The Best Month

Picking a favorite month is like picking a favorite travel destination, or a favorite child (not that anyone would ever do admit to that!) It is hard. There are things about each one that have their ups and their downs. For example, I love Italy because no matter where you go, you can find good food. It doesn't matter if it is some guy on the street selling tomatoes; they are the best tomatoes you have ever eaten. The same can be said for Bangkok street food - I could eat $1 Pad Thai all.day.long. Seoul has the most excellent outdoor fish and fruit markets. La Paz has mountains and tiny streets and Cholitas with various hats. And there are many more. I can't pick a favorite! 

When it comes to months, there is something special about a snowy day, a blue skied summer weekend in the mountains or the changing colors of the trees. However, despite the fact that I love summer and would be outside every day if I could, spring is my favorite season because it feels like a fresh start, and more specifically, the month of May is my favorite month. I may be a little bit biased, since it is the month of my birth, but celebrating my birthday is not even on the top ten for the month. Here are a few things that are on the top ten list! 

Green hills: the Bay Area has various different outdoor spaces, but is mostly either redwood forests on the coastal areas or savannah like grasslands on the inland areas. The grasslands are pretty much dry and yellow for 9 months of the year and on a hot year, it could be even less. However, in April and May, they are green for a fleeting moment and I love looking out over the green hills; it feels so fresh. 

Green hills

Flowers: The same hills described above have wonderful wildflowers in the spring. Also, my garden flowers are all in bloom too and they are so pretty (and due to the rain, I did not even have to water yet!)

April showers bring May flowers

Food: All of my edible perennial garden items have started to flower or fruit. Currently, the following are ready to eat: artichokes and strawberries. These are coming along nicely: peaches, plums, blueberries. These are getting new leaves and are showing promise: fig, apple. It's going to be a good year and the early heavy rains seemed to have helped more than they hindered (expect for my avocado, which I suspect got drowned or suffocated. So sad.) 

Friends/Family: Aside from my birthday, May is also the month of my parent's anniversary and Mother's Day. We have an annual tradition to get together with my family and a good friend's family for an all encompassing celebration and I really cherish this time spent together every year. 

Outdoor adventures: Memorial Day weekend is essentially the unofficial start to summer for me, as I often do my first backpacking trip over this three day weekend. This year I have an outing scheduled but due to our high snowpack, it may look very different than it did for the last few years. 

May 2022 backpacking in Yosemite

Running: if you like trail racing, May is the month where races kick off in earnest and in my area there is basically one in every weekend. There have been some years that I have done three races in May! This year I will do none, but many of my friends are out there getting it done! 

Weather: the weather starts to warm up, time is spent in the backyard reading books and life it good! Sometimes in May we get some freakishly hot weather, but overall it is usually nearly perfect! 

Backyard reading with Gato

Woof! 102 in May, go away!

To top that all off, I think as the sun starts shining more and the weather gets nicer, motivation levels go up, as do the serotonin levels, so when May arrives, it feels like it is time to get out of our winter shell and get ready to tackle the world. 

What is your favorite month of the year and why? 

The Money Pie Deconstructed: Groceries

Every year I do a recap of my spending, and I have broken the items into nine categories: Dining Out, Entertainment, Groceries, Health, Home, Misc., Shopping, Transportation and Travel. Last year I broke down my transportation category and went into more detail about where I spend my money in this category, how I get to work, how hard it is to park sometimes and what's in my trunk. 

Now its time to talk about groceries. Before I start, I have a confession to make. I like reading posts and watching YouTube videos about how people spend their money, and specifically how they spend their grocery money and/or how they save money on groceries. Some of my favorites are Frugal Fit Mom, Mary's Nest and FlavCity. 

I am not a doomsday prepper, but I definitely could last for a few months on the stores that I have in my house. Much of this is due to the fact that I have a good supply of camping food, which lasts for a long time, is lightweight and can be eaten by just adding water. I also have amassed a good supply of staples over the years, such as rice, dried beans and canned tomatoes. 

I am not an extreme couponer; however, I do like to sit down with the ads each week and compare prices at my local stores. I prefer to do this on paper as it is nice to be able to compare the different places side by side, but a lot of stores have apps and I will sometimes browse them instead, which is nice because you can make a list of things to buy right on the app. However, using the apps does sometimes mean toggling back and forth or making notes about which store has better deals. I usually base my weekly shopping trip on whichever store has the better deals. If one store has one of my staples at a great price, I may just shop at that one store for the week, or if the deals are split, I may go to two. 

I make a list in Google Keep and to be honest, a lot of weeks I just duplicate the list from last week and change a few things. There are a few staples I often buy so my list looks very similar each week. This app is also good if you are sharing shopping duties as you can add a collaborator and they can also add or cross off things from the list.

I generally shop at Safeway for most basics, and a local store called Farmer Joes for produce. Farmer Joes is a combination of expensive specialty items, bulk items and produce; if you want a head of lettuce, their prices and quality can't be beat, but if you are looking for a gallon of milk, you will pay out the nose for it. This makes it worth my while to go to both stores, plus they are only a block apart so it does not take too much extra time. 

