Thankful Thursday and a reality check.

Posted in budgets, California, cancer, Gratitude, Retirement, social security by Chris N

I’m thankful that most of the things I’ve had to deal with, like changing me to primary, have been met with support and graciousness from the customer service people. Even changing the AARP was easy enough, and they even sent a sympathy card which was very sweet. Verizon was a challenge, and I didn’t end up changing much because it started to get way too complicated.

I still need to go to the bank to take him off the account, but I will make an appointment to do that. When I talked with them yesterday, the teller was very kind and told me what I needed to bring.

I’m sure there are a few outliers that still need to be dealt with, but that can come later.

I’m so thankful my LLS is back and I can give a sigh of relief that my UHC insurance will be covered. They increased my premium because it’s only me now.

The reality check is at our ages,72 and 74, there was no life insurance, no CDs to fall back on, no IRAs, no massive savings, just SS. The reality is we were never in a position to be able to have that kind of money. We really just got by. After my myeloma diagnosis in 2005, I couldn’t work at anything major, but when I got my little library job in 2007, that boosted my SS points, and that was the reason for doing that to some extent. Besides, I loved that job.

Fortunately, even with still having a mortgage, SS was enough to get by on. The reality of losing almost 1/3 of SS is tough, but I’ve mostly figured it out, and some bills are lower. This summer we’re watering way less and don’t have a vegetable garden( Barclay was starting to go downhill in the spring), and no one felt like gardening. So our water bill is less. Ditto with our Verizon bill because I cancelled his phone. Since my son is using the truck for now, he’s giving me money for that, which helps.

Thankful for what is.

12Dec2024

Thankful Thursday

Posted in books, California, camping, cancer, Gratitude, peritoneal mesothelomia, social security by Chris N

This has really been an awful year. B getting diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma was such a shock. Also, it doesn’t have a very good prognosis. Then because of this, we had to cancel all our RV trips and it’s been hard to not head out somewhere. All in all, it’s just been a hard year. As we close 2024, I’m still thankful for many things.

that he’s had the last chemo and will get a PET scan soon. So going into 2025, we should know where he is with it all.
I’m thankful that, even with me getting Velcade, I can do most things that need to be done.
I’m thankful my kids are there to pick up the slack and help us so much.
I’m grateful that even though money is always tight on SS we can pay our bills. There’s not a lot left over but we have a roof over our heads, food, and hot water, wood heat and lots more. It would have been nice to not have a mortgage at all but that wasn’t in the cards for us. At least we can pay for it.
I’m thankful for the library and the world of books. Books, even as a child, took me to places I’d never been. Today, at 72, I can say books still carry me to unknown places and show me a different perspective.

I’m hopeful for 2025, but I think it’s still going to be tough going especially when we head to Stanford for the surgery.

One step at a time, one step at a time.

My appt went ok yesterday. It was quite busy in there but I still got in on time. Dr. L asked if I had any sleep apnea. Not that I know of. I guess my hematocrit is slightly elevated and he said to consider getting a sleep apnea test. Even if I did have it, I wouldn’t use a mask at night unless it was severe. Does anyone out there have any experience with sleep apnea. My guess is the hematocrit goes up and down because of not drinking enough water. Dehydration is one cause. I never drink enough water. Plus it’s been 1 point out of range for a year. 15.5 is high normal, I’ve been 16.4. I’m not sure why he brought this up now, but I said, I’ll think about it but I really have too much going on to add one more thing. I’ll do some more research and see what I find out.

1Jan2024

2024

Posted in California, camping, cash envelopes, cooking, decluttering, frugalism, minimalism, Pantry, simplicity, social security, travel, Uncategorized by Chris N

I’ve said before that I don’t make resolutions for the new year but I do like to have some goals to work toward. First, be frugal and work within our limited income from SS. We only have so much and although it does cover all our basics including our mortgage it doesn’t leave a lot for projects. I have added cash envelopes that are for projects so that will help when I can add to them.

Second, find a new to us RV resort that we can go to within a 3-hour drive. I think we like Napa so much because it’s close and it’s a beautiful area. There are lots of trails, restaurants, wineries, shops, etc to explore. Plus we like just hanging out in the RV park because we can read, nap, do crafts etc. From the park we an walk to historic Napa and even Oxbow.

Third, besides our regular Rubi trips, we’d like to visit a National Park that we haven’t been to. We’ve been to a lot of National Parks west of the Missisippi but not all. We’d probably keep it in California so that might be Sequoia that we haven’t been too.

Of course, keeping up with healthy eating, walking, doing weights,swimming, all goes without saying as important.

Practice gratitude daily. I think being grateful for whatever it is you have keeps the desires away especially when you realize you have everything to be happy and content right now. We all need shelter, food, warmth, clothing but on what level is for each individual to decide.

