Category: Goals

Back to the Drawing Board

Posted on by Laura & Brett

Here we are again, wondering if we’re ever going to be able to figure out what to do and where to go when we leave Tennessee.

You’re probably all thinking, why can’t these people make up their d**n minds and stick to something?

There’s been a poison pill in every one of our plans, no matter how good it sounds or starts out. The biggest pill of all has been: can I afford to stay in a place on my own (or continue traveling) if Brett predeceases me? Would I even want to continue to live in that place (or continue traveling) if Brett predeceases me? He feels the same, although affordability isn’t the issue for him that it would be for me.

Here are the plans that have come and gone since we’ve been in Tennessee:

  • First there was Mexico: We like Mexico and could easily live well there but it’s too far away from family and it’s a bit shaky on the medical care for our comfort these days. And, with the way Mexico has been raising their income requirements at the time we apply for a visa our income might not be high enough to qualify for a residential visa (we could afford to live there but not qualify for the visa to do so).
  • Return to Hawaii: This dream refuses to die and keeps popping up again and again and again. We can afford to live there but it’s the getting over there and getting settled that would be outrageously expensive and always stops us in our tracks. We’d have to sell our car here and buy another one (not as nice) over there. We’d have to store a few things here or pay an outrageous price to send them there. Then there’s first and last month’s rent (if we can find a semi-affordable rental that will accept Kaipo, that is), airfare from Tennessee, possibly new furniture and household goods (again) once we find a place, and so forth. And, we’d be even further away from our family. I could definitely not afford to live there if Brett predeceases me.
  • Let’s buy a trailer! Let’s not after figuring out the expense and loads of other issues.
  • The national park road trip was exciting and promising . . . all except for the expense, that is. We could live bare bones, camp along the way . . . except we really don’t want to do that at this stage of our lives.

So, we’re back to the drawing board again. Where can we go? Is there a good location for us or is it time to start making loads of compromises?

We have put on our thinking caps, talk about what could come next, and are making lists of the things that are important to us at this stage of our lives, and figuring out the compromises we are willing to make and the ones we are not.

The only things we’re firm on are:

  • proximity to family
  • reasonable cost of living
  • reasonably good weather
  • walking and sightseeing venues in the area

A solution is out there, but we just haven’t found it or figured it out yet. We’re going to keep trying . . . because we’re not planning to stay in Tennessee.

I hope you’ll stick around as we continue to work this out.

Reality Bites: Budgeting for Full-Time Travel

Posted on by Laura & Brett

The dream: road trip for a couple of years and visit all the national parks.

The reality: the monthly cost for how we thought we’d travel is significantly larger than we imagined.

It wasn’t long after starting work on a budget for our Big Adventure II that we began to discover our initial plans and itinerary would cost w-a-y more than we imagined, and would most likely drain our savings in short order, all without adding any extras.

Here’s the reality of what we’ve discovered so far:

  • Gasoline: We love the Armada – it’s the most comfortable car we’ve ever owned – and it’s perfect for this road trip in terms of safety, comfort, space, and the amount and type of of driving we would be doing. However, the Armada is a gas guzzler. It has a large tank and can go long distances, but would still require a fill-up or top-off nearly every day with our itinerary. Brett has worked hard at increasing the MPG, but he has figured out the cost of gas would be just slightly under double what we originally assumed. Ouch.
  • Lodging: This is largest monthly expense, and again, more than we initially assumed. After pricing (low cost) hotels and Airbnbs, a reasonable monthly budget amount for lodging would be about $3500/month to stay where we want to stay. Seriously. And that’s before adding in any pet fees. We could camp along the way, but neither of us is particularly interested in doing that for so long a period of time. We still do not want/plan to buy or pull a trailer.
  • Dining: This is the one reasonable area of the budget – with conditions. Completely avoiding restaurants, eating breakfast and dinner at our lodgings, investing in an electric cooler to keep fruit and other perishables fresh, and eating lunch on the road would keep food costs down to around what we’re paying now. But, it still requires some sacrifice and we doubt that’s sustainable for a year. Half the fun of traveling is dining out now and again.
  • Extras: There is no room in the budget for any extra side trips. We have free lifetime admission to the parks, but anything beyond that, like touring the slot canyons in northern Arizona or spending a few days in Santa Fe and Taos, NM, is out of the question.
  • Fixed expenses: We currently have only three fixed expenses that we’d continue to cover: car insurance, our phone plan, and storage fees for the few items we want to keep. We know what our phone plan will be each month, but the insurance and storage are currently wild cards. If we add an internet service for travel (like Starlink), that would be another additional fixed expense.
  • Unknown expenses: Thankfully medical costs are not a factor, but car maintenance is and we want to keep up a comfortable emergency fund. And of course other things can go wrong as well (an Airbnb canceling on us, for example, and having to find other lodging).

