About Aunty

Aunty is a new senior citizen and loving this phase of her life. Less responsibilities, less fear of being weird, able to do more of the things that I want to do! Older, yes, slower, yes, but life is even more wonderful in my golden years and I look forward to even goldener ones.

Yellow for Yellowing Teeth?

Posted on May 25, 2017 by Aunty

yellow smile Aunty’s blog friend Kay of Musings recently posted about whitening her teeth with Crest Whitestrips. It worked beautifully – Kay’s teeth became movie star white – but had a few cautionary issues with sensitivity and erosion.

Aunty used to use whitening strips, or the “trays” that are formed as troughs to fit and soak uppers and lowers in bleach solutions, but has recently opted for a cheaper, possibly safer and more natural solution that really works, though not to the dazzling whiteness of movie stars.

It is a very yellow paste made with 1 TBS coconut oil, 1 tsp curcumin (also known as turmeric), and 2 drops of peppermint oil (optional). This short video from the good folks at 7 Nutrition shows how it is done. Aunty takes a capsule of curcumin on a daily basis, and 2 capsules = approx 1 tsp when opened and measured.

After mixing thoroughly in a small ceramic dish, Aunty stores the paste in a cute little Chinese mustard container with a cover on her bathroom counter. This lasts for weeks.

Use a Q-tip (rather than a toothbrush) to dip into the paste and rub or dab onto the front teeth surface. Keep your lips open and away from your yellow teeth. You will look wild and weird – but that’s okay. We do what we must for looking good. The longer you can do this, the better. Try for at least 2 minutes. Be aware that curcumin can stain your countertops, towels, and clothing so be neat and apply just enough.

Then, wipe off as much as possible with toilet paper or paper towel pieces, and throw in the trash. Don’t rinse in the sink before wiping or dispose of the paper in the toilet or you will have oily yellow ringed sink bowls to clean. Optional to brush or rinse your mouth after wiping.

Do daily for a couple of weeks, and then less often. Slowly but surely, your smile will be brighter and brighter!

mustard dish

Broke da Arm

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Aunty

arm Aunty is now a patient, feeling impatient. Last Wednesday, she tripped on someone’s driveway while walking a dog and broke 2 bones just above her left wrist.

Surgery was done on Friday. Recovery seems slow – but there is no way to rush it.

Time has been slowed down, too. Life goes on, and the weeds are rejoicing because Aunty’s daily yard duties have been curtailed – for now.

In Aunty’s Garden

Posted on May 16, 2017 by Aunty

Hat, long sleeve dress shirt, long harem pants, and gloves = sun safe to the max

Aunty seems to be unsociable lately because she has been fanatic in doing her favorite task – every single day – from late afternoon to when the sun goes down. Weeding, weeding, and weeding, non-stop. This is a bit surprising because usually after a couple of days of weeding, Aunty’s hands and body are so sore and stiff, she has to take a break. The difference has been the BEMER – a pulsed electromagnetic field system (post will follow one of these days).

Aunty’s blogging friend, Kay of Musings, has a blogging friend Linda of Linda Letters whom Aunty follows because she is a retired teacher with so much going on, is also a soccer fan, and has the most fantastic garden on 1/2 acres in Seattle. She is a garden fanatic and shares with pictures and postings with weather reports so Aunty feels a bit more in touch with her #2 daughter (teacher, soccer maniac, busy bee) who now lives there. Another gardening fanatic was Mrs. Tsuneyoshi from across the street, who used to garden every day and share pots and pots of orchids, succulents, and fruits from her finely tended front yard.

Inspired by these 2 ladies, Aunty wants to share some pictures of her ever changing garden – albeit small and wild.

Bonsai Bougainvillea in the driveway

Papaya trees, getting a bit too tall

White Pirie mangos – still green. Luscious when ripe.

Tillandsias stuck into rocks

Weird Tillandsia hung on nails and White Anthurium

Common Dendrobium orchid growing on rock wall

Brassia, on rock with spray of flowers

Hanging Heliconia, about 12″ long

Variegated Shell Ginger

Button Ginger

Golden Dew Drop

From “junk” to cash, with eBay or Amazon

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Aunty

stuff Aunty did a post about selling on eBay a couple of years ago. Aunty also took (paid some bucks) an eBay course from an eBay guru who was a power seller. Truth to tell, Aunty did not use much of the information since a lot of it was for true rookies and some were for power sellers that are willing to devote all of their time loading, selling, packing, and shipping.