Continuing to be minimal and do regular declutterings. Right now I’m going thru each room and deciding what things I want to maintain and take care of. I’ve bagged up 3 grocery bags already. I also decluttered my budget books from 2023 that I don’t need anymore. I’m working on going thru my pantry and getting a bag of things I haven’t used for the food bank. If I haven’t cooked it or have a recipe for it I’ll give it to the food bank.

So a few goals to work toward. What about you? Any ideas?

22Jan2023

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, budgets, California, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, minimalism, Pantry, prepper pantry, simple foods, social security, Uncategorized, Walking by Chris N

A sunny Sunday but cold again. Still at 32 degrees and frosty on our walk this morning. The park was all frosty but it was a nice walk. It seems Great White Duck is now missing so we’re assuming it got taken by a predator. She/he has been around for maybe 4-5 years so that’s sad.

I worked on the bedroom zone and I plan on shampooing the carpet this week. I probably will also add in the LR zone too as there’s not a lot to do in that either. I do need to dust everything though.

I popped into the Auburn gym and felt the same about it as last week. The assisted weights are old and really dated compared to Roseville. The treadmills are also ‘dated’ to some degree. I was the only one using wipes on the equipment and it seemed most of the people there were ignoring wiping anything. I saw one old guy sneezing and snotting into his tissue and then go use a machine. Ewwww:(

Tomorrow I have my labs and then I might go down to the Roseville gym. I’m not committing yet because I may want to just come straight home and do some house tidying. The thing about being more minimal is it takes way less time to clean, tidy, or organize with a decluttered house. Still, things need to get done. Yesterday I washed the sunroom windows and washed the barkcloth cover I use on the couch out there. So everything in that room is done.

I also think having routines and daily to-do lists helps keep things organized. I almost always have my menu in place for dinner and I always keep my kitchen counters clear. If I had more storage space I definitely would keep my Kitchen Aid in a cabinet. Also, I think when our small microwave gives up the ghost I won’t replace it. I also keep the tea kettle on the counter. I really can’t change that as we use it a bazillion times a day.

The pantry challenge is going well and we are definitely using up things. This week I have some Dover sole to use up and from the big freezer, I’m planning on using the last ground turkey to make chili. I’m slowly bringing in all the pantry things from the prepper pantry and putting them in rotation. I’m pretty sure I won’t do a huge prepper pantry again. But I do want to keep doing pressure canned shelf stable foods. I don’t think I’ll do tons but I do enjoy the process and it is very convenient. So far the big winners are the BBQ sauce, enchilada sauce, chicken pot pie filling, and vegetable soup.

The pantry challenge also helped with my budget and I’m coming in way under what I planned. Our next month’s budget starts next week with our SS checks and then I’ll do a final tally. Let’s hope this debt ceiling shit doesn’t affect SS as that is all we’ve got!

17Dec2022

Five on Friday on Saturday!

Posted in California, cooking, social security, Uncategorized, Walking by Chris N

Yesterday completely got away from me. I went to the rec center, came home, and got busy doing chores and pottering around.

Our weather is still freezing with mornings quite frosty and temperatures in the low 30s. We walked this morning and the fields at the park were all white with frost. Today’s high should be around 55 so that’s something at least.

After my walk, I started in on the Meyer Lemon marmalade and which is now ready to come out of the canner. I got the lemons at Costco and they are only seasonal. I’ll try and get another bag next time I’m there in January. Then I made the pumpkin chocolate bread batter and put that in the oven to bake for an hour. Next up is a gingerbread scone mix I had from last year so I thought I’d better make those too.

This past week was pretty mellow although B had 2 appts. One for his port flush and one for a bladder scan (urology). Nothing wrong except he doesn’t empty his bladder all the way. This goes way back to when he was working and on the road for hours at a time and didn’t go pee and just held it. We’ll see what the urologist says. ????

I went to Winco after my swim and bought most of the Christmas food I needed( like ricotta for the lasagna) and other misc. stuff. This has been an expensive month all the way around. Prop. tax, DMV, food, a few gifts, etc… I’ll be glad when January rolls around and a fresh start to the new year. I won’t do a No Spend but I will do a low spend of only essentials. I’m working on the amounts for our annual bills so that from each SS check we can set aside something. It isn’t a lot as we live on the SS exclusively but I’ll try. We do have the small amount from B’s 401K that is in fidelity but it’s not much:( I think it was laura over at the occasional nomads that said that the amount of SS increase they were going to save, so I think I’ll do that too. I’ll just have to look at the two amounts and subtract them. One thing that is worrisome is that when one of us dies we would only have one SS check and that wouldn’t cut it. I’m not sure if I add in the money both kids pay for rent if it would be enough. 😦 Probably if we increased it some.

