I got brave enough to take a peek at my brokerage balances and was relieved to see my overall balance was only down $5,000 compared to the pre-tariff idyll in early March. I had to log in as I needed to restart automatic withdrawals from my settlement fund for monthly income. I had paused auto withdrawals in favor of taking some income from a taxable fund I have, mainly because the amount of taxable dividends and cap gains on the taxable mutual fund was getting to be a bigger number and I never knew what it was going to be til tax time, so it was kind of unpredictable and not very helpful when trying to calculate total income (desirable for a variety of reasons), so I had decided to shrink the balance some.

But I've since concluded that taxable mutual funds can be helpful to have on hand in case you are, for instance, near the top of your desired tax bracket but need income that is not fully taxable like traditonal IRA distributions are. Long-term dividends and capital gains from a taxable mutual fund are taxed at the lower capital gains tax rate.

So my plan is to draw income for the rest of the year (and the next 7 years actually) from my traditional IRA funds. Continuing to do this for 7 years should substantially lower my required minimum distributions when the time comes. I will stick to a fixed amount withdrawn each month, and should I have any leftover money in what I have withdrawn I would use it to do and pay taxes on small Roth IRA conversions. (I could happily use unspent funds on home improvements and or fun vacations/trips should the opportunity arise.) 

I used the very helpful AARP RMD Calculator. The last time I used it was in January 2025, which is not that long ago, but I wasn't sure I had used my latest monthly income figure at that time, so my estimated tIRA balance that's subject to RMDs could have been off.

So I redid my calculations and yes, the new RMD estimate is lower, at $12,300 starting at age 73 compared to $16,000 that i calculated in January. Which just kind of confirms my original feeling all along that doing a lot of Roth IRA conversions before age 73 may not be necessary for me. $12,000 a year is not a ton of money, and I need money to live on anyway, so that, plus roughly the same amount from my annuity, plus about $43,000 from Social Security will give me a comfortable income.

The closer I get to RMD time, the more accurate my projections will be, so since I'm still 7 years out, I'll want to run these numbers annually to see how they change. Or don't.

All that being said, Roth IRA money is the best place to be since it's tax-free, so I wouldn't mind adding to the Roth IRA portion of my assets. Right now I've got roughly 53% in traditional IRAs, 29% in Roth IRAs and 18% in taxable mutual funds. 

I've done a few Roth conversions in prior tax years but I think they were pretty small and I didn't keep track so I'd like to see if I can go through old tax returns and tally up how much I've converted in the past and to remind myself how to do it on the 1040 form. Every little bit helps.

In other news, I got through to Home Depot about the door installation. They were out here a week ago to measure the entry dimensions, but I hadn't heard a peep from them since.  Of course they required payment over the phone in full first, and it was quite a bit more than the original estimate of the "baseline" labor cost I was given due to new trim, inside and out, caulk and so on. At this point, I just want to get it done, but the earliest date she could give me was end of June. This has been one of the more trying projects I've done around here.

I'm keeping my handyman busy. He's the only reliable one who actually shows up.

He easily dispatched with 4 different tree stumps that were kind of an eyesore to look at it and made it harder for my mower. (I have a "mini" chainsaw...6"...but it's not quite enough to get these larger diameter stumps.) I care about making things easier for the mower since the more back and forth maneuvers or circles he needs to make, the more likely he will gouge out the lawn, which in turn allows weeds to grow back to cover bare earth spaces.

Anyway, after the tree stumps, we set to work assembling a "tuteur" I recently purchased after a friend of mine gave me a coral (native) honeysuckle seedling that was very much wanting to grow.  I tried putting the roughly 9 foot tuteur together myself but it was just too unwieldy for me to manage so thank goodness i had someone I could call.

He did inform me he's already raised his hourly rate (!) but only for new customers, so I believe he's charging me $65/hr. Given that many small projects don't even require that much time, I figure that's a bargain. And just to get someone to show up!  

We carried the tuteur down to where I wanted to put it and set it in place. Later, after he left, I planted and watered the honeysuckle, which has been on my plant bucket list for a while. 

