So, very recently I was actually toying with the idea of getting a very part-time job, just for a little pocket money. I retired in the spring of 2023 and by all accounts I will be perfectly fine, financially, but I can't help feeling a little stressed by constantly rising prices on just about everything, and it makes me feel a little insecure.

Every time I use a calculator, and also, Dido from this site tells me this, I will have about $7,000 a month in income for the rest of my life. This boggles my mind. Me, a lifetime frugalite. But I think that's once I start collecting Social Security, which won't happen for another 4 years, so I do feel cautious about going on a spending spree.

Then I was having a phone conversation with an old friend who is heading to Berlin for a few weeks with his wife this fall (so very, very jealous) but was having a hard time finding someone to look after his dog. I volunteered, and so I have my first pet-sitting gig that should yield about $500. They are very well off, like, the top 5% based on net worth, but he tells me $30 a day is on the low end for pet sitting services. They are coming up next week to leave their dog with me for a few hours so the dog becomes acquainted with my home before the 2-week visit.

This should be interesting. I have not owned or lived with a dog since I was a child. I imagine that by the end of the dog's visit, I will know for sure whether I might like to get my own dog (a retirement dream for many years during my working life and having cats) or not.

The dog is used to going outside to pee like around 6 am, which is a little early for me, and then the last outside visit would be 10 or 11. It might get a little old, but we shall see. By all accounts, she's a very well-behaved and easy to care for doggie. We have met before.  I don't have a fenced in yard and I don't really feel I want to walk the dog in the yard because there are always ticks around here; so I'll have to get in the car and driving a short distance to a nearby, better manicured park.

Also along the lines of making extra money, I'm currently working on 2 different credit cards for various rewards. I'm just about done with the spend requirement on the one card, which will give me $250 in credits for entertainment stuff. Which is fine, cus I've wanted to focus more on doing FUN stuff in my retirement at the same time I'm a bit concerned about rising costs.

The 2nd card could give me as much as $100 if I charge I think 50 purchases of $10 or more on it by August 31. I have no idea how many purchases I charge among all my cards, but it's a lot.  There are very few things I'm unable to charge, like my lawn mower guy, my property taxes and stuff like that. And I'm paying closer attention to the higher cash rewards different cards offer for different kinds of purchases, something I never could be bothered to pay attention to before. So yeah, I'm always using my Discover card this quarter at gas stations for 5% cash back.

My auto and homeowners policies are set to renew this month. They have both increased again this year, though I have a perfect record with no claims. I know it's based on other drivers and homeowners. I asked my agent if she thought the price hike for the car was reasonable, something I was having trouble determining since I just bought a new, more expensive vehicle in January. So she offered to shop it around to see if I could do better somewhere else. I'm not expecting another insurer to outdo Progressive though. I've been with them maybe 4 years now?

I recently purchased a cordless, rechargeable fan, about 8" diameter, and I love it! Being cord-free means I'm free to use it anywhere I like, including outside, which I may try at some point when I'm doing yard work. Although I don't often stay in one place. But maybe sitting on my patio under the umbrella table would be a good place to use it.

I had a birthday recently and my cousin wanted to send me flowers a few days before my birthday. When she called me on the day of my birthday, she asked if I'd received them, which I did not, and when she called 1-800-flowers they said it was delivered and gave her a time of delivery (but no photo). They promised to deliver them to me the next day, so I hung around here all day, but again, no flowers. She called them again and this time they admitted they didn't have the right flowers for what she had ordered, and promised to deliver today. Why would they lie the first time? I finally got them today. This florist isn't even located in my town, so that to me would be the first mistake, to tell a florist 20 minutes from you to make my delivery. Oh well. They ARE nice flowers.

I pulled out my 2 cucumber plants since they had succumbed to insects, but I did get about 20 cukes out of them. And now in their place I've planted a late summer crop of snow peas. In a few weeks, I'll pull out the first bed of string beans I planted, which are nearing the end of their productive life, and plant lettuce.

I always feel good when I can increase the weight I lift, pull or push at the gym. Today, I was able to increase the weight I'm lifting when doing Romanian deadlifts to 65 lbs. I hope to lift much more than that eventually.

I hit BJs this morning, then the dump and the gym this afternoon. Tomorrow, I'm taking my dad to physical therapy, and then to lunch at a cute country spot we used to love but then it closed. It's reopened as a Mexican fusion type place, much more casual than we usually eat but I think it's worth going just for the location, and actually, when I had lunch there with a friend following a protest rally this past Saturday, my chicken burrito was really very good. It's just that neither of us likes to order sandwiches or other foods you have to eat with your hands at a restaurant, him because it can be messy and me because I'm touching a lot of other stuff that grosses me out.

On the subject of the protest rally, this was one of the nicest groups of people I have yet to meet at any demonstration. This town is a very rural but wealthy country town, and the overall size of the group was modest, maybe about 35 or 40 people, but then again, its population is only about 2200 people. I just had some very nice conversations with different individuals, and all were very welcoming. 

I need to pick up the pace on my postcard writing for the Environmental Voter Project. I have 6 sheets of names and addresses, with each sheet having about 33 names. I have just a little over 6 weeks to write them all before they must be mailed, so that means one sheet a week. I am behind right now, but still have 3 more days.

I discovered weeds growing in my gutter in front. Wow. I never have that gutter cleaned out cus it has metal mesh covers on it but apparently, stuff does get in there. Have to see if my handyman might be able to do that for me. He's back from vacation in Maine soon.