Net Worth, Money & Life News: November 2015
December 2, 2015
Change from Jan 2015: 18.7% increase
0.23% decrease from last month
ON MONEY
I use Swagbucks. Here’s a handy tutorial if you’d like to join and earn.
Spending
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The huge cash withdrawals are still happening: half of our property tax bill was due, the other half will be due early next year, our mortgage prepayment actually went through (though we had a specific amount we took directly out of savings so that wasn’t a scramble).
The large withdrawals for my retirement savings will drop to a lower monthly amount starting in January thereby improving our cash flow by a couple hundred dollars. That’ll be good. I hate feeling like we have zero cash flow cushion.
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As usual, we skipped Black Friday madness. When it became a day that fellow Americans (and now, I hear, the world) feel like it’s acceptable to attack one another for a deal, it was no longer a semi-amusing pasttime. I stand on the principle that I don’t want to add to the never ending consumer cycle that is the American lifestyle. We really can’t have a single holiday without shopping and sales dominating?
Aside from that, I remember that Mom and Dad could never have a holiday because they worked in retail when I was young and so I have exactly zero holiday memories to look back to between the ages of 8 and ever, now that Mom’s gone. Awesome. So no, while I have finally lost the holiday spirit after years of trying to make it happen, I still have no desire to fuel the craze to shop on Thanksgiving evening like we’re rabid badgers who’ll die without our next bargain hit.
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We joke about buying a house often but it’s not currently in the cards. Bay Area real estate is sky high and I’m not yet prepared to take out a jumbo loan or wipe out our cash savings which are currently very healthy for us, but not for buying a house.
But all kidding aside, it’s time to break out a spreadsheet to plot out exactly what we’d need to save if we were to buy in 4 or 5 years. I refuse to commit to a house without a plan, and I refuse to be house poor!
Saving
Now that we have a regular monthly childcare payment (sadly it can only be paid via check or autodraft, depriving us of credit card rewards like the stupid mortgage) our automatic savings transfers have been adjusted to send most of the “excess savings” to our checking account.
I loved watching LB’s savings grow while we weren’t spending on childcare but it’ll just have to hold firm for a while until our cashflow settles down again.
ON LIFE
It’s been a tough month with lots of caregiving. Thankfully PiC and I are in a relatively comfortable equilibrium that allowed us to have the mental capacity to help those of our friends in need.
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Conversely, I have less patience with ungrateful people these days, whether it’s people who don’t offer to lend a hand when they’re in a position to help someone, or people who fail to acknowledge that someone has gone out on a limb for them. It’s not that I had a great deal of patience to begin with, it’s just more obviously irksome now. As a result, I have tightened the restrictions on when and why and where I’ll offer assistance. We haven’t got an abundance of time and energy, so rather than stop entirely, we’ll selectively help when we know it matters.
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On the subject of gratitude, my Thanksgiving turkey was way too big but it was perfectly roasted. No false modesty here – I serve no dry turkey! You don’t need gravy to make my turkey palatable, nosirree. Just 100% yummy turkey.
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Less grateful for: daycare germs. LB is become Pestilence, Horsebaby of the Infant Apocalypse!
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@Liquid_f35 asked what my Myer-Briggs code was and I couldn’t remember so I took a somewhat M-Bgy test and it says I’m split between ISTJ and ISFJ. Going by the summaries, that’s a relatively accurate reflection of my personality.
I’ve moved away from this aspect:
ISFJs appreciate tradition and like knowing how things were done in the past. They are loyal to established methods and values, and want to observe the proper, accepted way of doing things. They place great importance on fitting in with established institutions and contributing what they can to maintain strong, stable social structures.
I do work on the last bit, contributing to maintain strong, stable social structures, but that doesn’t mean I support strong negative social structures like racism, sexism, classism, and ageism.
I’m very ISTJ in this example:
You may find the ISTJ doing something useful even in social situations (for instance, organizing coats and hats at a party) as they’re often more comfortable taking charge of a task than they are chatting up strangers.
I will always look for something useful to do to avoid talking to strangers. Babysit, dogsit, take out the trash, wash dishes, anything. Basically I’m the person you want at a party because I’ll do just about anything to get out of party behavior.
ISTJs are practical and no-nonsense, and rarely call attention to themselves. Their clothes and possessions tend to be chosen based on utility rather than fashion
Yep, yep, yeppity yep yep.
Bringing it back to money, I make 98 and 3/4% of my money decisions with my head and not my emotions.
What personality type are you?
ESFJ I am extroverted and it seemed to be exactly what I am.. in a way.
🙂 which way?
As a fellow (very) ISTJ, I find your percent of head-money-decisions to be a little low.
It was a rough estimate. It’s possible it could be higher but I didn’t want to collect the data.
I’m an INTJ which is apparently a fairly common personality type to be a personal finance blogger.
I had the thought this year that the kinds of people who go out shopping for black friday deals are not typically the kind of people being frugal with their finances the rest of the year – so regardless of how it’s spun, it’s still a “holiday” of spending, not of saving.
Probably. I always think that if I’m being very strategic I wouldn’t spend all year and only buy deals on BF but it’s like saying you’re saving when you’re really just waiting to spend. Granted my expectation would be that the deals would reduce my actual spending total…