I talk to people about my favorite/most important activity—10 Favorite Things—all the time.

Surprisingly, I searched on myself—actually in my posted LifeInFIRE thoughts—and I cannot find where I clearly describe this process and its importance to me.

Important Activities

Here’s what I learned from the Playing With Fire movie. 

I learned about creating a list in my electronic notepad of my 10 Favorite Things to do each day or week.

I brainstormed about my very favorite things to do.  These include activities, environments, thinking, etc.

I then sorted my very favorite items to the top and my less favorite down the list.

The Goal

The goal is to try and do a couple/some of those activities each day, and especially each week.  My thinking is what good are our days if we’re just grinding away— as a cog in the machine— and not enjoying our life.

The Process

I found the action of just creating the list to be of immense value.  Thinking through, and writing down, your most treasured life activities must be one of the more core elements of who we are, or at least of our deepest internal happiness.

I don’t often look at my list of 10 Favorite Things, but I definitely know what my top 3-5 are at any given time.  Oh, that makes me realize that the list can shift and change depending on life, on the seasons, even based on a pandemic with lockdown/quarantine/everything-being-closed situations.

Actually, if your list of favorite things did not change during the pandemic craziness, is that a clear sign that you are living true to yourself already?  True to your very core?  Possibly, a good SloGo? 

Hmmm, now I have even more to think about.  (sometimes that’s dangerous, “too much Kevin”)

New Idea – Dislikes

It just occurred to me that maybe I should have a list of things that I don’t like, or cannot stand to do.  Then I could rank those and possibly “outsource” those tasks to someone else.  Maybe there are people out there who like those activities.  I’ve read about valuing your time, say $20 or $50 per hour.  Then you can get a value for these outsourcing activities.  It may even make sense to just understand how the cost of these activities are just a part of making your life better, and possibly doing one or more of your favorite activities at that same time.

What are your favorite activities?  And now, after that last paragraph, what is their value to you?

*** 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.

During my morning “commute” time I was thinking how BAM, the decades seem to have disappeared.

To be more precise, it almost seems like I jumped from 35 years-old to 50 years-old in a matter of a few years, at most. 

I feel my wife and I lose track of seasons (and years?) because of a few reasons. 1) We do not have kids, nor are around family children all that much.  Therefore, we do not have the basis of school calendars/years and seeing the kids grow. 2) We live in Arizona and you cannot tell what month, or even season it is when looking out the window.  It’s just non-stop sunny—beautiful days over and over.  I should mention that it is possible to tell the season if I put my hand on the window glass.  The glass will either be cool, warm, or HOT.  That’s the clue for the season/temperature outside.

35 then 50!

The jump from 35-50 included work employment changes, positions, office locations, salary ranges, etc, to now being retired for 6+ years.  Looking back, it happened in a flash.  Almost like I haven’t changed at all myself.

I can say that I can tell my age when exercising.  There is no denying that my run/bike times at 50 years-old are not close to my times from 35 or 40 years old.  It’s also quite clear that after exercising it is best to let my body recover a little more.  I still get at it, but I just cannot get into 5^th gear anymore.

The above are not complaints, not at all, they are just realizations—like the wrinkles on my face—that decades have passed and passed quickly.  I have lots of great memories of adventures and activities.  I have frequently said, “I have done all the major things I thought I’d want to do, I’m good.”  I still have experiences, activities, and goals ahead of me, but I didn’t waste my previous years putting things off.  I have had an amazing life.  At least that’s the perspective I choose to take.  I don’t think it’s a glass “half-full,” but rather a tall glass of the best drink you could imagine.

So how should we tackle the amazing sesquidecade jumps?

I was thinking about other jumps that happen quickly:

20 then 35:

Life felt like the normalized American path from 20-25-35.  I had successfully transitioned from being a newly married, college graduate starting a new job/career in a new state at 25 years-old.  We traveled for fun, I traveled around the world for work.  It seemed normal, and so many (very) new adventures and activities.