I have a two tiered method of shopping: (1) fresh items that I use each week, such as milk, eggs, vegetables and fruit and (2) longer term items, such as dry goods like beans, rice or oatmeal, canned goods and meat, which I will buy in bulk and freeze. For the fresh items, sometimes you just have to pay a little more, but I try to buy what is in season and work around that rather than having a specific dish in mind and buying specific items for that dish. I am happy to eat oranges instead of apples, or use oat milk over almond milk if one is cheaper or fresher than the other. For longer term items, I try to get them when they are on sale and I store them until I need them. For example, last week Lucky's had pork chops for $0.99 per pound, so I bought ten pounds and froze them in two packs for later. Again, I don't really need specific items so will buy whatever is cheap at the moment. 

The "pantry"

I do not plan meals per se, but will see what is on sale and will then loosely plan around that. If pork chops are what I bought, that week's lunches will be pork chops and I will add whatever veggie I bought along with rice or quinoa from the long term section. I usually cook enough for one week's worth of lunches and prep them all at once. For dinners, I will normally go to the freezer where I have stored my prior deals in convenient serving sized packs, and I will take something out in the morning and then cook it at night with some other veggies etc. 

I guess I will be having pork butt soon!

I do not mind eating the same meal several times a week, and a lot of my meals consist of meat/tofu and a veggie with sometimes rice or potato. Other standbys are beans, lentils or some sort of Indian or Thai inspired "stew" (usually beans or tofu) over rice. If I am feeling lazy, an old standby is miso soup and if I am feeling frisky, I may add chicken or pork or rice noodles to it and call it ramen. 

Weekly meal prep

Lunches for the week

Let's talk about the costs, my favorite part! I love hearing what others spend on their grocery bills and why its higher or lower. I know a few of you chimed in on my purging post and I am amazed at what a range there is of how much people spend! Over the last six years, my average grocery bill per month has been about $320. This is inflated by the amount I spent in 2020; without this outlier, the average would be about $290. For the first quarter of 2023, the average is about $200, but my goal for this year is to shop more from my pantry and use up some of the items I already have rather than buying more, so I expect my grocery costs to be lower this year. 

Fun facts: in 2022, I went to Costco 17 times; my average spend per trip was $115. My three top purchased items by count at Costco were blueberries, strawberries and cucumbers and by dollar amount were coffee, strawberries and blueberries (yay fruit!). The price of two pounds of strawberries ranged from $6.99 to $10.79 throughout the year. The average cost was $7.97. 

What is your grocery shopping schedule/method like? Do you often buy the same things over and over or are you more exciting than me? What is your favorite "go to" meal? If you have not already answered this, how much do you spend on groceries? 

North Bay Overnighter: My First Bikepacking Trip

You have already met Bob, and you know that I have not really had a lot of experience with mountain biking, but that did not keep me from deciding to try bikepacking out as soon as the bomb cyclone had passed and we had a sunny weekend. I figured why not, since I already have a lot of backpacking and camping gear, so all that I needed was something to put the gear in and attach it to my bike and I would be good to go. I figured I could learn the rest as I went.

Bolinas Ridge Trail

What is bikepacking? It is basically the same as backpacking except instead of carrying all of your stuff on your back, you carry it on your bike. Your stuff includes a tent (unless you are going to cowboy camp, aka lay out your bedroll under the stars) and sleeping gear at the very least and can include a stove, pots, food, bike tools, extra clothes, electronics and toiletries. So, like I said, pretty much like backpacking. Usually the route consists of more trails than pavement, also like backpacking, but can be on highways, gravel roads, bike paths, logging roads, forest service roads or fire roads. 

Here is Bob, all loaded up and ready for adventure!

How did I find out about this? I have no friends who do this. To be honest, and I am a little embarrassed to admit this, I found it on YouTube. I was looking for ideas for summer hiking/backpacking and I stumbled across this channel where two regular people completed part of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) and I thought, "I want to do that!" and I started looking into it. I found a great local route that I could get to without driving and off I went. Of course, before this, I went pretty deep into a YouTube wormhole. You know how that goes. 

The route that I found can be found on Bikepacking.com and is called the North Bay Overnighter. It is an 80 mile route that goes from the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB) through the Marin headlands to Samuel P. Taylor park near Point Reyes and back a different way to the GGB to finish the loop the second day. These are mostly trails that I have run on before, so I felt pretty comfortable with the route-finding aspect of the trip although this also meant that I knew exactly what I was up against in some cases, which was a little bit daunting! 

Day 1: The official route starts and ends at the Anderson parking lot on the Marin side of the GGB. However, since I live in Oakland, I decided to get there by bike rather than driving. I started off by riding my bike from my house to the BART, which I took to the Civic Center station in the city. It was pretty early in the morning and the only people on the street besides me were the homeless, the druggies and the prostitutes. This is not the most beautiful part of the city, let me just say that. From the Civic Center, I rode down to Fort Mason and then went past Chrissy Field to the end of the GGB. I crossed the bridge in the fog and wet and finally got to the official start around 8:00 am with about 9 miles under my belt already. 

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the headlands

From there, the route goes up the road to the Coastal trail, and the sun was just starting to break up the fog and I had some really nice views of the bay. I then cruised down the Coastal trail, which is a very gradual downhill, although there were a few rutted areas that made me realize that I had no idea if was best to ride in the rut or try to stay on one of the side lumps, and at one point I heard another bike behind me and I was not sure if I should pull over or get off to the side or...what the rules were! The route goes down, crosses the road and then heads back up Bobcat, which is really just one big mile and a half long uphill and is a trail I have run many times, but have never been able to run the entire uphill without walking a little. However, I rode the bike without stopping the entire time and I was so proud of myself that I stopped at the top for a snack before heading down towards Tennessee Valley. 

