Archive for the Category »travel «

Gasoline In The US: It’s Cheap!

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As gas prices inch closer to $4/gallon, I hear lots of people complaining about the cost of filling up a tank.  But scroll down through this infographic to the bottom, and look at the cost to fill a tank in the UK:

50 liters for £68.45.  Fifty liters is 13.2 gallons, so about the size of the average small/medium car tank.   And £68.45 is $110.   A hundred and ten US dollars to fill a 13 gallon tank. Perhaps we shouldn’t complain?

Of course, maybe it would be a good thing if we had to pay that much for gas. Maybe then we’d get better access to mass transportation, and maybe people would be more willing to walk or bike if they only had to go a few miles.

Category: travel  23 Comments

Traveling Light With A Baby Or Toddler

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I love this post from Miss Minimalist about how she goes on weekend trips with nothing but a large purse.  We have a toddler, so traveling does involve a bit more stuff than we would take for just ourselves, but we’ve always managed to travel relatively light, even with our son.  We just spent a three day weekend visiting my husband’s parents.  Our son is still in diapers, and cloth diapers do take up quite a bit of space (but I like them a lot more than disposables).  We took along a large tote bag filled with diapers and cloth wipes, but other than that, we each had one small back back for our stuff.  My father in law wanted my husband to go golfing with him, so we had to take his golf clubs and shoes.  We also had to take our dog (I’m pretty sure the cat loves it when we leave her here for a few days on her own, but that wouldn’t work so well for the dog).  We took my husband’s tiny Audi, and still had enough room left over that we were able to bring home several boxes of canning jars that my mother in law no longer needed (tomato canning season is right around the corner… stay tuned for my forays into that adventure).

I have found that people – even those who are fans of traveling light – start schlepping LOADS of stuff once they have a baby.  I’ve watched vehicles get packed for a three day trip and the entire trunk is filled with baby stuff.  And it doesn’t look like fun.  Let’s face it, traveling with a big purse like Miss Minimalist uses is a lot more convenient than dragging a huge suitcase all over the place.  So why not try to continue to keep it as light as possible, even with a baby or toddler?

Here’s what we’ve done to minimize the amount of stuff we have to take with us on trips since our son was born:

1.  This past weekend was the first time we’ve ever taken a stroller anywhere (I use a jogging stroller all the time when we’re home, but it’s bulky and not something I’d want to try take on a trip).  We got a tiny umbrella stroller (it folds up into a cylinder just a few inches in diameter) at a thrift store for two dollars, and we stuck it in the trunk next to the golf clubs so that I could take our son for a long walk while the guys were golfing.  This would not have gone with us if we had been traveling by air.  Other than this trip, we’ve always used a sling to carry our son, or else he rides on my husband’s shoulders or walks along next to us.  I’m a big fan of the Moby Wrap that I got secondhand when our son was a few months old, and he went everywhere in that until he was about 18 months old.  A wrap or sling can be stuffed into a diaper bag – you can’t do that with a stroller.  Having a baby on your chest or back makes traveling pretty easy.  Not only does the sling take up almost no space, but you also have your hands free to carry other stuff.

2.  Co-sleeping means that you don’t have to haul a portable crib.  Or if you’re going to visit family or friends, you can see if they might be able to borrow a portable crib from someone in the neighborhood during your visit.  Hotels will usually bring roll-away cribs.  Or you can pretend you’re camping and kids can sleep on a blanket on the floor.  Be creative!

3.  Breastfeeding.  This one is pretty self-explanatory.  If you’re breastfeeding, there’s no need to bring bottles, formula, bottle warmers, a cooler, etc.  And if you plan a trip that involves staying near your baby most of the time, you can also avoid bringing the breast pump.  Our son nursed for two years, and he never drank from a bottle.  This was truly not a challenge at all for me – nursing him was something I loved (after the first couple painful weeks!) and it never seemed inconvenient at all.  That said, I nursed him anywhere and everywhere.  I had no problem nursing him in public, and I never even got so much as a sideways glance (lot of smiles though!) for nursing in public.  When we flew in March, I was still nursing our almost two-year-old, and it definitely made the plane ride easier.