Aunty is more of a “hobby” eBayer, selling rarely and buying more often than she should.

However, since reading Marie Kondo’s book on the magical aspects of tidying up, piles of things that have value but no appeal or use are growing like mushrooms on Aunty’s floor. These are things that are someone else’s potential source of joy and in new or great condition, so eBay or Amazon are great venues that act like stores for Aunty.

Amazon

The easiest store is Amazon.com. One of the requirements is that you have the UPC or ISBN or manufacturing code from the packaging (best if you still have the box). If you have that, it is as easy a matter of entering the condition, number of items available, choosing a few options, setting your price, and SHAZAAM!, your listing is live. Amazon’s process will fill in the details, pictures, specifications, and your store is on the web. Listings remain on the site forever, until they sell.

Aunty uses Amazon mainly for books. Fulfillment by Amazon is a service that actually stores and ships out your items – one day Aunty actually shipped out an entire bookcase worth of books that were not being looked at – fees are higher but it was like a wall of freedom with blessed space!

Customer service at Amazon is fantastic. If you opt for a phone call from customer service, you WILL receive a phone call within minutes! The only downside as a seller on Amazon is that selling price points are very low, and if you don’t set your selling price low or lower, your inventory does not move. That being said, it is a great place to find bargains!

eBay

It used to be painfully difficult to sell on eBay. All of the descriptions were the responsibility of the seller, and photo editing, sizing, and uploading were time consuming and laborious.

Now, with the advent of eBay’s mobile app (eBay), it is super duper easy to begin a listing with the app, take all the photos with your smart phone, save the listing as a draft, and then use your computer to complete the listing. If you are a 100% mobile user, you could complete everything with your phone but the screen is much too small for Aunty’s aging eyes and scrolling is a pain. A computer screen allows Aunty to see the whole picture and more wonderful options reveal themselves, iAo (in Aunty’s opinion).

One of the new options is to enter the ISBN or whatever they call the numbers that manufacturers use to identify their items. Entering this will fill in a lot of the vitals of your items for sale, almost like Amazon!

The advantage of eBay being an auction site rather than a set price “store” like Amazon is that you could potentially get big bucks even if you don’t realize that your item is super desirable. Listings are usually on for just 7 days, but can easily be relisted if it does not sell, all for free. Fees are based on sales price, so if it sells, you pay. If it doesn’t sell, you don’t pay.

eBay also started a service that is almost like Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon program. eBay Valet will provide a shipping code and easy form to simply list the items that you want to sell (only certain items qualify), put them in a box and take it to a FedEx store, where it ships for free(!) to a “valet” who will do all the work and list your item(s) for sale on eBay. If it sells, you get a percentage and they take a percentage. Fees are rather high this way, but the convenience is wonderful. They are very picky about what they accept and will return the items that they reject. Aunty can attest to that – the valet returned most of the things that were sent and only listed a couple of the items. The good thing is that it didn’t cost Aunty a single cent to ship out or receive back the rejected items.

Shipping ease

Another great improvement is the ability to print shipping labels that have all the shipment info on it from your computer to your printer. The shipping costs (Aunty only uses USPS) are slightly lower than going to the post office and charged against your PayPal account. After the shipping label is printed, just trim, tape on the package, and pop it in the drive through mail box! They look super professional, with all the correct info, tracking number, and addresses printed in crisp black font. SUPER easy!

Danger

The greatest danger in using eBay and/or Amazon is the potential to shop and spend. Using their services to get cash for things that need to go out of the house is really terrific. Aunty loves seeing her Paypal account (acts as a bank to collect and pay eBay transactions) grow a little and grow a little more with each successful sale.

It is better not to look or search for items of interest on either site because you WILL find tantalizing treasures that will whet your appetite and draw your finger to the BUY button. Aunty’s weakness is Issey Miyake.

Buy, if you must, especially if not buying will become a regret. If you later decide that it no longer gives you joy, add it to the pile of “mushrooms” and sell it on eBay.

4-7-8 Breathing exercise for life, and magnets

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Aunty

Aunty first heard about this 4-7-8 breathing exercise from Kay of Musings. This supposedly helps you fall asleep, and so Aunty, on the few occasions when it was hard to fall asleep at night, would breathe in, hold, and exhale continuously, and find herself becoming light headed – but still wide awake.

