Money & Life Report: August 2019
September 2, 2019
On Money
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Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property and investing in dividend stocks. That money is saved for future repairs or reinvested, respectively. We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. Our side income comes from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running.
The long term goal is to replace our day job income by the time my health prevents me from working.
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Dividend income. We received $485 in dividends this month. Our year to date net dividends are $2566.
Bank bonuses came due. Citi paid promptly. I transferred our money out and closed my account without a hiccup.
HSBC, however, was the absolute pits from start to finish. The date for the payouts came and went without a peep from them so I had to open investigations into both accounts. They required about 15x more time than any other bonus situation and neither of us want to deal with them again. I’m still waiting….
Amazon money: It’s rare that I do a paying survey but picked up one at the end of the month earning $35. Nice. We are slowly reducing our dependence on Amazon but it’s a balance.
Spending
I don’t love Comcast but I also don’t love having to change services every 12-24 months just to keep our internet costs below $50 a month so I’m really glad I was able to renew our promotional rate for the next two years. It always spikes to $60-75 a month after promotions expire so I’m reveling in this good fortune.
Costco Pharmacy Discount Card. You don’t need to be a member to use their regular pharmacy but I think you do for this discount card. One of Seamus’s medications that runs about $40 for 3 months, and $25 if I can get a really good sale online is $16 at Costco regularly and $11 with the discount card. If only they had this good a discount on ALL his meds.
The anti-inflammatory alone is still $300 for a 3 month supply. 😣
Clothing.
- Accessories, 2019: $0
- Clothes, 2019: $143
- Shoes, 2019: $0
Giving
I adore Cassandra Khaw as a writer and a person and I so enjoyed reading her animal spouse thread (dropped her a Ko-Fi). We are rebuilding our cash flow coffers after a few big budget hits so our giving is on the low end of the range right now. We will always give but I calibrate the amounts in accordance to our needs to ensure we aren’t then just in a cycle of giving and needing. Fastening our own oxygen mask and all that.
Saving and investing
I can’t remember if I put this down in writing but I have recently decided to stop putting money into JB’s 529. We don’t get any tax benefit from it at the front end, we don’t have any idea what JB’s plans will be in the future, and it’s got a healthy amount in there already for an almost-5-year-old. We’ll leave that grow and focus on beefing up our investments. If we need more than we’ve saved in the 529, 15ish years from now, then in theory we should have invested enough to generate a good enough income to help pay those bills. If I’m wrong, well, they’re awful but student loans exist and I would have bigger problems than not being able to afford a big school bill.
I’m still a little grouchy about the fact that these are likely my best years and they’ll be spent working to save. My health still takes a lot of dives and it’s a stark reminder every single time that I don’t know how much longer I’ll be functional.
I’ve scaled back to improve my work-life balance and our quality of life is significantly better than it was a decade ago but I still have weeks of being knocked on my butt where I can barely function.
It’s also frustrating that as a result of our ironclad commitment to put on our own air masks, to make sure we’re seriously saving for a potentially spare future, our present cash flow is so much more restricted. It makes sense but occasionally it irks me to be working so dang hard at being frugal which takes much needed energy, even though it’s for a worthy reason.
Net worth and Goals
Our NW grew 1.5% from last month and 11.8% since January. It was a rough month in the market. I don’t pay close attention to those movements from week to week so I just see the results when I put together the graphs. That’s much better for my blood pressure.
On Life
Equilibrium? I’ve been doing a few fun things on the weekend but also falling asleep on the sofa most weekend afternoons because even in the absence of the debilitating levels of pain, the fatigue still wants to eat me alive.
It’s a work in progress but there is progress since my changed diet, enough that I am able to stop some of my pain management medications and that’s also been helpful. That is something I never thought I’d say.
Sigh. As always, lots of sacrifices are made for health. I really miss baking. It was a thing JB and I did together a lot last year and now it requires much more work to create actually tasty and acceptably textured baked goods. Work and money! Alternative ingredients are pricy so I just don’t do it anymore, we have enough (too many) calls on our money.
:: How was your August?
Before you stop all contributions to the 529 plan, make sure the state does not take it over for a lack of minimal payments. PA used to take money out of the account if you did not deposit at least $25 per month. In my opinion, legalized theft from children.
I’ve never encountered that before – worth looking into if that’s happening.
I don’t think I’d bother with a 529 without the tax deduction… which isn’t even all that much in VA.
I think we’re lucky enough right now that I can decide to scale back contributions to savings to make sure we’re enjoying life (in as anti-consumerist/nonmaterialistic a way as possible). We could probably squeeze out another 5-10% of savings rate, but we would FEEL it. Another privilege (knock wood), to decide we feel comfortable enough not to save – if we ever started facing health problems I think we’d scale back quickly.
I wanted it for the tax-free growth but honestly I’m not convinced we’re going to have colleges for zir to attend in 15 years given what’s going on in the world. I know that’s extremely pessimistic. But still I feel quite comfortable with not adding any more to it ourselves. We’ll send gift money to that account but nothing out of our own pocket.
I’m glad you have the freedom to choose to enjoy life in the now, that’s a luxury and I’m glad you can appreciate it!
I was surprised to see one could earn $33 from doing a survey. I always just ignore these and try to focus on my core business (career coaching in my case) and real estate. I do love how you’re experimenting with different ways of making money, including from the blog. We haven’t done anything yet, as we’re focused on content-building and traffic-building for now, but curious about how it works out!
I don’t spend a ton of time on searching for surveys but I won’t turn down easy money if it becomes available!
I still focus most of my time on my full time job and then some some attention on the money on the side to build a safety net in case of job loss.