Tag Archives: money

Don’t Tell Me How to Spend My Money

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I tell yet another long backstory and get a few things off my chest. Sorry about the dirty laundry.

The other day, I did something I didn’t want to do: I bought a new monitor for my computer on Amazon.com.

The Monitor Backstory

It isn’t that I didn’t want to buy the monitor — I definitely did. Years ago, when I wrote books for a living, I had a wonderful computer setup that consisted of a 27″ iMac with a 24″ second monitor. I needed all that real estate for the work I was doing, laying out book pages on one screen and working with images, files, email, social media, and who knows what else on the other. It made my work easier and more pleasant to do, especially when I started getting involved in video projects for my helicopter YouTube channel, FlyingMAir.

But things change. I sold the helicopter and stopped doing videos. I bought a boat and started spending months on it at a time. I didn’t need a desktop computer so I traded it in for a new laptop. Along the way, I sold that second monitor, which, in all honesty, wasn’t that good anyway.

Dell Monitor
Here’s the marketing photo of the monitor I bought. Looks like a photo from Death Valley near Dante’s Point with a shit-ton of post processing and the saturation amped up, no?

But now I’m spending more time at home again, prepping to lay out another book, and making boating videos for my personal YouTube channel. So I bought a Mac Mini from Apple and bought a 27″ Dell UltraSharp monitor from Amazon to go with it.

The monitor is great and has more useful features than I need to cover here. It was working okay, but I really did miss that second monitor. So when I got home from my brief (comparatively speaking) trip south this winter, I decided it was time. I’d buy another monitor — preferably the same model — and set it side by side with the one I already had. It would make me more productive, I reasoned (whether rightly or wrongly). And yes, I’ll admit that the desire for some retail therapy weighed into the purchase decision.

And that brings me to Wednesday’s purchase.

The Amazon Backstory

I have been using Amazon.com since the only thing it sold was books. I was a Prime member when it was $49 (or maybe $39?) a year and all it got me was free 2-day shipping. I have spent thousands of dollars on Amazon over the years — sometimes more than $10,000 in a single year.

Sounds like I’m a real fan, right? Well, maybe I was but I’m not anymore. I dumped Prime when it got up to $149/year. (I think that’s what it is now, no?) I don’t watch TV and 2-day shipping is something Amazon stopped doing to my home back around Covid. I don’t like the way Amazon dominates the market and is putting smaller businesses out of business. I didn’t like the way “marketplace” vendors could be unreliable. I didn’t like the way search results — unless you had a specific make/model in mind — brought up so much crappy Chinese junk. And when it screwed up three of my orders right before Christmas, I started wondering why I was using Amazon at all. Surely I could just find stuff elsewhere.

So around mid-December 2024, I stopped buying at Amazon. Completely.

It wasn’t easy. You don’t realize how easy it is to fire up the Amazon app on your phone or tablet, find what you want (or think you want), and order it. With Amazon out of the picture, I had to source the things I couldn’t find locally elsewhere. It was a struggle. But I was succeeding. Up until Wednesday, I hadn’t ordered a single thing from Amazon. That’s about two months.

And I would have kept up the streak if it weren’t for the damn monitor.

Shopping for This One Specific Thing

Before you comment with advice on what I should have done, please read this…

  • I wanted this monitor, not some other make or model.
  • I wanted a new monitor, not a used or refurbished one.
  • I wanted to buy from a reputable source, not some guy selling on eBay or Craig’s List.
  • I know Best Buy will match prices, but not online. The closest Best Buy is a 2 1/2 hour drive from me.
  • Costco does not carry every single make/model of monitor and I am not a Costco member anyway.

I really did think this through. This post might be long, but it doesn’t include every single thing I did and thought about this.

You see, I wanted the exact same monitor. I knew it would work well with my Mac. I confirmed that it could be daisy-chained, via USB C, to the one I already had. I knew that my little Mac Mini could support two UHD displays. Not only that, but because they were identical, they’d line up perfectly, side by side, on my desktop, making a seamless ultra-wide monitor with plenty of easily accessible real estate.

So I fired up Duck Duck Go — my current search engine of choice; don’t get me started on Google — and put in the monitor’s model number: U2723QE. Of course, Amazon appeared at the top of the search results, but I ignored it. I figured that I’d buy it at B&H, which is where I’d seen it at a slightly higher price than Amazon in autumn.

But that price had gone up. And, to make an already too long story a tiny bit shorter, I’ll summarize my shopping experience: the monitor was more than $100 less on Amazon than anywhere else. And I think I looked just about everywhere.

Dell Monitor on Amazon
Although most pricing I saw was in the $540 to $590 range, I actually saw this monitor for more than $600 on AliExpress, which someone on social media suggested.

My Dilemma
My Mastodon post. Imagine me getting the whole story in less than 500 characters!

I stressed over this purchase. The way I saw it was that I had two choices: (1) I could save more than $100 by breaking my No-Amazon streak and buying it on Amazon or (2) I could skip buying it. There was no way I was going to spend $100 more than I had to.

I discussed this dilemma on my social media network of choice, Mastodon. The replies started coming in. The general consensus was that avoiding Amazon purchases when possible was a good thing. But when I needed to make a purchase and Amazon’s price was far better than anyone else’s, I should just go for it.