Then, a link in one of Dr. Mercola‘s articles was to Dr. Andrew Weil’s instructional video on only doing 4 breath cycles at a time, once or twice a day, and NOT as many as one is able to do. This cycle of 4 originated in India and has health benefits of anxiety relief, lowering blood pressure (one of Aunty’s new health concerns), and can give one a refreshing boost as well as ease of falling asleep.

Here’s Dr. Andrew Weil explaining how to do this exercise:

Actually, Aunty did put her digital blood pressure cuff on while doing this breathing exercise and it DID result in a nicer lower blood pressure reading!

Aunty will be starting this practice daily. Sometimes while sitting on the toilet in the morning since nothing else is going on at that time. *It seems like Kay of Musings and Aunty are on the same info plane because just yesterday, Kay posted about blowing while constipated. What a coincidence, and SO worth a try!

Another practice (unrelated to toilet habits) that Aunty believes in is magnet therapy. Kay has trigger finger and Aunty suggested she use magnets to help heal the area around her joints. Sometimes Aunty grabs a business card magnet – those freebie things that come in the mail or are attached to phone books when they are first delivered – and lays it on the area of pain. For Aunty, this is usually her neck and/or shoulders. Perhaps it is her imagination, but it almost feels like the pain is lifted away.

In any case, these are 2 free methods of wellness that Aunty wanted to share with you today. If anyone wants Aunty’s 4-7-8 breathing magnet as well as 3 other of her magnets, please email Aunty (aunty@hawaii.rr.com) with your U.S mailing address and Aunty will gladly mail out a set of her 4 magnets. You can use these magnets as reminders on your refrigerator or file cabinet, or for temporary magnet therapy.

Wishing you peace, happiness, and wellness!

magnets

Scannable, a needed app

Posted on March 11, 2017 by Aunty

Scannable, the app

There are many times that we need to scan things – in order to save a document, send one, or to help us organize the tons of papers that we really don’t need.

Aunty does have a small portable scanner by ScanSnap that works great, but is limited to paper no wider than the standard 8 1/2″, and the thinness of paper.

Amy Lynn Andrews is one of Aunty’s gurus (though she doesn’t know it) for website creating, building, and tips. She is a really nice person, and has even responded to a couple of Aunty’s emails, never pushing to sell. She wants to help people, and she does.

Her useletter today in Aunty’s inbox mentioned a mobile app for scanning. Scannable by Evernote. This one is made for the iPhone and iPad, is simple (and free!) to install via the App Store, and is what Aunty will use for the majority of her scan then trash chores. Mari Kondo of the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up (I know, I know, I am still working on the review of that great book) says that we don’t need to keep most of our papers, and it is SO true. It is clutter stuck in file cabinets that we never look at.

Anywho, just wanted to share this latest find with you.

And, if anyone remembers, the re-designing of Aunty’s website is still in progress. One of these days, hopefully soon, those web design people will be done, and the “new” Aunty will be revealed.

Update: This seemed like something so easy, but for non-techy aunties, it first seemed like being shot out of a cannon into strange and fast scenery.

When you open the Scannable app on your phone, it instantly takes you into a camera mode, trying to find a document to capture. For awhile, it couldn’t figure out what to do with my leg, since that is what it was focusing on. (btw, it is so unfair that Aunty’s leg is now all wrinkled and spotted with age. And it was NOT something that needed to be scanned and saved.)

On the screen, click on the 3 dots (dot, dot, dot) which will take you to a page with options. Light and Capture are on AUTO modes, which Aunty left alone. Go to the Settings circle. You can choose your File Type (Aunty chose PDF, though the default is Auto with image and PDF).

The next section shows “Evernote” and “Business Cards”. Aunty clicked on “Evernote” and signed up for an account (not necessary but Aunty did anyway). To do this, enter your email address and a password. Enter carefully because it seems to just accept whatever you keyboard in before you can make note of what you entered. Almost too quickly. Before Aunty finished putting in her password it swooshed it into acceptance. However, it is easy enough to retrieve and change when you try to log in by letting it know you “forgot your password” because it sends the reset to your email address.

Aunty didn’t do anything with the “Business Cards” topic.

“Introduction” takes you through a 4 page screen of how it works, but doesn’t really help.

Hitting “Done” will take you back to the camera mode screen, and Aunty’s wrinkled spotted leg. Resting the phone on the old leg prevented the app from taking pictures and the app closes soon after. The funny looking “S” next to the dot, dot, dot will take you to a screen trying to connect with a WIFI scanner, if you have one. Aunty ignored that.