We are currently at a standstill and trying to come up with some options or ways to do things differently. One would be to rent Airbnbs for longer periods of time, say three or four months at a time, and use them as a base to visit parks in the area. This could cut our gas expenses down a bit, but wouldn’t save us all that much on lodging. Occasional overnight stays would still be required, but this plan would slow things w-a-y down and require us being able to find good, but reasonably priced Airbnbs in each place that will rent to us long term and accept a pet.

The Armada is big enough that we could sleep in the back of it but it doesn’t sound like a good option for us two oldsters for a variety of reasons. Neither does setting up and living in a tent and cooking outdoors for months on end.

We could sell the Armada, or trade it in on a more fuel efficient car, but a) we don’t want to be potentially stuck with another car payment, and b) it would just be a hassle. The overall savings wouldn’t be that much in the grand scheme of things.

It was so affordable traveling around the world back in the day, but we’ve unfortunately discovered expenses in the U.S. are much, much higher for everything (well except for gasoline, but everywhere else has trains, superb public transportation, etc.). We have a lot to think about right now. I know we can figure this out in a way that makes sense and that helps us stick to our budget, but for now we’ve arrived at a standstill.

Goodbye February, Hello March

Posted on by Laura & Brett

I can’t tell whether this month passed quickly or not. I initially did not know what to do with myself since Trader Joe’s wasn’t happening, but I started making sure to get in a walk most days and pick up a book when I had a moment of free time and the days began to fly by.

I had the last of my annual medical testing done this month (mammogram) and now am good to go until it all starts over again in August. I’m in good shape, all things considered, although my back continues to hurt and I may have developed arthritis in my lower spine, although it’s more likely continuing muscle damage in my lower right back. It’s getting better though now that I’m not lifting heavy boxes any more, but will take a long while before it’s fully healed again. I feel good though and that’s what counts. My weight is hanging in there – haven’t really lost anything but haven’t gained anything either.

Some of the trees in the complex are beginning to put out buds, the woods are taking on a green-ish glow in places, a few tiny green leaves have sprouted, and the days are warming up (just a bit) and growing longer, so spring is definitely on its way!

Here’s how the month of February happened:

  • Keep grocery spending under $500. We spent $479.17 on food and non-food items this month. I spent $239.80 at Trader Joe’s following my last shift, and the balance the following day at Costco, Aldi, and Publix. Yes, all of February’s shopping was done at the end of January! But, I had a menu planned for the entire month of February, we were loaded with food to get us through the entire month, and it was nice not to have to go into a store at all this past month.
  • Aim for zero food waste. No food was thrown out this month – we used up everything, including all the cilantro!
  • Have one full no-spend week. We had two full no spend weeks in February, from the middle of the second week through to the middle of the fourth week.
  • Have four no-drive days. The car stayed home six days this month.
  • Try one new recipe. I did not try any new recipes this month but did make two dishes that were new to me back in December: easy ravioli lasagna and slow cooker white chicken chili. Recipes are coming up!
  • Walk 40 miles. February was a pretty good for walking: lots of sunny bright weather, with a few days in the high 50s to mid-60s. Counting today I walked 46 miles around the apartment complex.
  • Visit one natural or historical site in the area. Another month that we didn’t accomplish any sightseeing. Even though there were some good days for getting out we just didn’t feel like it.
  • Read four books. With more personal time once again I read a lot, and finished eight books this month. I started out the month by finishing The Joy Luck Club, which I’d begun at the end of January. I enjoyed every word as I reread it. Next up was The Witch Hunter, by Max Seeck. I thought this was a new book but it felt very, very familiar right from the start and about 10% of the way in I realized I had read it before. Couldn’t remember the ending though so enjoyed it all over again. I also ready Land of Milk and Honey, by C Pam Zhang, reread Spearhead, by Adam Makos, about tank warfare in World War II, then A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand, a reworking and honoring of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (equally as creepy as the original), Mrs. England by Stacy Halls, about a mysterious woman and family in Edwardian England; Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education by Stephanie Land, and I finished the month with a rereading of William Blatty’s The Exorcist.
  • Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes. I did both a grammar and kanji lesson every day again this month, and still don’t believe it’s going to do me much good in Japan because I know so very little. I can read several more kanji than I could before but I am still completely baffled by which pronunciation of the kanji to use in which words – so confusing and impossible to remember (each kanji has at least two different pronunciations; the one used depends on the word).