4.  Kids don’t need as many clothes as we think they do.  Yes, babies do have blowouts.  But they really aren’t that common.  And tiny baby clothes are pretty easy to wash in a sink.  Babies also spit up, but that doesn’t mean that you have to immediately change the outfit.  Usually it can be cleaned with a wet cloth and all will be fine.  Toddlers get dirty.  That’s just the way it goes.  Our son is attracted to dirt, mud, leaves, sticks, and dust.  If I changed him every time he got dirty, I’d do little else.  So I just don’t worry about it.  I do keep a spare outfit in his diaper bag, and it sometimes comes in handy (like the day he stepped into a pond wearing jeans, socks, and shoes, and went in up to his waist).  But I had a spare outfit in his diaper bag all last winter and he never needed it at all – he outgrew it before we ever used it.   So when we went away for our three day weekend, he wore one outfit, and we packed two more.  Three outfits, three days, and it worked perfectly (if one had gotten hopelessly wet or dirty, he’d have just worn another outfit two days in a row – no big deal).

5.  Shoes.  Our son wore one pair of shoes (the Keens that I got for two bucks earlier this summer) and we packed a pair of sandals for him (these, found in brand new condition at a thrift store for a dollar) as we knew we’d be spending some time at a park with lots of water fountains.

6.  Toys, books, and other entertainment.  We never bring anything like this with us on trips.  We have an iPod Touch and we’ve downloaded several free toddler apps to it.  We took that along when we flew to visit my in-laws last spring, and it worked great as airplane entertainment.  We took the iPod along for our weekend trip, and it came in handy when we were out to dinner and waiting for food.  But most of the time, our son is really good at entertaining himself.  I think this might have something to do us not having a TV.  We encourage him to use his imagination a lot, and spend lots of time playing in the backyard.  He had no problem with the four hour car trip each way, because he liked looking at all the scenery.  And once we got to grandma and grandpa’s house, he entertained himself playing with pine cones and sticks in the backyard.  It’s really never occurred to us to pack toys when we go anywhere.

So all we took along for our son this past weekend was the tiny umbrella stroller, a tote bag full of diapers, and a small back pack that held stuff like his clothes, jacket, pajamas, swim trunks and sun hat.  The bag full of diapers was by far the biggest thing, but hopefully we won’t be needing those for too much longer.  It’s definitely possible to travel light, even with a baby or toddler – you just have to think outside the Babies-R-Us box.  Not only is is much more convenient to travel with very little stuff, but if you’re flying, it’s also less expensive now that airlines are charging so much extra for checked baggage.

Category: baby, kids, travel  16 Comments

Back Home Again

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We’re back home, after a very successful knee surgery for my husband.  We spent two days in my sister-in-law’s condo in a town about 30 miles from the hospital where the surgery was done, and managed to do so without spending much money.  We packed food to take with us, and I went for walks with the dog and the baby to pass the time while we waited.  All together we spent $24 on a pizza last night before we came home (a splurge, but the leftovers were today’s lunch), $7 on a sandwich from Subway as a treat for my husband when he woke up from surgery, and gas money. 

I had grand ambitions of working on the computer while I waited in the hospital – that’s what I did back in January when my husband had his other knee worked on, and I was able to get a lot done.  But during that surgery, I was pregnant.  This time, I had a five month old baby.  I guess it was a bit naive of me to think that I would get anything done on the computer.  At home, I’m able to set him on his mat on the floor by my feet while I work on the computer, but I didn’t want to put him down on the floor in the hospital.  Plus, I figured that I should keep him close to me since his normal routine was turned upside down.  So I spent the last two days holding him, carrying him around in the sling and showing him the sights.  He was a big hit in the physical therapy room, making everyone smile. 

But now we’re back home and getting back to normal (plus crutches and an ice machine).  I participated in the Carnival of Money Stories this week, hosted by Mrs. Accountability at Out Of Debt Again (one of my favorite blogs).    I really enjoyed Money Ning’s story about cancelling cable TV and cutting back on cell phone minutes and saving $100/month in the process.  There are so many things to do with our time besides watching TV.  Well done!  I also enjoyed the article from Free Money Finance about a family they knew who went through a foreclosure.  It sounds like a complicated situation and makes me glad that we’re planning to stay in our first home with a mortgage that gets relatively lower ever year, thanks to inflation and a fixed interest rate.  Another great post is ay Affiliate Marketing Xpert, discussing the things he’s learned from paying attention to personal finance.  A great refresher for all of us.