Truth to tell, Aunty almost gave up. This app is like a teenager on a skateboard. Fast, impatient, does it’s own thing. HOWEVER, it is free, and came highly recommended by Amy Lynn Andrews, so Aunty decided to “shoot” an old 2 page mortgage statement with it.

Tapping on the app, Aunty held the phone above the 1st page of the statement. The blue box of light captured the page and snapped it. Then the phone was held above the 2nd page. The blue box of light snapped that one too! It works fast and auto focuses and crops by itself. It then tries to keep finding more documents to snap, but you can stop it by touching on the images of the pages you just took on the bottom of the scanning screen. Hurray!

You now have options to “Send” or “Save”, so Aunty chose “Send” and then chose “Mail” vs “Share” to Aunty’s email address. Because Aunty had signed up for an Evernote account, this scan was also saved automatically and also moved to “Recents” automatically.

Whatever. (Whatever is what Aunty says when she doesn’t really understand something but it is not harmful or bad, so it is acceptable.)

Once the pdf file arrived in Aunty’s email box with subject heading “Scannable Document – sent from Scannable”, Aunty clicked on the file, and it opens in whatever it opens in on your computer (in Aunty’s case it is Adobe Reader). To organize and save it, Aunty pulls down the “File” tab and chooses “Save a copy”, renames it, and finds the folder to put it in – in this case, it was the “2017” folder of the mortgage folder on the desktop.

Phew! It was kinda tough getting to that point, but also quite wonderful. Aunty did the recent Hawaii Gas bill, and it got easier. Snap, tap, send, file. Actually, it was really easy! And super fast.

Scannable keeps wanting to take pictures of Aunty’s wrinkled body parts, and now, that is fine, because the delete option is there, and a fun way to get rid of what does not need to be recorded.

Whatever!

Another Ala Moana Hotel update

Posted on February 23, 2017 by Aunty

First Circuit Courtyard

2 days in a row! Normally I wouldn’t have reported about the owners’ meeting except that it had the insurance tip and my rather impulsive decision to run on a board/committee. Am still mulling over the wisdom or dumbness of that, but it is just for a year, and a year speeds on by.

Back in October of last year, Aunty went to an auction for one of the units at the Ala Moana Hotel. Her bid price was beat by $1000 by a woman and her son. Judicial foreclosure auctions consist of 2 parts – the first was this initial auction. After a period of time, the results must be confirmed before a judge, at which time additional bids can come in to challenge the last bid price.

Today, Aunty went to the confirmation hearing of the unit that she was beat on – not to challenge, but to learn about the process. If Aunty did want to challenge the last bid price ($156,000) from the October auction, she would have to bid at least 5% more ($7,800 more = $163,800) and have at least 10% of the bid up to price in the form of cash or cashier’s check as proof to the commissioner in charge.

This unit was well worth $163,800 because prices have been appreciating in the Ala Moana Hotel. Okay, to be absolutely honest, Aunty was running a little late for the 9:00 a.m. hearing at the First Circuit Court and didn’t have time to get a cashier’s check just in case she had a change of heart and wanted to challenge. However, this wasn’t too much of a downer because Aunty also remembered that the lady who bid was an older woman that looked nice, and not really someone she wanted to challenge.

So Aunty parks at her credit union across the street, runs toward the Court building on Punchbowl Street, gets a little lost on the 4th floor, and enters a very small courtroom full of people. Seeing the commissioner in charge of this auction, Aunty squats next to her, and we wait for the judge, who was late. This confirmation hearing time was for several judicial auctions, not just the one that Aunty was interested in.

The first case called up was for a property in Waianae. The bailiff or judge read off the details, the plaintiff (I suppose that is the one who won the initial auction) acknowledged their presence and the commissioner in charge of the sale stood next to them before the judge. The judge then asked if there were any challenges to the property (i.e. any bids over the last bid price), and someone in the bandstand raised their hand. The judge then called for a delay in that case until the interested parties conferred and met outside of the courtroom. Those people stepped out, and a mini auction between any of the interested parties took place, the winner of that auction would then get to be confirmed by the judge later in the proceedings that day.

So exciting!

