Since the business year ended on 12/29 I was able to review my year-end numbers a couple of days early.

For the year, our portfolio was up $323,751.18.
That's a whole lot better than a year ago when we finished 2022 down $252,713.52.
It took 2 years to recover but we're now just above where we were on 12/31/21.
We're up 10.6% for the year.

2023 was the first full year I was per diem at work and was also the first year when we drew from our portfolio to support spending. We took out about $66,000 but I contributed about $9,000 to my 401k for a net withdrawal of about $57,000 which wasn't bad at all.

The plan is to work even less in 2024 and withdraw more from our portfolio.

I hope you all saw great growth in your portfolios in 2023 too. It was sure a heck of a lot better than 2022.

Happy New Year to all!

I wrote a long post earlier today and when I hit submit it disappeared so I'll try to recreate it (and I'm doing it in my word processor this time just in case).

It's not quite time for the year-end wrap up post but figured I'd give some updates.

All is going pretty well. I'm finishing up my first full year of “semi-retirement”. I'm really not sure what else to call it. I went per diem in August 2022 meaning I no longer have a set schedule or required hours. Technically I am required to work 24 hours every 12 weeks but unless I consistently miss that mark, nobody will say anything. I've mostly worked 8 hrs/wk this year, some weeks 4, a couple of weeks 12, and several weeks zero. My plan for 2024 is to cut back to 4 hrs/wk. I just chose my January shifts yesterday so 16 hours scheduled for the month.

My wife is doing well and finally back in good health. Not 100% and never will be after 2 back surgeries and a lung surgery but her most recent labs had her inflammatory marker (C-reactive protein) normal for the first time since this began in early 2021. She has been crocheting up a storm, did quite well at a local craft fair in October, and has made numerous other sales, especially to our daughter's co-workers who keep ordering stuff from her.

Our daughter is enjoying her job and they love her. She's gradually taken on more responsibilities and helped them streamline workflow and improve processes.

My mom turned 93 in August. She's having more trouble with her back and an MRI in October showed a new herniated disc. She's had a couple more epidural injections since then but those really don't help. The only thing that helps a herniated disc, other than surgery, is time. It can take 4-6 months or more for those to heal. It's made it harder for her to manage and we finally increased her aide to 3 days a week and we are going over there more frequently to help out.

My ebay business is cruising along well. I have a running thread on the forums where I give monthly totals and periodic updates if anyone wants details. I enjoy going to the estate sales and finding treasures that I can flip for good profits. This year I had several of my all-time best sales so I must be on the right track.

Between my wife's health and my mom's, we didn't do any major traveling this year. We did try to do a number of day trips and earlier in the year a few overnight getaways. We have a trip planned to Riviera Maya in late February. I'm hoping things are stable here and that we are able to go as scheduled. It's a group of us going to celebrate a friend's 50^th birthday.

Speaking of birthdays, my wife turned 60 last Sunday and we had a party for her the day before at a local distillery that we really like. The 3 of us along with 14 friends had a good time celebrating her.

The other thing we did this past week was sign up for new health insurance through the ACA. The premium will be about $1,000 less than we've been paying on COBRA though the out of pocket costs will be higher so that will be offset somewhat.

I'm looking forward to tallying up the year-end numbers for our portfolio, our spending, my ebay business, and everything else. At this point, I've got a pretty firm grasp on it all already but want to see the final numbers.

I guess that's all for now. I'll post again in January with a full 2023 wrap up.

I reviewed our 8/31 Vanguard statements this morning. Year to date as of 8/31/23, our Vanguard accounts generated a combined $37,135.13 in investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains). If I extrapolate that out (which isn't quite how it works), that would mean about $55,700 for the year.

About 68% of our total portfolio is with Vanguard. I haven't looked at the other 32%, and a lot of that is taxable mutual funds that will pay out most of their income in December, but let's say another 20K comes from there.

That would mean around $75,000 total portfolio income for the year. I'm on track to make about $72,000 at work, though that might come in lower as I'm thinking about working even less than I already do. Add another $8,000 from ebay. That brings us to $155,000 for the year approximately. That should exceed our spending, which is partly why I'm considering working fewer hours. I think more like $130-140,000 would cover everything.

Since this is the first full year that I'm per diem, I'm really trying to see where everything falls. I won't know fully until after we do our 2023 taxes next spring, though.

I'm not very good at this blogging thing.

Life is cruising along okay. Since my last post in February, my wife was in the hospital again in March for a flare up of the infection around her spine. She had surgery to remove the hardware put it last year in case that was the source of lingering infection. She then did 9 weeks of IV antibiotics (as well as having a drain in the abscess for 6 weeks) and is now on daily oral antibiotics for at least a year. She has been seen by her spine surgeon, 2 different cardiothoracic surgeons, a neurosurgeon, and her infectious disease doctor. Everyone agrees that surgery to get to the abscess isn't indicated. With the hardware out, they feel her body will resolve what remains. She's getting labs every couple of weeks and has a CT scheduled for August. The really good news is she feels terrific, the best she has since the whole back issue started in fall of 2021. She's not 100% yet but she's doing PT and getting back to the gym and overall feels pretty normal.

I continue to work per diem, mostly doing 8 hours a week in the form of 2 four-hour shifts, usually Saturday and Sunday mornings but occassionally a weekday shift. I like the weekends best because the pay is much higher.