Funds going into our change/$1 bill jar in February totaled $21.62. Definitely not as much as the preceding month, but we only shopped once. We’ve also accumulated nearly $1,500 in miscellaneous funds in our big save-a-thon so progress is being made there.

March’s goals remain the same as before:

  • Keep grocery spending under $500. 
  • Aim for zero food waste. 
  • Have one full no-spend week. 
  • Have four no-drive days.
  • Try one new recipe. I have been saving a bunch of recipes from my Instagram feed for the past couple of months and want to try at least one of them.
  • Walk at least 40 miles.
  • Visit one natural or historical site in the area.
  • Read four books. I’m already half way through two new books!
  • Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes.

This month Brett and I will start figuring out a budget for our national park road trip. We’re beginning to think this is going to be a bigger challenge than we initially imagined.

Goodbye January, Hello February

Posted on by Laura & Brett

We are mainly off to a good start this year, but struggling to get our footing in a couple of things due to the terrible weather this month: bitter cold, snow, and ice. That means our routines should only improve as the year continues!

Two big things happened at the end of this month: Brett got our taxes done (yeah – so glad that’s out of the way) and I left my job at Trader Joe’s – the 28th was my last day. I will miss so many of my coworkers and the discount I received there, but my age was catching up with me and the work kept growing harder for my body to do. I was tired of feeling so exhausted and hurting so much, and wanted to leave on a high note. I stocked up after my last shift so we’re set with TJ’s goods for the next several months.

Anyway, here’s how the month went:

  • Keep grocery spending under $500. We spent $407.23 on food this month! We only withdrew $460 in cash to begin with, and along with menu plans using what we already had on hand (leftovers from the holidays), plotting out our shopping needs, and then sticking to the list – not one thing not on the shopping list was purchased – we stayed well under budget this month (my TJ’s stock up will come out of February’s budget).
  • Aim for zero food waste. We did not throw out any food in January.
  • Have one full no-spend week. We had an unplanned no-spend week the second week this month and another the third week of the month.
  • Have four no-drive days. Due to snow days and school closures we ended up with eight no-drive days this month, so we’re off to a good start.
  • Try one new recipe. I made two new recipes in January: loaded potato soup and a sushi bake. Why I never made these recipes earlier is beyond me because both were easy, delicious, and affordable. The sushi bake was very, very good too – recipe will be forthcoming.
  • Walk 40 miles. January was a terrible month for walking because of the weather – it was just too cold, snowy, icy, or rainy for almost the entire month. I did get in over 50 miles at Trader Joe’s but missed out on any walking at the complex except for 10 miles at the very beginning of the month.
  • Visit one natural or historical site in the area. No local visits this month – again, it was just too cold and miserable and often impossible to go anywhere.
  • Read four books. I read four books in January, three new and one a reread. I finished Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant, then read Pineapple Street, a fun novel, and followed that with Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton. I ended the month with The Exception, by Christian Jungersen. The book is set in Denmark – I knew most of the ending in advance this time around, but the story building to the climax was still well worth reading again.
  • Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes. I did both a grammar and kanji lesson every day and I made my 365-day anniversary of language learning this month on the 25th! I also spent a full day at the top of my level of Japanese learners, a genuine accomplishment, and was moved up to the next level. I continue to struggle with all of it, but I am gradually learning Japanese. I learned that I cannot skip even one day of kanji practice – I forget too much – and I really, really need speaking practice.

