Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Heading To China
We booked this trip through a travel company that offers both structured and unstructured days so that travelers can fashion their trips in the manner they feel most appropriate. I went ahead and signed up for all of the optional activities, sacrificing most of our free time in the process, because I wasn't confident about my ability to deal with the significant language difference, as well as navigating buses and trains on our own. (All the travel books I referenced warned that the bus system in China is difficult to master, and rather unreliable to boot.) We do still have some free time in our agenda, which I'm looking forward to using to get out on our own, walk about, and meet some of the local citizens. My daughter assures me that since we will stick out like sore thumbs in China, we will draw a steady crowd of people interested in seeing how our visit is going, or who may simply want to practice their English on us. I'm hoping she's right, because having exchanges with the local residents, even if limited due to language barriers, is one of the aspects of travel I enjoy the most.
Photos and a trip report when we return in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, feel free to poke around the website of the travel company we're using, Virgin Vacations, to see if anything looks appealing. But consider yourself forewarned . . . poking around after booking our China trip is precisely how we ended up booking our next trip . . . more on that one a bit later.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Are Food Prices Rising?
A friend posted recently on Facebook that they were shocked at how food prices are rising at the grocery store. Mike then mentioned that both Chipotle and McDonalds, two national fast food restaurant chains, had failed to make their projected 3rd quarter earning figures due to rising food costs.
I have to tell you that our make-it-mostly-from scratch, vegetarian household has not yet felt the rise in prices - we're still squarely on, or under, budget. In fact, as is usually the case, I was well under budget this last week at just about $75.00 for a week's worth of groceries.
A couple of disclaimers - we do not include non-food items in our Grocery budget. Paper goods and cleaning supplies are allocated to either Home Items or Home Maintenance, depending, and beauty products like shampoo, makeup and shaving supplies are allocated to our Personal Care account. I will say, however, that I almost exclusively buy all of these non-food items in bulk when they are advertised as loss leader items by a particular supermarket, and can't remember the last time we've run out of anything, or had to buy it at full price. We also allocate all alcoholic beverage purchases to Entertainment.
Here's a breakdown of last week's menu, and the corresponding shopping list to give an idea of how we're achieving this:
Menu
Daily morning coffee, flavored with coconut milk. We also keep a pitcher of coffee chilled in the refrigerator to make late morning iced coffees. And in the summer, we make sun tea and keep in on hand and chilled as well.
Breakfast:
- Cereal or soy yogurt, topped with fruit, nuts and flaxseed
- Soy based smoothies
- Steel cut oatmeal topped with fruit, cinnamon, nuts and flaxseed
Lunch:
- Leftovers from dinner
- Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit and a home baked treat (when we're at school generally, and packing our lunches)
- Tortillas with vegetarian refried beans, cheese and salsa (my at-home lunch staple)
Dinner:
- Spicy black bean veggie burgers, roasted sweet potato fries, Mexican Caesar salad
- Terriyaki rice with vegetables, tofu and toasted sesame seeds, kale salad
- Vegetable fajitas, black beans, Mexican Caesar salad
- Eggplant Parmesan, spaghetti noodles, Caesar salad, garlic bread
- White bean soup with rosemary and pasta, kale salad, garlic bread
(We had the fajita leftovers repackaged as quesadillas on day six, and enjoyed the soup again for dinner on day seven - it made a ton!)
Desserts:
Banana bread made with some ripening bananas
Blueberry muffins made with some ripening blueberries
Trader Joe Cranberry/Pistachio biscotti
Shopping List
From Sprouts Farmers Market
Golden flax seeds
Great northern beans
Roasted salted pepitas
Coconut milk
Soy yogurt
Vegetable bouillon cubes
Vine ripened tomatoes
Flat leaf Italian parsley
Jonagold apples
Eggplant
Red & green bell peppers
Red onions
Red seedless grapes
Romaine Lettuce
Kale
Rome Apples
Yellow onions
Total of $21.21
From Trader Joe's
Graham crackers
Dark Roast Coffee Beans (Which I then grind fresh at the store before leaving)
Bananas
Black beans
Cranberry-pistachio biscotti
Baby carrots
Trail mix
Frozen berries
Mini tomatoes
Trader Joe's Toasted O's cereal
Total of $26.56
From Ralphs Supermarket
Butter (on sale for $2.50 a pound)
Morningstar Spicy Black Bean veggie burgers
Diet Coke (on sale at three 12-packs for $11)
Total of 23.28
From Albertsons Supermarket
Two loafs of bread (on sale at $1.98 a loaf)
Two raw carrots
One stalk of celery
Total of $4.33
Grand Total of $75.38
I'm generally able to stock up on one or more sale items each week, and plan my menu around items on sale, plus items I already have on hand. I spend about 15 minutes perusing the weekly grocery circulars for sales, 5 minutes eyeballing my pantry, spice cabinet, freezer and refrigerator to remind myself of what I already have, about 30 minutes planning out my menu from my hugh assortment of cookbooks, and then about 90 minutes shopping for my items at the four places above, all located within just a mile or two of my home.