I'm still actively selling on ebay. Year to date I've had sales of about $6,000 gross/$4,000 net which is ahead of my goal of $500/month net. I logged my 4th highest sale ever a couple of weeks ago selling an item for $477.77 that I bought a week earlier for $8. Back in March I had my 3rd highest sale at $499. I go to one or two estate sales nearly every week and really enjoy that.

We had a big household expense this week. Our dryer started making a weird noise a few days ago. I opened it up yesterday to see if it was a DIY project I wanted to tackle. I didn't definitely identify the issue but I think it is a problem with the drum rollers. Fixing those means fully disassembling the unit, taking off the belts, removing the drum, etc. I just don't want to work that hard on a 10-year-old dryer so I agreed it was time for a new one. Of course, DW figured we should buy a new washer while we're at it. That's just as old, or maybe older, has rust around the top of the tub, and sometimes doesn't drain right after a cycle. I've DIY'ed that one before to fix something else (door switch assembly) so it's about time. We headed to Lowe's today and bought a new set. All in with delivery and removal and hoses and such, it came to about $1,500. We went with the pretty basic ones, not the ones with all the fancy electronics and stuff. Those are supposed to come on Thursday. While we were there, we also bought a new water cooler. Ours is pretty old and the great feature of the new one is that it is bottom-loading. I don't have to carry and flip the bottle onto it anymore, which occasionally results in some water spilling around it. That was another $200.

Otherwise things are doing pretty well. My mom is still plugging along at almost 93. Slowly declining which is hard to watch and deal with but such is life. Our daughter just celebrated 1 year at her job. She's stressed a lot which has been aggravated by her therapist being on maternity leave the past few months. Thankfully she starts back in therapy in 2 weeks. I'm hoping that gets her back on track fairly quickly.

That's enough for now. I'll try and update more regularly. I just forget about doing it.

Wow. My last post was in November. So much has happened since then, both good and bad.

I mentioned in my last post that my wife was having surgery on December 7. That happened and went relatively smoothly. The surgeon took skin and muscle from her left leg to graft onto her face. The face has been healing up nicely and really didn't give her any trouble at all. The harvest site on the leg, however, was/is much more challenging. That was very painful. It's slowly gotten better but is still not pain-free. Also, the skin continues to get irritated and blister so she still needs to cover it with a bandage when she puts most pants on, but it's ever so gradually getting better.

Since we lost 2020 and 2021 to COVID and 2022 to DW's illness, we decided that starting last month we were going to do at least a short trip somewhere every month. In January, we went to Delaware. We stayed close to the big mall there so plenty of shopping and dining around. There is also a casino nearby and we stopped there for a bit. DW's sister and brother-in-law also live not far from there in Maryland and we met up with them for dinner one night. This month we went into Pennsylvania. Again just shopping and dining and relaxing plus we had show tickets at a regional theater that we enjoy.

For March, we were going to go to Hershey, PA, but I think we're changing our plans. We have good friends in Maryland who run the high school theater program at their school and they have a show that weekend. We've always said we needed to go see one of their shows and I think we're finally doing it. Another couple (mutual friends) from PA is going to come also.

My mom ended up in the hospital for a few days a week ago Sunday. Turned out that her blood pressure was just running high so they adjusted her medicines. Everything else checked out okay thankfully.

Then 2 days after my mom came home, DW got a call that her sister had a stroke. We didn't have any details at first but not long after her husband called back to say that she wasn't going to make it and to come to the hospital. We got right over there as we were only 15-20 minutes away. Her mother came also. Once we were all there, we all agreed that her sister wouldn't want to have her life prolonged artificially and life support was withdrawn about 8 pm and she died just after 11:30 pm. She was 64. Funeral was on Monday and despite the circumstances, it was nice to see some friends and family we haven't seen for a while. So we're dealing with that right now.

I'm still working urgent care generally 8 hrs/wk. I'm still selling on ebay regularly. For 2022, my total sales came to nearly $14,000. My profit was well over my goal of $6,000. I've kept the same goal of $ 500/mo profit for 2023 and so far I'm on track having made $610 in January and $564 in February with a few days to go.

I think that's all the major stuff to report.

I realized the other day that I haven't posted for quite a while. Apparently it's been 4 months. Oops. Life has been rather crazy, both good and bad.

At the beginning of August, I switched to per diem status at work. That means I no longer have scheduled shifts (or guaranteed hours). I am able to look at the schedule, see open shifts, and pick them up when and where I want to. I've basically been working two 4-hour shifts a week since then. It's very nice. Four hours is easy even when the place is crazy. I only take 9-1 any day or 1-5 on weekdays. I don't take 1-5 on weekends or 5-9 on weekdays so I'm not there for closing. One of the things I really hated about the job was the stress and pressure to get done on time when we were swamped with patients so I just decided I'd never take those shifts again if possible.

Open shifts are predominantly on the weekends, which is fine with me. Saturday and Sunday don't hold any magic for us. I'm just as happy being off during the week when everyone else is working. The added benefit to taking weekend shifts is that the hourly rate is 10% higher and there is a incentive bonus on top of that since they have so much trouble filling those shifts. I end up making about 37% more per hour from weekend shifts.