Up next, was the Ala Moana Hotel unit that Aunty had her eye on. The winning bidders must have hired an attorney to represent them because a well suited young man stood as plaintiff for them next to the commissioner, and when the judge asked if there were any challengers to their bid, no one raised their hand. That was a surprise, but good for the nice looking lady and her son. The sale was confirmed, and the property would be theirs after all the funding, escrow, etc. were finalized.

Aunty followed the commissioner out of the room, and then saw the woman and her son. She looked like she had aged 10 years. Aunty was glad that she did not challenge them.

So, that is the auction update from start to almost finish. It took almost 3 1/2 months for the confirmation hearing to be held from the auction in October.

Aunty will now feel a bit more confident in bidding at these – for the right property at the right price. It was a really good learning experience.

Owner meeting at the Ala Moana Hotel

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Aunty

Aunty attended the 2017 Ala Moana Hotel Condominium Annual Meeting yesterday, very curious to hear from the new owners from the Mantra Group, and to talk story with fellow owners. After the meeting, an Owners’ Forum is held, and following that, an after meeting party in the room next door with food, music, and drinks.

There are 1100 rooms, 90% of which are owned by people like Aunty, who rent them out using the hotel pool management (with a very steep 60% management fee). The rest of the owners either live there, use outside property management companies or self manage/clean/book the rooms themselves.

Tip of the day

Sue Savio spoke about the insurance that the hotel provides. We are in good hands, except she spoke about each owner’s need to contact their insurance agent and purchase HO6 insurance for our units – which will cover loss of income if a disaster causes our rooms to be unable to book. At $175 – $200 per year, this is indeed a great piece of advice for anyone who has rental income. Mahalo Sue!

Aunty at bat

There are 6 directors, representing apartment classes. Five of these directors are pre-determined by the hotel owners (Mantra Group), and the only one that unit owners can vote or run for is the Hotel Apartment Class, even though the nominee for that position had also been pre-determined by the hotel. This is very confusing to Aunty, who was edged on by Babs, her neighboring seat mate, to run for the director position. No way did Aunty want to be a director, but Aunty was assured that even if everyone in the room voted for Aunty, she still wouldn’t get in. It would be a testing of the controls that have been in place, so with nothing to lose except a bit of embarrassment. Aunty accepted the nomination, did a short little introductory speech, and ran against the incumbent-already-chosen director, and lost. Very badly. The incumbent had 26% of the votes, Aunty had 3%. Humble pie that didn’t taste too bad since it wasn’t something that she wanted, though the results were even more confusing.

Another owner asked for hard numbers rather than percentages. There were about 70 owners in the room, we each had a paper ballot that had the names of the two candidates, and 3% would have represented only 2 votes for Aunty. The presiding officer declined to give hard numbers, insisting that percentages were the only gauge to be reported and used for determination of results. Babs was right – no one except the one pre-chosen by the board would be elected to represent the owners. Interesting, and rather sad.

Aunty bats again

Minutes of the previous annual meeting were approved, an auditor was appointed, a resolution regarding rolling over account balances to the following year was passed, and another election for Class Committee Elections were held. Again, committee members of 5 classes were already pre-determined and made up of directors already on the board. The 6th class was the Hotel Apartment Class, and Aunty, Babs, and a nice young man named Kamil were nominated, and by default (3 positions and only 3 nominees) elected to the committee.

Why did Aunty run? Not sure, but it will be an interesting year of possible frustration or revelations. Committees have no voting power or say in hotel decisions. We do not get paid, except maybe we are fed at the quarterly meetings. Mantra Group could be an improvement over the old hotel owners, Outrigger. Hopefully so.

Start with connecting

One of the elements missing with hotel unit owners is communication. Babs has started an email/contact list and has asked that her contact info be posted on the newsletters that go out to all the owners. Feedback, concerns, criticisms, as well as appreciation can be gathered and presented as a voice of the owners. The owner base is a mix of local, mainland, and international people. Some owners live in their units, some stay for a few months and then rent it out the rest of the year. Most of us rent it out with occasional stays (that are free for us). 1000 potential new acquaintances, each with their own story. Quite fascinating, yes?

The after the meeting party was quite nice. A great time to eat, drink, and meet people. Willee of the Owner’s Relations Dept was there, the effervescent Suzanne Alawa of the AOAO, and an old high school classmate in charge of catering, Candace Fujioka, was a surprise meet. The food spread was just right, and as Aunty started delving into grabbing a wonderful looking mini pot pie commemorating the new Hawaii/Australia partnership (Mantra Group is based in Australia), a text from #1 daughter asked about feeding the family dog since she would be out until later.