I didn’t mind grinding through college classes, working 3 jobs, living in the cold climate, and striving for a good future.  Then in a flash, school is over, multiple degrees on the shelf, married, moved to a new state, and a decade completed in a new career, not to mention world travel completed.  So much life, but at warp speed.

50 then 65:

I know a lot of older people and talk with them multiple times throughout the month.  So many of them say the years just flew by.  The years almost disappeared before they knew it. 

I am working really hard to make sure this disappearance doesn’t happen (but it still does) by making sure each day, and each week I do things I love. 

I truely believe if we don’t do these activities now, we may not be able to do them in the future, i.e. ever again.

65 then 80:

These are the classic GoGo retirement years we read about all the time.  The time where many people no longer working 9 to 5 to 65.  A time when, if your health is good, you have ALL your time to yourself.  The time to do whatever you please.  The time when the road ahead opens up and you can step on the accelerator.  Hit the gas and go.  If we live these years correctly, these years will not disappear, they will be fully utilized.

Geez 80-95? 

I don’t know if these years jump by in a flash, or if they get cloudy, or disappear based on memory or cognitive issues.  I know many people 80+ who are sharp and active and still do what they

Just me sharing my random thoughts of a Life In FIRE.

*** 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.

I should state this upfront; I’m very far from being a millennial.  I lack so many of the traits; being energized by social engagements, being born with technology, being raised where everything is possible, and even having very few acronyms to explain my lifestyle, etc.  Yet, the YOLO philosophy is very intriguing to me, at times.  Not to the point of live for today like there’s no tomorrow.

I’m now in the old category where I’m in the tomorrow.  Actually, to a younger person, I’ve been in the old category for over a decade.  I had this strange mental block of having no concept of FOMO.  I see that acronym and it just does not register in my brain—almost not at all.  I don’t know why?  I wonder if it’s the deep-down sense of being an introverted only child and not that interested in other people.  I wonder if it’s because I was raised in a community where people got by with what we had and almost never compared ourselves to others, or our items to others items.  Maybe because life was hard at times and the extreme cold weather could snuff you out in less than an hour?  Who knows?

YOFO

But one thought I’ve had lately is “You’re only 50(s) once.”  I’ve given lots of thought about finally growing into my age (or the other way around).  I’ve always felt like an old guy mind in a youngerish body.

I’ve written and talked about being younger and healthier now than you will ever be in the future.  I’ve written about living a great life now.  Making sure you do some of your favorite things each day and week.

I wrote about taking that daily/weekly amazingness to an entire decade.  Then I wrote about taking it up to an entirely higher level.     

I realize the absurdity of saying YOFO You’re Only Fifty’s Once in a “retirement” blog, but for those who are “YOSO,” it’s the exact same thought.  Make sure you are living the greatest life you can.  Live it each day, every week, throughout the year.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in your Sixties or Seventies—you’ve earned it.

PLAN

If you are in your 40s, or even 30s, I’d say you probably want to be a little conservative on the money-side of living it up.  It’s not all YOLO when you’re that young.  Dave Ramsey is spot on with his “Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else.”  Or more clearly: “Live like no one else now, so later you can live like no one else.”  

I have a consistent thread through my writing and my living—enjoy your days, do what makes you happy, take care of your loved ones, including yourself.

NOW

If there are activities and experiences that you feel will make your life even more amazing, create a plan to accomplish those experiences.  In so many parts of life, it doesn’t seem wise to wait for those special experiences.  What If you cannot do the activity when you’re older?  What if you do not have the health, or brain function, or even the money to do something big.  Plenty of writings state it’s the experiences that stay with you, not the stuff.  I agree, but some of your favorite experiences may be accomplished because of a stuff.  Live your amazing life now.  Why not!?

*** 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.

Why do we keep hearing that life satisfaction perception levels off at $75k of income?

What is the core?

Is that research statement related to spending all of your take-home pay?  Are they really saying that having a salary higher than 75k only delivers incremental satisfaction?