Other tips - buy nuts, beans and spices from less expensive bulk bins, available at stores like Sprouts and Henry's Farmers Markets. Frequent the mark down tables for bread about to expire, and simply pop it in your freezer until you need it. Buy marked down items, particularly staples, in six month quantities. As an example - I scored on .49 cent per pound pasta some weeks back, and now have enough on hand to last for months. I did the same with pasta sauce, and rice, and now have the foundation for some wonderful dinners in the future for very little cost.
I recognize that it takes a little effort to stay organized in this fashion, but I'm going to guess we're easily saving between $50 - $75 each week in the process, which means more money to travel with. (It always comes back to travel with us.). We always have delicious, nutritious food on hand, which prevents us from impulsively going out to dinner, picking up takeout or ordering in. I really enjoy the creative process of cooking and baking, finding it very satisfying, and if there ever is a night when I'm too tired to cook, or we've just had too busy of a day, there are almost always dinner leftovers in the refrigerator or freezer we can quickly heat up. And, perhaps the biggest bonus - we're remaining healthy and slim . . . no mean fit as we navigate through our 50's.
I've been doing this for a little over a year now, and I'm sure there are lots and lots of creative things others have discovered that I haven't as of yet, so please feel free to share some of your secrets . . . I'd really enjoy hearing about them.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
The Great Courses Company & Travel
Some years back, Mike and I discovered The Great Courses company, which specializes in educational CD's and DVD's on a variety of college level topics. From their website: For more than 20 years, we've produced The Great Courses – college-level courses taught by the most engaging professors that universities like Oxford, Stanford, Princeton, and Georgetown have to offer. The Great Courses maintains a catalog of more than 390 courses in science, literature, history, philosophy, business, religion, mathematics, fine arts, music, and better living. We've created a "university of the best," designed in careful collaboration with our customers.
Our first purchase was a set of DVD's on Ancient Greek Civilization that we watched in preparation for a trip to Greece. Having failed to appreciate the value of history in my high school days, and having taken very little history as a business major in my college days, I was fascinated at the information being shared. For some reason, a little tidbit about the current good ole' summer ritual of the American BBQ being a vestige of the ancient Greek ritual of communal animal feasting as a tribute to the gods, was my primary takeaway. Who knew so many of the things we do today are actually remnants of much older traditions?
Our second purchase was a series of DVD's on Ancient Egypt, again in preparation for a trip. I didn't realize how much I'd been affected by the lecture course series until we entered the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Instantly I was hit with the enormity of the treasure trove of Egyptian history contained within the museum. I stood there completely overwhelmed with emotion for several moments, struggling to take in what I was seeing, before I could pull myself together and move forward.
Looking backward some years later, with regard to both trips, I now see that investing the time to better understand what we would be seeing was actually a tremendous gift to ourselves.
As we prepare to leave for our upcoming visit to China, we've been going through yet another series of The Great Courses DVD's, this one titled From Yao to Mao: 5000 Years of Chinese History. Which kind of makes me laugh, I must confess. Absorbing thousands and thousands of years of history on this fascinating country via 36 brief thirty-minute lectures is clearly not possible, but still, its way better than nothing.
And I would add that regardless of how successful I am in absorbing the material, preparing for our foreign travel trips in this way considerably impacts and extends our enjoyment of the entire experience. We'll not just be spending two weeks in China, we'll also be spending many enjoyable weeks prior to our trip listening to lectures.
One of the wiser sayings about travel I ascribe to is the following:
1/3 of the pleasure is in the preparing, 1/3 is in the doing,
and 1/3 is in the remembering
So, while I'm not a paid spokesperson for The Great Courses, I do appreciate the amazing value their products present, and would encourage you take a look at their website when you have some time. And if you see something intriguing, but notice it's not on sale, just wait. Every course offered goes on sale on some point during the year, so there's no reason, ever, to pay full price.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Group RV Rally At Ventura Ranch KOA
We spent this last weekend at our largest RV club gathering yet - approximately 22 RV's and some 100 people getting together to celebrate Halloween at the Ventura Ranch KOA in Santa Paula, California. I'd expected chaos, and it was to a degree, but it was also wonderful, wonderful fun, and we were truly sad to have to pull out this morning and head for home.
