Money & Life Report: July 2019
August 5, 2019
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have some tiny cash flow we don’t touch from an investment property and investing in dividend stocks. We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. Our side income comes from Swagbucks, cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates), and tracking physical activity through Achievement (my introduction to it). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a tiny commission to keep the blog running.
Our big long term goal is to replace our day job income before my health prevents me from working.
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Dividend income. We received $184 in dividends this month. Our year to date net dividends are $2,080.42. I currently reinvest all our dividends.
Spending/not spending
So many things needed replacing this month!
Shoes for all of us: We lucked into a few sales at the same time: Puma was having a 30% off sale and we both received TMobile Tuesdays 30% off and free shipping coupon codes which were stackable – and voila, four pairs of shoes for $112 total. I picked up some sneakers from Target’s clearance for JB: $20.
Socks for me and JB: I meant to get zir the next size up and let zir grow into them but JB’s ended up being the wrong size (today’s size). The store just refunded me the cost instead of having us return them, free! Mine were very not free: $30 for 2 pairs of diabetes socks. I need the extra padding.
Seamus and I share one pain medication (of three that he takes) so instead of $150, a one month supply costs $10. (The others still cost a whole lot more!)
Seamus’s dental chews were on sale (though they were marked up first of course don’t think I didn’t notice that 1-800-PetMeds!) for 30% off, plus $20 off $250 so we stocked up on a 5 month supply. He’s down to his last week of them.
SDCC. The tally will be forthcoming on this damage. We bought some things – a few books and a few gifts, and a sweater for me*.
Daycare. Right on schedule, daycare has increased the monthly bill by another $70 a month, effective next month. Not any surprise, they always do this in the summer, but also not more palatable for being expected.
Clothing.
- Accessories, 2019: $0
- Clothes, 2019: $143*
- Shoes, 2019: $132
Giving
Library. I’ve got a large bag of books and a check for the local library. I just need to find the time and energy to get over there.
Saving and investing
I changed our automatic transfers again. Changing our savings buckets was really nice and simplified things and in that same vein, it finally sank in that I would be better off not saving for all large expenses as I have been doing. I previously calculated a list of 20 big ticket items that occur throughout the year and we set aside some money every pay period for them. The idea was that those were semi-regular and so we should protect those funds separately. It didn’t work out that way – some combination of those large expenses (vet bills, car maintenance, life insurance, etc) hit every month and it bothered me how often I was withdrawing from the large expenses account.
Now, I’m only setting aside the sinking funds specifically for our property tax bills, far and away that largest semi annual bill we have, and let the rest of the cash stay in our checking account. Let’s see how that works.
Net worth and Goals
On Life
Sparkling water. It took a few days for my taste buds to stop saying: UGH where’s the sugar???? but I am now accustomed to and kind of appreciate sparkling water. Why take up an expensive (compared to free water from the paid for filtered tap?) Fibro, of course! Thanks, fibro! Some days my pain spikes so high all I can perceive is nausea. So then I can’t eat. So then I get nauseous from hunger. And hunger doesn’t reduce pain, so pain + hunger + nausea squared = terrible times. Sparkling water, maybe it’s the carbonation, helps me smooth over the initial disgust of food so that I can bridge the way from terrible to eating enough to sustain life. Yay!
We do the same thing for savings buckets – just property taxes. I do also have a slush fund that I rarely dip into that is $1-$5k, but that is more because our income fluctuates a bit throughout the year.
I am kind of lost on what kind of chews are best for dogs these days. It seems like anything that lasts longer than a two seconds (which is a snack instead of a chew) is not recommended by SOMEONE for some reason or another.
Glad that the sparkling water is providing some relief for you!
I’m wishing we had a slush fund but we could only do that if I weren’t socking everything into our investing fund. And I should stop holding onto so much cash anyway 🙂
I hear you on the chews. It’s a pain that no one chew is a good standard to stick with.
I’ve been on the sparkling water train for the past year and have been loving it. I was never a soda drinker– too sweet for me– so having a refreshing summer drink has been golden. If you haven’t already, I recommend investing in a Soda stream or other carbonation appliance. Much cheaper (and fewer cans for recycling)than buying the six packs.
I was a diehard soda drinker so the adjustment was not fun but I’m glad I tried it.
I may look into the sodastream option later but for now I’m trying to stick to just one can a week.
If you like sparkling water, you should check out the Frugalwoods post on hacking a SodaStream for a super cheap way to get it: https://www.frugalwoods.com/2019/01/25/hacked-sodastream-seltzer-reload-and-other-december-2018-expenditures/