From Tennessee Valley parking lot, the trail goes back up the Miwok trail, which was my first experience with the hike-a-bike! Also by now it was actually getting warmer and I shed yet another layer on my way up this hill. After the uphill, Miwok is a nice gradual downhill that crosses highway 1 before going back up towards Dias ridge. Dias was my first true single-track and I had "fun" learning how to manage the hairpin downhill turns, although I did  have one slow speed fall in this section. Side note: the completely packed bike is probably about 50 pounds, which is hard to control on the curves! You live and you learn, I guess. 

Dias Ridge Trail

After going down Dias you get to Muir Beach and this is where I had to break out the GPS. The trail was hard to find, as the route takes you basically up the side of a hill in what looks like someone's backyard, but I think it is just an attempt to not make you ride on the road for that section. However, it is a little strange, as you come out at the top on the road, which you then have to ride on for about a mile and a half before you go back onto the trail again. I was a little afraid of the road as I have driven on it and seen cyclists and it seems a bit scary (it is a windy coastal road) but people were polite and the traffic was still not yet too bad. 

Getting off the road and back on the trail toward Cardiac/Pantoll

The trail takes you to Cardiac and you cross the Dipsea before heading to Pantoll, which is a parking lot, bathroom, water fountain and camping area. Apparently there is hike in/bike in camping here but I was only about 21 miles into the official 40 that I was supposed to do this day, so I kept going. From Pantoll, you ride on the road uphill for about 2 miles; again, this was with cars, but there were also a lot of bikes and the cars were pretty polite. Then came one of my favorite parts of the ride: Ridgecrest Blvd. This road was mostly downhill and is very flowy, with barely any cars AND a view of the ocean for days, and then you go into a redwood forest and it's dark and moist and magical. It is super cool! It was so SO fun. 

Ridgecrest Drive

After four miles, you turn off on the Bolinas Ridge trail, which is dirt but doesn't have too many steep ups or downs and goes on for several miles. However, the very end, when you are headed down toward the turnoff to the camping, is a lot of bumpy downhill, which was quite jarring at times. When you get almost to Point Reyes, you turn off and go to Samuel P. Taylor park, where there is a hike in/bike in campground and for $7 you can put up your tent! I got there around 5 pm, put up my tent, made dinner and then spent a wonderful few hours listening to my audiobook before heading to bed. I did this trip in January and I was the only person in the shared campsite! 

Bolinas Ridge Trail

Samuel P. Taylor hiker/biker camping

Day 2: The next morning I got up early, realized I was out of fuel, drank a cup of cold coffee, strapped on my headlamp and hit the road. Well actually it was a nice flattish paved trail at first, but very soon afterward, I went straight uphill into the fire roads again. Seriously, my first 2 miles were flat, then the next 8 miles were about 3,000+ feet of climbing. Again, I embraced the suck of the hike-a-bike, but I spent a long time wondering when the joy of the downhill was going to come. When the downhill finally came thought, at first it was not very joyful. It was very rocky and rutted and I actually had to push my bike on some of the downhills! 

View from the top of the hike-a-bike near Kent Reservoir

When I got back to the Bolinas Fairfax road, I decided that instead of going into Fairfax and then back up the hill to Tam and then down again to Tennessee valley and then up again to the start line where I would then have to cross the bridge and ride the BART, I would rather skip the extra hills and the public transportation and head back home via the Richmond bridge. So I went through Natalie Coffin park into Ross and from there I took a series of bike paths into Larkspur, where I rode out onto the Richmond Bridge. Once I got to Point Richmond, there was only about a mile of street riding before I got onto the bike path along the bay. A lot of this part of the route was on the San Francisco Bay Trail, which is a trail that goes all the way around the Bay Area. Some of it is on an actual dirt trail and parts of it are on roads and bike paths, but all together I believe there are over 500 miles! 

Larkspur bike path

View of the city from Richmond (SF Bay Trail)

Once I got to Emeryville, I had to go back onto the streets to get to Oakland, but I have to say most of them have pretty good bike paths, so it was not too intimidating. However, I was definitely ready to be done and I even briefly considered taking the BART although by this point it would not have saved me any time or even very many miles! To add insult to injury I let Google maps tell me which way to go and it took me right up a hill that I normally try to avoid (MacArthur Ave.) However, avoiding it would have added a mile probably, so maybe in this case it was really half a dozen of one and six of the other. It sure was nice to get back home though and I celebrated by taking off my bike shorts and walking around without pants for a few minutes before making myself something hot to eat. (TMI? Too bad!) 

Thoughts/What I Learned: Sometimes riding on the road can be fun. I need to bring more food next time. I am stronger than I think I am. When riding down hills, lift your butt off the seat unless you want to be sore later. Samuel P. Taylor is very beautiful. Pushing a 50 pound bike up a hill makes my arms feel like noodles. It also makes me VERY hungry. I probably need different shorts (I am wearing hiking shorts over bike shorts). A screw top water bottle is a lot of work (will bring squeeze bottle or hydration bladder on next trip). 