This was the first large scale rally Mike and I had attended, and we learned some interesting things along the way.
Sadly, this was our last RV trip for 2012. We spent this afternoon giving our trailer a thorough cleaning before putting her away for the remainder of the year. We'll see her again in early January when we head down to Palm Springs for the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
In the meantime, we have lots of things to take care of around the house, including packing for our upcoming trip to China. More details on that to come shortly.
This was the first large scale rally Mike and I had attended, and we learned some interesting things along the way.
- It is a LOT of work to host a rally this large. Our hats off to the couple that wagon mastered this event. They were absolutely incredible, overseeing a pancake breakfast, childrens costume parade, group photo, trick or treating, potluck dinner, haunted house, film fest and poker contest.
- Downtime and privacy pretty much go out the window. Sitting outside of our trailer was generally an invitation for someone in the group to come on over for a chat. Before the weekend was over however, Mike and I were doing exactly the same, and thoroughly enjoying it.
- We need to bring more "share" food next time. I'd picked up several items to pass around the campfire, but I'd overlooked having snacks on hand for the many times people dropped by to chat.
- No matter how good your intentions, you end up eating a lot more than normal because you're constantly sitting down to talk and snack. And the Saturday night potluck? Ridiculously fabulous and utterly irresistible. It reminded me of Las Vegas with regard to the food . . . two days felt more like a week.
- RV'ing people are some of the friendliest folk on earth, and sitting around the campfire together talking and laughing really helps to put life in perspective.
We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Channel Islands National Park over the weekend, the 19th National Park we've visited together, leaving 39 still to go. Our visit, which included a one hour boat ride each way to reach the islands, plus about eight miles of hiking when we arrived, was absolutely marvelous. Hopefully the photos I've included below give some idea of why these islands were added to our national park system in 1980.
- Ventura Ranch KOA water & electric site for 3 nights/4 days: $124
- Gas: $45
- Food: No change from what we'd spend if at home
- Ice for our cooler, and wood for the collective campfire: $16.17
- Roundtrip transportation to Channel Islands National Park: $100
- Andria's Seafood Restaurant: $16.36 for fish and chips and a bowl of clam chowder (Mike and I shared both items)
- Club-sponsored pancake breakfast: $5.00
- Socializing and enjoying all of the Halloween festivities: Free!
- TOTAL FOR 3 NIGHT/4 DAY TRIP: $306.53
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| Welcome signs . . . enter if you dare! |
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| The club members went all out decorating their rigs and campsites. |
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| My creepy contribution to the potluck dinner. |
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| Santa Cruz Island - the largest of the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park, and where we hiked for the day. |
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| Some of the sea life we passed on our way over to Santa Cruz island. |
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| Where we sat down to have lunch. Quite the view, yes? |
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| The creative manner in which kayaks, brought over from the mainland on the ferry, were transported to shore. |
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| We felt like we had the entire island to ourselves. At just over 300,000 visitors per year, this is one of the least visited national parks currently. |
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| Beautiful views everywhere we looked. |
Sadly, this was our last RV trip for 2012. We spent this afternoon giving our trailer a thorough cleaning before putting her away for the remainder of the year. We'll see her again in early January when we head down to Palm Springs for the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
In the meantime, we have lots of things to take care of around the house, including packing for our upcoming trip to China. More details on that to come shortly.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
50 And Fabulous!
I am now 50 years old. Very bizarre is about all I can say about it. I don't feel 50, and I don't think I look 50 yet, but I got about a half dozen birthday phone calls confirming that, yes, I am definitely now 50!
The part I'm struggling to wrap my head around is that even under the very best of circumstances my life is now half over. How can that possibly be when I still have so many things I want to try, and to do, and so many places still to explore?
I really don't know, but I do know that leading up to the big event I told Mike I wanted to spend my birthday weekend in our trailer at one of my very favorite places here in California - Newport Beach. Newport Beach is the place I'd have elected to buy a home in and retire, had money been no object. But it is, of course, so fortunately Crystal Cove Moro Campground opened last July along one of the most absolutely beautiful stretches of ocean in Newport Beach, allowing Mike and I to enjoy the delights of "living" in Newport Beach whenever we wish.
We spent three nights at the campground, and had a great, great time. We enjoyed kayaking in Newport Harbor, fish chowder at The Crab Cookery, a fabulous 10 mile hike in El Moro Canyon, several walks along the beach, breakfast at Pacific Whey Baking Co, a really special birthday dinner at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion in Fashion Island, and several stunning sunsets. Total cost for the weekend was very reasonable, thanks to how inexpensive RV'ing is in general, plus the strategic usage of a Groupon voucher and a Gift Card.
