligation required by our lifestyle.  However, with current isolation requirements, many of those external obligations are not required, or even possible.
2. The appreciation of those around you.  Those who you share your days with and are so much of your life’s energy.
3. Enhance those around you.  What can you do each week (or each day if you’re an over-achiever) to make someone else’s life better?
4. Everything that you have at this moment.
5. Everything that you do not need at this moment.
6. Enhance your life space for yourself and those who enjoy the space along with you.
7. But most importantly, the opportunity to work with the most complicated item in the known universe, your brain.  This is an amazing time to enhance your wondrous possession.  If not grow your brain, maybe take some time to calm your mind.

I had a random realization with my body.  I’ve been quite fit and strong for the past 20 years.  Interestingly I recognized a noticeable loss in muscle/muscle mass over the past year or so.  I thought it was because I wasn’t eating meat, yet still getting plenty of plant protein. 

I had been doing two full-body strength sessions since 2000.  I had great results for 19 years.  Because of lockdown, I bumped up my resistance/strength training to 3 times per week since my hockey/swim options were eliminated.  It was amazing to me how the 3^rd week or so I began noticing better muscle structure. 

I really started to think about how a process can become less impactful if it’s the same old process (routine) time after time if there are external forces—in this case (most likely) AGE.

If I’ve learned anything over time it seems quite simple:  “be better than yesterday.”  It just seems these simple words could make a huge difference to everyone.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice.

Oh, how life is different in the midst of a global—craziness—pandemic.  How the most superficial of our consumer activities change so drastically, causing a dramatic effect on our acquisition of goods (and services).

Are we essentially reduced to being beggars locked in our own homes?  I’ve learned to be thankful—so very thankful— that items arrive at my home for consumption.  Often the items are not my initial or primary choice, but that’s OK.  Beggars Quarantiners can’t be choosers, or can they?   

There have been times over the past four weeks of quarantine—social isolation, lockdown, introversion activation…actually, my almost normal daily lifestyle—where we’ve wanted something and it’s just not really possible to get the item or service.  We have learned to shift and pivot to make do with the available options presented to us. 

We have learned to pre-plan our purchases even more so than we normally do.  This allows us to build in the shipping/delivery delay that seemed to be significant in the first month and lessoning with recent orders.

We have learned to select a backup item, just in case the initial item is unavailable.  For example, if we want organic bananas or avocados, we add a few conventional items to the cart.  We end up with either none, one or the other, or both…quarantiners can’t be choosers.  It’s all good.  We’re happy with any items that arrived (I am now the owner of two jars of a strange-tasting Sunflower Butter product— quarantiners can’t be choosers).

I needed an outdoor spa repair.  It sounds quite superficial but sitting in hot water for a few minutes does good things for a person, for a soul.  [see: 28, 34, 59.60, 63].   Luckily, I was able to find some techs and an electrician who were working—said they were SUPER busy right now—to come over and do service calls.  They all made good money providing 6, 12, and 36 minutes of work at my home.  I was able to get service and in a few days and a trip to Lowe’s, a working 300-gallon happy zone.  I didn’t realize how much not having my standard routine of super-zen time (“commute time”) changed my daily routine.

So, this all leads me to the thought of trying to figure out a safe plan and process to help support the businesses that support me.  A way to pull together ideas to help the business that we’ve supported, and enjoyed for years and years.  

As the stay-at-home orders transition to limited-release protocols, not everyone will be in a financial position to pay for goods and services.  There have been so many salary impacting decisions that flowed so deeply into the supply chain that it will take time for everything and everyone to get back onto a balanced footing.  We are planning to do our part, to identify those businesses that we use, and get into a safe (masked) action to engage in transactions.  Interestingly, one of the first actions will be bringing my mom’s dog to the groomers for her nail trimming.  Sounds superficial, but not to the groomers, or to our “good-girl.”  This is assuming the groomers can survive their shutdown.

If you’re not already, plan, and support those who you care about, as soon as you can, safely.  If we don’t, they may not be available for us in the future and the “quarantiners can’t be choosers” may shift to a “post quarantine options may change forever.”

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice.

One week you’re living your normal life—grinding away in a Monday thru Friday, then weekend—repeated routine, then BAM, the new temporary normal begins.

I’ve frequently shared the thought of “enjoy each day” with an attempt to bring a little centering to our lives.  The—stop and take a minute to exist in the now— that was my thinking.

Well, this today, the today we all live in, is radically different from the weekly grind of the past— it changed, in a flash.

There’s a silent sickness—a silent killer—out there and the world needs to be protective of lives.  That’s the program we’re all trying to follow.

I sure hope everyone’s normal employment activities fall back into place as the threat passes.  I hope that people who need a constant income are able to generate that income.  I hope—oh, how I hope—that households learned from the Great Recession (and other personal challenges) that employment can change over time and the only best plan for maintaining your lifestyle is to have financial assets set aside for your upcoming expenses.

