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I actually have been spending our alaska miles like a drunken sailor.  I have 12k miles left after booking things for next year.  But i was curious how much have I spent and how much have I saved?  2026 has been an insanely busy travel year.  
Rome Mom $5805 for 400k miles
Cabo $8723 for 490k miles
Hawaii $3200 for 190k miles
Iceland $7096 for 245k miles
Japan $12160 for 500k miles
SFO $2000 for 75k milesSo what did i save for 2026?  $38986 and...
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This is turning into the year of major capital improvements.  I knew these things were coming up, but hadn't planned to do them all this year.  (And I'm not doing *everything* this year, just a major chunk of what I've planned to do.
So I already posted about the front door replacement, which is the only really visible change.  The back door was replaced the following week.  It's just a plain white door replacing another plain white door, so it didn't make...
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Not yet official, but here they are! Next year is my first year being eligible for catch-up contributions. I remember when 50 felt so very far off...now I'm almost there. It feels like it snuck up on me! It was hard to imagine being able to max out my retirement plans in my 20s yet here I am. 

Projected 2027 Retirement Plan Limits



401(k), 403(b), and 457 plan employee deferrals: Projected at $25,500 (up from $24,500 in 2026).




Defined contribution...
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Investments $2,311,834
Savings $8,723
Home Equity $151,000
September 2026 Net Worth $2,471,557
August 2026 Net Worth $2,498,836
Monthly Gain/Loss -$27,279
The market was down slightly for the month. Once again $2.5 million alludes me, but what a problem to have!
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No preamble, let's get right into it...
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OK, start with current finances...
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My finances are doing ok but now in the back half of this year most of my pension is going to taxes, so my savings are slowly bleeding out.  I will need to sell some stock before year end, but it won't be too much.  And I had planned for this.  But I swear, even pinky swear, next year will be different.  
So...
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Today was a very warm day for October, reaching 80 degrees. It may be the last really warm day this season, so I decided to clean up my vegetable raised beds, harvesting all the green tomatoes and pulling up the plants.
For the entire season, I harvested 887 cherry tomatoes and 43 plum tomatoes, which got a very late start. I think that beats last year, though I did not check my post here a year ago. Most of the 300 or so cherry tomatoes I picked today were green, and I did not...
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Last Saturday was the big day...DH's daughter's wedding. At 10 p.m. Saturday night after all had left we looked at each other and said, "Glad that's over."
Fortunately the weather was nice and the farmers around us didn't chose that day to harvest the corn. The ceremony was meaningful and the bride was lovely. The party went well, but I don't think it went as was expected. I think the bridge and groom discovered a couple of things that marrying in one's 50s and having previous...
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Well, this was a meh month for net worth. We basically erased the $12K of gains from last month. I'll really be interested to see where this year ends vs where it began, because I don't feel like we've had too many great months. At least we're still in Coast status by both my future calculations, with the lower estimate being that we have a $280K surplus in retirement savings, so that's good.
Most of the loss was retirement accounts and a few grand was borrowing from the HELOC...
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While trying to fall asleep but failing to do so, I decided to write down my retrospective of this weekend's fishing and kayaking fiasco er festivities.
Unlike the camping trip, which took literally weeks if not months to plan out and prepare, this one kind of came together at the last minute, using nothing more than the proverbial duct tape and hopeful thinking.  However, it also helped that my adventure buddy was the one providing and transporting the kayaks.
I still had...
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I'm back from a wonderful waterfall trip in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Together with two prior trips this year that included waterfalls, I can say I am hooked!
You might think it would get repetitive after a while, but that didn't happen, as each setting was unique. Some involved rigorous hikes of several hours, starting at the top and ending at the bottom (of course you had to climb back up to where your car was parked), while others could be seen from the road and...
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I never did an August update.  I thought we might be in the black in August.  We were, but it was a close breakeven month.  (Technically, +$400 in the black).  Looking through the details, this is clearly mostly because it was a one-income month.  But other budget busters were a $300 office chair purchase (long overdue) and $1,200 in impromptu vacation spending (priceless; taking advantage of some calm during a very terrible year.)  Though we almost...
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That time went by quickly!
My aunt is doing better. She was moved to another location, closer to her daughter. 
We did turn off our landline. However - the phone is still sitting where it's been for the last 25 years! Haven't discussed getting rid of the actual phone with Mr. H. Daisy has been paying her part of our joint cell phone bill.
I was asked by my sister and her husband in January, and agreed, to come stay with my mom for 2-1/2 months while my sister and her husband...
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Ok first of all, are your electric bills also high?  Talk about a shocker (heh heh), last month was at nearly $200 USD!  It's not like I use all that much electricity to begin with, so what's going on here?
Anyways, Foodie buddy and I finally visited this new Chinese/Japanese buffet... wait, have I told this story already?  In case I did, I'll just make it short then, which is basically that it was very nice but very busy, but because it's so busy and it's still...
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Harvest is currently going on around us. We live in Central Illinois where the two main crops are corn and soybeans. It has been very dry not to mention hot, so the combines are kicking up lots of dust and dirt around us. The other night when they were picking soybeans a few fields over, it was like we were living in a fog. Having a clean car is almost impossible during this time. 
My DH's daughter will be getting married in a week at our place. We have worked hard on some...
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Today's been the kind of rainy day I like. Nothing torrential, just a nice, steady rain since early this morning. Like days of yore. It's a nice change from the every-weather-event-is-extreme weather of recent years. I really wish more was being done about climate change. The average person doesn't feel like there's much they can do about it, so we all go about our lives.
I took a break, skipping two consecutive gym workouts because my FitBit was telling me my "readiness score"...
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Another week of pretty skies...
I just noticed that we had reached the max of our grocery credit card reward, and so it is time to take those credit cards out of our wallets for the rest of the year.
I don't know if it will be worth keeping this credit card longer term, but I presume it will be useful for at least one more year.
I haven't made any credit card changes in a while.  I can see that empty nest spending (in another year or two) will be different and it will...
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We usually try to get together at least once a year. We have been meeting for several years now at a certain small town in northeastern PA, which is roughly midway between us. We've browsed the shops there, dined at the best spots, hiked Raymondskill Falls and even rented bikes to explore the neighborhoods with. 
This year, I proposed we meet at Bushkill Falls, also "roughly" midway between us. Just for something different. We met there yesterday and caught up with what's...
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My life is a string of imposter syndromes.  I was a cop, but I never felt like one, nor quite fit in as one.  I played musical instruments, but I never really liked it.  Instead, I loved martial arts, but even that was only to a point, because I was so hyper-focused on self defense, that I never quite fit in with the true martial arts crowd either.  And while I do practice frugality, well, I too feel like an imposter here as well.
In this case, I am not technically...
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It's September now, but this coming week is going to be so hot.  Will it cool down anytime soon?  I hope so because my fellow camping buddy finally got back to me, and somehow, he is still down to try to go fishing later this month.  I understand perfectly that he's a busy man, and so, I'm not surprised at all that I haven't heard from him in months.  In fact, I thought he'd forgotten about it completely, but nope, he just got back to me and talking like he's...
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How can it be we are already at the first Monday in September and Labor day weekend is here? One of the local drugstores on their sign said "Summer ghosted me." How appropriate!
It's been a busy week here working on things, picking some vegetables, and just trying to survive in the heat. The back garden has been pulled up other than the pumpkin plants. I planted some seeds for a fall garden, but without rain, I doubt if anything will come up in this heat. 
I so have 4 tomato...
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