By: Revanche

Money & Life Report: March 2020

April 6, 2020

If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?

Current total: Lakota, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.

On Money

Income

Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property (which is all saved for maintenance) and investing in dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running and I’ve added a way to support the blog in the sidebar to the right!

Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.

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Dividend income. We received $274 in dividends in March. I’m grateful we don’t rely on this income yet because we would not make it.

Our Rental Income has been seriously disrupted for the past few months with the previous tenant situation. I’m really glad that we managed to get a new one in before all this came down. We’ve contacted them to ask after their health, NOT THEIR RENT, even though really this is a truly low point in the finances of the rental after I spent more than all our reserves repairing everything the last tenant wrecked but good. So far they are healthy which is the most important thing and my hope is they will be fine financially so we can start to rebuild the reserves. But if they need concessions, we’ll make something work. Not all of us need to be heartless bastards in this.

Spending

I can hardly bring myself to document this category because we’ve been spending on almost everything. This month was twice as expensive as February. There’s the more normal stuff like mostly food but also: medications, emergency preparedness gear (large stackable water bottles totaling 2 gallons), another 6 months of pill pockets for Seamus, another 2 month supply of training treats for Sera.

Seamus started a new medication for his incontinence this month. He’s almost as tired of taking them as I am of buying and administering them. Thankfully we can fill this one at Costco and it’s “only” another $20/month. (Sigh.)

We knocked out Christmas presents for five kids, $120.

Utilities have gone way up with everyone being home: heat, electricity, water.

Then there was the property taxes and my life insurance bill taking a huge bite out of our cash.

Not spending

Um. I’m afraid to put anything in here lest I jinx us. Is there any area we haven’t been spending? Eating out would have been one but we’re trying to do more ordering in or take out to support our local businesses.

Oh! We have been told we’ll be reimbursed for our internet usage this month at least by PiC’s work since he’s been sent to work from home. That’s small but every bit helps.

Giving

I’ve been doing small gifts in a lot of places over our usual monthly giving budget: various online friends hit with various problems and to the local food bank. I also increased my Patreon tiers a wee bit. It almost feels a bit reckless because I don’t usually do this many gifts or transfers in a single month but I should. A karmic thank you for our current stability and to a community.

Lakota families: We shipped two families a load of basic hygiene supplies just before the pandemic really set in and nothing could be bought. I didn’t know that was going to happen but I’m really glad that I made some time for it when I did even though it felt like my head was going to explode.

Saving and investing

I continued with budgeted investing once a week and aggressive cash saving twice a month. Even with a year of cash, I’m hypervigilant. We’re living in very precarious times with rockier days ahead. Cash will be very comforting while the markets double, double, toil and trouble. I might hold off investing for April, though, it might be better to stash a few more months of cash just in case. I know, this totally contradicts the whole plan I had in place to just invest weekly regardless of what’s happening but my desire for cash on hand is growing.

It took a while for the reason for the about-face to surface. It’s because if our tenant needs rent relief, I want to be sure our cash flow can handle that. Since realizing that, I decided to total up the amount of 12 months of our family expenses + 12 months of the rental’s expenses + a buffer for abnormal expenses for a new “Hold this cash” amount. I’m calling it my Grandmaster Total. We are about 3 full months of saving away from that number which is a happy surprise assuming nothing changes with our income for at least this year.

In the future, when I’ve finally rebuilt the rental’s buffer, I’ll need to shift the personal cash covering the rental’s expenses back to the personal side. I’ve always reserved the rental’s income for covering its expenses but it’s currently $6000 in the hole and that’s going to take 2 years to get out of the hole before we even start building up the buffer again. Talk about a long term investment.

Net worth

This has dropped like a rock, which was expected: Down 9% from last month and down 11% from January. All our gains from the past twelve months from saving and investing were wiped off the board. It’s sobering, but we still own those shares even if they’re worth much less than they were 12 months ago. I trust that in ten or twenty years, they’ll be back. These reports are our record so I’m putting it down here for posterity but I’m focused more about our day to day and making sure that we remain steady and employed.

I liked reading Jessica’s How to Cope (and Hopefully Even Thrive) in Times of Disaster. I’ve been doing financial stress testing since 2018 in preparation for a recession and other Bad Times:

• How are you recession-proofing?
• Ripples from the Great Recession – ten years later
• Preparing for a recession: practicing patience

That particular exercise didn’t specifically take illness into account but that has always been a fourth scenario I’d have to cover: what we need to do in case one of us (most likely me) became unable to work and earn income. I didn’t outline it in my list back in 2018 because I wasn’t ready to wrap my head around the amount of money we’d need to cover a prolonged term of illness for either one of us.

Then, along come a pandemic. *facepalm*

I am grateful that I have been safeguarding a year of cash equivalents in the bank. That helps my sense of anxiety. I find myself wanting more but that may be the Great Recession-scarred part of me talking. Still, it can’t hurt to keep stockpiling cash for a lot of reasons.

On Life

COVID-19. This month felt like a year. I hope everyone is staying safe, indoors, and can find the supplies they need for delivery if they’re unable to leave the house. As an immunocompromised person, I am a million times fortunate to have a partner who has done all the grocery runs to protect me and our child from exposure.

Small things. We keep expressing gratitude for even the smallest of things. In times of stress, those things have a way of becoming much bigger when they go unappreciated.

Speaking of mundane things, I’ve been drinking canned sparkling water. Someone suggested I get a sodastream but even drinking more than usual, I’ve only consumed about six cans in six weeks. That’s even sharing with JB who likes to instigate and take three sips of a new flavor. It doesn’t seem like enough to warrant adding yet another appliance to our kitchen yet. Unless I could get root beer / orange / ginger ale flavored water. Then I’d drink it everyday. (Maybe.)

I do still want an air fryer though. That would be good for everyone.

Thinking on emergency prep, do you have any large sustainable water containers? I’ve been considering water blocks which come in sizes too large for me to easily heft but should be manageable if stacked properly and be-spouted. I don’t want cases of water bottles from Costco, we don’t want to keep buying plastic water bottles, having to use them every X months and buying more. That’s just a mess. I need something substantial but not a large water drum which requires two able-bodied people to fill and move. I’m not able at the best of times and in an emergency, any one of us could be too injured to be moving a 55-gallon drum. (Why aren’t more multi-gallon containers clear? Don’t you want to know how how it’s getting?)

:: How are you coping?

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