My wife is doing fairly well with her recovery from her back surgery and lung surgery. Still not 100% but much better. However, she developed another problem that is probably related. I'm not sure how much I've talked about this in the past but my wife is a childhood cancer survivor. She had a tumor behind her left eye when she was four that was successfully treated with then-experimental radiation. It cured the cancer but damaged the surrounding tissue as well as her left eye, which eventually got removed when she was 20 (there's more to the story but not relevant here). Anyway, she developed an infection of the skin of the eye socket. It didn't fully respond to 2 or 3 rounds of oral antibiotics. Then she did 2 weeks of IV antibiotics which finally took care of the infection but the whole episode with the skin swelling and irritation resulted in a tear in the skin that can't heal. So on 12/7 she's having surgery to get a skin graft to fix that. The surgeon expects her to be in the hospital for about a week. I'm super worried about that going well so lots of stress here lately.

On the happy side, both DW and DD got new cars recently. My wife's 2011 Sienna was not aging well. The pain on the roof was very worn, some rust had started in a few spots, and the moulding around the windshield and a couple of other places was rotting away. She bought a 2019 Subaru Forester from Carmax 2 weeks ago and is very happy with it. DD had a 2010 Hyundai Accent. Not a ton of miles but also starting to have a series of issues - broken hood release, dying power window motor, issues with the stereo, etc. All fixable things but we didn't feel it was worth puttting $1-2,000 into a 13-year-old car. Plus we really liked the idea of her having some of the newer safety features. So she got herself a 2018 Hyundai Elantra from Carvana. It was pretty neat doing everything online and having them deliver the car to the house.

I'm still hard at work with ebay and have been doing very well. I'm enjoying going to the estate sales pretty much every week, the yard sales during the season, and getting stuff for free online that people are giving away. Year to date, I've grossed just over $12,000 with profit of just under $9,000 which I'm very happy with. My goal was to earn at least $500/month profit and I've actually averaged over $800.

I think that's the big stuff that's been going on lately.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and wonderful holidays.

Things have been cruising along pretty well.

Thankfully my wife is feeling much better. Not 100% pain-free but able to do just about everything pretty normally. She's downstairs sewing as I type this.

We were able to go away for a few days earlier this month for our 30th anniversary. It wasn't the 2-week land/sea Alaska trip we had planned, but we had a really nice time just getting away and spending quality time together.

My last day of part time work is rapidly approaching. August 4 is my last shift and I officially become per diem on August 7. I've scheduled myself for 8 or 12 hours a week for the 5 weeks after that, either two 4 hour shifts or one 8 and one 4. One thing I'm planning to avoid is closing shifts as I find those the most stressful. So I'll be dropping from 3 days a week to 2 days a week which will be nice.

I've been getting more and more active with ebay, which has been the plan all along. This past week was very good as I sold 21 items this past week which I'm sure is the most I've ever done. My rolling 90-day sales jumped to 104 items. Averaging 1 item/day had been one of my goals and I hit it and blew right past it last week.

I continue to shop at estate sales and have gotten pickier about what I buy while also being open to buying more at one time. I've been working to increase the average sale price of my items which has been going pretty well. I'm not totally avoiding lower priced things as they can help provide steady cash flow but I have been moving into more items in the $30-50 and up range and less in the $15 and lower range.

Not too much else going on. All the usual stuff dealing with family, helping my mom (who will be 92 next week), and such. We have finally been getting back to some sort of social life after 2+ years of doing very little due to COVID. We had dinner with friends the other night, we're going out tonight with 2 other couples, and we have plans to meet other friends for dinner this week. It's nice to be seeing people again.

I haven't blogged for a few weeks with good reason. My wife ended up in the hospital on 4/23 and was there for 19 days. To keep it short, she developed a serious infection in and around her spine and related fluid in her left lung. She had major surgery on her back to clean it out and rebuild and stabilize her spine. She had a total of 3 procedures, 1 minor, 1 intermediate, and finally 1 more extensive to fix the lung issue. Spent 4 days in ICU post-op. Got 3 transfusions. Came home last week with a PICC line and IV antibiotics for a few more weeks.

As you can imagine, it was a major ordeal for all of us. On top of that whole mess, my mom got admitted during that same period for mild heart failure. Same hospital fortunately, so I was constantly going back and forth between their rooms. DW came home on Wednesday. Mom came home on Thursday. So I've been busy coordinating their home care needs since.

Anyway, both are now recovering and doing okay. Both have a visiting nurse and physical therapy at home. In a couple more weeks, DW will likly start outpatient PT for her back rehab.

Incidentally, as of now, the billing for DW's hospitalization stands at around $730,000. Insurance has already taken care of most of that but there is still some stuff that hasn't settled. It's only been a week, though, so I'm hopeful that the remainder will work its way through the system and get paid as well. We may end up owing something but we're hoping it won't be a major amount.

I put my ebay sales on vacation mode for a week when DW was first admitted. Once it became clear that she would be there quite a while, I restarted sales but only listed an item here and there so I was making and shipping sales but wasn't doing much to keep it going until after she got home. There just weren't enough hours in the day.

For the 2nd quarter so far, I have done $1,042.36 in sales and $679.42 in profit. That brings my YTD numbers to $2,657.35 in sales and $1,795.94 in profit. Considering my goal back in January was to average $200/month profit, I certainly can't complain as I'm actually averaging $359/month even with pausing for a few weeks with my wife's illness.

I haven't gotten an official end date for my part time contract at work so I'm still assuming it will be August 6. That means I've got 31 shifts left to work before I change to per diem. With the latest COVID surge hitting full force, I can't wait to cut back to 4-hour shifts. My site saw 69 patients yesterday which is a lot for us. I'm hoping this wave dies down quickly but right now there's no sign of that happening so we're all working our butts off again thanks to elimination of mask mandates and so many people just not caring anymore.