Comments: Bikepacking.com says that this route in 99.9% rideable with a difficulty of 4/10. I would agree with the latter, as is it mostly fire roads and there are not too many rocks or things to avoid, so even a beginner like me can do it. However, 99.9% rideable is perhaps a stretch as I don't know who can ride up the 14% - 20% grade at the beginning of day two. Maybe I am just out of shape, I don't know, but 99.9% would mean that less than a tenth of a mile is not rideable out of the entire 80 miles. 

Total Miles: 98.3

Total Elevation: 11,300 ft.

Total Time: 15 hours

CalTopo Route

Download the Ride With GPS GPX file here. I get ideas and inspiration from: Bikepacking.com, Ryan, Chris and his buddy Rob, John and Mira. 

Have you ever gone bikepacking? Tell me about a YouTube or internet wormhole you have found yourself deep in, and how did it turn out? 

Connections

Have you ever taken the Meyers Briggs test? I am an ISTJ; here is what the website says about that: A Logistician (ISTJ) is someone with the Introverted, Observant, Thinking, and Judging personality traits. 

Regarding friendship: Logistician friends are not spontaneous. They are not talkative, or particularly playful in their affection. What Logistician friends are is loyal, trustworthy, honorable and dependable. Others may come and go with the ups and downs of life, but Logisticians stay by their friends’ sides no matter what, with a deepness of commitment that other types may not even believe is possible.

Logisticians are a very methodical personality type, and this loyalty isn’t given away lightly. Often slow to make friends, Logisticians usually end up with a smaller circle, but they consider that circle to represent a promise to be there for the people they care about, and Logisticians’ promises are not easily broken.

I know sometimes we fit ourselves into our horoscope or other personality boxes, but I have to say, the above really does describe me to a tee. This may be something for another post, but one of the other things it talks about is integrity and how ISTJs follow through and don't understand people who do not do what they say they are going to do (yes!) so this personality description really does tick a lot of the boxes for me! 

But I digress; what I wanted to talk about was blogging. Why do people write stuff about their life that is personal and put it out in the ether for others to judge? For me, I started blogging when I was traveling around Southeast Asia as a way to communicate what I was doing and where I was to multiple people at the same time, instead of writing an email newsletter or something more tailored to a few people (here is my first blog post). My only readers were probably my parents and my grandma, who would never comment but would talk to me or email me about things later, so I knew that I had at least three followers. My grandma has since passed away, but my parents are still here somewhere (hi guys!)

I would guess that for the first few years I got a handful of comments from people that I actually knew and none from anyone I did not know. This space was more of an online (public) journal. 

Then I got my first comment from a stranger. It was so satisfying; I had made a connection! I answered them right away and was excited when they commented again on another post. I started reading their blog and commenting and they would answer me back. Back in these days, all comments from readers went into my email inbox and the way to respond to comments was to email the person back. Sometimes we would have a long private back and forth about a lot of personal things and would learn a lot about each other that was NOT put out into the ether. It was very satisfyingly. 

A short while after that, I met up with some of my online friends in real life! My other friends and family thought I was crazy, and one of them even asked me if I worried that my blogging friends may be psychos, but the trip went so well that since then I have met up with several other people that I have met online! There is something about the connection you get when you hear a lot of people's inner thoughts and you learn about their everyday life, as well as the interaction you have along the way. 

Minneapolis - September 2011

There were years when I just did not feel like putting myself out there (in 2019 I only posted once), but I have still kept the connections that I have made. This year I decided to start writing a little bit more again, and I have met many new people that I feel are kindred spirits! 

However, going back to my ISTJ personality, I am slow to make friends and I am not one to have a lot of friends with shallower or lighter connections; I like to have a smaller handful of closer connections. I find this also translates to my online connections; I don't read or comment on a hundred blogs or write just to see how many comments I can get without answering them. I like to have the interaction and the back and forth, and I have been known to stop following someone who seems to be just trying to win a popularity contest. However, some of the connections I have made over the years have resulted in friends for life and that is the coolest part of this story. I know that meeting people online now is de rigueur, but back in the day (when I walked uphill both ways in the snow) it was not as normal, but I am glad that I put myself out there back then, and will continue to do so now. 

If you have taken the Meyers Briggs, what personality type are you? If you have not, please do (it only takes a few minutes) and tell me what your result is and if you think it fits your perceived personality! 

Why did you start blogging and/or why are you here reading? Have you ever met any of your online connections in real life? 

My Last To Do List: Trusts & Other Documents

As I have mentioned before, I have a folder of all of my important docs and a list of all of my accounts and important details. I often call this list "the death list" because it is the list of things to do after I die, but this sounds kinds of morbid, so I will retitle it the last to do list. I hope that this list will not be needed for a long time, but I am happy to keep changing it if that means I live a lot longer. However, I also do feel that it is important to have your affairs in order, just in case. This post is about item one on the last to do list, setting up a trust. 

Before I get started, if you do nothing else or do not feel like reading this long post, at least do these two things: (1) Set up beneficiaries on any retirement accounts or Transfer on Death (TOD) designation on your other accounts. This allows worry free and probate free transfers of your money to someone else and even if you do not have a will or any other paperwork, the money will get into the right hands. (2) Complete an Advance Directive (see below for more info) form which will detail what you want done in case you are incapacitated (i.e. DNR).

