Sixty-Two Sixty-Two

Another solid week in the books, and a week that I'll be tweaking my budget spreadsheet around. I've opened up another checking/savings account and will be separating expenses between the 3 checking accounts to control spending even tighter. I had one unplanned expense, but needed to be done: Inspection sticker w/ a little work done to get the sticker - $86.17 The food budget is doing well so far. I've gotten in to an overnight oats kick while eating far less than I was before. We're eating far less meat than we had been, which keeps costs down. Frugal fitness - I played 8 softball games over the last week, which can provide some decent exercise through a good amount of sprinting and general movement, but it took time away from the stationary bike - only logged 10 miles and had 1 resistance training circuit. I did log 7 miles of walking out at City Forest as well. Happy Friday - and enjoy/stay safe over the holiday weekend.

I'm pretty risk averse. I'm learning this more and more as I go through this journey. As of right now, my retirement savings is in a 401k through my employer. I choose target date funds, and the funds I chose initially were much more conservative than what they should have been. As of today, they're even more conservative than they should be. When I say "should be", that's based off conventional advice and my age/projected time in the market. The market is volatile at times, but experts suggest I have time to take the short term losses and still make gains in the long term with stock investments (if past trends continue in the future). In researching other retirement/savings vehicles, I stumbled upon a concept called CD laddering. CD's (certificate deposits) are a savings product that can be purchased through most financial institutions. CD's have a range of maturity dates (ranging from 6 months to 10 years at Discover Bank) which determines how lon

Even though I'm on the cusp of being a "millennial", being born in 1983, I certainly find myself thinking along the same wavelength of today's young people who practice personal responsibility. Let's face it - it's not the millennial generation that most people find grating, it's individual's who don't practice personal responsibility. I believe these types of people existed in every generation. But, there's a movement going on. A lot of young people today witnessed a generation before them that attached their careers (and sometimes only their career) to their personal identity. While they may have been successful (if you define success by incomes and titles), there's a good chance they were absentee parents. Perhaps these parents tried to make up for this by filling the gap with material gifts and possessions. There was little in the way of quality time, or at least time where these millennial children felt like they were being heard; re

This Friday came quickly. So, the spending, I have some to report: Birthday dinner with family = $70 (we attempted to do this as cheap as possible) Starbucks for Mother's Day (in lieu of card, get outta here Hallmark) = $7.56 Concert in the car playing songs on Youtube = $15 (kicked me over my data on the last day of the bill cycle, damn.) Can't lie, the data debacle was painful, but I'm alright with the other two. I'm really not a fan of spending money on food outside of the house, but it was a nice gathering with family. Frugal fitness - 66 miles on the bike, 2 strength circuits, 6 miles walked. Still plugging away. Have a great weekend.

I've mentioned before that things got sideways for me when I was living in autopilot - and a life on autopilot was only possible when making the comfortable choices in front of me. I'm enjoying what is being exposed in this journey; I don't enjoy a life of too much comfort. I don't enjoy a life of excessive external things. It doesn't feel like living to me. When I look back on my life and when I felt the most alive, it usually involves a life structured around self improvement. I used to think this was a negative trait, to have such an extreme personality where I felt the need to restrict myself, or force myself to improve by doing things that most weren't. I'm now beginning to think it's the only way I enjoy navigating life. Driven by a purpose. Being honest and authentic to myself. A journey through life that is focused on how to get the best out of me -and maybe influence others around me that care to take notice. The quote that has come to mind re

Another 30 day cycle in the books, and another good week of spending. I'll share some of the standout variances after my last 30 day cycle: I paid an extra $25 towards mortgage principle. I went over the food budget by $130 Underpaid credit cards by $400, because, Work on the car cost $420. Not too bad. I knew my grocery bill was doomed. Too many small trips to the store added up on me. The family is in a better groove now with planned eating, so looking to keep that at the aggressive goal of $100/week. Here is the progress graph: Right on target for phase 1 completion on 2/15/2019. Auto insurance for L and I are due, so that may be another small hit to the cash flow going towards credit cards, but we'll keep plugging away. I've created another chart, primarily for motivation. It's tracking the value of my accounts, absent mortgage/house value. So, it's net worth outside of the house. If that doesn't help me stay motivated, nothing will. To

I had this moment while watching an episode of Game of Thrones. I won't go in to the details of the scene, but I'll tell you the thought journey I went down. In that moment, I couldn't help but think about how it would be to live life without a calendar and without a mirror. Since having kids, I can't help but start thinking about our culture and It's expectations. It really feels like life in our current age and current culture has more expectations than ever before. We take a certain amount of life years, and chunk them up with milestones that you're expected to hit. Grade school, middle school, high school, college, career, marriage, house, kids, retirement. Maybe I missed a few steps in there, and maybe some people have added more milestones than the generic ones that I've just listed. I'm sometimes surprised that this is so ingrained in our psyche, that I've heard many people say things like: "I thought I'd have kids by the time I wa

What are you doing to optimize your experience here - with the life that you've been given? I was recently thinking last night about the past few months, and I can't remember a time I was more excited to be working towards something. There's a vision present that has never been there before. A vision of a more optimized living experience, based off of my personal values. Living with intention. Finding more purpose. Living a slower, but more fulfilling life. Maximizing the value of my time. These are just a few of the things, the visions, that keep me motivated; the ultimate achievements to be had after completing stage 1 of this journey. I realize now how much time I spent in autopilot before. Life in autopilot led to my debt. Life in autopilot led to other behaviors and outcomes that I'm working on correcting. Life in autopilot is unfulfilling. I want to live a life of intention - even if I'm not completely sure what that looks like at the moment. I'm ho

Another week in the books, and  I'm entering the last week of another 30 day budget cycle. I look forward to posting the progress chart next week for that. This week's spending went well. I had to dip into savings to pay for new pads and rotors for the car. I admit, its the first time I've felt motivated to learn how to do this on my own. A quick YouTube video would have allowed me to save a few dollars. Cost = $325. Food budget continues to be where I nickel and dime myself over budget. Ill be over for this round of 30 days, but still under $500. I didn't have any spending outside of the budget this week other than the car work. Going forward, I should allocate a few more dollars to savings to prepare for these occurrences. Minimal fitness - 50 miles on the bike, 4 miles walked. 4 resistance training circuits. Have a great Friday, and weekend! The weather looks like it's finally transitioning to consistent spring temps.

In my more youthful years, before I had kids, I got in to the Crossfit training methods. As a competitive person, this type of fitness protocol spoke to me. One of my favorite sayings I heard while immersing myself in the Crossfit world was, "get comfortable with being uncomfortable". I have to be honest, I love that sentiment. I really think that one of the things plaguing us in modern times is we're too comfortable, or we seek comfort and convenience over most other conditions. This is how I got in, and stayed in, debt. I was too comfortable spending and living a lifestyle that I assumed I could eventually "catch up on". There's a growing sentiment in our country that debt is normal. While there can be a positive side to debt, when used to grow assets or investing in your future, most debt we collectively carry is not serving us well. Eventually, your debt will become really uncomfortable.  I mentioned Monday I'm in a weight loss challenge. Weight lo