Things are cruising along reasonably well. I've adjusted well to working part time. At first it didn't seem much different. It took me a few weeks to adjust my schedule and stop feeling like I had to cram things into the 3 days I was off since I now have a whole 4th day free. Plus 2 days a week I don't go in until 1pm so I've got those mornings free now too.

Still, I'm constantly running the numbers to see when it is reasonable for me to drop to per diem and just work when I want to. I'm thinking that if I can pick up at least enough shifts to earn what we will be spending on health insurance, that would be perfect.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my blog (I know I've talked about it on the forums) but my wife developed back trouble at the end of October so we've been dealing with that. She's had 3 epidural injections and is having facet joint injections on Friday. She's better than she was but still nowhere near normal. Because of that, I don't really want to switch insurance plans now, which we'd need to do if I stopped working part time. We could do COBRA but that's super expensive so not really a good option. Hopefully, things will turn around over the next few months and she'll be better so switching coverage won't be a big concern anymore.

I've been much more active on ebay, which was my intent when I started working less. I currently have 72 items listed (plus 10-20 on Marketplace). Just this morning, for the first time in a long time, I bought some stuff to resell from an estate sale. While we still have plenty of stuff in the house for me to sell, I also know that if I want ebay to become a meaningful source of retirement income, I'm going to need to buy stock. I spent $14 today on 6 items that should bring in $100 or more. We shall see.

We have a cruise booked for August so we're hoping both that COVID is under control and that DW is physically able to do it.

I'm taking our tax stuff to the CPA on Tuesday. This year is complicated as it's our normal personal return, a final return for my cousin, and an estate return. I have no idea what that will all look like, if we'll owe, if we'll get money back, or what. So I kind of feel like I'm in limbo at the moment as far as making any big financial decisions until that's all done and I know where we stand.

Plenty of other things happening, but that's enough for now.

I just had to add up our taxable investment income - interest, dividends, capital gains - for our accountant to see if we need to make an estimated tax payment.

It came to $46,000.

There was also about another $6,000 in dividends from two inherited stocks that are still in my late cousin's name and were paid to the estate, not to me directly.

In 2022, I have to start taking RMDs from the inherited IRA. That will be about $20,000 this year.

Finally, there's just over $550,000 still sitting in the estate bank account currently earning nothing. I will gain control of those funds soon and be able to invest them. Even at a modest 3% return, that would be another $16,000/yr. Obviously more if I can do better than 3%, which I think I can.

All together, that comes to $80,000 or so in income that we can reasonably expect this year. That's before touching a penny of our retirement accounts (except that inherited IRA) and in addition to my income from work.

If it truly plays out that way, I think I'd be well-positioned to retire by the end of the year, which has been my plan. It's just nice to have some actual numbers to back it up.

I haven't crunched the numbers in detail but big picture, here's how our spending stacked up for the past 3 years.

2019: $81,200

2020: $70,600

2021: $88,400

There was also a large one-time expense in 2021 not included there. We paid the lawyer handling my late cousin's estate $14,500. Technically that was paid from the estate (even though I was the sole beneficiary of the estate so ultimately it was my money either way) but I certainly don't need to count that when doing future spending projections.

We had one other large expense this year spending $10,200 for a home repair. If not for that, our 2021 spending would have come in a few thousand under 2019. We're not quite back to pre-pandemic spending yet.

We have trimmed a couple of costs over the past year or so. We cut cable in November 2020. Just this past month, I dropped DW's life insurance and one of my disability insurance policies. Our daughter aged off our health insurance in October but we're now paying out of pocket for her therapy as her new plan doesn't cover it.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with where our numbers are at this point. I dropped to part time at the end of November so my income dropped by 1/3. That should still have me earning more than we're spending with a little to spare. That was pretty much my goal - earn enough to pay the bills and still save a bit and not have to touch the nest egg yet.

Today was our follow up visit with our CFP. We saw him initially on 10/29 at which time we presented all of our information and discussed our plans and goals.

Today he reviewed the results of his analyses. He modeled several scenarios ranging from me retiring at 60 to retiring January 1, 2022. In all but one scenario, our projected success rate was 100%. In the one outlier, our success rate was "only" 99% so I think we could squeak by.

All of his projections assumed that I would have zero income after retirement, which isn't my plan. I anticipate dropping to per diem status and still working a few days per month for at least a few more years. At worst, if I work one weekend a month and nothing more, I'd earn at least $30,000/year. I also plan to do more online sales on ebay and Marketplace and have some money coming in that way, too. So his projections would look even better if you plug in that "post-retirement" income.

His projections also use a 4% rate of return from our portfolio. I certainly hope the long term return will be better than that. Even if it is 5%, that tips the scales even more in our favor.

Bottom line is that he thinks we're well positioned to succeed regardless of what I end up doing or when I end up retiring. I was pretty confident that that would be his conclusion, but it was nice to actually hear it stated.

I will be part time as of next Sunday, 11/28. I'm looking forward to seeing how that goes. I expect I'll find the work-life balance more to my liking and can stick with that for a while. Otherwise, we're set for me to cut back more if and when I decide it's time.

I just downloaded this week's paycheck. I contributed the final $740.78 needed to max my 401k at 26K for 2021. This is the third year I've done so. It's also possibly the last since as of 11/28 I will drop to part time. I don't think I'll be able to contribute that much going forward for however much longer I work (and the max rises for 2022).

