New Year Resolution...

The last time I made a New Year Resolution, it was 2019.

It's high time to have a midterm assessment of how I've been doing with that...and I'm feeling quite good about it.

Fitbit

Since the health scare in 2019, I've bought a Fitbit (Inspire 2) in 2020 to help me track myself. I've turned myself into a pseudo-lab rat, religiously tracking everything that the Fitbit app allows me to do. I log my water intake, food intake, I wear my Fitbit 24x7, and I've been exercising more, monitoring my resting heart rate, and sleep patterns. It's working out well so far (for almost two years now). 

I used to think that I can do all these on my own. As it turns out, having a non-intrusive device that tracks my bodily vital signs, and an app that I can use on my phone, has been immensely helpful. The food logging gives me an idea of how good/bad my eating habits have been. (Well, I kind of know my diet is healthy, though I indulge myself at times; but now I have the actual data to prove it.) The water intake reminds me to drink more water on a daily basis. And I was surprised to see how closely the Fitbit has monitored how my body has handled the recovery from the recent Covid booster shot that I took. (It took a full five days for my resting heart rate to come back down to normal level, with first day shot up from 67 to 73, and then dipping down to 60, but it's since bounced back to 67 now. The first day after the Covid booster was also the first time I'd ever had deep-sleep for more than 2 hours since the fatigue as a result had me sleeping for 16 hours, straight.) It turns out, that also mirrors the CDC guidelines as well on the booster shot symptoms and recovery. All told, the Fitbit works as intended.

In the initial months, I did also do the night-time breathing exercise with soothing music. But I've since dropped that habit as I normally don't go to bed until I'm tired, and when I hit the sack, I fall asleep almost rightaway (hence, not even time enough for breathing exercise). I take that as a good thing.

The one thing that I wish it would do, is to get the Fitbit app to allow for blood pressure (BP) logging. Apparently this has been a feature that has been requested by Fitbit users in forums for years, yet it's still not available? How could it be that the Fitbit app lets you log even your "stress level" (which is totally subjective) but still no BP logging (which is objective data point and such an important vital sign)?!?!?! (I mean, WTF!!!) 

The side-effect of Fitbit for me is that, I don't wear wristwatch anymore. I have a collection of expensive wristwatches that I love, but they are all gathering dust in safebox these days since I don't need them anymore (as a timepiece). I also don't want to be bothered by wearing Fitbit on one wrist and a wristwatch on anymore (which is a bit silly), leaving me to still wear bracelets and bangles on my free hand. 

I heard some good reviews of Apple Watch, but Fitbit is working quite nicely for me. I don't need a fancier (and more expensive and bulkier) Apple Watch to do all the other fancier things like doing calls which I can easily use my phone for.

If there is one thing I want to keep doing, it is that I'll keep up the healthy habits, with the help of the Fitbit. 

Estate Planning

US (indeed the whole world) has been blessed with low inflation, low interest rate for the past three decades. That party appears to be coming to an end. The inflation in Oct 2021 has shot up to 6.2%, and interest rate is set to rise as well. This has been the highest level in the past 31 years. Imagine that. For more than a few generations, people never even know or experience mortgage rate above 3%, and interest rate hovering zero, courtesy from Alan Greenspan. 

Maybe it's the stop/start/restart of economy around the world due to Covid, maybe it's the supply chain squeeze (due to bottleneck from shipping, shortage of truck drivers, and - alas! - China), maybe that's simply way too much money pumped into people's pocket by Biden's stimulus packages, the end result is the same, inflation has gone up and is almost certain to stay up. How long would USD hold its value before the world realize that it's just a numbers game, and USD will lose its value? 

I've been lucky enough to have finished the refi of some (though not all) of my mortgages to take advantage of the low rate in 2021, but that looks to be the end of the refi efforts, now that mortgage rate has shot back up already. 2022 is likely going to look substantially different than 2020/21.

I guess my era of asset acquisition is drawing to a close. It's time to reassess the household finance, taxes, and estate planning. 2022 is likely to be the year I do some housekeeping on this front.

Disclaimer: I keep wondering if Biden is going to pander to the far-left progressives and substantially increase taxes across the board. Although I'm hardly in the ranks of rich-and-wealth, I have no doubt that far-left liberals would label me as such. What they don't realize is that, you would never feel rich when you still have a mortgage to pay. (Would AOC or Bernie Sanders care to know that I routinely clip coupons to get cheap(er) grocery from supermarkets? No, I highly doubt it, they are too busy pestering Washington to divert my tax dollars to pay for some illegal migrants' cell phone bill, all in the name of equity. Another WTF moment.) Life, afterall, is but a series of frugal decisions over decades that hopefully will lead to a worthwhile retirement. Steady eddie, that's the way to go.