So Home Depot was here 6 days ago to measure the dimensions of my front door and I'm still waiting for them to call me to just schedule the new door installation. I've called many times; at least now i have the first NAME of the person who manages door installs, but she has no direct line, and when I call the general number, sometimes it just rings and rings and rings. I've left messages, etc.

So frustrating. I guess I have to be patient, but patience is one thing I lack. Things get too complicated if you try to do more than one "project" at a time, so I want to be done with this one so I can move on to the next. Plus, that door is taking up a lot of space in my one-car garage and really in the way.

Ideally, this year's home improvement list includes:

1. Front door replacement
2. Back door replacement
3. Rebuild of stone stairs at top of driveway leading to backyard
4. Replacement of vinyl siding in 2 places where there are 2 small holes

Today is dad day so I don't usually schedule much of anything else; it's just taking him to physical therapy and then we usually do lunch somewhere afterwards. I will do my volunteer editing for kiva.org this morning before I leave, though. Last I saw, I've reviewed over 3,600 loans for that organization over the course of I think 6 years. 

I did finally check my investment balances and saw that I'm down only by about $5,000 compared to before this rumpy downturn started. I know they must've been down a lot more in the last few months. I plan to resume automated withdrawals from my settlement fund, a money market account, to at least make sure I take advantage of the 12% federal tax bracket income max of about $48,000 for single filers + the $15,000 standard deduction. Reviewing my total gross income year-to-date, I don't think there will be much unspent money through the remainder of the year, but there could be a few thousand, maybe $5,000, so I may do a small Roth conversion with it.

This am, I went to the gym to squeeze in a workout; later this am, my handyman came by and together we put together the tuteur I bought so that the coral honeysuckle a friend gave me could climb up it. Can't wait to see it grow; pollinators will love it.

He also brought his chainsaw and sawed to pretty much ground level 4 small tree stumps scattered around the yard; my mower guy will appreciate that.

After the handyman left, I decided to transplant some culver's root and mountain mint to different locations: the mountain mint was planted in a bed where a small serviceberry tree has been beset by destructive little green worms, and someone suggested that the minty smell will keep the insect that lays the eggs away. We'll see. Otherwise, I'll keep hand-picking the worms off, EARLIER in the year before they do more damage.

As for the culver's root, for 30 years it survived in the shade of a very large azaela bush I have, but as a sun-lover, it never thrived. So I've moved it to a much sunnier spot in another bed. The one clump I moved there last year is looking very good, except that it's too close to the tuteur, so I will likely have to move it again, if not this year, than next, depending on how fast the honeysuckle grows.

I'm already indoors to wait out the heat (and sun) of the day. When I go back out this afternoon, I want to:

1. Take the cover off my AC compressor thingie.

2. Cut back the many hydrangea branches rubbing against the corner of my sunroom. We don't need an ant highway there.

3. Repot a crowded haworthia (indoor succulent) that has a lot of babies.

4. Unpack and set up the new patio umbrella I bought in the table on the back patio.

5. Perhaps being overly ambitious, I'd like to put some screens back in on the upstairs windows.

6. If I have any energy left, I'd like to start my least favorite task: pulling poison ivy away from an area I cleared a year or two ago, by the mailbox. It was impossible to completely eradicate it because it was growing in and around the birch tree clumps. I suppose I could have sprayed, but I really try to reserve that for absolutely essential situations so as to avoid harm to pollinators.

7. I'd also like to clear brush and weeds away from some amsonia I forgot I'd planted on the north side so it's not swallowed up.

8. Start edging any one of a half dozen garden beds.

I am still monitoring the raised bed where the chipmunk appeared; cayenne pepper has been sprinkled heavily. I am doubtful it will work but you never know.

But first, there's lunch to think about!

This post will probably bore anyone who is not a homeowner or not interested in a myriad of details about home improvements, but I try to learn as much as a I can from each contractor who does work on this house.

I've been trying to jumpstart a few projects around here. I had a local contractor come out a mnth ago to replace my front entry door; he took measurements and gave me his price, which I agreed to, but I've been unable to get him over here to do the work.