Still, I'm happy to have been able to put in what I did. That account now stands at about $215,000 and I won't be touching it for at least a few more years so it can continue to grow. And even if I can't put in the max, I do want to keep contributing as much as I can for as long as I can.

I'm tired of working. I suppose more accurately I'm tired of never having enough time to do everything else I want and need to get done because I spend so much time working. House stuff, financial stuff, family stuff, medical stuff, car stuff, exercise, the list goes on and on. Even fluff like staying current on a Netflix show I'm watching or being able to take advantage of a special offer at a favorite restaurant. There just aren't enough hours in the day. So many people say they'd be bored if they retired. I say bring it on. I'm ready. My to-do list is a mile long.

Three weeks from yesterday I'll officially be part time at work, dropping from 36 hrs/wk to 24, from 4 days to 3 days. I'm hoping that having that extra day, those extra 12 hours each week will provide better balance and give me more time to do all the stuff that gets ignored or delayed now. If not, it will be time to very seriously plan cutting back to just per diem work and getting our finances in order to make sure that will work.

We had a meeting yesterday with a CFP. He happens to be my wife's cousin and is someone we know and trust. He's the farthest thing from a sleazy salesperson type as you can get. Very upfront and honest about everything. We told him before we scheduled the meeting that we were not interested in money management services and did not want to be sold anything. We were strictly looking for planning services.

Prior to the meeting, he sent a list of information he wanted us to bring: income statement, SS statements, tax returns, spending log, and portfolio review. All easy enough for me to put together.

We started by talking about our situation and goals and what we'd like retirement to look like. He asked if we had any specific questions or concerns we wanted him to address. I then walked him through our portfolio spreadsheet because it's not really designed for a stranger to necessarily read and clearly understand so I wanted to make sure he knew what everything was and how to follow it. We talked a fair amount about our spending and how we envision that changing (or not) in retirement.

He explained the review he will do and what the results will look like, what sorts of things he models in, etc. We scheduled a follow up visit for 11/19 to go over what he comes up with.

Without giving us any specific answers, which he can't do just off the top of his head understandably, he was impressed with our situation, portfolio, knowledge, and mindset. Just based on the initial review, he thought we were in good shape overall to retire in the near future but will go into far more detail once he runs all the numbers, analyzes our portfolio, etc.

One thing he particularly liked was how we have good diversity of account types. Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, 401k, taxable accounts, etc. He said it's always challenging when someone comes to him who has a lot of money but it's all in one place, like their 401k. The diversity creates much more flexibility when it comes to withdrawal planning and managing tax efficiency.

So overall he thinks we're on the right track and have managed things well. I'll post again after we have the follow up in a few weeks.

I gave notice on 8/3 to end my current full time contract and switch to part time. My contract requires 120 days notice which took me to 12/1. The pay period starts 11/28 so the change will be effective then.

I'll be dropping from 36 hours/week to 24. I currently work two 12-hr days, one 8-hr, and one 4-hr. The new schedule will either be three 8-hr days or one 12, one 8, and one 4. We got our new schedule yesterday that runs through 12/25. It was nice to see my newly reduced hours in black and white.

Due to over-extending my PTO this year when my cousin died, I still owe them about 45 hours that I need to make up. I've been picking up 4 hours here and there and have already worked off 35 hours (I owed 80 originally). Even after I switch to PT, I'll still need to pick up some extra shifts until I make up that deficit, but it will be a lot easier at that point since I'll have more time free.

Once I've taken care of the PTO deficit, I'll probably still pick up extra shifts fairly regularly. Working a 4-hour shift is pretty easy and pays nicely. So maybe I'll aim to actually work 28 hours most weeks, still better than 36.

We're meeting with a CFP tomorrow for some hard core retirement planning. I think I have a good grasp on where things stand but I wanted to get a pro's input, particularly on a withdrawal plan once I do retire fully. We have so many accounts and I don't want to do anything that screws us up at tax time when doing something a little different could have saved us thousands of dollars. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he has to say. More to come on that once we've reviewed everything with him.

Things at work have been super out of control due to COVID. Patient volumes have been hitting records almost daily and the stress level has been through the roof. We're all exhausted and burned out. And all of this is in the setting of us being short staffed for both providers and techs.

Along with in-person care, we also offer telehealth and that system has gotten even more out of control. The expectations placed upon us to cover that (at the same time we're working in physical locations) wasn't so bad when they first started and only saw a few patients a day, but they're now up to seeing in the 20s or 30s daily without any dedicated staff. Today was really the last straw for me.

I've already sent an email to my lead saying that what happened today was unacceptable and I'm no longer willing to work under those conditions. If they won't move me to a non-telehealth site I will be resigning. I hope it doesn't come to that but at this point, I'm prepared to walk if nothing is going to change.

I'll keep you posted. I may be a full-time ebay seller sooner than anticipated.

As of this week, my 401k balance topped the $200,000 mark for the first time.

I started this account when I started working here per diem in April 2016. I went part time in February 2017 and full time in November 2017. I contributed the maximum allowed in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

So 200K accumulated in under 5-1/2 years. Not bad at all.

The Florida house did close on 8/10 as scheduled. All went pretty smoothly. I had to run around a bit to get the paperwork notarized and sent back but that was minor.

Final result was me walking away with $477,203.26. It went into the estate account for now. I'll get it once the probate period ends in early October. There's now over $547,000 in that account.

That means that our overall portfolio now stands at over $3.1 million. That's well above where I thought we'd be with the inheritance. I had estimated we'd be around $2.7 or 2.8 million but the inheritance ended up being more than I thought plus the ongoing stock market returns have pushed up the value of what we already had as well as the value of the money I inherited that was invested in equities.