I wonder if that amount is a target for a household to live nicely—living from paycheck to paycheck —thereby eliminating the extreme stress of being able to pay one’s bills.  Thinking back to when we were both in college and working (I had three part-time jobs at once, for years) we made far less than $75k, yet we managed to live well, travel, and save.  Even with inflation adjusting, I have to believe our incomes were 20% below that threshold.

Our perspective

On to our professional careers, we made less than $75k starting out and we still lived well and saved.  But when I think about it, we lived in a small 1000 square foot home (still our home) and drive older used cars that work perfectly fine.  Maybe we just didn’t inflate our lifestyle to match the lifestyle of others?  Maybe we didn’t have instragram and facebook (aren’t they the same?) to judge our lifestyle/success against others—other’s glamour posts.

So did our lifestyle increase multiplicatively when our salaries multiplied over the years?  No, it did not, not at all.  Yes, we did grow our spending some, but our home and cars remained extremely constant for a decade at a time.  That in and of itself kept our inflation adjustment quite low and in our control.

Did our not upgrading everything give us a sense of lacking, a sense of wanting?  No, not really.  If we wanted something—needs were always taken care of—we just planned for the want.  We determined the best item for us and then purchased it when the time was right.  We have always been satisfied with our purchases because they were thought out in advance.

Satisfaction

So did I feel more satisfaction as our salaries grew beyond the magically $75k.  I’d say with absolute certainty, yet.  It wasn’t a “spending” thing.  It wasn’t an “I make XX amount” statement.  It wasn’t status, or value, or accomplishment.  I think it was the deep-down understanding that we had control of so much of our destiny at any given time.  Even related to a health issue, we had the funds to attempt resolution of such an issue.

I believe part of that comfort is that I personally get an immense amount of satisfaction saving and investing the top portion of my income.  It is the act of putting my money into a protection mode.  I get plenty of satisfaction seeing my net worth—hard placed planning/savings effort—grow and progress.  It’s not the dollar amount, it is by far the freedom of everything that amount may entail for the future.

There is a reason many surveys ask people “do you have $400 for an emergency” or “do you have $1000 saved for an emergency?”  Those amounts may allow someone to resolve an issue before it turns into a crisis, or worse, a downhill financial spiral that can be extremely hard to escape.

So is “satisfaction” the ability to fulfill one’s needs?  Is satisfaction the knowing you can handle an upcoming incident?  Is satisfaction the feeling of working towards an all-encompassing goal?  Then how would you define your personal increase in satisfaction, and can a salary over $75k provide that increase?  In my personal experience, yes, a higher household income increased our ability to progress to all our goals.

No Salary Slant?

Here’s a different take on the $75k life satisfaction analysis.  Our current “salary” is $0, and our “income” has been in the $20k range yet our satisfaction is extremely, magnificently high.

Living a lifestyle that ties closely to your personal beliefs is quite core to feeling purposeful.  A life of purpose seems to present satisfaction.  It’s even possible that a life of leisure—that contained previous amounts of purpose—can provide satisfaction.  It’s entirely possible that if you are intentional in how you live each day that you are increasing (compounding) your life satisfaction. 

Maybe all of this just comes from someone how worked through college degrees, to then develop a career, while living below their income level and taking an opportunity to leave their career to do something different.  In this case, to do whatever we want, whenever we want.  And yes, some of that includes giving to others, because that’s what we choose to do.  That’s how we get our life satisfaction.

So, others have found the same conclusions I’ve come to. Those are some serious high-incomes.

*** 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.

Maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t seen a bunch of articles on New Year’s Resolutions this year. 

I have to wonder if that’s because people aren’t writing about goals this year, or if they’re still working on one of the bigger goals in their lifetime—to survive 2020 with some sanity and positivity.  Maybe the resolutions are already built into our psyche— that 2021 will be better than last year no matter what we do?

If you are one of those people who had a good (enough?), or strong 2020.  That is great.  Maybe it’s your mentality, or maybe it’s just the way the circumstances fell.  No shame in progress, no matter its form.