But now, let's talk about why any of us would need a trust. A trust will help you to avoid probate. Probate is what happens when you pass away and the court has to approve your will and name or approve your executor. The costs of probate differ by state but in California, costs are based on the gross value of the estate and are 4% on the first $100,000 and then there is a sliding scale after that. Let's just say your assets are worth $100,000. That would be a $4,000 cost!! Also, this process can take six or nine or even twelve months, which can be a pain for your loved ones. 

The alternative is to set up a trust. I always thought that a trust was something rich people had for their spoiled kids. This is not the case! A trust is something that protects you, outlines your wishes and minimizes taxes (and avoids probate!). When you die, your successor trustee (the person you want to carry out your wishes) can start doing what you outline right away without getting the court involved. Depending on your situation, setting up a trust should not be too difficult or costly. I spoke to two different trust attorneys and the going rate is around $1,500 - $2,000 depending on your situation and the number of properties you have (in CA it costs $200 per property to change the name on the title). Of course, you could probably also just Google it and fill out something online that would work, but I wanted the peace of mind that comes with having a professional help me. Plus, my job offers legal benefits, which are similar to health benefits where you pay a little bit month. This costs me about $360 per year, so the attorney fees for setting up a trust only cost me $360. 

Additionally, not only will the attorney help with the trust, but they will also complete an Advance Directive, a will and a Power of Attorney form for you. If you have not already set these up, even if you do not have a trust, you should at least have these three things. 

Why do you need these? Let's talk about each one separately. The Advance Directive conveys your wishes regarding your health in case you become incapacitated and outlines who has the right to make health decisions on your behalf. You can easily get these documents from the internet. Nobody wants a case of Terri Schiavo on their hands. Here is an Advance Directive form that I used in the past. These do vary from state to state so you should use one for your particular state. The other things you should write down and keep with your AD are things like: do you want to be cremated or if you want to be buried, where do you want to be buried, do you have a plot already, etc.?  

We all know what a will is, so I won't go into too much detail; however, you may think that it doesn't matter because everything will just go to your next of kin, which is true. But having a will makes things easier for the people you leave behind, specifically appoints an executor (otherwise the state may do this for you) and can detail who will take care of your children, what your wishes are for your funeral etc. Again, you may think that you won't care because you will be gone, but it will make things easier for whoever is left to take care of your affairs. You can also note anyone you do not want to have anything, like creepy uncle Phil for example. This article is very helpful, and also has a free online version of a will that you can use to get started. 

The Power of Attorney tells people who can make financial decisions on your behalf if something happens to you. We all think we are invincible but what happens if you are in a car accident and can no longer make your own decisions? The other option is to add someone as a joint account holder on your accounts, which will give them the freedom to use the money to pay for your care, pay your bills etc. However, if you don't feel comfortable with that, you should appoint a POA. 

Okay! Let's go back to the trust again. Setting it up does take a little work, i.e. you do have to know who you want to get your stuff, who you want to handle your affairs etc. But once you have decided that, the actual process of doing the paperwork is very easy. For example, I had to give the attorney all of the information about my bank accounts (not numbers, just where the accounts are held), any investment accounts, any properties with addresses and any specific bequests. For who I was going to bequest anything to, all they need is the person's name. No social, no address, no phone. For anyone I wanted to give POA designation to, it was the same. So it was really not as complicated as you may think. 

Also, just like most legalese, there is always a phrase to cover you. For example, very common language goes like this: I gift my 13 inch TV to my brother and if deceased, this gift shall lapse. What does this mean? It means if he is no longer around, the gift goes back into my estate. You can set this up however you want and the "if deceased" can literally be a list of 40 people who you want to have in order of importance, or you can give everything to a charity like Warren Buffet. 

Do you have any of the abovementioned items? What steps have you taken to arrange your affairs? Do you have any tips to add or questions about the above? 

Disclaimer: The information above is solely an opinion based my own personal experience. You do you. I am not a tax and/or financial advisor; nothing in this post should be taken as investment advice. I have no fiduciary responsibility to anyone reading this post. Please consult a financial advisor for investment advice.  For my other posts regarding money, go here. 

Looking Back: Purging Progress Report Q1

I am a big fan of accountability. People who say that they are going to do something and then don't do it really get my goat. This can be a meetup, a big project, or even something as simple as (and this is a real example) picking up pastries for a client meeting. In this case the person attending the meeting said he was going to bring the client pastries. I spoke to the client before the meeting and talked up these pastries and then the person going to the meeting did not take the time to stop and get them after saying that he was going to, so now I look like I am not accountable. 

Listen, I don't live under a rock; I realize that stuff happens and sometimes we get waylaid, we get stuck in traffic or our priorities change. I am a realist; I get this. However, being a realist, I also try not to overpromise and underdeliver. In fact, I will often say no if I am unsure if I will be able to commit, which may make me a glass half full person in the eyes of some, but I guess I would rather disappoint people in the front end than at the last minute.

All of that blather is a lead in to my main point which is that earlier this year I talked about doing some purging and since we are now one quarter into this year, I am going to be accountable by doing a quick progress check and update. My three areas I wanted to work on for the first three months of they year were paperwork and files, go bag and kitchen/fridge/freezer. 

Paperwork and Files: The goal here was to throw away and/or reorganize old hard copy files and to update and organize my yearly electronic spreadsheets (address list, money pie list, account list etc.) Note that this gets less hard copy and more electronic as each year goes by, but I do still have hard copies of some of my home, car and medical related paperwork as well as some tax and financial items. 