That estate account, however, has pushed our cash allocation to about 23% right now and our stocks down to 51% with the remaining 27% in bonds.

I'm working on fixing that. I can't do anything about the 540K in the estate account yet but I'm reallocating the money that is in our control, namely the inherited traditional IRA. I started moving 10K/week from bonds to stocks but realized that would take forever, so today I moved 50K and will do that every week for the next couple of months. That will get us to about 57% stock. Then the estate account will get distributed to me and I'll be able to invest that to get the asset allocation where I ultimately want it.

No word yet on when my part time status will begin. We're actually short staffed at work right now so it's very possible they will hold me to my contract, meaning I'll remain full time until December 1. I'm hoping they can find a way to get me part time before that but I'm not complaining as I completely understand I'm bound by the contract.

We go to Florida 3 weeks from today for a big fundraising event and convention. We're not thrilled about traveling in the midst of the COVID surge but we've decided we're just going to do it and take precautions as much as possible.

It's been over a month since my last entry. Time for an update.

I did return to Florida where I spent about 2 more weeks finishing up. Donated a bunch more stuff. Got the house ready to sell. Met with the realtor. A guy who lives in the neighborhood and knew my cousin had a sister in NY interested in the house. I had her and a couple of others excluded from the realtor contract. She flew down to see the house while we were there (my wife joined me partway through) and made a cash offer for just over our asking price. We're on track to close on Tuesday as far as I know.

We rented a truck and packed up a bunch of stuff that we wanted to bring home and drove back 7/14-7/15. I returned to work on 7/17.

Work has been nuts thanks to COVID and the fact that they closed one of our 8 sites at the end of May. At my primary site, we've had several days where we've seen over 70 patients which is a lot. 50s to 60ish had been the norm. We all can't wait for COVID to settle down but this particular location is also in an area with high anti-vax sentiment and "free-dumb" folks. Even a number of the staff members are anti-vax which just drives me nuts. How can you be on the front line of the pandemic seeing COVID patients every single day and still not see the value in the vaccine? Thankfully, our job has made the vaccine mandatory. We must be fully vaccinated by September 15. A bunch of people have quit as a result, though I'm not sure where they're planning to go since most other health systems are doing the same thing, but at least I won't be stuck with them anymore.

Big news on the job front is that I officially gave notice to drop to part time. I don't have an effective date yet. My contract requires 120 days notice so it could be as late as December 1. They handle that on a case by case basis so it could be before that. I know they have per diem providers waiting for hours to open up so if they can fill my spot easily, they might let me out of the contract early.

I'll go from 36 hours to 24. I'll still have medical benefits but at a slightly higher rate (about $70/month). And I'll still have the option of picking up extra hours whenever I'd like based on availability. I'll definitely do that for a while because I owe them about 80 hours. My leave of absence used up all of my PTO but we have a couple of trips planned in the fall that I'm still taking so I have to make up that time. Also, if I pick up 4 hours a week, I'd make some extra money and still be doing 8 hours less than I had been. One nice thing, hopefully, is that I won't be working 12-hour days anymore. I requested three 8-hour shifts for my 24 hour week.

Hopefully, the house closes as scheduled on Tuesday. That will be the last big piece of the estate. Then I just have to wait for the probate process to end in early October before the funds can be distributed to me.

I've been staying active listing stuff on ebay since a lot of what came home from Florida is items I wanted to sell. I've got about a dozen listings going and have already sold several. Little by little, I'll work through it all. Once I go part time, I plan to devote more time to the sales.

I think that's about it for now.

My cousin in Florida who has been dealing with cancer passed away today. My wife and I had gone down to see him about 3 weeks ago. A few days after we got home, she went back and has been there since helping to take care of him. The past 2-3 days he had 24 hr care from hospice along with the home care aide we had hired. I'm sure it was still exhausting for my wife. She'll be flying home tomorrow evening so that will be good.

His funeral will be here in NJ so probably Wednesday morning we'll go over to the funeral home to make all of the arrangements. My mom will probably want to come along for that too.

Obviously I'm deeply saddened by his death as he has always been like a brother to me. That said, I'm also typically the practical one so I'm already working on taking care of business. I called and spoke to his lawyer today to find out what I need to do as I start dealing with the estate. I also chatted with our CPA who will handle that end of things.

The difficult but ultimately silver lining here is that I'll be inheriting somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2 million when everything is settled. That will eventually lead to my retirement in the not too distant future. My cousin was a huge proponent of early retirement having retired at 55 himself. I can't think of anything that would please him more than knowing that the money he left me will allow me to do the same, though I'll likely be 58 by the time I get out. I really can't even fully process that end of things quite yet even though I've been running the numbers for months. Much more to come on that but first comes the mourning process and what I'm sure will be several months of working to settle everything, clean out the house, sell the cars, sell the house, transfer all of the accounts, etc. Maybe by the end of 2021 I'll have a pretty good idea of where things stand.

Home: We haven't needed to do the plumbing repair I mentioned previously. Actually the pipe doesn't seem to be leaking anymore. I know sometimes when you first repair a pipe it takes a couple of days for everything to settle and there can still be a slight drip until it does. So far, so good.