Funds going into our change/$1 bill jar in January totaled $71.44 so another good start for the year.

February’s goals remain the same as before. We have our fingers crossed and are keeping good thoughts for the new year!

  • Keep grocery spending under $500. This is going to be a bit more challenging as we have the expense of our TJ’s stock up to cover, and also need to buy more than we did in January.
  • Aim for zero food waste. 
  • Have one full no-spend week. 
  • Have four no-drive days.
  • Try one new recipe.
  • Walk at least 40 miles. I’m planning to start walking through the complex again . . . if the weather allows.
  • Visit one natural or historical site in the area. We’re still hoping to get to the Battle of Nashville’s main site.
  • Read four books.
  • Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes.

This month Brett and I will sit down with our maps and the calendar and start penciling in an itinerary for Big Adventure II: The National Parks. Stay tuned!

One More Adventure

Posted on by Laura & Brett

An outline for our post-Tennessee life is taking shape. We’d been considering several ideas and even combining a few but none of them had what we wanted or made us feel happy, even though they included the two things that do make us happy these days: family and travel. All of them had serious drawbacks though, from the cost of living to the climate, and we were frustrated that nothing seemed right.

We went back and forth and round and round about whether we should move back to Hawaii, travel overseas full time again, or buy a house somewhere, but neither of us felt enthusiastic about any of those. It seemed there were more cons than pros with all of them. Places we considered for relocation had problems as well.

However, unknown to us, our children still had a few ideas about what we should do post-Tennessee. They believe we still had one more big adventure in us, and we received Christmas gifts from them that helped point us in the right direction.

Brett received a Keurig Mini coffee maker from our son-in-law. We didn’t need a new coffee maker, but he had mentioned the Keurig Mini when we were looking at trailers, and also thought one would be nice even if we didn’t have a trailer as it’s the perfect size to make a good cup of coffee in a hotel room (if you’ve had hotel room coffee recently you’ll know what I’m talking about). He also received a big Rand-McNally U.S. road atlas with national park information from Meiling.

It was a small gift to me from YaYu however that settled things for both of us. She gave me a national park scratch-off poster, with a shield for each U.S. National Park. After a park is visited the coating on each shield can be scraped off to reveal a photo of the park. She knows me well: the gift contained both a goal (uncovering a photo of every park) along with the challenge to accomplish that goal.

As we scraped off the shields for the parks we had already visited, Brett and I came to see this is really what we want to do: visit all of the remaining national parks in the United States and its territories (did you know there are national parks in the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa?). We have talked of nothing else since Christmas, and we grow more excited and more sure every day this is the right path for us.

We’ve already been looking at maps and have ordered blank calendar forms to eventually plot out a journey. There will still be no trailer for us; instead, we’ll stay in a combination of Airbnbs, hotels/motels, and the occasional national park lodge (when pets are allowed). We’re also thinking about whether we’d like to occasionally camp along the way, but think that will happen later, if at all.

There are 63 National Parks in the United States and its Territories, and between us Brett and I have seen 16. There is absolutely nothing about visiting the rest of the parks we don’t like. We’re excited about road tripping for a couple of years, and then making a big effort to see all eight parks in Alaska and the two in Hawaii as well as fitting in the Virgin Islands and American Samoa along the way. Then, as Brett says, we’ll finally be ready to settle down somewhere.

The Occasional Nomads still have one more Big Adventure left in us, and we have the car, the income, the savings, and the desire and determination to make this plan a reality . . . stay tuned!

A No-Buy, Big-Save Year

Posted on by Laura & Brett

Brett and I no longer have decluttering to take on as a project but we have given ourselves a BIG challenge beginning this month: no unnecessary purchases in 2024, with no spending except for essentials until we leave Nashville.