Bought Monitor
I posted this on Mastodon on the thread about my self-imposed moral dilemma.

So I did.

And Now to the Point of this Post

All that is backstory. What would one of my blog posts be without backstory?

It was one of the replies to my post about the purchase that really got under my skin. I don’t want to put the poster in the spotlight because maybe that person didn’t mean to trigger me. But I was definitely triggered and that’s what this post is all about.

The reply was:

You could always donate a portion of the money you saved to an organization you support…

I was (possibly unreasonably) offended by this.

The main and somewhat obvious reason this might offend me is the insinuation that I don’t normally contribute to charitable organizations. That cannot be farther from the truth, as I attempted to make clear (with possibly some humor?) in my response:

The organization I support right now is my grocery bill, which was $200 yesterday for one person for one week. And I didn’t even buy eggs. ;-)

Throughout the year, however, I donate to NPR, Wikipedia, World Kitchen, Pro Publica, Goodwill, the Humane Society, and others. That comes to a lot more than what I saved today.

Ben had it right: a penny saved is a penny earned. The more I save, the more I can spend elsewhere, whether its on me or for charitable donations.

(The Ben I’m referring to here is Ben Franklin, of course. He was a smart guy, even if he never really did say “A penny saved is a penny earned”.)

But the deeper reason it offended me was because I saw it as someone trying to tell me how to spend my money — and that is a particularly sore spot with me.

Don’t Tell Me How to Spend My Money

The way I see it is this: I earned everything I own, either through hard, smart work or through good investments. No, I didn’t get everything right, but I got enough right to put me where I am today as a financially secure home owner with enough money in the bank to make money one of my lesser concerns in life. There’s no generational wealth propping me up — as a few people with giant chips on their shoulders seem to think. Since graduating from college back in 1982, I have never asked for or received any financial help from anyone in my family or elsewhere, no matter how much I needed it.

Factory Photo
Here’s a blast from the past: on November 23, 2004, I took my sister and brother to the Robinson Helicopter factory for a tour. By an amazing coincidence, it was the same day they put my helicopter on the assembly line. Here I am standing next to hull #10603, holding a photo of a mockup based on a friend’s helicopter.

One of the ways I got to financial security was by making enough good financial decisions. The purchase of this monitor at Amazon for a savings of $100 is an example on a micro level. The purchase of a $346K helicopter, straight from the factory, that formed the basis of a lucrative 15-year career as an agricultural pilot is an example at a more macro level.

I spend my money the way I see fit. Yes, I have three vehicles, but the newest one is 12 years old. (The oldest is 26 now.) They all run, they all serve their purpose. And they’re all paid for. Why should I replace any of them if they’re doing what I need them to do? Why would I want to spend money on something with no real benefit? I’m not trying to impress anyone with what I drive. Why should I?

The Fleet
I’d rather have three old vehicles in my garage than just one with a loan on it.

Do you realize that the money I saved by not buying a new (to me) vehicle every two years — as my wasband was so fond of doing — is probably why I was able to pay off the mortgage on my home in less than 10 years? Do the math, folks. Home ownership might be more within reach than you think if you just adjust what you’re spending your money on.

And that’s the point. We all need to decide what’s important to us. It’s more important to me to have financial security with a paid-for home than to drive something new and flashy every few years. It might be more important to you to get your kid into a special school than to buy a home. Or more important to buy assets or get specialized training to build your business than take a vacation in Europe. We need to make our own decisions — and to respect the decisions of others.

The Sore Spot

Two and a half years ago, after spending a total of 10 weeks with two different boat captains on their boats along the Great Loop, I decided I wanted to cruise the Loop in my own boat. I had sold my helicopter and my charter business and had money to spend on a relatively new (but admittedly costly) “pocket yacht” that would meet my needs. I was very excited about the purchase and my upcoming journey. I wanted to share that excitement with people who meant a lot to me.

Boat for Sale
This is one of the photos on the brokerage website. I have a fondness for red, but that’s not what drew me to this boat. It was absolutely perfect for me — and a good deal, to boot.

But rather than them accept my purchase decision, they decided that they needed to tell me what a bad idea it was and to tell me what I should do instead. Their reaction made a few things clear:

  • They didn’t know me very well. This is nuts considering I already had a track record of doing unusual things.
  • They didn’t trust my ability to make my own financial decisions. This is also nuts given that I’m probably in better financial shape than they are.
  • They thought they had the right to tell me how to spend my money. This is also nuts given that neither one of them did very much of interest with theirs.

This situation put a rift in our relationship that has yet to be mended. I was offended by their stance and made it clear to them. They have neither apologized nor made any efforts to repair the rift.

And this is what makes people telling me how to spend my money a sore spot.

I should mention here that, like the helicopter, the boat and the experiences it has made possible have given my life a new trajectory at a time I really needed one. I completed the 8000+ mile Great Loop trip and am working on a book about it. I’ve already written articles about it. I’ve become a USCG licensed boat captain and have already done some paying work for people who needed training on their own new boats and have secured gigs with at least two boat training organizations. I’ve become a certified boat instructor for single and twin engine power boats. And I’ve put my boat — which is a valuable asset, after all — into a charter program where it will earn money for me this coming boating season and possibly seasons beyond. None of this would be possible if I had not bought the boat that they told me not to buy.

They might be satisfied sitting at home, pulling pages off their calendars as the days of our lives tick by, but I’m not.