Dog comes first

Bummers, Aunty could not mingle and eat, but did manage to take home the cute little pot pie with Hawaiian and Australian flags, a bag of macadamia nuts, and a delicious little fruit tart. It was all ono.

That and the meeting left a good taste in Aunty’s mouth and heart. The new ownership of the Ala Moana Hotel will be good for us and good for them. And that, as Martha Stewart likes to say, is a good thing.

Be Be Cream = mercury bummers

Posted on February 10, 2017 by Aunty

BB1 Aunty was all excited to share her age spot busting discovery (thanks to Pal Cookie/Lee) in the inexpensive pink plastic Be Be Cream from Cambodia. Truly, it worked! Aunty’s age spots faded to the point of wonderful – and people who got up close and touchy (face massage, hair dresser, etc.) would tell Aunty that she had beautiful skin, woo hoo!

HOWEVER, a comment from reader Yuko on a recent post about morning stretches warned about the dangers of mercury in this Be Be Cream. She tested it and found that it contained mercury, so Aunty ordered test strips from Home-Health-Chemistry.com; it arrived from Israel (!) today, and with trepidation, Aunty tested 2 containers of Be Be Cream – one that was from an older shipment, and one that was from a new shipment – slight packaging differences and slightly different color.

BB2 BB3 Such a bummer. Both creams tested positive for mercury in the 50 ppm range (or slightly lower since it wasn’t as dark a purple as the comparison color chart that was provided. So sad.

FDA cosmetic regulations on mercury were as follows: Mercury compounds. Mercury compounds are readily absorbed through the skin on topical application and tend to accumulate in the body. They may cause allergic reactions, skin irritation, or neurotoxic problems. The use of mercury compounds in cosmetics is limited to eye area products at no more than 65 parts per million (0.0065 percent) of mercury calculated as the metal and is permitted only if no other effective and safe preservative is available. All other cosmetics containing mercury are adulterated and subject to regulatory action unless it occurs in a trace amount of less than 1 part per million (0.0001 percent) calculated as the metal and its presence is unavoidable under conditions of good manufacturing practice (21 CFR 700.13) What does that mean – eye are products are okay at 65 ppm, but all else is 1 ppm?

More about Mercury poisoning

The FDA also has a page about Mercury in skin care products. It is easily absorbed into the body by the skin and an absolute no-no for pregnant women or children. Signs and Symptoms of Mercury Poisoning include:

irritability
shyness
tremors
changes in vision or hearing
memory problems
depression
numbness and tingling in hands, feet or around mouth

An international watchdog also seized products that were being sold as skin whitening from various stores in the Philippines and some of these had shockingly high ppm numbers (parts per million) ranging in the thousands!

Let the Buyer Beware

Aunty remembers playing with liquid mercury as a child in science class. The silver colored element was fascinating, breaking into little balls that could be joined together into a bigger blob that gleamed and rolled around in our hands. Aunty also eats a LOT of raw fish and has a silver filling that is covered with a gold crown that will be soon replaced. Flu vaccines for adults supposedly have a form of mercury used as a preservative.

Some readers have decided to purchase Be Be Cream online and have loved the results. Aunty also loves the results and is now in a dilemma. Stop using and get back the age spots on her face? Or, continue to use and do heavy metal elimination every so often? What do you think?

How to detox mercury

Reader Yuko did a natural detox method over a period of 40 days of morning shakes.

Aunty will do EDTA chelation at her doctor’s office (Dr. Takemoto-Gentile), though not solely because of the Be Be Cream.

Google searching health websites about mercury detoxification mentioned cilantro as a natural agent (also known as Chinese parsley). Here is a rather good article about what to do: How to Detox from Heavy Metals and Mercury.

Ah, the things we do for beauty

Yuko’s comment was a wake up call that Aunty really didn’t want. Apologies to readers that got as excited as Aunty and purchased this wonder cream. and Mahalo to Yuko.

The price we pay for beauty can be very high. It’s just too bad that old faces with splotchy age spots aren’t “in”. Aunty has some thinking to do.

Your magic number for retirement

Posted on February 6, 2017 by Aunty

Must do Homework!