However, we were waiting for a siding contractor to come out and repair a minor issue on the side of our garage. Well, that took a bit too long. Friday night there was a bad windstorm and it ripped about 1/3 of the siding off the wall. We were out of town but I was able to get a friend to come over, clean up the mess, and drive in a few nails to stabilize the remaining siding. Now we're waiting for the siding guy to come out and replace the whole wall.

The reason we were away last week is that we were in Florida visiting/helping my cousin who is dying. He is not doing well and will probably pass relatively soon. We got home care started to go along with hospice which I had set up when I was there in February. We came home on Sunday but we're already talking about having my wife go back down and stay there until the end whenever that may be. Once he dies, I'm going to take a leave of absence for a couple of months to clean out and sell the house and settle his affairs.

Work is going okay. The site where I work is closing at the end of the month and I will be moving to a new location. I'm not thrilled about that but it does have some advantages. The biggest one is that I'll be at a 2 provider site instead of working alone. That will be a nice change. And a lot of days, I'll end up seeing fewer patients. The new site is busier but not more than twice as busy as my current site. So for example, I might see 26 patients in a day while they see 42, meaning each provider sees about 21. And it's just nice to not be alone and actually be able to take a 10 minute break for lunch or dinner instead of having to squeeze something in between patients. I'll start at the new site on May 31.

Not too much else happening. A number of things are kind of in a holding pattern pending my cousin passing. Both personal plans and financial stuff (I'll be getting an inheritance when he dies).

So that's about it for now.

In recent months, I've been doing a lot, and I do mean A LOT, of retirement planning. I've been reading and studying and educating myself on every aspect of retirement I can think of including withdrawal rates, taxes, Social Security, ACA coverage, Medicare (well not so much on that yet actually), and more. I've asked a bunch of questions on the SA forums. I joined and became quite active at Early-Retirement.org and have learned a ton of useful information there. I highly recommend the site if you are in the same boat as me.

I've made all kinds of charts and run through countless calculations and projections, played with FireCalc a bunch, and posted a "Can I Retire?" thread at ER with all of our details and I got a bunch of helpful responses.

Based on a number of things I've learned, I've made numerous changes to our portfolio to better position our holdings (more stocks in Roths, more bonds in taxable accounts, for example). I've done a number of things to consolidate our holdings and try to simplify some stuff (rolled over DW's old 401k and 403b, moved an outside MF into our Vanguard account, donated some appreciated stock to our synagogue, eliminated some duplication in our portfolio and got the total number of funds we own down from 16 or more to 11, which is still a lot but it's much better.

Anyway, the bottom line and the point of the title of this post is that no matter how I work the numbers and do the projections, I keep arriving at the same result: the amount we need to have saved for me to retire keeps coming out to be right around $2,500,000. I've become more and more confident in that number.

So what does that mean? Right now, today, we are a bit over $1,700,000. However, I will unfortunately be receiving an inheritance most likely within a year. The estate is currently valued right around $1,200,000 with minimal debt (less than 50K). There will be some expenses involved in settling everything, funeral costs, selling the house, travel, taking a leave from work, etc. I'm guessing that 200K should cover all of that which should leave me with roughly $900,000 as my inheritance. That would put us at $2,600,000 based on our current portfolio. If the market remains at least reasonably stable, even if it doesn't keep climbing like it's been doing, we'd likely have another 100-200K over the next year anyway and be at $1.9 million before the inheritance meaning we could potentially be at $2.8 million or even more when everything is done.

Assuming nothing crops up to make me question the $2.5 million figure, I should be at the point where retirement will work, even if the inheritance turns out to be 100K or so less than estimated.

That's both exciting and scary to be honest.

My plan right now is to beef up our cash holdings to create a nice big cushion to have in place when I do retire. My expense projection has us paying full price for ACA coverage but there's a reasonably good chance we can manage our taxable income to qualify for the subsidy which would make our numbers even better. I'm planning to meet with our CPA after tax season to really drill into a bunch of retirement tax issues including that one.

So yeah, that's how I've been spending way too much of my free time.

We're almost halfway through the month so I thought I'd post a quick update.

Our federal tax refund arrived on Wednesday. $518, so not a huge amount but I'll take it. Our state refund is bigger - $3,000 - but that always takes longer.

We aren't eligible for stimulus money but our daughter is, so that's nice for her. She is also due federal and state refunds. She filed last week so should have that money soon.

I sold the JETS shares I bought after last March's crash. I made an 81% profit which was nice. I'm still holding the AAL I bought but will probably sell it this week. It's at its 52-week high and I want to trim our stock allocation anyway.

DW gets her 2nd vaccine on Tuesday. Once we're both fully vaccinated, we may consider returning to indoor dining. One nice thing is that we will no longer need to wear masks to visit my mom since she had both of her shots already.

My cousin with cancer is doing okay. Things seem stable at the moment. He is on hospice service now which is good since he lives alone and we're 1,200 miles away. We're glad to know someone is checking in on him regularly. He also just started getting Meals on Wheels. He's had a couple of them so far and says they're very good. He really isn't a cook so having those on hand for an easy, balanced, nutritious dinner is great.

I've got PTO coming up starting 3/20. We were supposed to be in Florida that week but the event got cancelled due to COVID. No big plans, though DW and I were talking about tearing up the carpet in our bedroom so we'll probably do that. I'm hoping the floor isn't in too bad of a shape when we do.

The siding on the wall of our garage is coming loose. I contacted a couple of contracters to come out and take a look. Both are backed up for weeks so hopefully it doesn't get worse before one of them is able to get to us.