Are you still reading?

This post has been an unusually circuitous drive. Like so many of my blog posts these days, I wrote it, in part, to clear my mind of things that were bothering me. Someone insinuating that I didn’t make charitable contributions — by suggesting I do so with the savings on a computer monitor purchase — both bugged and triggered me. I felt a need to get this — including the dirty laundry that went with it — off my chest.

I guess the message I have for you is this: money is probably one of those topics we shouldn’t be talking about, like religion and politics. If you feel the need to tell someone how to spend — or not spend — their money, why not hold back? Unless the person is making a lot of seriously dumb decisions that are causing financial harm, they probably don’t need or want your advice.

Instead, why not take a closer look at your own spending habits and how they are serving you?

Would YOU Sell a Joy Machine?

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I get an offer on my 2003 Honda S2000 — and say nope.


My “fleet” of vehicles in the four-car garage on the north side of my home. My little 17′ Sea Ray jet boat is hiding behind the truck; it needs to be sold. If you look closely, you can see my 1999 Yamaha Grizzly ATV parked outside; I bought that new, too.

My Jeep is still packed with art show gear and, frankly, with another show later this month, I’m willing to let it stay packed so I don’t have repack it. My truck is a pain in the butt to park and I didn’t really need to haul anything. So when I went to a meeting with my tax accountant and down into Wenatchee to run some errands, I took my Honda.

It’s a 2003 Honda S2000 and I bought it new. It has about 69,000 miles on it and I drove it for most of those miles.

The Joy Machine

Honda and ToyotaThis might be the only photo I have of my Honda and Toyota parked side by side. For years, the Toyota lived at whatever airport I flew my helicopter to most often: Prescott, Scottsdale, and, in this photo, at Phoenix Deer Valley.

Now I know most folks say it’s dumb to buy new cars when used cars are so much cheaper. I think I’ve heard the “drops $5000 in value as you drive it away” claim about a million times. But when you keep your cars for 20+ years, depreciation is not something you really need to worry about. You really do get your money’s worth, even if the car is a total junker when you dispose of it — like my 1987 Toyota MR-2 was.

This car turned on to be a classic because Honda only made them for a few years. So after normal depreciation for the first 10+ years, the car has started to appreciate. It’s “desirable.” It certainly does turn a lot of heads and get a lot of complements.

I don’t drive it very often, but when I do, I remember why I call it my Joy Machine. I swear that if I had the worst day of my life and was totally miserable, I could get in this car, take it for a drive in the mountains, and be totally joyful within 30 minutes. It’s a blast to drive, with fast engine, six-speed transmission, nearly zero body roll, grippy tires, and good brakes. Top down is the way to go, of course. Replacing the stock stereo with a modern, more powerful one a few years ago — why did I wait so long? — makes it perfect for any road trip, provided you don’t need to take much luggage. In no reality could this be called a “practical” car, but hell, that’s what the Jeep and truck are for.

The Car Dealer

So I drive the Honda into Wenatchee the other day, all the way to the north end of town, and pull into the Home Depot parking lot. I need to return some irrigation stuff and get different irrigation stuff. (Don’t get me started on irrigation and careless landscapers with lawnmowers.) As I’m walking away from the car, a guy pulls up next to me in an SUV.

“I want to buy your car,” he says to me.

“It’s not for sale,” I say to him.

He then proceeds to tell me that he’s with a car dealer up the road and that the car is very desirable and worth a lot of money.

I tell him that I know exactly how much Kelly Blue Book says its worth because I looked it up the day before, out of curiosity, when also looking up the value of a truck camper I want to sell.

“You’re selling a truck camper?” he says. “I just bought one of those the other day. We’re looking for another one. But I really want to buy that car.”

“Well, everything has its price,” I admit. “Come up with a big enough number and I’d consider selling it.” I didn’t tell him how big that number had to be, but it was pretty big. A lot bigger than KBB said it was worth. After all, it wasn’t just a car. It was a Joy Machine.

We exchanged numbers and he said he wanted to come up and look at both vehicles. He’d bring someone from his office.

I really do want to sell that camper — it’s a 2007 Lance 950 sized for a long bed — and if I could lure him up to my place by letting him have a closer look at the car, I was willing to do it. I had the JD Powers numbers for the camper and had discovered that it was worth a lot more than I thought it was. I was pretty flexible on price, though; I’d paid less than the current value for it. If he came near what I wanted and handed over cash, it would be his.


I had a lot of fun times in this truck camper and I sure hope it goes to a good home.

The Visit

True to his word, he contacted me later in the day to set up a meeting at my house the next day, Friday. 3 PM was the time. That gave me all day to finish clearing out the camper, washing road dirt off it, and vacuuming it. I did all the cleanup with it still in the garage — my garage has a drain so I often wash vehicles in there, in the shade. (It clears the dust off the garage floor at the same time.) Then I got the truck in there and lowered the camper onto it. I pulled out of the garage and closed the door.

I also pulled the Honda out into the shade just outside its garage bay and gave it a good washing, top down. (Yes, it is possible to wash a convertible with the top down.) I dried it off and it sparkled. I put the vinyl top cover over the folded top. It looked amazing. Seriously: when you take care of your stuff, it shows. (My 1999 Jeep — also bought new — has never been so lucky; I beat the crap out of it on a regular basis and it shows.) I closed that garage, too.