The Splurge Debate

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I just came across an interesting couple of posts at Being Frugal and Smart Easy Money that really made me think.  The original post was at Being Frugal, and then the counter point is at Smart Easy Money.  Basically the question is whether you get any additional value for buying extremely expensive stuff (the example cited was a $1000 stroller), or if it’s just a status symbol.  Overall, I very much tend to agree with Being Frugal.  I see no value what so ever in a $1000 stroller, a $500 pair of jeans, or a $10,000 watch. 

But one of the points made at Smart Easy Money is that she spent quite a bit of money to take 9 months off and travel, instead of using the money as a down payment for a house or to fund a retirement account (the “sensible” options).  She feels that the experience was well worth it – and I agree.  After college, when most of my friends were getting job offers and setting up 401k plans, I spent two+ years in Africa with the Peace Corps.  There was no retirement plan, but I wouldn’t trade my experiences during those two years for anything.  I came back to the US and got started on my career in the spring of 2001 – nearly three years after I had graduated from college.  And yet I don’t see the time I spent as lost money or wasted opportunity – it was an amazing experience, and worth every penny of income that I would have earned had I gotten a traditional job right out of college.

But as for “stuff” – I just can’t see how it can really make a person happier to have a pair of $700 jeans as opposed to a pair of $50 jeans.  I have friends who tend to be much more extravagant than I am.  One has a penchant for Kate Spade bags and shopping sprees at Nordstroms.  Another recently spent $1000 on a medicine cabinet.  And yet neither of them is as happy as I am – not even close.  In both cases, they seem to be shopping in order to fill a void, and are always searching for the new outfit that will make them feel great about themselves.  But that feeling is never going to come from an outfit, no matter what the designers would have us think.  If you don’t already feel good about yourself and your life, a new outfit – even the best that money can buy – is only going to provide a temporary boost. 

Another issue I have with the idea of extravagant spending is that a good number of people who buy expensive stuff can’t really afford it.  If you’re Madonna and you want to buy a $1000 stroller, go for it.  But if you earn $50,000 a year, that stroller is a significant amount of money, and you probably can’t afford it.  And I’ve written about how much I dislike gift registries, and I don’t think it’s cool at all to ask other people to pay for your extravagances.  Let’s face it – if everyone were smart with their money, we wouldn’t be a nation of debtors, with bankruptcies and foreclosures around every turn.  The fact is that there are plenty of people who can realistically only afford jeans at thrift stores (the only place I buy mine – I consider $10 to  be expensive), but who are buying the $175 jeans instead.  And there are people who can afford $50 jeans who are buying the $350 pair instead.  As a one-time thing, it’s not a big deal at all.  But when you extend that kind of money management over a lifetime, you end up with people in their 50s who have a house full of stuff and only $20,000 saved for retirement.  Not a good scene. 

So overall, I would agree with Smart Easy Money that travel and new experiences are often worth it – even if they’re expensive.  But I agree with Being Frugal that spending huge amounts of money on “stuff” is generally a waste.  They both raised interesting points of view – head over to their blogs to check out the debate and add your thoughts on the matter. 

Kitchen Duty

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I just got back from spending a few days with one of my best friends who just had a baby – hence the lack of posts this week.  This is baby number 2 for my friend and her husband, and I knew that they could use some help.  I wasn’t able to do much for the baby, since he pretty much just needed a breast every 2 – 3 hours, and wasn’t particularly interested in mine. 

I took the two-year-old for some long runs and walks in the stroller to give the new parents a few hours each day to just sleep while the baby slept, but other than stroller time, the toddler didn’t want much to do with me either.   She’s going through a pretty clingy phase with mom and dad – probably because of the sudden change in her status as an only child. 

Mostly, I cooked and cleaned and worked in the garden.  It felt good to help my friend, and to know that she was catching up on some much needed rest while I worked around the house.  When she was awake, we did lots of catching up and chatting – we’ve been friends fro 12 years but we live 3 hours apart now, so we don’t see each other as often as we’d like.

