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Archive for September, 2025CB in the City?September 14th, 2025 at 08:52 pmI haven't seen your August report yet. You have been one of our most consistent bloggers, so I am hoping you are ok. I know you are in the Chicago area, so I have been thinking of you as 47 makes his threats against the city. I hope you are well!! HELOC application, birthday trip, future planningSeptember 13th, 2025 at 09:39 pmLast weekend, I drafted my HELOC application. I had a few questions, so I brought it with me to a bank branch to ask those yesterday, and ended up submitting the application. I'm on target to have all current non-housing debt paid off in January. That's when I typically take my Required Minimum Distribution from my inherited IRAs for the year and use them to pay down debt. My RMD for next year will be about the amount of the remaining non-mortgage debt as of January--and by January, the mortgage will be down to 20k! I even managed to do the stair project without taking on any new debt. It cost about $4k total for my half of the stairs plus the new railing. I wish I could figure out how to post pictures to show the before and after. Looking at my goals set earlier, I see that I'm again ahead of things on the debt paydown--January 2026 should be 20k total since I don't anticipate taking on any other debt before then. (The HELOC is just making a line of credit available, not yet drawing on it.). That will cross one of my four pre-retirement goals off. ******************** I went on another bed and breakfast trip a few weeks ago for my birthday. I went to the same place, and, while it was good, it wasn't as good as the last trip. The weather was hotter and that meant that outdoor activities were more uncomfortable so I did fewer. And I didn't get as much time to sit/think/read as I wanted. Oh well. My take on birthdays has become, "I survived (without getting seriously depressed)." I at least met that goal for the year. ****************** The past two years, I've been really focused on paying down debt. Since I expect to have that issue under control, my goal for next year is to focus more next year on tracking my spending, which is something I used to do (back in my early days on this blog), but is something I haven't done at all in the past decade, once I had successfully made my career change and landed in a position that paid me more than previously. I don't spend frivolously, but there are some categories where I don't make a serious decision any more--if I want to buy a book, I usually buy it, or if I want to go out to eat, I do (although I generally go to diners or small ethnic restaurants where my meal cost is under $20 or at the high end $30). And education--I still spend lots on professional education. I get reimbursed for some, but I typically take more than I need to satisfy my continuing professional education requirements, and I won't get reimbursed for taking more than needed, so I spend out of pocket for that. Then this year, I traveled a bit too. And most years (but not the past two) I have pet care expenses. Anyways, I realize that, as I now have eventual retirement in my sights as a "North Star" goal, I need to become more conscious of my spending habits once again, as well as planning more for what I will do once retired. Current book on the reading list is "You Only Die Once." I have some general ideas about what I want to do, but no specific plans yet. I do hope to see if I can manage to trim my hours at work in another year or two, so that I have time to start making connections and getting involved with activities as a segue into the next chapter. |