I Now Understand How Some People Constantly Spend Money

by A Purple Life, posted in Finance, Musings, Spending

…because I am now one of them 🙂 . So I was a “wait for the marshmallow” type of kid. I’m happy with delayed gratification, especially if it leads to a higher reward (or multiple marshmallows 😉 ). However, I’ve noticed recently that my threshold for delayed gratification is way down and I wanted to explore that. 

I wrote about how my thoughts on spending money has evolved throughout my life in the post below, but it seems like I’ve gone even further past the “Fuck It” mode I’ve been in for years. So let’s see why that might be! Continue reading “I Now Understand How Some People Constantly Spend Money” →

My New Life Hack: Mini Blenders

by A Purple Life, posted in Food, Keto

I keep being overwhelmed trying to tackle really large blog posts that describe and review entire cities for example. In the meantime, I’m yapping to my family about a random object that’s been making my life better lately.

Last month, that involved speaking at (surprising to me) length about how mini waffle makers improve my keto eating life. And this month it’s time to dive into another appliance that surprised me with its versatility and usefulness: Mini Blenders! Continue reading “My New Life Hack: Mini Blenders” →

6 Years With Traveling Mailbox: A Comprehensive Review

by A Purple Life, posted in Personal Finance Reviews, Reviews, Spending, Travel, Travel Reviews

When embarking on nomad life, I had a challenge: How would I get my mail when I was galavanting around the world? I needed a mailbox to establish residency for medical insurance and get credit cards sent to it when I’m elsewhere in the world, in addition to receiving my normal small amount of snail mail.

Enter Traveling Mailbox – they provide a service where you can have an address in any state you wish and they will scan your mail and provide a digital copy so you can decide what they should send to you no matter where you are. Continue reading “6 Years With Traveling Mailbox: A Comprehensive Review” →

Retirement Lets You Use Creativity For Joy Instead Of Profit

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Hobbies, Musings

I mentioned in my August Monthly Recap that last month I went to Connecticut to hang with my cousin’s family and my Mom. My Mom has become a type of grandparent to my cousin’s son and taken on all the responsibility that entails. She goes to see him and take care of him every few months and helps his parents out whenever she can.

One way she does that is caring for him during the week between camp and school each year. And every few years I come along as a kind of assistant babysitter/emotional support human. 

During my visit this year, my Mom created an entire camp program based on my baby cousin’s latest obsession: a kid’s detective book series. She made a week of games that involved cryptography, code breaking, fingerprint analysis, morse code and dodging security lasers. This culminated in putting all the week’s clues together to discover the location of a prize. And this was all done for a 6 year old. Continue reading “Retirement Lets You Use Creativity For Joy Instead Of Profit” →

The Month Of Road Trips: August 2026 Recap

by A Purple Life, posted in Blogging, Early Retirement, Early Retirement Updates, Film, Finance, Fitness, Food, Hobbies, Keto, Net Worth Update, Travel

August has gone by in the blink of an eye. I know it’s mostly my fault for traveling all over New England and having too much fun, but wow – where did the summer go?! 

I’ve never been more glad that I take the time to write out these recaps because without them, I know that months would pass in a fun blur and I’d have no idea what I did. So let’s see what I got up to in August! 

Continue reading “The Month Of Road Trips: August 2026 Recap” →

Medical Tourism: $130 For A Dental Cleaning, Consultation & Procedure in Guayaquil, Ecuador

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Travel, Travel Reviews

My saga of dental care in the US being a ridiculous waste of my time continues. I detailed in the below post what happened that led me to get routine preventative dental care abroad at the beginning of this year despite having US dental insurance and sadly now, there’s more to tell. Continue reading “Medical Tourism: $130 For A Dental Cleaning, Consultation & Procedure in Guayaquil, Ecuador” →

My New Favorite Keto Hack: Waffle Makers

by A Purple Life, posted in Food, Keto

For years my Mom has been obsessed with “Chaffles” – these are keto waffles made from cheese and an egg and they’re absolutely delicious. She would bring a mini waffle maker with her during her travels and if she’s feeling a little wild, she would bring two. 

I always appreciated eating these chaffles when she brought this waffle maker around. We would use them as buns for burgers, as ‘bread’ for tuna salad sandwiches and basically as a substitute for any recipe requiring a carb-casing. 

I never owned my own waffle maker since I was a full-time nomad for 5 years, but we’re now over a year into having a homebase in Upstate NY and a few months ago, I bit the bullet and bought: my very own Mini Waffle Maker 🙂 . And then it was all I could talk about so my Mom kindly suggested that I write a post about it in case other people aren’t aware of this side-use case for waffle makers. So let’s get into it! Continue reading “My New Favorite Keto Hack: Waffle Makers” →

Review: GWR Train from Bath to Salisbury, England

by A Purple Life, posted in Reviews, Spending, Travel, Travel Reviews

As I mentioned in my other train reviews, before I reserve travel with a new company to trek across a country, state or city, I always look for detailed reviews of their service to know what I’m getting into and set expectations. However, I often find that these kinds of detailed reviews don’t exist.

There are general travel reviews, but I prefer to know the nitty gritty so I can mentally prepare for what I’m about to do and hopefully not make additional mistakes that traveling in another country can easily result in.

So this was my experience using the CrossCountry Train to travel from Bath to Salisbury, England in the summer of 2025. Let’s see how it went 🙂 . Continue reading “Review: GWR Train from Bath to Salisbury, England” →