I spent about $35 in gas to get to and from my friend’s house, and I used two vacation days at the library.  Very much worth it.   

Category: travel  4 Comments

Girls Weekend Update

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I’m back from my weekend with the girls.  We had a blast – it felt like we were back in college, and we laughed until our sides hurt.  We went for a great hike on Saturday, and the town we were in was having an arts and crafts fair while we were there.  One of the girls went to a spa for a massage and facial, but the rest of us skipped that part.  We only ate out one meal, dinner on the first night we were there.  We went to a local budget diner – dinner was about $10each.  Here’s the breakdown of my spending for the weekend:

  • my share of the condo: $130
  • groceries: $40
  • dinner out: $9
  • bottled oxygen for my husband: $26
  • two beers from the brewery for my husband: $9
  • two stuffed toys for my pregnant friends’ unborn kids: $18
  • coffee and a muffin during a walk around town: $5

Grand total:  $237.  Awesome – that’s under my budget.  I drove, so one of my friends put gas in my car, and we all kicked in for groceries, which was much cheaper than eating out the whole weekend.  The oxygen might confuse some people, but it’s something my husband is always looking for.  He loves the idea of extra oxygen as a health enhancer, so when I saw that they were selling bottled oxygen in one of the mountain supply stores, I had to get it.  It seemed odd to pay $26 for what felt like an empty can, but my husband was thrilled, so it was a good purchase. 

When we were at the craft fair, two of my friends bought expensive pottery.  One of the girls is in a relationship with a guy who was cleaned out by his ex-wife, and she’s not sure if the relationship is going to work out because of the financial issues.  But she spent $150 on a few pieces of pottery.  It amazes me how people can manage to forget about their money woes when confronted with something that they’d like to buy.  Out of the five of us, only myself and one other girl made it through the weekend without spending at least $100 on “stuff.”  I found that I wasn’t even tempted.  I used to be, but not anymore.  I admired the stuff at the craft fair, but I really didn’t have any desire to buy anything (except for a $1200 painting, but that was more of a whimsical wish than a real desire, considering the price tag).  I can remember a weekend my husband and I spent in another mountain town 6 years ago.  We spent about $200 on “stuff” at the local art gallery.  Ironically, some of that stuff is in a box in my garage right now, waiting to go to the thrift store, because I’ve reached a point where I don’t want stuff cluttering up all my tables.  It’s a good place to be – a lot less expensive, and a neater house aswell. 

Races and a Budget-Challenging Weekend

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Ok, so much for my decision to not run any more races for a while.  I have no idea what went wrong on Monday, but I had my worst-ever 10k finish.  They haven’t posted exact times yet, but my watch was showing about 48 minutes.  Ouch.  That’s almost 4 minutes slower than I should have gone.  I don’t know why the wheels came off.  I felt good, I didn’t cramp or have any obvious problems during the race – I was just SLOW.  Anyway, so now I’m obsessed with redeeming myself in my own eyes (as far as my friends are concerned, I did just fine and they wouldn’t care if I had run it in an hour and 48 minutes).  But I have found some other local 10k races in June and July, and I’ll be signing up for those soon.  I guess I was ok with the idea of not running any races for a while as long as I had a great last race.  But I can’t stop now!  So I will have to include a few race entry fees in my budget for this summer. 

I’m leaving tomorrow for a girls’ weekend with some friends from college.  We’re going to a little mountain town for a few days to hang out and catch up.  Two of the girls are 6 months pregnant right now, so I doubt we’ll do much bombing down mountains on our bikes.  More like sitting around the lodge scrapbooking.  I’m looking forward to seeing them, but it’s always a challenge to stay within our normal budget when I hang out with these girls.  One works for the DEA and between herself and her husband, they make about $160k.  Another is a physician’s assistant and her hubby is a doctor (both part time, so they make around $100k).  They would think nothing of a $700 weekend.  The place we’re staying is $180/night – luckily there are 5 of us staying there, so the total lodging should only be $110each.  But then one of the girls wants us all to go to a spa for an afternoon.  She’s already booked a massage ($70) and a facial ($50).  I think I’ll be sitting by the pool reading a book during that time.  My budget for the weekend is $230, which should be doable.  I’m one of the drivers to get us up there, so my friends will help with gas money.  We’re only going out toeat once, so that will help.  We’re each bringing food to cook, so I have to go shopping today for that.  We’re not leaving until tomorrow afternoon, but everyone is spending the night at our house tonight, since we’re closest to the airport where two of the girls are flying in.  Tomorrow morning, everyone wants to go shopping, so I will be wandering through the mall for a few hours, but since there’s nothing I need right now, I won’t be buying anything.  That will help with sticking to the budget.   I’ll tell you all about it next week. 