My Joy Machine after a quick wash.

Now you might think I’m nuts inviting a stranger who approached me up to my house, supposedly to look at vehicles. But I’m not a complete idiot. The garage and house was closed up so there was no way he’d see anything else that I owned. And I texted my neighbor Teri and asked if I could borrow one of her men — either her husband or his cousin who was visiting — for the occasion. They both rolled up in his side-by-side at about 2:45. They had a gun with them.

(I’d considered bringing my gun down from the house, but there was no place I could hide it on my person when I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. So I had no problem with them bringing one that they kept in the side-by-side.)

So yes, I understood right from the get-go that this could be some scam to get me to reveal more about my possessions than just these two vehicles or even an opportunity to rob me or worse. And I took precautions. ‘Nuff said.

He showed up late. Very late. Almost 4 PM. He was alone. He looked at the camper and was impressed. I’ve only owned it since 2017 — six years — but during that time, it was always garaged when not in use. Yes, I did live in it for months at a time when I went south for the winter, but I kept everything in good condition and fixed problems as they cropped up. Here’s another news flash: when you take care of your stuff, it doesn’t break very often. So although the camper itself was 15 years old, it looked great and worked pretty much perfectly. I also had all kinds of extra gear for it, including vinyl room panels for under the sleeping area when it was off the truck and the tie-down equipment the next owner would need to secure it to his truck. That stuff alone was probably worth at least $1500 if bought new.

Then he wanted to see the car. I walked him over to the other side of the house where it was still parked in front of its closed garage door. He might have been drooling. He told me he wanted it and he wanted to hand it down to his daughter, who is now six years old. He said his boss also wanted it because they could sell it. They’re opening a new location in Arizona and I suspect he was imagining driving it down there. Heck, I was imagining it, too — and I’d already driven it between Arizona and Washington state three times.

He wanted me to give him a price on the car but I wouldn’t. I told him he needs to give me a price. In the meantime, I’d already given him the JD Powers printout for the camper, along with my price, which was the “average retail” on that page. (Again, I’d take less, but he didn’t need to know that yet.)

The whole time we chatted, my neighbor and his cousin just hung around. My neighbor, who has some physical disabilities, stayed in his side-by-side. His cousin trimmed the sagebrush along my driveway, which I had on my list of things to do. My neighbor’s wife drove in with their dog and table scraps for my chickens and her husband left.

The car dealer and I finished out chat and he left. On the way out, he told me I had a great gardener. We all had a good laugh about that when he was gone.

The Offer

The offer came the next day, Saturday, via phone call.

It was disappointing. He told me that they wanted to buy both vehicles. They offered me slightly more than the JD Powers number for the camper but the exact Kelly Blue Book number for my Joy Machine. They said it was a package offer — both or neither.

I laughed at him. I told him that I didn’t care what KBB said it was worth. It was worth a lot more to me. I told him it was my Joy Machine and explained what I meant. He understood. But he said his boss wouldn’t buy one without the other.

So I told him that he was out of luck because I was definitely not selling the car at that price or even anything slightly above it. He tried to reason with me, but I was firm.

He said he’d talk to his boss. (Does that statement come pre-programmed into car dealers?) We hung up. That was yesterday and I haven’t heard another word from him.

Meanwhile, I listed the truck camper on Craig’s List. If the guy they supposedly had in the office looking for a truck camper really exists, I hope he sees it.

Facing Retirement

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“Retirement,” which seemed so far off just last year, is now close at hand and remarkably easier than I thought it would be.


John’s Carver at its slip in Charleston, SC, on the night I boarded for our five week trip together.

Back in Spring 2022 — just 14 months ago? — I was on a cruise with Capt John on his 36′ Carver Aft Cabin cruiser on a trip up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). (You can read more about that in my Great Loop blog.) It was April and I was trying to enjoy the cruise while worrying about a bunch of work-related things back home:

  • Cherry season was coming up and I had all the usual concerns about the season. Would the cherry crop be viable? Would all my clients sign up? Would I get back clients who hadn’t signed up last year because of the frost? How much acreage would I have to cover? Would I need pilots in Wenatchee, Quincy, and Mattawa or just Wenatchee and Quincy? Would I be able to find enough pilots?
  • My helicopter N7534D, was aging and had just 20 hours left until a required overhaul that would cost $270K. I had already decided to sell it after cherry season, but was 20 hours enough for the season? What would I do if I flew that off?
  • Would I be able to sell my Part 135 charter business (which had become a pain in the ass because of the ineptitude and spite of inspectors at the Spokane FSDO) with a nearly timed-out helicopter? Would the guy who kept claiming he wanted to buy it all actually come up with the money?
  • Would I be able to find another helicopter to replace it without going back into deep debt? Or should I just retire from cherry drying? Would I be able to sell my cherry drying business to someone else who wanted to take my place?

All this was going through my mind as we cruised at 6 knots up the ICW, spending a few days at stops along the way. To be fair, my cherry season stress normally starts in March and April, but this year it seemed more stressful than usual, mostly because of the age of the helicopter and its upcoming need for an overhaul.

My idea of “retirement”

Wonder why I keep putting “retire” and “retirement” in quotes? It’s because my idea of retirement isn’t the same as most people’s.