How am I doing? Good! I did all of this and even went through some of my memento boxes where I keep old holiday cards and stuff and threw a lot of those away. I had a good time reliving some memories and in some cases only shuffled things around and then ended up keeping them anyway, but I do think that each year when I go through this kind of stuff I pare it down more and more. I used to keep all thank you notes and I finally threw them away after reading them one last time and taking a quick photo of any that were really sweet. I am really trying to adhere more to the "touch once" principal where instead of moving an item somewhere just to move it somewhere else, cut out the middle man and just put it where it is going to be for good (which is often the trash can!)

I love this card! (I did throw it away though)

What is next? I still have a lot of memento boxes (these are my Achilles heel), some of which are in the garage, and I need to go through them and either put them in an album or throw them away. They are not doing me any good in a box and speaking of the touch once principal, it is probably time for the final touch for some of these items. Also an extension to this category is electronic files, which I need to tidy up. For some reason before I had the cloud for photos, I saved them in several places (!) and I need to cull the duplicates. Unfortunately they do not have the same file name and so it is not as simple as just sorting and culling. I also have an ongoing task of unsubscribing and culling emails, which is something I do a few times each month. 

Go Bag: The goal here is to make sure all of the items, documents and information in my go bag are current and updated.

How am I doing? Good! This go bag is twofold - one is emergency supplies like food, candles, flashlight, etc. and the other is important docs like my passport, birth certificate, deed to my house etc. I also keep a list of all of my accounts in this folder so that if I have to leave in a hurry I will have everything in one place (this also doubles as my death list, which I will talk about in a later post). Most of this stuff is also electronic, but I do like to keep a hard copy as a backup. I updated all of the food that was close to expiration and made sure all of my batteries were in good shape and updated my folder, so I am all good here. I also started up my generator and charged my Caterpillar supercharger thingy so that they are ready if I need them. I hope that I never need to use any of this stuff, but I think it is good to be prepared just in case. (P.S. I could write an entire post about the Cat charger - it is awesome.)

What is next? The generator and Cat charger need to be started and charged once per quarter, but the other stuff is pretty much good to go unless there are any major changes. 

Kitchen/Fridge/Freezer: This involves throwing away expired items, and eating things in the freezer rather than buying more. One of my traits (faults? habits?) is that I do like to have a few extra cans of olives (or beans or tomatoes or...) laying around just in case I feel using them (I am not a fan of going to the store after I have run out; I would rather go before I need the item) so I have amassed a pretty good backup of certain items. I also like to purchase things when they are on sale rather than when I need them when I would have to pay a premium, but it is a delicate balance between being a smart shopper and being a hoarder. I am working on being more of the former than the latter! 

No more room! (Also, clearly I need to use more butter)

How am I doing? Good! In the first three months of the year, I spent approximately $575 on groceries and used up a lot of cans of olives! I cleaned out the fridge and freezer and took stock of what I have so that I can better plan my meals and grocery shopping trips. I also finally used those frozen peaches from my tree and made peach cobbler and lots of baked peach oatmeal! However, I did do one Costco run for meat (which was about a third of my grocery spending for the quarter) and caved a couple of times and bought items like tortilla chips just because they were on sale.

What is next? I will continue to do light grocery shopping and will try to use up pantry and freezer items for the next three months. I still have a lot of beans. One of my tasks for this quarter is also to go through my camping food and gear and prepare for summer trips, so I will take stock of the food I have (in a box in the garage) for that too and can probably consolidate some things. 

What is your take on accountability? How much do you spend on groceries each month? How are you doing on your goals so far this year? 

Flying Solo

The first time I traveled abroad I went solo. Of course, these were the days when people could take you to the airport and sit with you while you waited, so my parents came with me and waited with me for part of the time. But then I was a free bird, flying east to France to seek my destiny. I arrived in Paris with two huge suitcases, which I had to drag around the city and then onto the train to Bordeaux, where I would be living for the next few months. 

Paris

Since that day, which was many years ago, I have spent a lot of time traveling solo. Sometimes it is nice to have a buddy to share time and experiences with, and usually when you are alone you can easily find a buddy to share with, but sometimes you just want to do things on your own. Also, sometimes nobody has the time or the money or the desire to do what you want to do, but I prefer not to let that stop me! I feel that although it is sometimes difficult and scary and strange, it has many benefits as well. 

Namibia

Things are hard. Yup, things are hard! You have to figure out in a different language how to get to your next destination or find a product that you need or ask a question. I was in Peru and I needed gas for my stove for a multi day hike and I went to the outdoor equipment store and was ignored at first and then stumbled over the words like a two year old (gas? gaso? fuego?) and then found the gas to be very expensive. I decided to take a pause and recollect my thoughts. I went back to my hostel and saw some gas cannisters at the check in counter and tried again. It turned out, they were half used cannisters left by other people and the guy gave it to me for free! After that, I felt like I was superman, just for something that at home would be a simple chore. 

Laguna Churup, Peru - 4,450 meters (14,685 feet)

There are sometimes scary moments. I was walking on a beach in Brazil when I was catcalled by a bunch of guys just hanging out on the shore. I don't think you need to understand the language to get what they were saying. However, I held up my head and walked past them and of course checked my back when I felt it was safe. On one hand, maybe they were just the "construction workers" of Brazil, but without knowing what they were saying or what the customs were, I knew I should be careful. When I was younger I was so embarrassed when this would happen at home, but while traveling I got through it, and was proud of myself for not just giving up and going to sit in my room alone. 