Category: hobbies, travel  One Comment

Munifest!

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We got back last night at 1:30am from our long weekend in Moab for the 2007 Munifest.  If you’ve never heard of Muni – mountain unicycling – you’re not alone.  I had never heard of it either until last spring when we were mountain biking and saw some guys riding their unicycles on some crazy terrain.  My husband was fascinated, and later that week we went to the local bike store to buy a $100 started unicycle.  I knew it would be money well spent, because whenever he gets an idea into his head, he’s got a focus like no one I’ve ever known.  He spent hours last summer teaching himself to ride, then to hop, to ride backwards, to jump up and down stairs… he can’t get enough.  His ultimate goal has always been to ride the unicycle in the mountains on the trails we bike, which are pretty tough riding even with two wheels and handlebars…

So earlier this year, he upgraded to a $300 unicycle made for riding in the mountains, and he has also acquired all the leg/ankle/wrist/arm padding that makes us both feel better.  Considering the amount of time he’s spent on the unicycle over the last year, our total cost right now is probably about $2/hour - absolutely worth it for all the fun he’s had.  He found out about Munifest last fall, and we decided to go, together with our dog.  We left on Thursday afternoon, with all our camping gear, hiking stuff for me, unicycling stuff for him, and lots of food.  I’m happy to report that we didn’t succumb to fast food at all.  We “cooked” every meal, mostly cereal, sandwiches and fruit.  The total cost for food was a lot less than it would have been if we had eaten out.  And it was much better for us too.   Camping for three nights cost us $39, and that included great bathrooms with hot showers and flush toilets, and a water tap right outside our tent.  Some people stayed in hotels, but we were just as happy in a campground (well, maybe not quite as happy when it was raining and muddy outside, but almost…), and saved a few hundred dollars in the process. 

Overall, the trip cost us about $260, including food, lodging, entrance fees, and gas.  We had an absolutely wonderful time, and both agree that it was money well spent.  And considering we got to spend three days in Moab, doing stuff that we love to do, we think we got quite a deal. 

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The Good Life

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We’ve been in Arizona this week, visiting my in-laws.  They’re from Wyoming, but for the past few years they’ve been spending the winter in AZ, in their motor home.  They have a sweet motor home and a sweeter place to park it down here.  They’re in a 55+ community of motor homes and trailers with every activity under the sun within a few minutes walk.  90% of the residents live somewhere else in the summer, when it’s 120 degrees here.  But from December to April, this place is bustling.  At any one time, there are about 5 activities going on.  There are two pools, several hot tubs – one that holds about 30 people – a huge steam room, a gym, community rooms with all sorts of club meetings.  There’s a wood shop and a stained glass workshop.  There’s a lapidary and a whole row of shuffleboard courts.  We’ve been having a blast. 

I wouldn’t necessarily choose AZ as a place to retire – although it’s pretty nice here right now, after all the snow we’ve had at home this winter.  But being here is a good reminder of why we save for retirement.  The people who spend their winters here have all saved enough money to be able to maintain two homes and pay the $500/month lot fee here.  They’re able to travel between their homes, pay their bills, and live comfortably – chances are they’re not doing it on social security alone. 

For compulsive savers like myself, saving for retirement is a must.  But I think a lot of people feel that it’s too far off, and that they might as well enjoy more of their money now.  For all those people, visiting someone who planned well for retirement and is currently enjoying the payoff is a good motivator.  Here’s to our IRAs!

