Isn’t Bubble the cutest fur ball? I love her curious look, staring at me while I did yoga this morning.
Monday we got the good news that Sofia passed the test! I honestly don’t know what to tell her if otherwise. Fortunately her consistent hard working attitude paid off.
I booked our flight to US already, one way so far as we need to figure out what to do after her 3 weeks camp. Most likely to do a mini road trip in the east coast.
Tuesday we had a big boss hosting a townhall and I did the unusua-to-me act of asking a question. I don’t know what triggered me to do so and it was less scary than I thought and my bet was accurate.
I got one good night of sleep this week, Wednesday, as I was exhausted by 3pm and went home by 4pm. I did minimal parenting and went to bed 7pm. that night I slept very well. It seems that I need several hours of unwinding to ensure good night sleep.
Thursday, thanks to good sleep, everything seems more positive and brighter. I tackled a long time household maintenance task, portfolio assessment. With the crazy world and uncertainty ahead, it is the right time to take a pause and evaluate. I also called a friend to discuss about it as we are in similar boat in many ways. It’s nice to have a good friend to talk about personal finance, a taboo topic, among most people.
Sofia showed me her next MUN position paper, representing Canada. I was impressed by her maturity on this complex topic: Canada’s strategy in a fragmented world order. I showed her Canada PM’s Davos speech which I absolutely loved. We watched it together while having dinner, Sofia seems to understand the complexity of the issue, very impressive by the power of his speech, taking notes, and wooing several times. Then lizzy joined us and asked what is it about?! hahaha.. it was the cutest.
On a sad note: one of my mom’s childhood friend, probably the uncle I interacted the most, passed away this Monday. It is sad news, even sadder is that we may start seeing more elderly acquaintances to pass in coming years.
My mind is quite confused with so many optimization/analysis. How urgent is to fix our financial planning to ensure comfortable retirement while life is so fragile and anything could happen, and none of money could fix it. How do I decided whose funeral I will attend if it happens while we are in Brazil, 30+ away from China. Which summer camps should I suggest for Lizzy? Which cities our road trip should include? These questions come to mind almost at the same time and I am shocked by how insignificant some of these decisions are in the bigger scale of the world and life.
Today Friday, I have scheduled a consultation with a top sport doctor, recommended by a colleague who’s doing an endurance cycling race (300km in 30 hours). Let’s see if I gain any new insights to support my running, longevity and vitality.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Q: Who do you talk to regarding financial planning/decisions? How do you cope when the world is getting crazier?
Our New Journey 
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/about
This is where I got most of my financial information. It has served me well.
When I get anxious and overwhelmed by the world situation, I take some deep breaths, sometimes rant on WhatsApp, and then take a Spanish class. It gets my mind off my worries.
LikeLike
this is a huge question for us as well. my wife and I are in our mid sixties, we have two handicapped adult children, and keep talking about a will, we sort of have a financial plan in place, but for some reason we’re reluctant to talk wills?
LikeLiked by 1 person
What was Sofia’s test for again? I know you mentioned a test before but I can’t recall the specifics now. To get into a summer program somewhere? Where will you be in the U.S.? And yes, that pic of Bubble on the shelf- omg sooo cute!!
LikeLike
hi Coco!
congrats to Sophia!! Excellent job!
I am very much self-taught in regards to personal finance.
my resources are the Motley Fool, Morning star, Forbes, Suze Orman and Fidelity. I peruse the articles regularly but don’t make any drastic decisions.
I am not really worried about retirement. We have two incomes, two social security, I get a pension, and we fully fund our retirement to the max, every year. Our portfolios are balanced leaning toward very aggressive set-up.
I also dollar-cost average every week into about 18 individual stocks (not index funds). To get over the fear of the stock market and save. Yes stocks go up and down but historically, there is a chance they go up. I do about 1,400 usd per month into that account. It’s not a retirement account (those are separate), my philosophy- always be buying.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for sharing Daria. I like your strategy. Always buy! 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bubble is so cute – she looks like a stuffed animal!!
Congrats to Sofia! I know she was stressed about the test. I am so glad she passed.
Phil and I both have our CFA designation so we mostly have the tools to manage our finances but we met with an advisor at my company which was free back in 2020. He helped with the Monte Carlo analysis/stress tested different assumptions to give us comfort that we would not outlive our assets and helped us target a date by which we could either retire or take a big step back in responsibility. We could both retire at 50 but I don’t see that happening. I would like to retire then and we more available for the kids when they are in their heavy activity stage of life. That’s only 5 years off. They will be 10 and 13. We will see what happens! We are both naturally frugal and work in well compensated industries but our industries are volatile so we save knowing our jobs could be eliminated. I had my job move to another city and Phil worked at a company that blew up during the GFC so we know how things can change in the blink of an eye.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes the job market situation is quite unpredictable, balancing over cautious and precautionary is not easy.
LikeLiked by 1 person