Money & Life Report: June 2020
July 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, $1589.82; 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 $271.80 in dividends in June.
I redeemed a $10 reward from Achievement early this month but they still haven’t paid or replied to my emails. Not sure what’s going on with that. *update: I’ve contacted them four times via ticket and email, AND tweeted them twice. They just like the tweets and do not answer them. What is going on??
Spending
Supporting local businesses. We are still getting periodic take out for dinner and I’m continually surprised by how much it costs. I commented to PiC that we used to be able to keep our dinner dates to $28 after tax and tip, but now the dinner bill is averaging $45-55 each time. He pointed out that the prices have been steadily creeping up, which is a good point, but I was also thinking about how enough food for two people for two meals in the past is barely enough for one meal for all three of us big eaters.
State taxes. That delayed CA state tax bill is coming due soon. I set aside funds from our refund to cover it, so that won’t feel like a giant slap in the face.
Imposing order on my office. My workspace has been nothing short of chaos for a couple years now. I cringe at admitting that, it’s embarrassing that I’ve let it go this long, but it’s the truth. There’s been little time and less motivation to figure out how to corral the mess. The good thing is, after living in the mess so long, the pieces I’ve been puzzling over for months snapped into place mentally and I finally got a sense of what would work without having to spend hundreds on a fancy system. It still took some trial and error, and I’ve spent about $130 on storage so far, but the benefits stretch further than my own space. My space is only half done and that’s ok because part of that storage also helped corral JB’s games and puzzles, the part of my wardrobe I can’t or won’t wear right now (yes it’s summer, no I can’t wear my summer dresses, it’s still too cold), and JB’s entire crafts center. I might have to get a few more bins, but the Target Circle discount is only good until July 4th so the work has to be done soon. Paying for storage feels like such an American thing to do, this is where my immigrant family culture clashes with my present life values a bit. I felt a bit icky about it at first but I realized that it makes sense because as much as I instinctively hoard and reuse cardboard boxes, we live in a place that’s perpetually damp and that organic material is perfect for breeding mold. Mold is far worse than spending some money on water tight plastic that will last us many years.
Not spending
We haven’t done any unusual spending avoidance. I do my usual thinking about whether we need a thing, whether it’s worth our money, and whether we can find another way to address the issue.
I do have to set aside sinking funds for big stuff. Life has been on pause in so many ways I stopped thinking about that. We drive even less now so I stopped worrying about when and if we need to replace a car. We run our dishwasher and still do laundry regularly though so I shouldn’t let the washer dryer replacement slip from my mind. We’re still using hot water so our hot water situation should still be a top of mind thing.
We did start discussing home maintenance projects we’ve been ignoring while trying to figure out our lives during COVID, though, and the major ones are likely to cost quite a bit of money. My (probably entirely hopeless) hope is that labor pricing won’t be as high as they were last year but I suspect that’s incredibly unlikely.
Giving
This month has centered on feeding people.
- Together, we sent a Lakota family with six children a huge grocery shop with a load of pantry items to last them for a good while.
- Our family also supported Market Box to help folks in Chicago’s South Side access fresh produce, and the Okra Project.
Saving and investing
We hit my upwardly adjusted savings goal this month. That means some of that deferred investing could start again even though I still glare at the market. WTF are you doing?
Net worth
Our net worth seems to have made up the losses since January. Most of that seems to be market movement and some of it is aggressive cash saving.
On Life
Foods! Pie life 1: I made a single crust apple pie leaning heavily on Smitten Kitchen’s apple pie ingredients (and sugar replacement instead of sugar) but without any of the care for the type of apples or preparation. I didn’t slice them beautifully or anything, just chunked up some Granny Smiths and piled them into the pie shell. I should really have peeled them though.
Pie life 2: Throwing all caution to the wind I ventured into the meat pie world with this Australian meat pie recipe. If I had a perfectly functioning body, I’d have made these with gluten free low carb crust and even fashioned hand pies from it. But since I am me, I took the risk of just using a regular frozen pie crust and suffered the consequences. The pie was absolutely scrumptious, I paid the price for the indulgence. I will make my own crust some day, but not for a while yet.