Barerrinhas Lencois Marahenses, Brazil

You are your own cruise director. There is nobody to help you with the planning, which is sometimes a bit daunting, but on the other hand, you are your own boss. If you want to pivot, you can, and you will not be beholden to anyone but yourself. I traveled to Sweden for a 12 day long hike and about six days into it, it started to pour down cold rain nonstop. By day ten I was wet and cold and tired of setting up my tent in the pouring rain, so I decided to get off trail two days early and go and get a hotel with a warm shower. Did I finish what I had planned? Nope! Did I still have a great time? Yes. Was I disappointed in myself? Not really. But if I had been with someone else I may have done things differently due to external influences. This has allowed me to be more confident and sure of myself and to learn to live up to and learn from my failures, manage changes of plans and deal with obstacles along the way. This also means that if you want to throw in the towel on one activity and go lay on the beach and eat bonbons, you only have yourself to answer to (and myself says, "I love bonbons!")

Sweden - beautiful, but rainy in September!

Even introverts can make friends. I can spend all day in a room by myself with my book and not be unhappy. However, I can also strike up a conversation about nothing with a stranger and soon have a fast friend. I stayed in many a hostel and made plans with a new to me friend to go and see the sights and before we knew it we had spent weeks together. In Rome, I arrived late and everyone in the hostel I was staying at was already asleep. The next morning, when I got up, there were all kinds of people, and I sat and chatted with them while eating breakfast and found out they were basically going to all of the places I had planned to go, so we decided to go together. I ended up not only hanging with this group of people for a couple of days but also went with one of them to my next destination of Naples and spent a couple of days together there. It is so easy to meet people and often when you are with someone else, you stick to yourselves. However, when alone, you are sometimes more open to meeting others! 

Frasier Island, Australia

Of course, being alone does have it's issues. For instance, when biking alone, when you need to go to the bathroom, there is nobody to watch your bike! The same thing goes for luggage, although I have learned a lot since my first two-suitcase-trip and I can usually carry my pack into the restroom with me. Hotels are more expensive when you can't share, and sometimes going out to eat alone is not super exciting (tip for this: sit at the bar and then you can talk to the bartender, the guy next to you, or nobody, depending on how you feel). 

Uyuni Salt Flats, Bolivia

One thing  many people have asked me is whether or not I feel safe, and I can resoundingly say that I do. There are less times than I can count on one hand when I have been bothered or felt unsafe; in fact I have felt less safe in certain places in the U.S. than I have in places like Africa or Central America. Don't let the fearmongers get you down; get out and fly! 

Have you ever traveled alone? Why or why not? Do you enjoy it? What do you consider the most challenging part of traveling / traveling alone?

3/23/23: The Trifecta Of Terrible

Today is a palindrome! I am a fan of these kinds of fun things with numbers and words. I know I have mentioned this before, but if you are not already playing Octowordle, I suggest you do it now. It does not have to be a wormhole; you can just play one game per day while concurrently keeping Alzheimer's at bay (hopefully). 

But that is not was I was going to talk about. Everyone has a pandemic story, and for many people the "three year anniversary" of their story just passed. I do not disagree that the 13th or the 16th of March were monumental days for most of us, myself included, but for me another day I will never forget was March 23rd. For those of you who don't know, I work in the finance industry. As you may remember, this was a difficult time in the stock markets. 

Here's a quick recap. The stock markets were doing well and were basically going up and up and up.  Then the decline started at the end of February, when the stories of COVID cases around the world started to increase and hit the news more and more. In the next four weeks, as news stories kept surfacing and cases kept rising, the stock market was halted four times. This happens when the index drops more than 7%, usually from it's previous day's close, and it causes the entire market to pause all trading for 15 minutes. I have only seen this happen a couple of times and it generally signifies something very bad; this can also happen with single name stocks, but that is not quite as worrying as the entire market shutting down. 

On March 9th, Italy went into lockdown, the markets took a dive and were subsequently halted, oil prices plunged, and Dr. Fauchi told cruisegoers that maybe they should rethink their vacations. On the afternoon of March 11th, I flew to New York City for work meetings and my friend's wedding, which was scheduled for Pi day (March 14th). My flight was nearly empty. By the time I left for the airport, the S&P 500 had dropped over 9%, WHO had declared COVID-19 a pandemic and Trump had suspended flights from Europe. 

Flight San Francisco to New York on March 11th

The next day in the office in Manhattan was not a pretty one; the markets were halted again and everyone was scrambling to figure out where this was going to go. I will not lie though, that evening I went for a work dinner, with hugs and no masks and shared appetizers. We just did not know what was coming. 

That evening, my friend texted to say that she was worried for me because they were shutting down restaurants in Brooklyn and that she and her fiancée were thinking of canceling their wedding. I was still skeptical and thought maybe she was overthinking things (she IS a worrier!), but I asked her to keep me posted. The next day, Friday the 13th, Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency (and the markets actually went up) and my firm stated that only essential business travel will be allowed. My worried friend told me they were canceling their wedding and I should get on the first flight out of there. 