Purposely

I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions.  Yes, I understand it’s “a new year” and “a new start,” but living in Arizona in a FIRE lifestyle, it is really, really hard to tell one week/month from the next.  That isn’t necessarily a good thing.  It takes conscious effort to make sure to appreciate every day.  However, the start of a January 1^st “day” isn’t all that hugely significant. 

However, I do plan each year to give myself a Christmas present, a revelation to myself—a gift to myself.  I give myself the gift of steering my days and challenges to meet some level of a goal over a period of time.  It’s my Christmas Revelation.

Past Revelations

My goals might be: run 365 miles this year, run+bike 1000 miles, do yoga each week, meditate multiple times per week, help people every day, do 3 nice things for others each day, eat 8 fruits/veggies per day, eat only from noon to 8 pm, be a nicer and calmer person to those around me, etc. etc.

There is no difference to the betterness goal of my life structure in my revaluation than a resolution, but I treat it as a gift to myself.  In typing that, I realize I am so very self-centered with so many things in my life.  Hmmm, that doesn’t seem that great, but I try to expound external goodness in many ways.

Simple

I like the simple—but not easy—target of having a word for the year.  Once single, little, simple word to steer your yearly actions and decisions.  That seems quite doable if you can remember to keep your word in focus.

Do you have a plan, and quantifiable targets to make things better this year?

How do you tackle your progress:  Christmas revelations.  Goals for the year.  Activities, Actions, Word of the year?

*** 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.

I didn’t notice the definition of “cute” in the masculine handbook.  Maybe it was because the man handbook doesn’t even include the word “cute.”  Come to think of it, I don’t EVER recall walking around and saying “that’s cute.”  Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever thought that either.  Yes, I know, in this day and age I’m not supposed to generalize men or women, but speaking as a guy, “cute” isn’t a word on my frequent list, not really.

I notice quite often when I’m in a store (usually a “wife” store) that if I overhear a conversation or comment from women-shopping-teams, that they hold one arm out raising an item and one of them says “that’s cute.”  I’m not stereotyping, I’m just reporting the facts as I’ve seen them, repeatedly.

I was at a family gathering and two women were reviewing some store’s layout and its location of products.  I heard as they recalled items say the word “cute” at least 5 times…in less than a minute!

I then thought about this concept—the concept of “cute.”  I realized there’s this pleasure zone of sprucing things up in their life.  An all-encompassing zone of spending money to obtain “cute.”

I’ve pondered this zone for a few months now.  I’ve shifted my mind (temporarily) into the zone of how cutifying an environment can have value—personal, internal value, and reward.  It’s a hard zone for me to enter, and definitely not a zone that I would stay in for long, but a zone with some slight value properties, I do agree.  If this zone allows true happiness, more relaxation, and enjoyment of surroundings, without negatively impacting financial security, then some “cute” may be good, I guess.

Just another observation from my LifeInFIRE.

*** 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.

I heard a sociologist on the Crazy Money podcast talking about the Hedonic Treadmill.  They discussed the treadmill for a little while and it all seemed quite normal for any of us in the FIRE—or even Financially Responsible—community.  Hmmm, I wonder if I just created a new community—a Financially Responsible community of not purchasing anything you want, just because your credit issuer allows it, but instead purchasing items you truly can afford, and value.  OK, now Afford Anything comes to mind.

Back on track: I’ve always thought about the increasing baseline-level of life.  The level of comfortness, ownership, and change in “needs.”  Most of my thoughts have been from those around me purchasing items.  I’ve noticed this purchasing activity since I was 12 years-old when many of my friends bought ATVs around the same time as they came into money.  I, on the other hand, was forced to wait until my birthday or Xmas to get a gift I wanted.  I know now that I was fortunate to get these items at all, period.  However, at the time I was forced to take my own inflow of money and save it in a brokerage account (yes, the lessons started early).  It’s worth noting that I still have those exact dollars, along with all their buddies who marched along growing each day for the past (almost) 40 years.