We have another 18 months to go in Tennessee, and want to see if we can save an additional $10,000 beyond our regular savings before we leave. A no-spend year and a half will help us (hopefully) reach this goal before we depart Tennessee.

There’s really no special reason for doing this other than neither of us needs another thing – what we currently have is enough. However, we’re not planning to sit home in the dark either and will still be getting out to explore what’s around us, and hopefully go on a couple of small trips as well.

Some of the sources for our $10K savings goal are:

  • Underspending: when we spend less than what’s been budgeted the leftover amount will go into this account. Food shopping leftovers beyond the change and $1 and $5 bills we get back will be transferred to the account. Most of our utility amounts are set, but there will be places we can cut back. Gasoline will be another place we will aim for savings.
  • The change/$1/$5 bill jar: we’re going to add $10 bills this year on top of our $1 and $5 bill deposits into the jar. We don’t get $10 bills very often but they’ll help grow this savings.
  • Blog earnings: these are pretty meager, but every little bit helps.
  • Refunds and rebates: these are also few and far between, but off the top of my head there’s an annual rebate from Costco every year, another annual rebate from our car insurance, and we get cash back from our credit card (we use the credit card to pay our phone bill, buy gasoline, and cover dog grooming, then pay it off every month).
  • Girls’ phone payment: once a year the girls pay us the cost of keeping them on our phone plan (which keeps it super cheap for them).
  • Reimbursements from our daughter-in-law: whenever they arrive, we’ll put at least half if not all into this account.
  • Gift cards savings: Our kids are very generous with us on our birthdays and at Christmas, but we honestly don’t need anything more and have already let them know if they want to give us a gift we would prefer to receive gift cards to places we regularly shop (Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Aldi, and Amazon) instead of acquiring more things. They think this is a great idea, and it will help us all save.
  • Other odds and ends: $50 from each of my Trader Joe’s paychecks, some of the extra I earn for working on Sundays, will go into this account but otherwise if anything we receive beyond the above shows up, into the account it will go!

Can we do this? Both of us believe if we’re dedicated and mindful it should be possible to save an additional $10,000, and we are starting things off with $641.71 that we put together in December from refunds, 2023 blog earnings, and some other odds and ends. Going forward, we’ll stick to our regular budget but continue to try to spend less, work hard at not buying anything other than essentials, and keep our fingers crossed!

Four Simple Goals for 2024

Posted on by Laura & Brett
photo credit: Social.Cut/unsplash

The four goals we have for 2024 have us continuing down the same path we were on in 2023 for the most part. None of them are very exciting but we know where we want to be at the end of the year, and don’t need a lot of goals to get us there! Our overarching goal for the year will be keeping things even more simple than we did this year. We also have one big financial goal – more about that coming soon!

  • Read at least 52 books. I’m not giving myself any sort of theme this year – I’m just going to read whatever catches my fancy, whether that’s a new book or one I’ve read before. Barnes & Noble is right next door to Aldi, and I plan to stop in occasionally and see what’s new, and then get those book from the library.
  • Make no purchases other than food, clothing, birthday gifts, and Christmas gifts. We’re going to limit our clothing purchases to no more than 12 items between the two of us, and continue to use eBay, thrift stores, and other resale options whenever possible. I am starting off the new year though with two new pairs of my favorite leggings, on sale at Costco for $9.99/pair.
  • Maintain a monthly food budget of $500. This is doable! Brett and I talked quite a bit last month about how we can continue to keep our food spending in line and under $500 each month. We still have a few tricks up our sleeve!
  • Maintain a monthly walking distance of at least 40 miles. Also doable, especially while I’m working at Trader Joe’s.

Having only four goals seems pretty boring, but these are the ones that will get us where we need to by the end of the year. And of course we will be saving, saving, saving for the future!

Goodbye December, Hello January

Posted on by Laura & Brett

Well, here we are at the end of 2023. What a year! It started off very slowly for us but the end sure speeded up and almost left us breathless. We were busy throughout December with grandkids, work, family, and holiday preparation, but we made it through and are ready to ring in the new year. Brett and I plan to celebrate quietly on the 31st – we’ll have a light dinner, watch a movie, and ring in the new year at midnight, and be asleep by 12:30 a.m.!