I did what she said and left the next day (luckily my getting home WAS essential to my company!) I was in the office on Monday early as I usually am, when we got the word that people should all stay home and that the office would be closed, effective immediately. Since I was already there, I said I would stay and they let me. I am glad they did. I was not too worried about my health as I was alone in my own solo office so I did not feel unsafe, but also this day turned out to be even worse than the others; all three main indices dropped over 12% and were halted again that day and it would have been really hard to do my job not only from home but on a new system that was not even available to us before this day and so we had not practiced using! 

The week of March 16th was not awesome, and was full of stress and anxiety and yet another market halt, but the bottom of the markets came on....you guessed it, March 23rd! Of course we did not know it was the bottom; it was just another bad day in a string of bad days. But I will never forget this day; I will never forget this entire experience, but especially this day. In my time working in finance, or maybe in all of my career, this was the worst period I have ever experienced, both financially and emotionally. It was unpleasant and emotionally draining. Added to a world that was in the midst of a pandemic and going through this all while in lockdown, it was a trifecta of terrible. 

Screenshot taken on March 18th 2020

Photo sent to my parents at the end of the week of March 16th - yes, that's a pint glass.

I know that many people have kids and had to deal with that, or had to work and couldn't afford to stay home, AND had kids. I know that many people have loved ones who died. There are so many stories about coping and hardship and loss, and my story about people losing their money is not the worst of it. This entire period and beyond were horrible, as my grandma would say, and I am definitely not minimizing anybody else's horrible. This is just one story of many. 

What is your pandemic story? What part of the COVID-19 experience will you definitely never forget? What day or event sticks in your mind the most? 

Disclaimer: The information above is solely an opinion based my own personal experience. You do you. I am not a tax and/or financial advisor; nothing in this post should be taken as investment advice. I have no fiduciary responsibility to anyone reading this post. Please consult a financial advisor for investment advice.  Sources include Reuters, The Week and CNBC. For my other posts regarding money, go here. 

A Day In The Life: Morning Commute

Sometimes it feels like groundhog day around here. Get up, brush teeth, coffee, commute, work, go home, run, eat, read, sleep...and repeat. However, I am not really very excited to start my taxes so...I guess I will continue my routine. To me, this seems like the mundane, but it is fun to sometimes hear how other people do tasks that are just part of everyday life. For instance, Stephany and Engie recently talked about doing laundry, of all things. But it sparked a discussion about how many times we wash our sheets (about once a month), whether or not we separate whites from colors (no) and how much we love (or hate) folding and putting stuff away. 

One of the mundane things I do every day is commute to work. I never really did the work from home thing, even during the pandemic, although my commute was different then due to the lack of available public transportation and of course the lack of wanting to be in public (or being allowed to be). I am lucky to have a car and I had to use it during the pandemic. 

However, now we are back to "normal" again and I am back to my old shenanigans. Here is what that looks like. First, I have to get to the BART (train) station. I do this in two different ways, depending on what I have going on after work that day. If I drive, it takes about eight minutes, and I park on the streets in West Oakland and take the BART from there. For those of you who don't know this, West Oakland is the last stop in the East Bay before the BART goes under the bay and into the city. Because of this, this station is the best because on the way home, you can take any train going east and you will have to go through this station no matter what. Also, from here it is only about eight minutes into the city once the train comes. 

West Oakland BART

If I ride my bike, I go to a different station, which is closer to my house. This is about a seven minute ride and is mostly downhill. I lock up my bike and take the train into the city, which is about 17 minutes from this station. 

Either way, I usually listen to an audiobook while driving or riding and then read my book while on the train. I have been struggling lately to pick up books in print, so this is my way of trying to keep the habit of reading daily, not just listening to books, which I find myself doing more and more often. I get off in the city either at Embarcadero or Montgomery station. 

Financial District (FiDi)

As an aside, I have been trying to make sure to get 10,000 steps a day. Although this is an arbitrary number made up by someone, it is good for me to have a target; otherwise, it is easy to cut corners or just go home and sit on the couch. I say this because the Embarcadero station is about 0.10 mile further to my office than the Montgomery station, so I try to get off at this one to get those few extra steps. Every step counts right? The other thing I do is take the stairs instead of the escalator and luckily the trains are either up on rails  or underground so I get to take plenty of stairs. By the time I get to work, I usually have about 2,000 steps. 

My walk to work goes through the financial district in San Francisco. At the time of the morning that I go in there are not too many other people on the streets. It generally consists mostly of construction workers sitting in their cars (I assume they go early so they can get parking) a handful of homeless people, usually on the same corner by the 7-11, and one or two finance people (I am guessing from the way they are dressed). 

I actually really like this portion of the commute; the city is quiet but still beautiful. I walk amidst tall buildings and I can jaywalk all I want because there is not much traffic. I sometimes walk past the Equinox, a gym that costs about $200 per month, but is housed in a beautiful building that looks like it belongs in Greece or something. 

Equinox gym

I get to my building, where I say good morning to the security guard as I swipe my pass. I then go up to my floor, where we have a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz (not from our office, only from the conference room). From our side of the building you can also see Union Square and the Salesforce Tower. I get a cup of tea from the kitchen and I get to work! All together, this commute normally takes about a half an hour, but is a bit longer in the afternoon when there is more traffic. 

View of Transamerica Tower (was the tallest until 2018)

View of Salesforce Tower (tallest in San Francisco since 2018)

Are you bored yet!? What is your morning commute like? Tell me about something "mundane" that you do regularly.