I thought that when we reached a base level of financial independence (living in Florida is Stage 2, where we can pay our minimum living expenses by moving to a cheaper location), I would gain more clarity about how to spend my time. I have always been money-focused – not driven to make a lot […]
Several media outlets report that people give up on new year’s resolutions by as early as mid-January. It’s the second Friday of January according to Best Life. Forbes is more optimistic but still mid-February! One of my favorite hacks for sticking to new year’s resolutions is setting monthly goals instead of annual (hat tip to […]
Maybe it’s turning 50 or maybe it’s the pandemic upending things, but whatever the root cause, I’ve become more introspective. I have been rethinking my perfect day (turning 50, part 1) and what that means for the next few years (turning 50, part 2). I feel like I’m ready for big changes to my business […]
When the pandemic upended our travel plans, I threw myself back into work so seamlessly that I figured that’s what I would do until normalcy resumed. However, as we are well into year two of the pandemic, and things seem to be getting worse, not better, I find myself rethinking my initial assumption. If travel […]
Both Scott and I turned 50 this year. Neither of us are into celebrating birthdays, and we are still in the midst of a pandemic, so we didn’t throw a big party or anything else extraordinary. I also wasn’t anticipating a mid-life crisis or other inflection point. In fact, I felt that turning age 48 […]
Like others that keep a spending diary or a food diary, I keep a time diary. I have kept a time diary for over 20 years! I started doing it because I was working in the professional services field where you had to track your time to bill your clients. You also had to calculate […]
I reconnected recently with an old friend, who paid me one of the nicest compliments I have ever been given. She told me that she was out with friends and I came up in conversation. When one of them asked her what I do, she answered, “Caroline and her husband actually do the things that […]
My 17-year old and I are BIG fans of Rowan Atkinson ever since stumbling on a compilation of his skits, including this hysterical bit with Atkinson in religious garb, at a lectern, retelling popular Bible stories. So I jumped on an offer of two free tickets to the New York premiere of Johnny English Strikes […]
Scott recently ran the Maine Marathon in Portland on a Sunday so we turned the trip into a four-day, couples-only weekend (a perk of the FIRE lifestyle!). We both love the water, and Maine has plenty of that, so we planned our pre-marathon Saturday around different water views – The Giant’s Stairs on Bailey Island, […]
Flexibility to accommodate mid-week movies is one of my favorite perks of the FIRE lifestyle. This past Tuesday, I took my youngest daughter to an advance screening of “Crazy Rich Asians”, including an Asian-American business pre-show talk, by Nielsen, and an Asian food-themed after-party. A few years earlier, I took my oldest daughter to an […]