(The old door is probably 1950s vintage, just a beat up wood door I once tried to paint with latex, which was a mistake. The new door is fiberglass (more energy-efficient with a clear stained glass panel insert in the top. It cost a lot of $$ so I hope it looks good!  I need jobs like this done should I decide to sell the house at some point. That old door is really an eyesore.)

Anyway, when the first contractor ghosted me, I tried calling a bunch of others, and their prices were substantially higher than his, and most couldn't do it anytime soon anyway. I was starting to feel a little anxious since, based on the 1st guy's assurance my chosen door would fit, I purchased the door, and there's a return window I didn't want to run up against.

The door has been sitting in my garage for weeks. Finallly, in desperation, I called Home Depot. They sent a guy out today to measure the doorway dimensions and make sure the door would fit. I started feeling anxious about this since, worst case scenario, I don't have the means of returning this door by myself and as mentioned, the local contractor is not returning my calls.

Luckily, Home Depot guy said it will fit. Now I just have to wait for their scheduler to call me to schedule the install. I won't be surprised if it will be another few weeks, but at least I'll know how long it will be and that they WILL show up.

Their price is higher than the original guy's price, but lower than all the other local contractors I called. I mean, the spread beween the lowest and the highest price was $1,000, just for labor, which seems way out of line.

In other exciting news, I had a plumber here to check the anode rod in my newish heat pump hot water heater. I had a different plumber here over a month ago to inspect and possibly replace it but they discovered they could not remove the rod due to lack of enough clearance between the top of the water heater and the basement ceiling. So I had scheduled for them to return; for over $900, their solution was to saw through the 2 copper pipes on the water heater so they could TIP the water heater to the side enough to allow removal of the rod. Then they would install "unions" on the copper pipes that would allow them to simply unscrew them next time I wanted to check the anode rod.

The junior plumber who was here at the time said if it were him, he would go back to the original plumber who installed the water heater a year-and-a-half ago to complain, becus he had never warned me that I'd be unable to remove the anode rod due to the low clearance in my basement.

I thought about that and ultimately decided to email the plumber (or his wife, who manages the business end of it) and very nicely explained the whole situation and asked if he'd be willing to cover a portion of the other plumber's bill, which I attached.

Maybe a little unusual (at least for me) but i figured the worst that would happen is he says no.

So the original plumber calls me and said the 2nd plumber was really overcharging me and that he could take out the old anode rod and replace it with a "sausage link" style rod (which is bendable becus it has joints) for less than half what the other guy was charging.

And so he did; they cut thru the original rod to remove it. And so I saved over $600 going back to the original plumber, and I thought he and his wife were very smart in the way they handled it; instead of handing over $$ to me to cover the added work that would be needed, he took the job away from the other plumber and got me back as a customer by not being so greedy.

I know that most people don't bother having the anode rod inspected and so in those cases, this wouldn't be a problem, but inspecting the anode rod can lengthen the lifespan of your heater, and since my uber-energy-efficient heater was an investment (not cheap, in other words), I wanted to protect that investment.

When the 2nd plumber took the cover off the top of it, I saw the top of the anode rod only. It looked pretty roached to me, very corroded and all. So I thought it needed replacement after just 1.5 years. Once the 1st plumber removed it last week, we could see the rest of the rod was in very good shape; so next time, he said, you don't need to inspect it for 3 years.

My handyman fixed a loose wheel on my lawn mower. I cut down a dead 8 foot high shrub myself, save for the 4 foot trunk at bottom, so he'll return with his chain saw to get rid of a total of 4 stumps I have around here. He's also buiding me a platform for my frontloading washer/dryer.

Once I get the front door done, i'll try chasing after the mason who said he'd rebuild my stone stairs leading to the back patio. Another one who ghosted me. And I have 2 small holes in my vinyl siding, another guy who ghosted me but still emailed me asking for a review!

I have a chipmunk (maybe more than one) that seems to have taken up residence in a raised bed where I'd planted lettuce! He ruined any chance I had for veggies in that box.  I bought some cayenne pepper today and hope to dissuade it, but I don't know if this will work.

Warnng: This post is only marginally related to personal finances. Proceed at your own risk.