Michael Ford of the Palm Beach Letter (highly recommended) recently covered figuring out your magic number for retirement. Aunty likes to live comfortably – but it doesn’t just happen. Most people fall into 2 categories when it comes to figuring out their retirement needs: 1) procrastinators – those that put off or don’t really want to face what will be, and 2) pluckers – those that just pluck numbers out of thin air, making guesses. Aunty admits to being a plucker AND a procrastinator, but has since learned to do her homework.

Want to know your magic number? – that target figure that you will need to have in order to retire the way that you would like? This is the dollar figure of your investment/retirement account that will generate enough to replace your active (paycheck) income and pay for your expenses, continuously. Here are the rather simple steps:

Step 1 – Find your Lifestyle Burn Rate (LBR)

This is easy to do – calculate how much you are spending right now to live each year. [Aunty has Quickbooks “companies” for her business/investments as well as one for personal accounts. Quickbooks takes time to learn and input, but once done, it is SO convenient for accounting, taxes, and these kind of reports.]

It is easier if you group expenses into 3 basic categories: housing (mortgage, maintenance, taxes), basic living (food, clothing, health expenses), and entertainment (includes travel). Charity and education could also be 2 additional categories if you have expenses in those areas.

Add up all your expenses for each of these for the entire year (use last year’s figures) – this total will be your current Lifetime Burn Rate. Do not guess. You want to have real numbers that are true for you. You may also be surprised at what your number(s) look like.

If you are still young and without dependents, you have a low Lifestyle Burn Rate (stage 1). Your LBR dramatically rises after you have your first child, buy a house, pay for their education (stage 2). Then, after the kids leave the nest (stage 3), your LBR will be at least twice what it was when you were younger and carefree, but not as much as stage 2. If you are in stage 1 of your financial life, calculate your current LBR, and estimate for your future stages.

Step 2 – Adjust your LBR (Lifestyle Burn Rate) with extras or deductions

To reach your Retirement Lifestyle Burn Rate (RLBR), add in those extras that you want, i.e. weekly massages, more travel, gifts to grandchildren, golf club expenses. Then, subtract those expenses that you currently have but do not plan on having when you are retired. These expenses could be mortgage payments if you pay off the loan in entirety by the time you retire, less education expenses if you are still paying for your child’s college, less housing payments if you downsize.

This new number, your Retirement Lifestyle number may be larger, or smaller than your current Burn Rate.

Step 3 – Adjust your RLBR (Retirement Lifestyle Burn Rate) if you have any additional sources of income

These additional sources of income could include retirement pension payments, Social Security, part time work that you plan to do, etc. Whatever these add up to, slash the number in half (i.e. if Social Security, pension, and part time work is predicted to be $30,000 per year, divide by 2, leaving you $15,000).

After subtracting your anticipated additional sources of income from your RLBR, you will now have your Net Retirement Lifestyle Burn Rate (NRLBR). This number is a very important number. This is the dollar figure that you will need every year to live the lifestyle that you want when you retire.

Step 4 – What rate of return will you be getting on your savings/investments?

Hopefully you have savings or investments that generate income for you. If you do not, start today and build up your savings and investment portfolio. [This is the reason why Aunty took RichDad classes – even without doing this exercise of LBR, RLBR, NRLBR. Aunty knew we were in trouble, and that we needed to generate passive income for our retirement needs. One of the best ways, in Aunty’s opinion, is tax free with a Roth IRA. Even better is with a checkbook Roth IRA that controls real estate, short or long term capital gains, note lending, etc.]

Calculate what you currently make on your current available funds/portfolio. Then figure out the after tax total. This after tax net income divided into the portfolio total value is your current rate of return on your investments/savings. This number might be as low as .5% (YIKES!) if you have all your money in a bank savings account. Hopefully it is much higher, with dividends from stocks paying at least 3%, real estate rental income paying out 10%, income from other investment vehicles such as notes, bonds, etc.

Be very realistic with this. Do not make up a percentage based on what you wish you had.

Step 5 – Calculate your Magic Number

Take your NRLBR (net retirement lifestyle burn rate) that you got from Step 3 and divide it by your expected rate of return (from Step 4).

THIS is your Magic Number! This is the amount you need in your investment/savings/portfolio. How does it look?

If you have a lot of retirement income from your pension plan – i.e. a retired Hawaii State worker, you are in pretty good shape. However, it might still be a good idea to have additional income from investments, don’tcha think?

by Aunty

a lot of stuff about almost everything

Author Archives: Aunty