I’ll never stop working. Whether I write or make jewelry or do odd jobs in the gig economy, I’ll always have something to keep me busy that brings in a few bucks. (Hell, this summer I’m even selling eggs from my chickens at $5 a dozen.) I’d already considered getting my boat captain’s license — yes, for a boat I didn’t even own yet — and doing charter cruises to earn cruising money.

I won’t stop working until either my mind or body makes it impossible. Working keeps us alive; you can ask my wasband about his dad’s short retirement to get an idea of what I mean by that. (I hope you’re resting in peace, Charlie.)

In general, although I had thoughts about retirement, it was still far off on the horizon. I couldn’t imagine being “retired.”

I did, however, have a rough plan for buying my own boat and cruising the Great Loop in it. I’d even looked at boats. But I couldn’t buy a boat unless I sold the helicopter and I still couldn’t buy a boat if I wanted to get another helicopter and stay in the business. So I figured the boat purchase would be sometime in 2024, after that cherry season. Maybe that’s when I’d “retire,” too.

Everything Changes

Everything changed with a phone call. A guy with a lot of money offered me a lot of money for the helicopter if I sold it then. He wasn’t interested in the charter business, but the amount he offered for a helicopter that I was hoping to unload in a few months anyway was too much to ignore. On May 6, I watched it fly away for the last time with the money secured in my bank account.


It was a lot easier to say goodbye to this helicopter when the money was in the bank and my thoughts were on the kind of boat I’d buy to replace it. Also, no more $20K per year insurance bills. Yippee!

I arranged to lease a helicopter for the season. (There were problems with that, but I won’t go into it here.) I got contracts, I got pilots. The season started off good and then fizzled out in mid June when it stopped raining. The season ended in August. I heaved a sigh of relief again.

I listed my charter business with a broker. I knew that I’d have to get a helicopter to keep my Part 135 certificate and I’d decided that I was done owning helicopters. The broker listed it for a lot more than I expected.

Meanwhile, with all that helicopter sales money sitting in the bank, I started shopping for a boat. By the end of August, I’d made a deal on one.

Around that time, the broker found a few buyers for my company. One backed out. The other was an idiot tire-kicker who called me directly with a crazy lowball offer. But the third was serious. As I was signing papers on DocuSign to buy the boat, I was signing other papers on DocuSign to sell my company.

And suddenly, I found myself with a nearly new Ranger Tug, a new company that offered just cherry drying and aerial photo services, and a bunch more money in the bank than I expected to have at the end of cherry season. I’d also shed a costly-to-keep helicopter, a charter business I no longer wanted, and the anxiety of dealing with unreasonable, demanding people at the FAA.

I celebrated by spending September learning to cruise in my new boat. Then I shipped it to Chicago and got it on the Great Loop.


While I’m home this summer, I can be reminded of my first day on the Loop with the new Home Screen on my phone.

I named my boat Do It Now. Frankly, I was done waiting. Hell, I’d been done way back in 2010 but had a husband to shed to move forward. It had taken me 12 years to get through the divorce debacle and become financially secure in my home — which I’d paid off in July 2022 — before I could get back on track for what I wanted out of life.

But I didn’t think that I was one big step closer to “retirement.”

Retirement Thoughts Kick In

It wasn’t until this past winter that I started thinking about the possibility of tapping into the retirement money I’d been saving in earnest since the late 1980s. I own some stock — including Apple stock I originally bought at $13/share in the mid to late 1990s that had grown substantially with numerous splits and stock price increases. And I had some savings. And my living expenses were pretty low since just about everything I owned was completely paid for.

I’d been under the impression that I had to wait until I was 65 to start tapping into my retirement funds. Or maybe it was 62? I asked a knowledgeable friend. No, he told me. 59 1/2 is the age you can start using that money.

Holy cow. I was there.

I had a great winter cruising on the Great Loop in Do It Now, covering 3000+ miles, mostly solo. I made friends, saw a lot of new places, and met challenges along the way. I took a seven-day captain’s license class and passed the test.

But as March and April came along, I had the same cherry season worries as usual, but with a twist: I didn’t have a helicopter to fly. How was I going to deal with that?

Various solutions came about and I explored them all. But it wasn’t until I started contracting with clients that I realized what a non-issue it would all be. One of my clients did not sign up again. Since he accounted for about 2/3 of the acreage I cover, my season would be a lot shorter with fewer pilots and less revenue to pay them. I’d be able to keep a lot less money.

At first, I was angry. But then I reasoned it out. I wanted to to retire at the end of the season anyway. I was hoping to be able to sell the business, but if I had a good enough season, I might talk myself into keeping it and doing it again. But this one client had helped me make two decisions that took a lot of stress out of my life:

  • Without the added acreage, the business wasn’t worth selling so I didn’t have to stress over finding a buyer (or dealing with the tire-kicker who claimed 3 years ago that he wanted to buy my whole business).
  • With less revenue coming in, it was less attractive to keep doing the work. I was no longer tempted to do it another year. Retirement at the end of the season was a definite.

And I’ll be honest here: the client who had backed out was a pain in the ass anyway. Now I wouldn’t have to deal with his antics.

No, I haven’t been drying cherries for 25 years. It was only 15 years. Before (and during) that time, my summers were ruined by book deadlines, mostly for Quicken Official Guide, which I wrote the first 11 editions of starting in 1998.)

