I live near rolling hills that turn a crisp green in the winter rain and dull yellow in the oven like summers. These hills are dotted with oak trees that grow in clusters, like puffs of green cotton on an otherwise drab canvas. The windswept landscape is barren except for the most sturdy of vegetation. Many, if not all of trees lean to the side, pushed westwards by the heavy winds. In the morning the marine layer makes its way…
As I waited in line to place an order for my morning coffee, I took in the glorious sight outside and thought to myself how happy I was to finally be through airport security. It was early morning at LAX, the sun painting the sky a deep crimson beyond the terminal’s towering windows. Airplanes sat quietly at their gates. Baggage carts and trucks zipped around the tarmac, growing busier with the coming light of the day. Even in that early…
I spent $520 today at the grocery store. $520 for a week’s worth of groceries for a family of four! Isn’t that an absurd amount for any family to spend on groceries? Granted, I live in one of the most expensive states and metro regions of the country. My average weekly grocery expense normally hoovers around $250-$350. Big numbers in their own right, but I still wasn’t expecting $520 to pop up on the cash register. Those little black numbers,…
My kitchen has just a single lone window above the sink. Not that it’s a dark kitchen, no, the layout is open, one side opens to an adjacent living room, the sliding glass back doors, and a breakfast nook lined with windows. So my kitchen gets plenty of natural light. But that kitchen window above the sink is one I constantly look through as I hand wash dishes. I contemplate many a thought as cold or warm water runs over…
Finally, a post. This might be my longest stretch without posting since the inception of this blog. No, no, no, I haven’t forgotten about Happily Disengaged. Quite the opposite really. I think about my lack of writing here often. Each time I think about how I should be writing here, but then cast the thought off so that I can justify doing something else, it’s as if I place a small pebble into my pocket. A pebble of guilt. A…
There’s something dystopian about waking up on a Saturday morning and then finding out your own country has bombed Venezuela and kidnapped their president. Sounds like a dream. A bad dream. When this happened to me, I laid in back in bed and closed my eyes. My thoughts swirling and swirling, trying to absorb that absurd bit of news. My country has just kidnapped the president of another country? Strange that the US isn’t at war with Venezuela, yet this…
When I first started saving money and investing in my mid 20’s, I was fueled by some mistaken notion that I would get rich fast from the endeavor. I would buy low and sell high. How the stock market worked? I had no clue. Index funds? Tax efficiency? Diversification? Those words didn’t exist to me. All I knew then, (and probably not much more now) were that stocks prices changed over time, going up, mostly. Years have now passed since…
Fall is my favorite season for a myriad of reasons, but mostly because fall signifies change. A change from heat. A change in the color of the trees and east bay hills from dry golden yellow to a luscious rolling green. A change in age; my birthday is in September. My oldest daughter’s birthday is in October. School is in session, so our family’s routine changes back to “normal”…then the holidays come rolling around. Combine all that change with football,…
Dear readers, I have hit my FI number. Last Sunday, August 24th, to be exact, I reviewed my expenses and updated my forecasted retirement expenses on my spreadsheets. Early weekend mornings are best for this. The house is quiet. My family is upstairs fast asleep. In the summer, early light spills in through the windows flooding my house with the soft current of optimism only morning can bring. I sat downstairs at my dining room table with a cup of…
I get into work around 5:30am each morning. My walk into the office from the parking garage is an easy five minute stroll across two city blocks. It’s down a steep hill, meaning I get a pretty awesome view of the San Francisco Bay and the city itself from this walk. At that time in the morning, the street is deserted. The sun hasn’t risen yet. The streetlights glow a lonely green to empty intersections. It’s usually crisp at this…