Meyer Lemon marmalade

Pumpkin Chocolate chip bread from pureed pumpkin.

19Feb2021

Frugal Friday

Posted in cooking, frugalism, social security, Uncategorized by Chris N

Well,here it is Friday again. This morning I have a Walmart order to get down in Rocklin. My daughter will drive as usually I don’t drive for 2 days after dex. ( learned from past experience it’s not a good idea to drive when on steroids)!! This will be my last shop of the month. I think I’m around $650 for food this month. That does NOT include non food and alcohol. I separated it out this month as I wanted to get a better idea of all 3 categories. Alcohol averaged $100 and that was with my son’s IPA Voodoo Ranger that he likes and I buy when I see it. ( He usually pays this back). Then non food was also @ $100 and that includes household stuff. So theoretically the total is still averaging right around $900 for the 4 of us to eat, drink and use toilet paper( ha Ha). I’m okay with this so that’s good.

I did have both kids give us $100 each more on their rent for the high electric bill. This month it should go down as we haven’t had too cold of weather and the space heaters haven’t been running. Of course, our dryer is electric and we do use that a minimum of an hour a day.

I asked on Facebook which I don’t use hardly at all anymore but it is useful for the local stuff, if anyone had Meyer lemons and our neighbor did. So I’ve been juicing them and freezing it in ice cube trays. I love Meyer lemons. We have a nice dwarf lemon tree in the green house and actually got a huge crop but that’s all gone now so this was a nice treat.

We signed up for VSP vision insurance as the Cobra of vision and dental expired. I knew that the Cobra ended after a year so I was expecting it, sort of. But I signed us up. I’m not sure what the savings will be in the long run but I’d rather have the coverage at least for the next year and then we can reevaluate. I haven’t gotten to the dental yet and I’m guessing that will be more expensive. Does anyone have a recommendation.? I’m planning on staying with Delta Dental but I guess I’ll know more when I actually go the site.

Our taxes are done and filed. We didn’t owe which I kind of figured since our SS comes in fairly low. Even the small amount we took out of savings for the trees last year didn’t affect the tax burden so I was pretty happy about that.

21Dec2020

Ideas for 2021

Posted in home improvement, home stuff, simplicity, social security, travel, Uncategorized by Chris N

Actually, I never set goals.

What I do is have a running list of things that are of interest to me and then consider setting them as priorities. Goal setting or resolutions, like losing weight or exercising more, just doesn’t work for me. I do better with an idea like ‘walk in the park most days’. Since I’m pretty structured I don’t have a problem accomplishing that because it’s just part of who I am. Or losing weight. I just eat healthily and even though I could easily afford to lose 20 lbs, I honestly don’t give a flying fig. We eat healthy and always have. We eat very little sugary stuff and a good basic vegetarian diet with meat on the side so to speak. So, my idea would be maybe adding new recipes into my rotation at least 2x a month. If I do great if I don’t’ meh.

Now that neither of us works at a job, we live a quiet life with the occasional camping trip(when we’re not in lockdown or dealing with a deadly virus).

I do plan on making some camping reservations so I guess we’ll see how that goes. We had really hoped to buy a newish closed in RV but honestly I’m not sure we feel like we have money to do that. So I guess that’s a goal or at least getting out camping is a priority.

other ideas may include:

Finding some new places to walk.

having coffee dates once we can

update: ha ha, half this blog didn’t post, and of course I can’t find the original so I’ll try and do a rewrite.

Modified edition:

I don’t do RESOLUTIONS as such like New Years resolutions.

I do set some goals such as Just Keep Walking! But putting down resolutions of lose 20 lbs or exercise more ,as I said, doesn’t work for me. Probably, because it doesn’t motivate me or interest me. But when I did the Just Keep Walking Project, I walked EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 5 YEARS. It was only when I ended up with a hairline fracture in my foot I had to stop 😦

I do set FINANCIAL GOALS such as NO CC DEBT which we have kept to in all 2020. Also, trying to add little amounts to our mortgage principal. We,unfortunately, still have a mortgage but such is life. I’d like to reduce the principal. That way when we’re gone the kids( we have everything in a trust) they would have more equity if they want to sell and move somewhere else. But since there’s not a lot of wiggle room in the budget it is small amounts to add to it but still every bit does help.

I read a lot so read more doesn’t make any sense. I would like to be more creative but cooking is my creative outlet so that’s good. I enjoy knitting but my arthritis in my hands kicks in and causes some cramping after a while so I don’t do that often.

Anyway, other goals or things to try and accomplish are:

Replacing the 2 bedroom windows. They were replaced 25 years ago but since redoing my daughter’s windows and seeing how much better they are at insulating I can see those 2 need doing.

Next, a modified kitchen redo. The window, and the sink and counter. That all depends on whether we want to take on ripping all that out. We couldn’t afford to have someone do it so it would be what can we accomplish ourselves. So that’s up in the air.