Otherwise, we're plugging along. I was spending a lot of time playing with retirement calculators and figuring out where we stand. I've pretty much determined that once my cousin is gone and his estate is settled, I should be good to drop down to part time. Right now, I'm figuring on remaining full time through the end of 2022 and maybe transitioning at that point. We shall see how it all plays out. How the market performs is a factor, too.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

My cousin, who has been like a brother to me, was diagnosed with cancer about 3 years ago. From the start, we knew it was inoperable/incurable. He has done a few rounds of chemo and a course of radiation and he has actually done extremely well... until just recently. His last scan showed that the last chemo just didn't work and the cancer progressed. He still felt fine, though, which was great. However, over the past few weeks, he has started to decline and have obvious symptoms to indicate that the cancer is taking over.

We don't know how much longer he has but I suspect it won't be terribly long. One tough thing is that we're in NJ and he's in FL. That would be hard enough anyway and it's just worsened by the pandemic. It's not so easy to just fly down there to see him for a few days because we really should quarantine for 2 weeks after we get there. I'm already fully vaccinated but that still doesn't mean I couldn't transmit COVID to him. We're still deciding what to do and when. If his condition declines and he needs help, we'll just do what we need to because COVID really won't matter at that point. He's dying anyway.

There is a big financial piece to this story, too. I am the executor and sole beneficiary of his estate. Whenever he does die, I'm going to have to go down there for a while to settle his affairs, sell his cars, clean out and sell his house, etc.

I already notified my lead physician about this and she was super understanding and said not to worry at all about my shifts or coverage issues. She would handle all of that, even if I need to leave with no notice. Today she sent me the link to the leave of absence info for when I need to do that. I have no idea how long it will take to settle everything but I would think at least a month if everything moves quickly.

I reached out to our CPA as well just to give him a heads up that I'd be needing him to handle the estate tax filings. I'm trying to get as many ducks in a row as I can before I actually need them.

The emotional part sucks. The fact that he's going to die before my 90-year-old mother, who considers him like a son to her, really sucks. And she really wishes she could go down there but by her own admission she's really not up to it. We'll probably have to take her down for a few days at least just so she can see him one more time, which is going to be incredibly difficult for everyone. The whole thing just sucks.

Hug your loved ones. But also have a plan. Make sure your family/executor/heirs know what you have and where it is and how to access it. Make sure they know your wishes. My cousin and I sat down about 2 years ago and reviewed his entire situation, every account, the house, his cars, valuables, etc. so at least after he's gone, I won't be trying to piece it all together. I've even already been in touch with his financial adviser just so we could introduce ourselves and share contact info for when I need it.

Not really much else to say at this point.

My wife has been sewing for a number of years and has sold stuff here and there, mostly through friends and some word of mouth. Over the past few months, she's been putting more effort into the business. She started selling bags on consignment at an area yarn shop and has sold quite a few of them. She realizes, though, that she needs to expand her market.

There is a local business that runs an indoor (and in season outdoor) pop up shop every Saturday. For $20/day, you get a 9x9 space to sell your wares. It's not a flea market. It's mostly crafters: knit, crochet, soap, woodwork, flowers, jewelry, etc. So the people who come there to shop are the type who are looking for handmade items and understand that those sorts of things cost more than mass produced stuff at Walmart or Target.

The place does some marketing but also depends on each merchant doing their own advertising so we'll be blasting Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to try and drum up business.

We'll see how it goes. If it seems like a good market for her, they do the pop ups every Saturday so she can do it regularly if it's worth her time.

I was fortunate to get the first dose (of two) of my COVID vaccine today. Dose two is in 3 weeks so January 8.

I see COVID patients every day at work so this will certainly make me more comfortable about the potential exposure I face every day. Certainly, I will still take all precautions and wear my PPE at work and my mask outside of work, but at least I know I'm far less likely to get ill if I do get exposed to the virus.

2020 is nearly over - finally. As I've posted before, our spending has been down quite a bit thanks to Covid. The two biggest areas of savings continue to be travel and dining out. Travel has been zero. Dining out still happens though almost entirely take out especially now that the weather is getting too cold for outdoor dining. Yeah, I know they have heaters but when it's in the 30s and windy that only helps so much. I don't suspect we'll be braving that much if at all.

Year to date as of November 30, our average monthly spending has been $5,965. For 2019, our average was $6,657 so down about $700 before making any adjustments to that number.

When I subtract spending for which we got reimbursed, the average drops to $5,541. (The 2019 number is not adjusted for reimbursed expenses.)

Although we do miss traveling a great deal and miss dining out as well, my wife and I both agree that we've been perfectly happy with quarantine life for the most part. I know that reduced level of spending won't continue, of course. The pandemic will end in the coming months and we'll resume traveling. We have trips planned for late March (which may or may not happen) and October (which probably will happen). And if the world is relatively safe again, I'm sure there will be other trips in 2021.

Our saving YTD stands at $94,857. My goal for the year is $100,000. I have two more paychecks from which at least $2,376 will go to savings. That will leave us just $2,767 from the goal which we should be able to manage, especially since December is a 3 paycheck month. Most or all of that final paycheck will go to savings.

I think I do have at least one per diem shift scheduled this month and may pick up another if I feel like it. A lot of my coworkers are looking to give away shifts to use up their PTO. I haven't decided if I'd take any more but if I do, that extra income all goes to savings as well.

Overall, a very successful year financially speaking despite the craziness in the world. And as of today, our portfolio is up over $245,000 for the year. As long as the market behaves this month, we should end on a strong note.