• Side note: I also hope that people previously put a health plan into place for both physical and mental health.  Often, in the daily/weekly grind of life, we put ourselves on the back burner and focus (solely) on the fires in front of us.  Now is a time when you want your physical health (immune system) to be primed to fight back against the nasty virus, as well as your mental health strong enough to survive a long period of safety isolation and serious existential stress.

At this point, it’s been over three weeks of isolation for my family (extended family as well) and we’re holding up pretty good.  Many of us are managing cash flow and have a good plan to manage incoming bills/expenses.  That’s a rarity.

My family is also doing well with our nicer spring weather, allowing us to be outside, feeling the sun, getting vitamin D, even doing some movement while maintaining social distancing.  Social distancing has been hard for some, while others find no issue with being in their own thoughts and activities.  This is where personalities show great difference.

Personally, we are FIREd, we spend the base of our time at home.  We used to go out to activities often enough and therefore we’ve have had to adjust our life a little, but not drastically.  I’ve noticed from many FI/FIREd peers that life isn’t that different.  I’ve noticed many have said they shifted early and purchased food and verified family members were set for the upcoming unknown.  The perspective I’ve seen is that they are not behind in preparation because they had some time (not at work) to prepare. FIrus activities.

No matter what your working schedule is, it’s important to think ahead.  Think ahead related to saving.  Think ahead related to health.  Realize you have extra hours each day to think of how to help others around you.

Please use any part of your FInancial Smartness to prepare and help, no matter what lies ahead.  Encourage those who need help to share their concerns.  We’re all in this together—we really are.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice.

I had to post this update related to the COVID-19 virus as it seems to be required of everyone this week.

My inbox is bursting with notices from more email addresses than I could have imagined.  Here goes:

I implore you to take all sane precautions to protect yourself, your family, and those around you.  A list of precautions can be found everywhere online, but we are told to use the CDC homepage.

It’s been a while since my last post because we’ve been locked down in the bunker…no, actually because we’ve been scavenging for home goods and haven’t had time for unimportant typing/ramblings,… no, actually because we’ve been living a great life, trying to enjoy each day and be smart about our spacing and interactions with other human beings. 

(Note: speaking of home goods, my wife has been to HomeGoods and it was just normal decorating-people busy, no panic shopping there)

Lessons in Shopping:

I didn’t plan on writing this next section, but for my actual thoughts:  We went to Costco on Thu March 5^th as part of our normal “Costco run” and figured we’d grab a few household supplies.  I was shocked there were only about 10 cases (out of the normal 500?) on the floor.  WHOA, I thought.  I then pushed my large cart to the toilet paper and paper towel section only to find the shelves (and floor) totally empty.  There weren’t even any news stories or pictures of empty shelves yet.  People must listen to Radical Personal Finance. 

Continuing on, I thought I’d grab an “extra” bag of brown rice.  Turns out, there was no brown rice, no white rice, and no jasmine rice at all.  I did get my boxes of Quaker oats…hmm, people must not be thrilled by bland breakfast foods.

Here’s why I walked around with an “oh $h!t” feeling; I’ve never lived in a hurricane or tornado zone where the store can frequently go bare.  It was an unnerving feeling.  Much different than my past when shelves are kind of low in Alaska because the seasonal shipments have been sold out.  That’s more of an “oops, I should have grabbed that item at the time…oh well, next time.”

Of course, there were other plenty of other items available at Costco so we just topped off our existing home supply of those goods.  We had no major bulk purchases at the store.

I thought I would check out Amazon, and sure enough they had TP for sale, not priced too high, no worries, right?  The next day when I went back to my PC and the page had updated, most of the TP items stated “no longer in stock, or said “available on April ##date.”  This was VERY unnerving to say the least.  [Note: I’m writing this 10 days later and stores have been ravaged by our afraid peers]

I should be clear; I’m mostly surprised that toilet paper is such a panic/critical item.  I’m actually far more concerned at having input than worrying about the output factor.

Optimization = Preparation:

It turns out that the cost-saving practices I learned growing up of buying extra amounts when items go on sale, as well as always replenishing an item before I run low has helped me leading up to this craziness.

Give Around:

In the past few days we’ve started to be more considerate of those around us who may need assistance during these times.  Those who cannot work from home and lose pay, those who cannot leave home due to high risk factors and those who are just stressed out.

Improvement Time:

My wife mentioned that since we’re social distancing (introvert normal-ness) ourselves at home more, that we should plan to do more home projects.  I think that’s a great idea (except dealing with me more  hours sounds stressful for her) to  use some of this home-time to work on projects/tasks, learning new things, getting a little more zen and good “recovery” time.  Example: a little less body exhausting exercise for a few weeks, etc.

So, I plan to work on strengthening our home-life foundation to come out of this stronger (and zen-ner) than ever.

This too shall pass, and we’ll be wiser and stronger on the other side.

*** Nothing in this article is to be construed as financial advice.  I am not a financial planner, nor do I pretend to be.  You should always consult your own professional when seeking advice.