After weget vaccinations and can travel, I ‘d like to try and go up the Oregon coast again. Just slow and camping here and there. But it all depends on my Velcade shots and how soon I can go do those things. So again, kind of wait and see sort of thing.

Finish the fences in the front and out by the barn. That’s doable and we can budget that in.

So, it’s some goals mixed in with wants and a to do list.

25Sep2020

Budget Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, frugalism, home stuff, Myeloma, prepper pantry, social security, Uncategorized by Chris N

I’m trying to come up with a good blog title for Fridays. I’m not sure Frugal Friday quite fits.

Overall, we are frugal because we have no income per se except SS. So maybe just Budget Friday would work. I’ll see. But budget-wise, all Octobers bills are in. We do have the 2 annual bills of house insurance and Allstate which is twice a year. With ALL the insurance companies getting out of insuring California property, for the most part, we are now having to do the California Fair Plan which is added to the AAA insurance. We went from our annual bill being slightly over $1,000 to now we are slightly over $2,000. Quite a jump.

Costco was just at $450, so that will go on October’s food budget. About $70 was wine and beer. I did buy a bottle of nice champagne for celebrating birthdays. Actually, it wasn’t expensive at $15.00. Plus there were a few prepper items and 2 bags of Starbucks coffee that was on sale. With all 4 of us drinking coffee we go thru quite a bit. But I don’t see us going back to Costco till the very end of October or even the first week of November which could then include any Christmas food or items. Prepper stuff included tuna, Cholula sauce, TP, another case of water, extra butter, and extra cheese. The only thing I didn’t get and I need is some tamari sauce. I’ll probably just go down here to the store and pay their price. The best place to get low sodium tamari is Trader Joe’s but I don’t think I’ll be getting there any time soon.

So far this morning I have made pizza dough, washed living room windows, cleaned the ceiling fan, and am just about ready to clean the rest of the sunroom.

Our lovely fall weather continues with absolutely beautiful days with temperatures in the mid to high 80’s. Next week does have a few 93degree days but this time of year that doesn’t seem so bad.

Budget-wise, I did my LLS for the UHC premium and my medicare which they cover for 2 months so that will be here in a week or so. I am very grateful to LLS for my grant (myeloma) as it does cover health insurance. If we had to pay OP for us both it’s almost $700 so I’m not sure how the budget would do. Probably we would be in the red. But there are gifts sometimes even with having cancer.

B did order the boards for the house ( 5 of them) so that was $120 about. But the siding needs to be fixed. Other stuff, even the fencing by the barn is optional and can be put off if we don’t have extra money.

If you’re looking for a new TV series, The Boys, is quite good. It’s super heroes that are darker more evil and is well done. We just started Season 2 on Netflix.

Well, that’s a wrap for now.

1Mar2020

Simple Sunday and a review of our first month of full retirement.

Posted in cooking, Flylady, Retirement, social security, Uncategorized by Chris N

So it’s been a month since Barclay ‘officially’ left UNFI. With only now SS as our income, it went ok. We did get our tax refunds, which weren’t big but it was added income and I was able to pay our April property tax early. So that’s a big win.

Essentially, our basic income with be under $3,000. Moving is not an option and plus in the housing market here we couldn’t rent a place for what our mortgage is. SS does take out our Medicare and that’s good.

We can do it if we’re careful. Annual bills will need to be paid with the small savings we have. Also, by mid-year, I’ll expect our 2 adult children who live here( well, my son lives in the Studio) but still, there are utilities, etc, to bump up what they’re paying in rent. That will give us the padding we need.

We paid off the car last year so that was a big payment.

Food is the variable that gets me. If I add in a Costco trip my food budget gets blown. Even though most of that stuff is bulk such as coffee, TP, rice, etc. It still adds up. I’ve tried to separate nonfood and that helps some. Still, if I combine that with a Trader Joes in the same month the food budget easily goes over $600.

This week was really nice and our trip to Tahoe just perfect.

Today is a gym day.

I’m also making Joanna Gaines Chocolate chip cookies. We’ll see how they compare to Tollhouse.

For dinner, I’m making crepes again with my new Lodge pan. I also ordered the crepe spreader from Amazon to spread the crepe mixture. I used the spatula last time and it did work ok but this tool allows you to have a broader surface to spread. I’m planning on ham and cheese for the meat-eaters and spinach mushroom for the veggies. I’ll also make a gruyere sauce.

This week we are in the entryway zone and dining room if you’re following Flylady.

Be sure to clean off patios and front doors. I put up the spring wreath I have that is forsythia flowers. Plus I bought a few pots of pansies and violas. So perhaps just tidy and freshen up your entryways. I try and keep shoes in a wood crate.