I was looking at the reality of having a summer off in 2024 for the first time in 25 years. It took no time at all to imagine my trip up to New York that summer for the ultimate Champlain, Erie, and Severn Canal cruise in my boat.

And with that, I had scheduled my retirement: August 2023. I would be 62 years old.

The Money Stuff

The question was, could I afford retirement without changing my lifestyle? I have to admit that cruising in a boat thousands of miles over the course of months is not exactly cheap. If I wasn’t going to make enough cherry drying money this summer to cover the next year of cruising, where would the money come from?

The answer was easy: my retirement funds.

They’d been growing and shrinking and growing and shrinking but mostly growing over the past 30 years. If I continued to earn some income from other sources, I wouldn’t need much every year — probably not even enough to start getting social security anytime soon. After all, other than cruising my cost of living was modest. (It really pays, folks, to eliminate all your debt before you retire.)

I had a talk with my accountant yesterday and a “retirement specialist” at my investment firm today. I discovered that my lowered income would save a lot of money on taxes, get me a better ACA health care subsidy until Medicare kicked in in 2026, and enable me to make retirement plan withdrawals without huge tax hits. I also discovered that tapping into my IRA would be as easy as filling in a form on my investment website. The money would arrive within days as a direct deposit to my bank account.

Of course, the money I’ve invested in my retirement funds is not unlimited. I will eventually run out. How quickly that happens depends on the stock market and how much I take each year. But I still have Social Security waiting for me and can always sell my home on the next market upturn. I think I’ll have enough for the rest of my life.

That is the goal, isn’t it? To die with just enough money to dispose of your body and give your friends a big party to say goodbye?

Facing retirement? Yes, but also embracing retirement. I just didn’t expect it to be this soon.

Doing the Math on Art Shows

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I compare art show venues to see which ones really do give me the best bang for the buck.

I’ve got a sort of running debate with a friend of mine about art show fees and which methodologies are best for artists.

Fee Considerations

Clearly, in a beautiful, perfect, artist-friendly world, show fees would be low and shows would be full of art lovers with deep pockets and plenty of empty wall space or jewelry/pottery/other craft needs.

But that’s not the way it is. Show runners want to make money far beyond the cost of running their venue and the artists are the draw. They set their fees based on what they think artists can afford to pay, with the goal of filling every available spot.


Here’s my jewelry sales booth as it appeared at Leavenworth Village Art in the Park on May 19. I’m trying to display my work as serious and elegant; most folks seem to think I’ve done it.

Artists, on the other side of the transaction, have to consider fees when they decide which shows to apply for. The higher the fees, the more work needs to be sold. Is it possible to sell enough work at the artist’s price points to cover show fees? And what about other expenses, such as the cost of getting to and from a show, lodging, parking, and who knows what else?

In general, better shows — ones with good track records for attracting lots of shoppers and scoring high on artist satisfaction — command higher fees. That can also be said for shows that can attract shoppers with deeper pockets or ones where the quality level of the artist work meets a higher than average standard. In both cases, the potential to sell work at higher prices might make it easier to cover fees.

But in nearly all cases, it’s a gamble. And in the short time I’ve been doing art shows, I’ve seen that firsthand.

Two Fee Methodologies

There are several fees involved with doing art shows and it’s worthwhile to take a look at each one.

  • Application Fee. This is usually a small amount of money — under $50 but usually closer to $10 or $20 — that must accompany an artist’s application to participate in a show. It is non-refundable and is apparently used to cover administrative costs.
  • Jury Fee. This is also usually a small amount of money — again, under $50 — that’s paid to judge an artist’s work before acceptance. Artists are normally required to submit photos of their work and their booth and may also sometimes be required to submit one or more photos showing them actually making the work to prove that they make it themselves. This is also non-refundable. Some shows will charge just a jury fee, if the show is juried, and not an additional application fee.
  • Booth Fee. The booth fee is usually the expensive part of doing a show. Fees can range from $20 for a Farmer’s Market table to well over $1000 for a spot in an indoor venue showcasing fine art in a major city. Just about every show is going to charge a fee for your space, based in part on the size of the booth and its position. A 10×20 foot space that’s open on two or more sides — like in a corner — would usually cost significantly more than a 10×10 space in line with other artists.
  • Commission Percentage. In addition to the booth fee, some venues charge a commission based on artist sales. They could process the sales of all artists centrally or provide special sales slips for artists to fill out to record each sale or use the honor system for artists to report sales. Commission percentages vary and are usually higher at venues with lower booth fees.
  • Other Fees. In addition to all this, some venues charge extra for power, draperies, tables, lighting, local business licenses, and insurance.

I’ll give you two examples.

Wenatchee Apple Blossom Festival Arts and Crafts Show, a three-day show where I’ve sold my work twice in the past four years, has the following fees:

  • Application/Jury Fee: $30
  • Local Temporary Business License: $25
  • Insurance Fee*: $85
  • Booth Fee: $299

Leavenworth Village Art in the Park, a three- to four-day show where I sell my work on about five weekends per year in the spring and late summer, has the following fees:

  • One-time application/jury fee for season: $15
  • Per weekend Security Fee: $30
  • Booth Fee: $0
  • Commission Percentage: 21%

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* You can usually skip the insurance fee charged at an event by carrying your own insurance, which I do. It costs $375/year and covers all of my events.