Category: goals, travel  One Comment

My Thoughts On Goals

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I’ve always been a goal setter. Be it school, work, or money, I set goals. I don’t normally write them down, but they’re always front and center in my head. I just read a post by Millionaire Artist about her new goal screensaver – very creative. It got me thinking – should I write down my goals? I am a chronic list-maker, and I still stick notes all over my desk (much to my husband’s chagrin, as he’s been trying for ages to get me to use electronic ‘post its’). Over the last few years, when we had lots of business start-up debt, I had a notebook where I kept track of exactly how much we owed to each creditor, and what the interest rate was. Each time I made a payment, I’d record the new debt amount, and each month I’d add up the current total. Even when the numbers were big, it made me feel better to be able to see them on paper and watch them slowly shrink. We currently have only one debt left besides our mortgage – we owe about $2800 to Discover Card. But we pay less than a dollar a month in interest on that debt (as long as we make one purchase a month, we only pay interest on the new purchases, not the original balance transfer. We spend between $1 and $2 each month for our required purchase). Since the HELOC portion of our mortgage is at 8.53% right now, we’d rather put extra money into that account, or into our ING account. So we only pay $100 or $200 a month on the Discover bill.

Anyway, since the vast majority of our debts are gone, I’ve stopped writing in my notebook. It was satisfying for a while to see all the zeroes, but now that there’s only the mortgage and Discover Card, I have the numbers in my head and don’t need to write them down anymore. I did start using a net-worth calculator last month, which I’ll keep doing, because I liked seeing everything in black and white. But what about goals? Maybe if I write them down, they won’t always be swimming around in my head, throwing themselves into my thoughts at random times – like when I’m about to fall asleep.

So here are my current goals:

  1. To open Roth IRAs in Feb (with the tax refund I expect we’ll be getting), and fully fund our IRAs with a combination of money going to traditionals and Roths (we already have automatic transfers to the traditional IRAs).
  2. To bump up our ING contributions to $150 (currently at $100) per month. This is our emergency fund money, so we don’t have any particular goals that we’re saving towards here – just a cushion for the proverbial rainy day.
  3. To save $3000 to pay the midwife we plan to use when we have a child, hopefully within the next 2 years. We plan to have a home birth, so insurance will not cover any part of the midwife’s charge.
  4. To increase our total net-worth by $20,000 in 2007. At least $8000 of this should be from decreasing the principal on our HELOC, which is currently our highest interest rate debt.
  5. To run a 10K in under 44 minutes. My current best is 45:58. There’s a huge race at the end of May near where we live, and I’m hoping to take 2 minutes off my current PR. I’m working on this one right now, by taking a much-needed rest day.
  6. To continue writing on this blog. It helps me see what we’re doing right, what we need to tweak, and I love the feeling of community that I have already gained from reading other similarly-minded blogs over the last few months.
  7. To return to Tanzania, where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the late 90s. I have many friends there whom I would love to see again. And I want to show my husband where I lived and the school where I taught. This goal doesn’t have a definite time line. Hopefully it will be within the next 10 years though. We’ve taken some great trips in the last couple years (New Zealand, Hawaii, Jamaica, Georgia to go to the Masters…) My father is from Ireland, and all of his family is still there, so I’ve been to Europe a few times as-well. I feel really lucky in terms of places I’ve been and things I’ve seen, which is why I feel that I should work on the more practical financial goals on our list before I devote 5 grand to going back to Africa. But it’s on the list, because I might as well dream big, right?
  8. To have the option to retire when we’re 55. This doesn’t mean that we absolutely plan to stop working in 25 years, but that we can if we want to. Staying in this house and continuing to live frugally will put us a lot closer to this goal, even if we never make 6 figures a year.

These are the things that swim around in my brain, vying for my attention when I’m drifting off to sleep or pacing myself through a 5 mile base training run. I enjoyed writing them here. I think I’ll write the gist of each one and put them on the fridge, where I can see them everyday. As I look back over my list, I feel very lucky. My list does not include things like ‘lose 40 pounds’ or ‘quit smoking’ or ‘save a down payment for a house’ or ‘get out of credit card debt.’ We have a really good life – everything on my goal list is frosting on the cake. My husband and I make our moderate income go a long way, we I have each other (way better than all the money in the world), we have our pets, we’re both healthy, we’re four years into paying off our mortgage, we have hobbies that make our lives full and entertaining, we have great friends… we have a lot to be thankful for. And with some hard work, some fun, a little luck, and goals posted on the fridge, 10 years from now we’ll have even more reasons to be thankful.