I’m going to continue with the same list of monthly goals next year as they keep both us focused on the smaller things and are good measure of how we’re doing.

Here’s how the last month of 2023 went:

  • Keep grocery spending under $700. We accomplished this but it was close. On the plus side, there are a lot of leftovers that will help keep our food costs down next month. We’ve been living one definition of eternity: two people and leftover ham. We’ve eaten some every day since Christmas.
  • Aim for zero food waste. We did not throw out any food in December, a remarkable achievement considering all we had going on here.
  • Have one full no-spend week. We did not have a no-spend week this month. Brett had a small surgical procedure done during the week that would have been no-spend and he had to get a couple of post-op things he needed from Target. While he was there he also bought us a new can opener – the one we bought when we moved here never worked right and we finally gave it up.
  • Have four no-drive days. Between work, grandkids, and family coming and going we had two no-drive day in December. Our total no-drive days for the year is 67 which is much better than we imagined!
  • Try one new recipe. I made one new recipe December, a new, easy recipe YaYu sent me from TikTok: layered ravioli lasagna. Super easy and we all enjoyed it, especially when Meiling and K stayed with us a few extra days. Also, not a new recipe but it’s been years since I made a quiche, and this past month I also made a bacon, broccoli, and cheddar quiche to use up some odds and ends in the refrigerator and it turned out wonderfully – I apparently haven’t lost my touch (I keep a stash of gluten free pie crusts in the freezer).
  • Walk 30 miles. December was not a great month for walking, although I did get in 40+ miles at Trader Joe’s. On my days off though I nursed a very sore back almost all month, and only took occasional short walks around the apartment complex.
  • Visit one natural or historical site in the area. No local visits this month – between work and my back I just didn’t feel like going anywhere.
  • Read four books. I read two books in December, My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki, and Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki by Harumi Murikami, both rereads, and am finishing up the month and year with a new book: Everything I Learned I Learned In a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin. I’ll finish it in early January.
  • Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes. I kept up with this goal again this month and did both a grammar and kanji lesson every day. I’d like to say the kanji is getting easier, but it’s not. The Duolingo lessons are now having me do some reading and writing, with the writing requiring me to use the Japanese keyboard on my phone. Talk about a stiff learning curve!

We added one last bit to our change/$1 bill jar for the year – this month’s total was $35.01. Our total savings from change and $1and $5 bills in 2023 is $548.76! We’re hoping to equal that or do better in 2024.

January’s goals remain the same as December’s. We have our fingers crossed and are keeping good thoughts for the new year!

  • Keep grocery spending under $500. We’re going to try some new things this month to help us keep to this goal or come in under.
  • Aim for zero food waste. 
  • Have one full no-spend week. We should be able to manage this.
  • Have four no-drive days.
  • Try one new recipe. I’m going to start the new year making a sushi bake! YaYu has made one before and says we will love it.
  • Walk at least 40 miles. I should get this in at Trader Joe’s and I’m planning to pick back up walks through the complex if my back allows.
  • Visit one natural or historical site in the area. We’re aiming for the Battle of Nashville’s main site this month – hopefully on a day that’s not too cold!
  • Read four books.
  • Study Japanese every day for 30 minutes.

We have designated 2024 as a Year of Saving: more coming up soon about that! Otherwise, we plan to continue our thrifty and simple ways in 2024.

Figuring It Out

Posted on by Laura & Brett

Since deciding a trailer purchase was not for us, Brett and I have been thinking a lot about what we’re going to do and where we’re going to go after Nashville. We’ve been having some great conversations about what we should do next, but have yet to find our landing spot.

This is new territory for us. We’ve always had the next step figured out well in advance, but this time it’s been different for some reason. Nothing we’ve come up with since we’ve been in Nashville has felt like the right fit for a variety of reasons. Our ages have something to do with it; we’re in good health but have some underlying concerns that we need to take into consideration. We also own a sweet little dog that has made our life happier and richer but also complicates things a bit. Full-time travel or living overseas still excite us, but come with a whole different set of issues with a dog along. Settling down and establishing a home base might also be the best thing to do, but the huge question remains where? Everything we think about requires compromises, but many of those are still unknowns, further complicating any choice we try to make.