One thing I noticed in recent years is all the different free skin cancer screenings they used to do at area hospitals are now nowhere to be found. They are usually held in May. Yes, I could make an appointment with a dermatologist, but I probably wouldn't bother unless I had a pressing concern. Still, I like to take advantage of the free clinics just as a peace of mind thing as I do have fair skin and have my share of freckles and moles.

So after wading through the many online notices of such clinics from 5 years ago (wish they'd take those things down already), I managed to find one for this year in a town about 40 minutes away, down county, and I decided to go.

I was also trying to schedule a possible walk, workout and coffee with a friend of mine after we'd already cancelled once. This is a friend who lives literally around the block from me but whom I don't see very often, just once in a while. Still, she is so appreciative as I've helped her get serious about her bone health and exercise; she's a nurse, but works these crazy hours and has a lot of demands on her time. She also is very health-conscious, as I am, so we have a lot in common. She told me yesterday that I was her inspiration and that she was so glad she met me. Which kind of melted my heart.

When I told her about the skin cancer clinic, she really wanted to go, so she joined me, and we were able to fit in some extended quality time together on the ride down there. Then we walked downtown to a local coffee shop with a lot of personality (kind of a funky vibe going on, which was surprising in such an upscale town) and ended up having a light lunch there.  I dropped her off back home and we reconnected again at the gym around dinner time, even getting one of the trainers there to show us the proper form for doing a Romanian deadlift. All in all, a fun and productive day!

Today is a day I set aside for yard work and more mowing. Tomorrow, I'm looking forward to an afternoon program on the battle at Gettsyburg. Seeing as how I just returned from a trip to Gettysburg Nat'l Park, I thought it would be interesting to see how the speaker at today's program either reinforces what I just learned about that moment in history, or adds to it.

Then on Monday a small group of us from 3 different local environmental groups are coming together (thanks to me!) to walk a section of a local high vaue river and tape knotweed, the hope being we can return after July (optimal time to treat with herbicide is July-October). 

It's in a very sensitive riparian area, so we won't do foliar spraying, which is very nontargeted, nonspecifc and harder to control.  (You can't dig this stuff out; the roots go down 10 feet.) We may use an injection method for the herbicide (depending on how much knotweed we find, it may or may not be feasible), or possibly paint it on with a small paintbrush.

I have also ordered, for my own use at home, 100 very small mesh bags with a drawstring attached (typically used for wedding party favors). I plan to use these on the cut stems of an invasive vine I have in my yard. Out of an abundance of caution, I will attach these small bags around each cut stem I treat with painted-on herbicide so that no insects are harmed by landing on the stem. So I'm going to ask the people in these other groups if they'd want to use them also. They're very inexpensive. However, we have not secured any permits from the town or state yet, and that could really delay us big time. We have the town land use director joining the walk so am hoping he agrees the need to tackle the knotweed is urgent.

I hope you all had a nice Mother's Day. I had an old friend come up for lunch and we spent a nice couple of hours. After he left, I set about to repair a kitchen cabinet where the trim that covered the gap in the middle of 2 corner cabinets had broken off. I happened to have a handy clamp that I found outside on a street sign that one of the utility companies must have left, so I used it here, along with some rubber brands to hold it in place while the gorilla glue dries.

I also was mowing the lawn until I had a recurring wheel issue occur.

But onto the focus of my post: Groceries are consistently one of my biggest expenses. In fact, last year, it was my #2 expense after property taxes, at $4,700, and I'm shopping for one.

It seems like for years now I've have a goal of lowering my grocery expenses but haven't made measurable progress. So for the past couple of months, I've been working on another Grocery Price List, where I track costs for individual items I buy regularly, at about a half dozen stores I frequent.

I thought I knew that in general, Aldi's had the best prices. HOWEVER, after analyzing the prices of 58 food items, I was surprised to see that BJs edged out Aldi's with 16 best prices while Aldi's had just 13. I've had a half-price membership at BJs for about 5 years now but only shop there once a month or so, but now I see from my spreadsheet I created that they actually have the best prices among BJs, Aldi's, Whole Foods, Stop & Shop, Trader Joes and Big Y for:

Bananas, organic raisins, mushrooms, avocado, fresh carrots, frozen berries, organic pears, prunes, gold kiwi, pink grapefruit, raisins, frozen turkey meatblls, red onions, organic celery, organic corn and kiwi.

