And in Other Life Happenings

I'm writing this post sitting in a McDonald's while my daughter is taking her ACT test. I was going to go to a coffee shop, but it was crowded, plus, I was a bit hungry and couldn't see spending $2.00 for coffee, plus another $3-$5 for a breakfast  pastry or sandwich. For under $2.25, I have coffee and a breakfast biscuit, plus still have free WiFi. Yes, McDonald's but their coffee is pretty decent, and a breakfast sandwich here or one reheated at a coffee shop is probably about the same quality.  I ran the few errands I had and could do in this town, and taking advantage of some time to do some household admin, work on my book, and, read some blogs. This is a random life happens kind of post. Thanks for joining me. 

For those that thought my coffee hack was a silly waster of time and  just go buy a new coffee pot for heavens sake, I get it! Sometimes it is just silly to try and save money and limp along with weird little hacks. This time, I was ready to commit to buying a new coffee maker of some sort, so this was only going to be temporary. But, Anne asked me if I had reset my Keurig after trying to clean out the hard water deposits that may have been the culprit. Eureka! A few more water cycles and fresh water to get the last of the vinegar out and I have a single use coffee maker working quite well again! I feel this odd sense of accomplishment that I didn't succumb to spend, spend, spend, replace, replace replace. If I want to buy something, hacks are a great tool to "buy" a little time, while trying to find a more permanent solution or use. 

While the project manager situation is still not resolved, and by resolved, the best I can hope for is getting him back for two weeks in July to do a more thorough knowledge transfer, the payment issue was resolved. Apparently it was a simple fix-a line of code to tell System A, that system B had made the transfer to System C, and System C made the payments,was missing. Had someone in IT understood how the systems intersect when the issue first surfaced, it could have been resolved as soon as identified. Instead, we spent over a week with people digging around, retracing code, being stumped, and ultimately figuring it out. My sleepless nights aside, I would estimate the cost of wasted staff time, multiple people, multiple hours, in the thousands. 

I never did find the oversized white shirt in thrift stores. I've been looking since spring. When in the big fancy grocery store in this town where I picked up laundry soap and TP on special, plus a fresh baked artisan Ciabatta bread, I looked in the "boutique" section. right on the rack was exactly what I had in mind, and clearance at $16. While much more than I was hoping to spend, it is a nice linen shirt that will be perfect for the rest of summer alone, as a cover up over a sleeveless shirt, or even as a light jacket. In fall and winter, it will work as a dress shirt under a suit jacket. To me, it was a bargain. There is a big Goodwill here, so when I leave McDonald's I'm going to take a look. I'd still like another cotton dress, one that could be casual with tennis shoes, or appropriate for a meal out with some sandals. I'll keep you posted if I find any worthy options. 

I like doodling math calculations and figuring out future spending needs. I still would really like to retire in nine years, DH in five, the summer after DD2 graduates college. While we have had experts calculate that we will be fine, there are investments in life I'd like to keep making after retirement that makes me think we need to bring in some additional income between my age 61 and age 67. Health insurance, and the big unknown of that cost is the culprit that makes me distrust our saving rate. Ideally, if we could either save or combination of save or earn approximately $675,000 by the time I am 67, in 14.5 years, any twinge or early retirement fear will go away. Considering the years DD2 is in college may be a spending/savings draw, we likely have no possible way to save that kind of money. Therefore, I'm noodling all the way we can have more passive income streams, or second career opportunities that we can do anywhere.  That will be part of DH's role in his four years of retirement before me-to figure out some of this stuff. He's good at it, but works too many hours now, plus has extended family commitments, and his own daughter to occupy his time and mind. Keep tuned. But hay, if you could encourage a few more readers to join you in following me, maybe I can grow this audience and have one of those careers as a Digital Nomad that the younger generation has mastered.