DISQUS

Hey, great post! And dead right; it's a little alarming to see people who are focused on the minutiae of their financial situation but don't spare even 15 mins a day to get out of the car and go for a walk. Recently I had a massive and painful canker sore stretched down my throat (don't laugh, the dentist said it was the worst she'd ever seen!) This was such a tiny, minor, insignificant, nothing of a health issue but treating an getting rid of this thing was almost all I could think about for a good ten days. I don't want to spend my retirement like that every day. Like you, I'm also off my peak post-high school fitness of 3 years ago (although still a regular gym goer) and trying to improve that. It's worth the effort.

I've spent a lot of time working both on for-profit and govt LTCs in the last couple of years, and I've decided I really just don't want to go into one no matter what I have to do. They're awful. I'm in some sort of denial.

Can't speak to Iceland, but I have a feeling that ain't going to be true of Ireland much longer!

My in-laws in NYC make about $40k + what they make renting their basement out and a few other odd-job style things. They have a nice house in Forest Hills and a good lifestyle. No dinners in Per se or full price tickets to MOMA, but a good lifestye. It is possible.

I like white. Please don't go white type on a dark background or I won't be able to visit any more :(

My husband got his current job off craigslist, of all places. Networking has got me every job I've ever had so I've never dived into monster etc, but it sure does seem to disillusion people. We also hire here through word of mouth, our ads never seem to hit the mark, even in trade publications.

I've just started using linkedin and find it pretty good so far, I'm not sure why I waited so long to sign up. Drop me a line Steve if you'd like a Canada-based quantity surveyor in your network!

I can't see the video at work (sob!) but even without the it-was-scripted stuff, does CNBC really still qualify as journalism?

Good interview. You should canvas a bunch of people on the "three sites" question, I bet the answers would be interesting!

Retired Syd had a really good post yesterday about the fact that certain things she "thought" she'd want to to when retired just aren't happening - because guess what, with the excuse of work commitments out of the way, she wasn't that interested after all. Maybe you're just not all that committed to the things you think you should be doing right now?

I've been on vacation with absolutely no family commitments and abundant time for almost three weeks now, and made a to-do list before finishing up work. It's been instructive what I've chosen to do - work out at least a couple of hours a day, read a lot, start a new blog, get all my citizenship stuff together - and what got ignored - signing up for a particular college class, buying certain stuff for the house, cooking, driving lessons. I think Syd's well on to something!

Could I have used the word commit more often in that comment? Sorry ....

I knew you'd smoke plonkee out of the bushes with that one .... I am in the process of applying for Canuck citizenship this christmas, and have read through the material for the test a couple of times. There is so much of it I didn't know! Most of us are immigrants in my office, but I plan on testing the native coworkers soon.

It's getting very Daily Mail in here! I've been following an interesting freakonomics blog thread about where south asian immigrants should give their charitable donations (I'm married to a SA guy and he has his own opinions on the subject) and some comments there are just appalled at the elitism they see built in to the original article. You do see that in some immigrants - a complete befuddlement as to why youse natural born yanks don't have the attitude in your third paragraph there by default.

@4P - my husband is 37 this year and seriously broody, must be a guy thing at that age! Can he borrow one of yours?

Penelope Trunk has probably the stuff that's most thought-provoking (to me) to say on this subject, I find all of her viewpoints on the subject really interesting.

At the end of the day though, who the hell knows what's around the corner even with the best laid plans. Whether it be poor health or your job function disappearing or being left with siblings' children. My parents also had us very young and in the midst of a godawful decades-long Irish economic horror. They could never anticipated the celtic tiger was around the corner after we'd all grown up.

This is a really great post, Steve. I have always failed miserably at stints working form home (although my office is a lot nicer than that, uh, corridor - does it have any natural light?) and that's without kids or even pets! Glad to hear it's working out.

Frickin animals. The rest of the staff should have shut the doors and gone home.

Given the photo, this post should have been titled I CAN HAZ BAILOUT?

Another thought - don't you have to be fully staffed for this? How many workplaces have enough people that responsibilities don't overlap and slide and get thrown at whoever has a few spare minutes?

May work for some job functions I guess. For those of us who are deadline driven and whose tasks are already cut to the bone, efficiency-wise, at fee proposal stage it wouldn't happen. I work a fair amount of hours when I have too, but it's not uncommon for people get told off in this place for being seen sitting in the office every night at 9pm. It's assumed they're being inefficient and blowing fees.

I'm all for sustainability - have no car, have done the changing lightbulbs thing, probably about 50% of my consulting work deals with green buildings, etc. But I agree with Dennis - in addition to the potential greenwashing issue, these green funds/companies have bubble written all over them ... I personally am treading carefully. (There's also something to be said for taking dividends/profits from un-green firms and spending them on living a sustainable lifestyle, no?)