In addition to the overall weekend RV costs below, I've also included information on the RV meals we ate, including recipes, so if you're interested, be sure to scroll all the way down past the photos.
- Crystal Cove Moro Campground no-hookups site: $50 x 3 nights, plus reservation fee: $158
- Gas: $16
- Food: No change from what we'd spend if at home
- Ice: $3.68
- Kayaking: $19.00 for a double kayak/two hour rental (Groupon deal)
- Crab Cooker: $16.16 for two clam chowders, a fish salad, and one loaf of warm sourdough bread
- Ruby's Shake Shack: $5.38 for a yummy chocolate caramel shake
- Roy's Hawaiian Fusion: Free! We used a $125 gift card obtained with credit card points, and brought our own wine (corkage fee was a very modest $15, but the waiter waived it since we invited him to sample the very lovely Walt La Brisa Chardonnay we'd brought to the restaurant)
- Pacific Whey Baking Co: $13.68 for breakfast
- Hiking, beach walks, reading, sunsets, whale watching and nightly campfire: Free!
- TOTAL FOR 3 NIGHT/4 DAY TRIP: $231.90
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| Just one of the many stunning sunsets we enjoyed from our campsite. |
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| Note the nice maroon Bentley parked behind the also-nice Camaro. This is Newport Beach after all! |
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| Our wonderful Crab Cooker lunch. We left only crumbs! |
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| Preparing to launch our kayak into picturesque Newport Harbor. |
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| Newport Beach |
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| This guy was hanging out on the pier waiting for one of the many people fishing to toss him a fish. |
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| A favorite local hangout, known primarily for their fantastic shakes, particularly their Date Shake. |
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| My Birthday dinner at Roy's Hawaiian Fusion in tony Fashion Island. As my second glass of wine apparently went to my head, I kept exclaiming "I really, really like life in Newport Beach!" |
What we prepared in our RV:
Breakfast
-Trader Joe O's Cereal topped with wheat germ, almonds and strawberries
-Cantaloupe
-Trader Joe Steel Cut Oatmeal topped with wheat germ, apple and cinnamon
-Cantaloupe
Lunch
-We either ate out, or ate dinner leftovers
Dinner
-Morningstar veggie burgers with grilled mushrooms, lettuce, onion & tomato
-Grilled potato and onion foil packets (slice both very thin, drizzle with oil, season with garlic powder, salt and pepper, and wrap tightly in foil (I double wrap to prevent burning))
-Watermelon
-Smart Hot Dogs with mustard, onions and relish
-Watermelon
Thursday, October 4, 2012
L.A. Architectural Tour
Yesterday we had the opportunity to be tourists in our own backyard, something I highly recommend to anyone that hasn't yet really explored the community in which they live. We spent the day with John, our fabulous tour guide from Main Street Tours, as part of a monthly community exploration outing offered by OLLI, the lifelong learning program we belong to. In spite of having lived in the wider L.A. area for pretty much my entire life, by exploring the city as if I were a first time visitor, I discovered a whole lot about Los Angeles that I'd never realized, both historically and architecturally.
Since I have to hurry up and get off the computer in order to get ready for a weekend RV trip to the beach, where we'll be celebrating my, gulp, 50th birthday, I'll just let the photos do the talking for me this morning . . .
Since I have to hurry up and get off the computer in order to get ready for a weekend RV trip to the beach, where we'll be celebrating my, gulp, 50th birthday, I'll just let the photos do the talking for me this morning . . .
