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I was on a roll this month! We revisited several recipes, but most of them have featured on this post during recent prior months, so I’ll skip them here. I went on a flurry of baking again, with great results – maybe relatedly, my weight is up since last month, so I will be curtailing…
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August was a high spend month, thanks to buying a bunch of plane tickets to Japan and several other travel-related expenses, so thankfully it was also a high income month, being another stock vest month. Putting aside $10k for travel expenses and immediately consuming $9,300 of it was not the best feeling, but feels better…
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Okay, I’ll admit, it’s a bit of a clickbait title, but I made a change to my retirement withholdings at the beginning of August, and while the change was carefully planned and thought about, it’s still occupying a lot of space in my mind. So I might as well write about it. Next year, I’m…
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Italy! If only this blog existed when we went to Italy the first time, in 2023. That trip was my first time going to Europe, and my first trip out of North America as an adult. It was also the most exciting two weeks of my life, and I have spent each day with some…
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Another European summer vacation in the books, where our investments grew more than we spent in the time we were away. This has happened in 2023, 2024, and now 2025, though we notably did not travel in 2022, when it may have been a different story. (Actually, looking at the graph of the S&P500 during…
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As I write this from my European vacation (what a pretentious way to start a post), Iβll note that I donβt usually pay too much attention to the market when Iβm traveling. However, two days ago I remembered to open Monarch and refresh our retirement account balances, and discovered that I was quite close to…
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New Greek pasta salad – My husband loves pasta salads. I, on the other hand, do not, and apparently have been subtly resisting any meal plan suggestions that veered into that territory. I must have been oddly receptive this month, as I, myself, suggested this recipe, after seeing it on Budget Bytes. With the chicken…
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One foot in front of the other this month. It felt like the first two weeks sped by, then everything ground down to a much slower pace. It was also one of those annoying months where my semi-monthly pay schedule had my first paycheck arriving on a Sunday, which moved it to Friday the 13th…

