The other day I read a blog post detailing the “Best Day Ever.” The author is retired, and has a lovely day fishing, playing tennis, watching his wife mow several lawns. Despite the fact that I don’t fish, play tennis, or want to mow lawns (even with a nifty riding mower), I was so jealous.
Continue reading “What You Miss”Category: Future Me
Future Me, the June Follow Up
At the end of October 2018, I wrote about 10 Steps to Future Me. I was a bit worried that I would be cutting back on work but frittering away that extra time. Those 10 steps were meant to clarify my personal goals: improving myself, and/or finding new activities to give my life some purpose.
In mid-February 2019, I reviewed my goals from October, and came up with some new ones. I had planned to check in again at the end of May, around Memorial Day.
Memorial Day has come and gone, and with it a lot of time spent with family, as my Dad had a health crisis. He is doing better, and now that I am home, I thought it might be time to review my progress towards my goals.
Continue reading “Future Me, the June Follow Up”Spending That Future Raise
At the beginning of this month, I sent in a check to my mortgage company that was going to cover the “outstanding principal amount” for my mortgage. This may not be my last check–the amount listed was not the payoff amount–but the fact remains that I should soon have a lot more money available in my monthly budget.
This is likely the last time I will get such a salary bump, and I want to be smart about how I use it. Though I wrote about this one month ago, I am still turning over in my mind all the possibilities for using this extra money. The amount is not insignificant: the payment towards principal (including an amount to “round it up”) and interest is 22% of my take-home salary each month.
Since I am still thinking about it, I thought it might help me to be very specific about what I could do with it. If there are any recent residency grads about to start their new attending jobs, with their new attending salaries, I am hoping that this may help them think through what they will do with their bigger income.
Continue reading “Spending That Future Raise”Sometimes 90% is more than enough
Yesterday was my first day back after a 3-day weekend. I had planned this absence, as I had a meeting out of town. Despite having cut my hours last fall, I still found myself going home late yesterday with lots of work to do from home.
Continue reading “Sometimes 90% is more than enough”What Keeps You Going?
What keeps you going? A question that seems deep and philosophical. Which it might be, but I have a slightly different question in mind. Maybe I am asking, what helps you stick with a routine, or a habit? How do I motivate myself to continue a project?
Continue reading “What Keeps You Going?”Yes, Doctor, You CAN Have It All, Just Not All At the Same Time
After worrying about whether I could max out my 403(b) earlier this year, I was very happy to see my updated paychecks. Between increasing medical insurance premiums, increasing my FSA contribution, increasing my charitable contributions, and fiddling with direct deposit to my “secret account” where I hide money from myself, I wasn’t sure if I could afford to increase my retirement contributions as a catch up.
Continue reading “Yes, Doctor, You CAN Have It All, Just Not All At the Same Time”Future Me, the February Follow Up
At the end of October 2018, I wrote about 10 Steps to Future Me. I was a bit worried that I would be cutting back on work and frittering that extra time away. Those 10 steps were meant to move towards my idea of how I wanted to improve myself and/or find new activities to give my life some purpose and form once I am no longer working full time. I thought it might be time to review them, see what progress I had made, and think about how I might move forward on some of those 10 steps.
To be brief, there were 10 items to work on over time, but I really only planned to address 4 or 5 of them over the short term. What have I gotten done in the past 3 to 4 months?
Continue reading “Future Me, the February Follow Up”Beware the Anahafta
I recently had the pleasure of a “day off.” I use the quotation marks, because I was still covering issues at the office by phone.
After a relaxing breakfast, I was attacked by the dangerous, slithering Anahafta, which tried to choke some of the happiness out of my day.
I suspect that you, too, have had to deal with this untamable beast, though perhaps you know it by a different name.
Continue reading “Beware the Anahafta”2018 in Review
This is the time of year when people make resolutions for the next year. Usually there is talk of losing weight, saving more, getting ahead.
Before I think about resolutions for 2019, I would like to look back at 2018, and think about accomplishments I can point to with pride. I tip my hat again to Maggie at Northern Expenditure, who wrote about The-Fill-the-Bucket-List. It really did make me think about goals and achievements in a very different way.
Continue reading “2018 in Review”One Month Later
About one month ago, I dropped down to 0.9 FTE (full-time equivalent). I thought it might be time to reflect on how it’s going so far.
Continue reading “One Month Later”