The Debate

So the main part of the debate is this: which fee structure is best for artists? Flat fees or commission based fees?

First I need to mention one other thing: I’ve seen shows that have a relatively high booth fee — maybe $500 — plus a commission percentage of 20% or more. (I’m looking at you, Sacramento.) I avoid shows like that because I honestly don’t see how I can make any money. I also think those show runners are being unreasonably greedy and I don’t want to support them in any way.


Oh, this Seattle show! Although I paid the same as the artists in the main room with 10×10 booths, I was given a 10×7 space in a side room with six other unfortunate artists. The window behind my booth was old and drafty; on those November days, it was about 50°F in my chair. I didn’t lose money on this show, but sales were disappointing. I think I would have kicked butt in the other room, but who knows?

That said, the answer to the question of which is better really depends on the show. If it’s a great show and you have lots of sales, it’s better to avoid paying a commission on sales. After all, the more you sell, the more you pay.

But, at the same time, if the show is crappy and sales are low, commission based fees are better because you’ll pay less.

Let’s look at some hypothetical numbers, comparing the Apple Blossom show to the Leavenworth show. For the sake of argument, we’ll say the artist does Leavenworth just once so that one-time application fee doesn’t need to be split among multiple shows.

ItemApple BlossomLeavenworth
Gross Sales$3,000$3,000
Fees:  
  Application Fee$30$15
  Business License Fee250
  Insurance Fee850
  Security Fee030
  Booth Fee2990
  Commission0630
Total Fees$439$675
Net Sales*$2,561$2,325
Sales Cost Percent (Net÷Gross)14.6%22.5%

So in this case, the fixed fee event would be a better deal for the artist, allowing her to take home more money.

But what if the outdoor event was on a really crappy weather weekend? Cold and rainy and folks just didn’t want to come out? Say the artist sales that weekend were a disappointing $1,000. The story changes quite dramatically:

ItemApple BlossomLeavenworth
Gross Sales$1,000$1,000
Fees:  
  Application Fee$30$15
  Business License Fee250
  Insurance Fee850
  Security Fee030
  Booth Fee2990
  Commission0210
Total Fees$439$255
Net Sales*$561$745
Sales Cost Percent (Net÷Gross)43.9%25.5%

Totally different picture, no? Basically, the worse the show is for you, the less you pay in fees if your main fee is based on a commission.

This really comes into play when you have a totally crappy show, like the one I did in Spokane last November. Billed as a Holiday Arts and Crafts show where the show runners actually charged shoppers a fee to get in, most shoppers seemed more interested in buying $13 caramel apples than any sort of quality artist work. Between the show fees of $340 and the cost of making the 3-hour trip (each way) to Spokane, I wound up losing money on the show. (It would have been worse if I’d had to stay in a hotel, but I stayed in my truck camper on the fairgrounds and no one ever collected a fee.) Needless to say, I won’t be doing that show again.

But then again, if you have a great show that charges a commission percentage, it really costs you.

And that’s where the debate stands.

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*Net Sales does not include other expenses of attending a show, such as transportation, lodging, parking, credit card fees, etc. All those do need to be calculated by the artist to come up with a total cost for the show when evaluating it.

What’s the answer?


Sunday mornings are always slow in Leavenworth, no matter how beautiful the weather is.

We don’t know how a show is going to be before we attend so it’s impossible to determine which will work out better in advance. Of course, prior attendance at a show can give you an idea of how it might work out. But even that isn’t guaranteed. I did well in Spokane in 2021 so I assumed I’d do just as well in 2022. I didn’t. Not even close. And the weather is always a factor, especially at outdoor shows.

I’ve done three shows in Leavenworth this spring and the first two were disappointing while the last one was really good. I paid relatively low fees for the first two but was hammered at the third. Still, my cost percentage remained between 22% and 26%. The percentage I take home is pretty solid. There’s some reassurance in that. It’s pretty much impossible to lose money at a percentage-based show. Low sales, low fees.

So there is no answer. It all depends.

And that’s part of what artists deal with when they try to sell their work at shows.

The other part? Setting up and tearing down a booth. Buying and maintaining display equipment. Getting to and from shows. Parking. Sitting in a booth all day, possibly leaving work unattended during trips to the restroom. Dealing with often thoughtless shoppers who make audible comments to friends about how easy it is to make this or how overpriced that is. Seeing your work handled by people who then drop it back down to bang against the metal display. Watching kids with ice cream on their hands touching everything. Keeping an eye out for dogs lifting their legs on table draperies and tent sides.

But let’s not forget the good stuff, too. Being told your work is beautiful. Being complemented on your unique designs. Having a customer buy an expensive piece that took you hours to make and telling you how much they love it.

All that should figure into the costs and benefits of being an artist at an art show, too, no?

On Home Ownership

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I become a real homeowner for the second time in my life.


I got this letter in the mail yesterday after making a final lump sum payment on what I’d always thought of as my “mortgage.” (Technically it was a land loan; I never had a mortgage on this home.)

On July 14, 2022, I officially became a mortgage-free home owner for the second time in my life. That’s the date of the letter from my bank confirming that the lump sum payment I’d sent in June had paid off the balance of my land loan.