Local pizza. Flipping through one of those perpetually appearing fliers that comes in the mail, I discovered a local pizza joint now does gluten free crusts. It’s not perfect but one out of three is a step in the right direction (GF, still has carbs and sugar). I tried their Hawaiian and it was delicious but the next day I was completely exhausted. Carb overload? Pandemic? Stress overload? Just my health stuff flaring? No idea, I need fewer variables.
Fish fish fish. I overindulged in gluteny carby fish sticks because it was the easiest way to get fish and paid dearly for that. PiC picked up some nice frozen cod fillet chunks that I cut up and pan fried, and this dipping sauce to go with it, which only really confirmed that it’s time for me to figure out my own gluten free low carb fish stick. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be some combination of almond flour, coconut flour, maybe some xanthum gum, and a sprinkling of GF bread crumbs.
Entertainment. I’ve run out of the Charmed reboot episodes and I found myself at loose ends trying to find something I’d enjoy with a diverse cast. I ended up watching Hancock one night because I’ll watch Will Smith in just about anything. I tried out “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts” on a whim and PiC and JB are hooked on that now, too.
We finally introduced JB to Scooby Doo, I’m glad they kept their old style art. JB is really into it.
Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookstop.org)
A Week to Be Wicked, by Tessa Dare (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookstop.org)
Any Duchess Will Do, by Tessa Dare (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookstop.org)
The Last Sun, by K.D. Edwards (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org)
An Extraordinary Union, by Alyssa Cole (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookstop.org)
The Magpie Lord, by KJ Charles (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookstop.org)
I read these backwards and I loved them all: All Systems Red (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org), Artificial Condition (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org), Rogue Protocol (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookstop.org), by Martha Wells
Scarlet Odyssey, by C.T. Rwizi (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org). I started this and it’s so good so far but my brain cannot handle a deep rich narrative right now so I’m shelving it for now and will return to it later.
I came across your blog via a link from Moomin, a fellow PF blogger in Australia. It’s nice to find a PF blog that still relates their daily life and financial challenges – it seems that a lot of the personal finance blogs have disappeared over the years, and are now just cookie-cutter ‘how to do a budget’ finance blogs.
Anyhow, just wanted to comment that it would be interesting to see some actual data under ‘net worth’ – you seem to repost the same summary info each month, with only the amount of dividend income being updated. Its nice to be able to see how people are progressing towards their NW target.
Also, reading about your tribulations of having a parent relying on you financially far beyond what is ‘right’ resonated (my retired parents have been financially supporting one of my sisters for years, which simply enabled her profligate spending and removed the need for her to get her act together and take responsibility). Perhaps the simplest solution would have been for you to simply provide a regular ‘allowance’ to help your father financially, but not to pay particular expenses (rent, phone etc). Support ‘in kind’ always tends to be underappreciated (after a while the support becomes ‘invisible’ and is taken for granted and not appreciated)? That way he would have been constantly aware of the exact dollar amount of ‘hand out’ he is getting from you (and couldn’t complain that you weren’t helping him), but would have had to take responsibility and managed his own financial situation overall.
Hope you eventually see some improvement in your health situation – I’ve had severe eczema my whole life, so I know what a drag chronic health condition can be.
At some point I’ll bring the chart back under the Net Worth category. The graphing tool was acting up and frankly just wasn’t worth my time fighting with that during a pandemic so I never got around to fixing it. But at some point I’ll want my graph back!
Allowance: That would have been a simple solution. Whether it was suitable for a complicated situation with a narcissistic manipulative parent who was bilking dozens of others, I couldn’t say, but I doubt it. Since I can’t change him or the past, and I’m not interested in supporting him in any way, I’m not rehashing the coulds/shoulds. I’m working on moving faaaaar away from that whole thing.
Here’s to improving chronic health over time!