Ego

So I am egotistical enough to think I do better with money than many/most of my friends and acquaintances?  Yes, my ego tells me I do better at logically managing my income and my money.  I usually plan for the items we need and want. I plan for the future and have a process of putting money away for “deferred spending.”  In my case, that money was deferred to spend in FIRE.

Did I climb on?

So did I buy more and more things, and march along on the hedonic treadmill?  Yes, of course.  And also no, in many ways, we did not climb too high or too fast on the hedonic treadmill.

I’ve written about the saying “Same Spouse, Same House, Same cars, etc.”  Many FIRE topics revolve around the big three expenses in life: House, Cars, Food.   We are a little different because I would include offspring into that list, but maybe one’s offspring just tends to increases the cost-requirement of those three.  I don’t really know.

I can say we have been able to stay in the same “starter” home for nearly 30 years.  We do drive cars we purchased at 3+ years old and have driven them 10+ years.  I do notice (pre-covid) that our food bill may be lower than 20 years ago.  That could be based on our not-eating-meat challenge, or me weighing less than when I was in my 20s, therefore eating less food.  I have to say beans & brown rice & veggies do not add up to much money over the course of a month.

Yes, we have spent more on nicer cars when we buy them.  We are currently looking for a newer vehicle and will purchase one with a multitude of safety features.  We do have vehicles for hobbies.  We also have nicer furniture and one of us buys quality clothes that last (I personally have some low-cost clothes that are 10-20 years old, since I don’t wear them much because my main use wardrobe is mostly shorts and t-shirts most of the time).

We have (some of) the exercise equipment we want.  We have OK-level electronics that make our lives more convenient.  We have a huge TV because it was deal-of-the-day when the old TV stopped working.

Yes, we’ve purchased some items that are nice quality but usually after full research and time to organize the purchase into our plan.  There was “delay” to the gratification, always significant delay.  We are truly happy with our items.  But what we really feel is unique, is that we have SO much time to enjoy our items since we can be home all day doing whatever we want.

Look at me

I’m happy to say we are 98% removed from buying something and wondering what other people think about our item.  We surely do not aim to impress anyone.  Instead, the 2% is possibly the opposite, in that we don’t want people to judge any of our items that they would find frivolous.  It’s a balance of stealth-wealth.  (I love that our house is small and quite plain, on the cheap side of the street).

Good Baseline Increase

I think about the increasing level of baseline in life.  I think about education or skills, how the more you have the stronger you are.   I think about exercise and how each level of fitness enables more activities.  I think about the opposite of how watching TV may lead to more TV, of how Netflix may lead to Hulu, leading to HBO Max.  It’s almost like a tornado sucking you into its power, either good or bad.  I guess that’s why inertia’s been defined as a force.  I always thought inertia was about “objects in motion,” but have learned it also applies to “objects at rest.”   See how you can continue to learn…forever:  learning inertia.

Addition

Here’s a twist that just popped into my head after previously writing the above—I don’t want my “end of plan” to be buckets of money, or worse, boatloads of money.  I’m thinking, if I can have a few bowls of money to make sure all is well, that is great.  But what if I run out of money!?  My thoughts are, other than healthcare, I don’t really have a desire, or more specifically, won’t have a desire to spend money.  I can live happily doing my daily low costs/no-cost activities.  Moving around if I can, learning new things if I can, enjoying the day if I can.  Those tasks do not really cost any money at all.  If I have to share a room with another out-of-money person, that may be OK.

I’ve been concentrating on awareness of the value of each day, week, month, year, and decade lately.  At the beginning of the year, I wrote about my Raving 20s plan.  It was a great plan for the 2020s.  It was working our perfectly for, oh, 2 months then WHAM; pandemic.

I don’t want to sacrifice a nice level of living now when we’re as young and as healthy as we will ever be in the remainder of our lives.  I am feeling the push to do more, buy more, and live more now, RIGHT NOW, and through the next few/many years.  We will never get this decade back.  We will always continue to monitor our finances and life-living ability as we progress through the Raving 20s.