While Aldi's had the best prices for:

Mango, yogurt, soymilk, Dave's bread, cantaloupe, organic blakberries, frozen peas, frozen broccoli, butternut squash, organi grape tomatoes, organic mini cucumbers, kefir and pineapple.

I eat a plant-based diet but supplement with eggs (2x weekly), small portions of meat or wild salmon, and I avoid processed foods, so I mostly shop the fresh produce section.

Whole Foods has the best price for organic canned, sodium-free beans, at 99 each. I also will continue to buy the 2 lb bags of wild sockeye salmon there. Stop & Shop seems to have the best price on dried split peas and their Nature's Promise organic soymilk has a great price at $2.99 a half gallon although I don't like the sugar in it, but will no longer pay inflated $5 for Silk brand, which is unsweetened.

Tracking all these prices is time-consuming, especially since prices DO fluctuate, and also, some stores are sneaky (like Trader Joe's and S&S) where they sell you an odd amount, like 12 oz instead of 16, or they sell by the piece of fruit, instead of by the pound. That's ok, then I just calculate what the "per ounce" price is instead of "per pound."

So I'm going to try to go to BJs more regularly, much as I complain about the drive (16 min) and their overly sensitive self-scanners. Their gas prices, the lowest around, is also another incentive. I also noticed that while S&S has quietly increased prices on a few items I'd recorded just a month or so ago, the other stores have not.

Also, I have to say in the past when I bought fresh bagged fruit like oranges, there could be smushed ones, but today i bought a bag of their organic Cosmic Crisp apples with a coupon and they are delicious! Super crunchy!

I am back, safe and sound, from a 4 day trip out to see Dido. It's a 3-hour trip there, so I spent Monday night, then Tuesday we left for Gettysburg, which I believe is another 2 hours.

Gettysburg National Park was really really awesome. I especially liked seeing the battlefield, which is quite spread apart and maintained by the park service as rolling hills of green, but you can definitely see how the hills were used by both sides for defensive purposes.

We signed up for the guided bus tour and I was delighted to find out that the two of us were the only ones on the tour (!) so the guide gave us his full attention. He said he'd been doing the tours for 41 years, so yes, he had an encyclopediac mind chock full of all sorts of fascinating details.

For example, there is a memorial/statue dedicated to the last documented Civil War veteran to die at the age of 106, in 1956. He was a Union Army drummer boy from Minnesota who enlisted at 14.

One of my favorite photos above.

This is part of the cyclorama, a massive, 360-degree painting done in 1883.

This is the Pennyslvania Memorial, the largest one at the park, representing the 34,000 Pennyslvania soldiers who fought in the Civil War. Each state that fought there has its own memorial.

This is Little Round Top, site of a pivotal battle and intense fighting that purportedly decided the direction of the war.

General George Meade, who President Lincoln put in command of the Army only 3 days before the battle at Gettysburg.

You can also drive around the park yourself and look at the many statues and plaques.

There are 3 battlefield observation towers, and we climbed this one.

From atop the tower you could see the small stone farmhouse that had been purchased by a newly freed slave who worked very hard to fix up his farm, only to have to run with his family for their lives when the Confederates were coming. When he returned after the battle of Gettysburg, there were shallow graves dug all over his land, the farmhouse demolished. A sad story. He got reparations, but less than he asked for.

Before leaving Gettysburg, we also stopped by the farmhouse that Eisenhauer purchased upon his retirement. It's pretty modest for a former president, but he had many famous visitors, including Winston Churchill, Nikita Khrushchev and Charles De Gaulle. This is the back of the house. We were not allowed to go inside, unfortunately.

After that, we stopped at the Hawk Mountain raptor center and walked the trails to take a break from the driving.

I have been busy as a bee since my arrival home Thursday. I mowed the lawn, planted my vegetable garden, went grocery shopping, went to the gym, etc etc. I missed the May Day demonstration in my town.

It's good to be home, but it was a really great trip. The weather was divine the whole time, there were no crowds and I hit no major traffic jams coming or going!