I bought the land nearly nine years ago, the day after my divorce was finalized. It was a long story and crazy process that you can read about in a blog post I wrote about it. It wasn’t a cheap lot, but the view from those 10 acres made it worth every penny. I’m generally a debt-adverse person, so I put 50% down on it and borrowed the rest. The owner financed until I could get my paperwork in order and get a loan about a year later with Northwest Farm Credit, a company that specializes in farm loans. My lot, zoned Rural Residential, met the criteria for lending. The terms were a fixed rate for the first 7 years, adjustable annually after that, with a balloon payment at the end of 10 years.

Amortization was based on 30 years, keeping the monthly payments low; for the first 7 years, my monthly payments were just $501. I kicked in an extra $500 toward the principal every month for at least 3/4 of the months over those 7 years. The goal was to pay down the principal quickly so I wouldn’t get hit with the kind of huge balloon payment the bank estimated. When the first interest rate adjustment came, my monthly payment dropped to less than $300/month. I honestly don’t know the exact amount because I kept paying the $1001/month that I’d been paying. Now I was kicking in more than $700/month to principal only.

With my June birthday coming up, I noticed that I owed less than $12K for the property. Rather than let my regular payments pay it off in just under one more year, I decided to make the payoff a birthday present for myself. So I wrote a big check, got a $14.90 refund for my overpayment, and received the letter saying the loan was paid off.

I’m a mortgage-free home owner.

The Money Stuff

Now if all this is gibberish to you and you’ve got one of those 30-year mortgages on your place, you might want to chat with an accountant or financial advisor about the possible benefit of paying extra toward the principal on that mortgage.

I remember my first mortgage with my future wasband. It was a 30-year term because that’s all we could afford when we bought our first home. We paid what was due — on average about $1200/month — every month for 11 years. When we sold after 11 years, we’d only contributed about $16K toward the principal — that’s after paying over $158K. Where had all that extra money gone? Mortgage interest, of course. Rates were a lot higher then, but still! We had a house but very little equity in it.

I think that experience is what woke me up to the realities of mortgages and home ownership. If you have a large loan and pay it over a long period of time, you’re likely to pay a lot of money in interest without increasing your equity in the home by very much. In that case, what’s the benefit of buying over renting? When you own a home, you’re responsible maintaining and repairing it. When you rent, you’re not. And when you’re paying 90% of your monthly mortgage payment toward interest instead of principal, it’s like paying rent without the benefit of a landlord to take care of the home.

Home ownership remains a goal of many people. It’s a great goal, but it’s not achievable unless you are able to maximize your downpayment, minimize your loan term, and pay down the principal as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you’re basically paying rent to a bank with the added expense of home maintenance, repairs, and property taxes.

When my future wasband and I sold that first home and moved to a new home in Arizona, we quickly refinanced to a 15-year loan term. Sure, the payments were bigger, but each payment applied more money to the loan principal. And with the lesson learned from our first home, I (the debt-adverse person in charge of household finances) would send additional principal payments for the loan to the bank a few times a year, when there was some spare cash in the household account. By doing so, we managed to pay off the loan in just over 11 years.

And that was the first time in my life that I was a mortgage-free home owner, at the age of 50 — although I was just half owner on that particular property.

My House

My house, of course, has been paid off since it was built. Because of the construction style of my home — post and beam construction — a building loan was not possible to get. So I had to pay cash as it was built.

On May 20, 2014, I began blogging about the construction of my new home in Malaga, WA. You can read all of these posts — and see the videos that go with many them — by clicking the new home construction tag.

Yeah, that was a challenge. Fortunately, my decent income and low cost of living rose to that challenge. I was living in my 36-foot fifth wheel, the “Mobile Mansion,” on my property at the time so there was no rent to pay and that likely saved a ton of money that could go toward construction.

I had the house built in stages starting on May 20, 2014: first the building shell and then the living space upstairs. I did a lot of the interior work myself: electricity, flooring (wood laminate and tile), and deck rails/floor. I subcontracted out to a framer and plumber and insulation/drywall/painting guys. I designed a custom kitchen with granite countertops at Home Depot and let their guys install it all. I bought my appliances at a Black Friday sale and, again, let them install. The place came together bit by bit over the course of two years. I wrote a lot of checks. But in the end, it was done and it was paid for.


The Great Room in my home. I really do love it here.

The Lecture

I know that what I’ve achieved is beyond the means of many people. I don’t want to say I’m “lucky” that I could do this because I truly believe that we make (most of) our luck. (And besides, I’ve had a bit of bad luck, too.) I’m not rich, but I do know how to work for a living and manage my money.

Living within my means is step 1 — and that’s the step most folks can’t seem to manage. They buy things they don’t need or can’t afford, relying on credit cards and loans to make it happen. Soon, every penny from every paycheck is spoken for and still some of them keep buying. They live in a world of never-ending debt by making minimum payments on every debt they owe. And then they complain that they’re broke.

That’s not me. I learned my lesson about debt TWICE when I was in my twenties. The second time did the charm. Years later, I realized that the first step to financial security — especially in retirement years — is having a paid-for roof over your head. That’s what motivated me to get the house I owned with my wasband paid for. And that has definitely been on my mind over the past 10 years as I get ever closer to retirement age.

I’m 61 now and starting to think seriously about life in retirement. Getting that paid-for roof over my head was a good start on the things I need to do to achieve my retirement dreams.