A turning point
As soon as I’ve brushed my teeth each morning, I fire up an Excel spreadsheet named “Blubber.xlsx” and take inventory of several items with which I keep track of our physical and financial status:
  • The number of relatives listed in my current principal family history research file
  • Weight
  • Fasting blood glucose
  • Blood pressure
    • Mine
    • Valerie’s
  • Assets:
    • Checking account
    • Savings account
    • Prudential annuity
    • Folio mutual fund
  • Liabilities: balances in
    • American Express credit card
    • Citibank Thank-you credit card
    • Citibank Costco credit card
    • Isabeau loan
Transition
the turning point
Then the spreadsheet computes and graphs (1) our cash on hand (i.e., how close we are to being unable to pay expected bills) and (2) something approximating net worth. The trends in those graphs warn us when we need to take action to change them.

Since we’ve been watching these trends, we’ve shared warm, fuzzy, grateful feelings toward beneficent Providence, Who has clearly prospered our way, despite our manifest and lifelong lack of financial cleverness. Even though we’ve gone to the well of our retirement savings from time to time, it’s fair to say that we’ve become richer, not poorer, in our retirement years. Unless things change, we don’t seem to be going broke, and we’re bidding fair to leave our children more, rather than less, in the way of a material inheritance.

Near the autumnal equinox of 2019, though, as the graph shows, we encountered a turning point that has to modify our expectations and, perhaps, our behavior in our remaining days.
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