Hi all. I am back. It has been almost 2 years. I quit work at my high stress job 6/16. I was in severe burnout when I quit. I just took 4 weeks to visit my Ma and national parks.. from Sequoia to Seguaro to Yellowstone/Grand Tetons and all  the ones on the way out and back from Chicago area... also Smokey Mountains. I am getting my national park passport book filled up.  I just got back from my trip last week so settling in and figuring out what I want to do. Health coaching comes to mind or working at the church or an active job. I will investigate all. I am relying on the rentals fully this month and set up an automatic draft on the 1st from the rental account to my main account of $5000. My budgetted costs shoudl be around $4700 but I lived a lot looser when I was working and also I compensated for my stress and lack of time with going out to eat ALOT. I will track my actuals these next 3 months to get a handle on things.  Rentals tracked over $9k a month in 2021, dropped to $7500/month in 2022 (due to messy evictions caused by the eviction moratorium and also city inspections started in Joliet and it felt like the guys wanted to make up for not doing inspections for almost 2 years. I got tagged with new windows for two of my buildings (the entire building!) and a sewer job). This year we look to be averaging around $8500/month. Now that I am off work, it feels good to have less stress, more free time and to eat healthier foods and to try out new things again. I did not realize how much of my life was 'on hold or deferred' due to work.  Since my last post in 2021 I have enlarged my emergency fund to almost 11 months of expenses, enlarged the rental emergency fund and bought and paid off 2 new cars. I signed up for Motley Fool and will use that to help me invest the money i save(anyone doing that?). I am also using this time off to catch up on medical appts.. all preventative checks ..and so far all is great. I am 52 now (wow.. time goes by). I used to save alot. the 'house remodel' took a lot of TIME and savings.. luckily the house value is still holding but I have not saved large sums (to invest) probably since 2020. I have set a goal of $2k a month starting in this month. In 2015 I saved $73k.. Wow. Last year I paid off 2 cars.. a 2018 Lincoln MKZ and  2018 Chevy Suburban so definately keeping the saving muscle exercised... years before that I was paying off the house remodel.  ANyway. a bunch of random thoughts right now. I will figure out what I am doing and aiming for and post here to keep myself accountable.. sortof like an online diary. VERY interested in learning how people are saving costs or doing things on the cheap now that I have time to investigate that. I will read that 'alaska plane ticket'post carefully. About 2 years ago I was seized by the idea that life is short and want to really live and enjoy life while I can. I read that 'Die with Zero' book and HIGHLY recommend it to everyone here. It really changed my perspective. It says most people die with 40-75% of their money left over.. and it recommends we want make a time bucket list vs a bucket list.. the time bucket list concept puts age and health status in there. So when we form our bucket list of things we want to do or experience we take into account health (ie CAN we do it still).. ie taking a world trip at 70 may not be possible or as fun at that age.. water skiiing, skiing, hiking etc. I am building my list and will share it here. Also thinking of a camper van for road trips next year.. anyone here have one? the market for them is coming down and now with my roadtrip experience (taking in someone else's camper van) i can see the value. Looking forward to reading al your posts and cheering each other on.