One more thing weighs heavily on us this time as well: the need to get it right. In the past we could make corrections but there will be no more opportunities for a major do-over. I will be 73 and Brett will be 75 when we leave Nashville and there will be no starting over again if we get it wrong.

The one positive in all of this is we’re in the best shape financially we’ve ever been. That opens several doors that were previously closed to us. However, we’re finding that having more disposable income does not make it any easier to choose the best path.

Our task for the coming year will be keeping our minds open to different and potential opportunities, and focusing on important factors like cost of living, proximity to family, weather, tax friendliness, healthcare, and such. We’re not dismissing traveling full time and will look at how that might work out for a few more years.

For now we have time on our side. With a little over 18 months until it’s time to move on, we have time enough to think everything through and make the right decisions for us the right reasons.

Final 2023 Goals Update

Posted on by Laura & Brett

I think I’m going to call this past year a draw when it come to how we did with our goals. We did better with some, less well with others, but this year’s been an interesting journey with twists and unexpected turns and delays including my getting hired by Trader Joe’s in February, Meiling’s wedding in July, and our grandson moving here from Japan. We’ve had a much busier year than we expected.

  • Save enough extra to pay cash for our Big Family Event in early January 2024. A decision was made early in the year not to do a Big Family Event in 2024, but it’s turned out we’ll be together for Christmas again this year and will probably figure out how to get together the year after as well. Savings instead went to toward our trip to Vermont for Meiling’s wedding and our visit to Maine, and otherwise it’s going toward future travels. Working at Trader Joe’s has made a measurable difference in our savings goals.
  • Buy only handmade items, either through Etsy or local venues. We bought nothing handmade this year, locally or through Etsy.
  • Source all clothing purchases from thrift stores, eBay, or Etsy (except for socks, underwear, and shoes). The only clothing we bought this year, other than two pairs of yoga pants from Costco for work, were summer items (linen pants and shirts, and a men’s linen jacket) bought through Etsy. I am very proud of myself for how often I was able to tell myself “no” when it came to buying new clothing.
  • Try one new recipe each month. I think I hit around nine or ten new recipes this year. Not a total success, but not a failure either. We liked them all but our favorites were Zuppa Toscana and the pasta with roasted artichokes.
  • Crochet a sweater. Once I started working I was busier (and more tired) than expected and I never got around to getting started on my crochet project. WenYu asked me to send her the yarn and I’m hoping for a new sweater at Christmas (cause I know she’s finished over half of it already)!
  • Stay in shape through continued walking, healthy eating, and tracking my calories on MyFitnessPal. Brett and I have kept up with our walking this year. Whether it’s been walking around the apartment complex or putting in the miles at Trader Joe’s I’ve walked a LOT. Brett gets a lot of his exercise walking Kaipo. He has lost weight this past year, but while my weight seems to have stayed the same I have gone down an entire size. Both of us are eating less than we did in the past (smaller portions, less snacking) and eating gluten- and lactose-free has completely changed how I feel overall. I don’t think I’ve looked at MyFitnessPal even once this year.
  • Reread 52 books. My theme for 2023 was to read books I’ve read before, including some from high school, college, and beyond – I wanted to see how I felt about them now. I almost immediately gave up on reading books in any sort of order, or those from high school, etc. That felt too much like an assignment. I ended up rereading 34 books, all ones I remember enjoying in the past and with the exception of one (Cover Her Face by P.D. James) all were just as enjoyable the second time around. Overall by the end of this year I will have re-read at least 35 books and read as many new titles, and I’m pleased with that!
  • Visit 12 historical or natural sites in our area. We aimed for one visit a month to either a local historical or natural site but once again, my job at Trader Joe’s had an effect on how much we were able to get out. We were able to visit Mammoth Caves National Park, Radnor Lake State Park (twice), Carnton Plantation, took a drive on the Natchez Parkway, and hiked two new (to us) trails in Smith Park.

Goals for 2024 will be posted by the end of the month!