Hedonism – “the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.”

So I wonder, am I stepping on, or am I purposefully speeding up the treadmill to get more out of life.

I ask you, what’s your life-living worth to you?

*** 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.

Most FIRE bloggers and journalists (me included—the former) spent the past few months sharing the opportunity we had to improve our lives and the environment with major opportunities to use the quarantine/lockdown to make ourselves so much better.

Then I noticed a lot of writings about how the people working from home have newly-found flexible schedules which can simulate a “retirement” lifestyle.  That being a great structure that allows for a different waking routine, and a different time structure throughout the day.  Many said people working from home have a new found level of freedom to adjust their work-life balance. 

In thinking about this new work/life balance, I have to say if you didn’t know if you were an introvert or an extrovert, you surely do now!  The identification of this personality style would be magnified if you lived in an apartment or small space.

Indeed, the work/life balance gives someone the ability to review their daily/weekly grind schedule.  People may have the opportunity to tackle some tasks off-peak.  Not to mention those who were severely hit by a change, or loss, of income.  This has been a brutal wake-up call forcing the extreme situation to be upfront and inescapable for us, for a very long time.  It seems possible a two to three-week impact may wash away fairly quickly, but a year-long screw-with-you impact…we’re not sweeping that away anytime soon.

Impact Thoughts

Think about the freedom impact on a retiree over the past 8 months.

The retirees have little to no commitments for employment.  These retirees may have commitments to volunteering and sharing their time.  These retirees may have had plans for travel in 2020.  These retirees may have even been on a trip, maybe even outside the home country, when the pandemic struck.  These retirees may live abroad full-time, maybe in low-cost regions—of which may have a lower level of medical care, possibly.

Considering health concerns even deeper, most retirees are older.  Understanding of the COVID virus shows older immune systems have a much harder time fighting off the virus.  At this time, I feel we don’t even know exactly how much higher risk an older person has for severe impact from the virus.

SloGo

I’m saying for those who are already past end-of-employment (already retired) that the COVD quarantine/lockdown/isolation is an opportunity for an entirely different reflection-of-life activity level.  I realized after talking with a few of my cohorts that the COVID lockdown may actually be closer to a simulated SloGo retirement phase. 

So if a retiree is at a phase where they want to do stuff, but cannot, isn’t that closely tied to the SloGo phase of retirement?

Thinking back to the beginning of this post on how our days/schedule/lives have changed, how have you felt over these 8 months?

• If you are an introvert, you might have done OK with the changes. 
• If you are a relaxed-zen type person, maybe you were able to shift your mindset quite successfully to the new structure forced on you.
• If you are an extrovert, it must have been a horrible time being locked away for your social interactions.  It’s probably that the sadness has a compounding effect and it’s feeling worse and worse each day.
• If you’re retired and have been so for a while, how did you feel about the new lifestyle structure?
• If you’re newly retired (by choice), how does that feel?  Do you feel like you’re losing a year of your retirement? 
• If you’re newly retired by force (“reduction in force”), you have an entirely different level—most likely multiple levels—of “what is going on here, what do I do now?”

For me, this window of time being stuck at home is an interesting look at a similar to SloGo retirement phase.  A phase of retirement that I realized now would have been almost impossible to plan for, or understand how it would feel.  Now, I have a sliver of vision to that up-coming phase.

For all those affected/infected by these nasty little virus robots, I wish you the best.  As for SloGo, for those retirees infected, you experienced a SloGo phase with illness, not just lockdown, expounding on a more serious version of SloGo, possibly even NoGo.

(no consideration in the post was given to those with children living at home in a time of COVID as that is not an area I have familiarity)

I’ll end with, we never know the-or our– future.  We won’t know our End-of-Plan date.  Live your GoGo years as if every single day matters.  Find the joy in your days and daily life. 

*** 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 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.