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| Philippe's French Dipped Sandwiches, an L.A. institution. Come on in, get in line, and when you get to the counter let your server know if you want your sandwich dipped once, twice or three times into the accompanying au jus. |
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| The fascinatingly free-form Disney Concert Hall up close and personal. Interesting factoid - one side of the exterior is shiny, and one side is buffed. After opening the concert hall, local residents and business were blinded by the glare, so a portion of the Hall was buffed to reduce it and make life manageable for those around it. |
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| A different perspective of the Disney Concert Hall. |
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| Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, completed in 2002, and prominently viewable along the 101 in downtown L.A. An extremely interesting place to visit, regardless of whether or not you happen to be Catholic. The catacombs alone are worth a visit . . . many Hollywood royalty plan to be entombed there, including recently laid-to-rest Gregory Peck. |
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| Beautiful stained glass window in Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. |
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| The Los Angeles Music Center, home to the Dorthy Chandler Pavilion, the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre. Between the three, they offer virtually every form of musical and theatrical entertainment that currently exists. |
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| The tranquil reflecting pool that surrounds the lovely Dorothy Chandler Pavillion. |
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| World's shortest railway, Angels Flight - about three blocks long. Built to prevent the one time wealthy residents of Bunker Hill from having to, heaven forbid, actually walk up and down to their homes on the hill. |
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| The Los Angeles Grand Central Market. |
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| The lobby mural of the L.A. Central Library, where 25% of the city's 8 million library books are kept. This library is eight stories in all, included one floor devoted entirely to genealogy research. |
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Keeping Fixed Expenses in Check
I'm just an average Jane when it comes to deciding how to best invest our portfolio. I have a pretty solid understanding of how our diversification buckets need to be adjusted based on market conditions and our anticipated withdrawal timeframe, but that's really as much as I'd ever feel comfortable or competent sharing here. When it comes to managing our budget, however, I'm very confident, believing it to be the flip side of the same coin. We need to manage our money well to make sure it continues to work for us, and we need to allocate it wisely to make sure it delivers maximum value and allows for future adjustments should the financial arena take any ugly turns.
One of the areas I've become absolutely passionate about since my early retirement is the need to keep our fixed expenses low, low, low. Doing so frees up more money to be spent on fun discretionary items like travel, entertainment and hobbies, but more importantly, it leaves us free to slash our spending at a moments notice should something go horribly wrong in the economy.
You'll notice I've referred to a possible financial calamity twice in my first two paragraphs - that would be the result of how I've been left permanently altered, emotionally speaking at least, by the 2008/2009 economic crash. I doubt it will go away in my lifetime, but perhaps that's a good, rather than a bad, thing.
So back to the discussion on fixed expenses. Within our specific budget, these are the items marked as Fixed:
-Auto Fuel
-Auto Maintenance
-Groceries
-HOA Fees
-Home Maintenance
-Insurance (Auto, Home (including Earthquake), Medical, Travel Trailer)
-Taxes (Federal, Property and State)
-Utilities (Cell phone, Electricity, Gas, Internet, Water/Trash)
= 40% of our total annual budget
The rest of our budget is marked as Discretionary:
-ATM (Our weekly mad money)
-Charitable
-Clothing
-Electronics
-Entertainment
-Gardener
-Gifts
-Gym Dues
-Haircuts
-Hobbies
-Home Decor
-Housecleaner
-Major Items Fund (Auto replacements, large home repairs, etc.)
-Restaurants
-Travel
= 60% of our total annual budget
As we go about living our lives, I keep the above 40/60 split in mind when making purchasing decisions. Recently, as an example, we've been discussing the feasibility of upgrading to Smart phones when our current Verizon Basic phone contracts come up for renewal. The sticking point for both Mike and I is we do not want to increase our fixed, combined $80 a month cell phone bill. Under any, any circumstance. So, what we recently landed on instead was purchasing two new Kindle Fires at $199 each as this year's Christmas gifts to each other. The Kindle Fires will give us the ability to go online for free when we are away from home, eliminating the need to sign up for any type of expensive, ongoing (i.e, Fixed expense) data plan. We don't feel the need to be online 24/7, but know we'd enjoy taking advantage of the free WiFi available now at so many places, including our local university where we spend so much of our non-traveling time.
Aside from the obvious, which is that we don't carry any debt, some of the ways we've managed to drive our Fixed Expenses down to 40% is by paying attention to what we do each day, and making some simple adjustments to become more financially efficient. We've cut our Utility bills down by 25% simply by better utilizing our automatic thermostat and slowly acclimating to a cooler-in-the-winter and warmer-in-the-summer temperature range. For example, this summer we slowly increased our thermostat from 72 to 77, aclimating along the way as we did so, and saw our electric bill drop by $50 a month as a result.
By raising our homeowners insurance deductibles to $2,000, we saved another $200 a year. Dropping cable and our land phone lines slashed another $1,250 off of the Fixed side of our budget. By making a weekly menu and shopping more efficiently, including planning meals around food items on sale, we were able to decrease our annual grocery budget painlessly by $1,000 a year. By biking more instead of driving to run errands, we calculate we're saving about two gallons of gas a week, roughly $400 a year.
Our Fixed items are necessary, not necessarily fun. Our Discretionary items are not necessary, but definitely fun. The flexibility of having only 40% of our annual spend marked as Fixed affords us the freedom to enjoy the many wonderful aspects of early retirement, and also tremendous peace of mind that no matter what the financial markets may deliver going forward, we are positioned to adjust.
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