Good Things Friday (110) and Link Love
March 26, 2021
1. When I can get two hours of sleep between 630-830 am, even if the whole night before has just been a series of getting up with the baby and laying down again only to start the cycle over and over, it makes a real difference to my lease on life.
2. PiC is a shopping saint. He ran out to load up on basics for us at the grocery store late at night to spare the rest of us the pain of having to figure out the logistics of making a grocery run between school, lessons, work, and naps.
Challenges this week: I am zombie. This was an exceptionally tough week physically and that always affects us mentally.
Here’s what the “Black tax” does to so many families — including mine. This resonates so strongly with me. Though for me, it’s looking back to a long couple of decades of paying a family tax that was financial abuse in disguise, it happened because of the same principles. We had no generational wealth, our parents’ generation didn’t have any inheritance or savings if they didn’t put away enough. I know my aunties did their best on a very limited income after working hard for 30+ years and they still have not a great deal more than my dad who used me like an ATM. Of course they still have the love, respect, and future support of their kids to look forward to. Ahem. And this quote encapsulates many of my feelings about the experience, then and now. I keep reflecting on how much further we’d be to financial independence and having more choices with our children now if I had known then what I know now:
Like many Black people who are the first in their family to earn a high salary, Johnson contributes significantly to his parents’ finances, including paying for various health care costs, insurance, and more. “I’m glad that I’m in a position to help. But you do sometimes feel guilty about your success or about hitting certain goals,” he said. “It’s also a responsibility that sometimes makes you wonder how much further along you could be financially.”
This pattern set strongly tempts me to take up cross stitching.
Here’s why Substack’s scam worked so well.
Lyme Disease Changed My Relationship with the Outdoors. I love following BraverMountain adventures, I didn’t know that Blair had dealt with Lyme disease before I fell in love with the #UglyDogs. I always have an extra feeling for people who have been through the chronic illness gamut. You understand what it’s like to fear for your life. Not in the sense of dying but in the sense of losing your entire self to your disease / disability.
Early retirement turned five year sabbatical. Lots of this stood out to me: section on 2018, and the part where he had health problems. First, I very much want to reach FI and choose early retirement and want to make sure that PiC and I are on the same page about what things we want to be doing if we manage it. He and I don’t value the external stuff that the blogger describes, the salaries, the bonuses, the houses and vacations. I value the money as I am a money hoarder but it IS ultimately a means to an end. I have less than zero desire to SHARE that information. This is as close to sharing that info as I’ll ever get and I don’t share numbers anymore or our names. None of us have ever bragged about houses and vacations, that would seem really odd. We might share the experience as a “what were you up to last year” catch up but the friends he describes who do care about that (especially the guy bragging about his bonus) seem obnoxious. Second, I feel like too many FIRE bloggers gloss over planning for healthcare. They dismiss the need to have a solid plan in place and never consider that chronic illness can hit them.
Related, Felicity has been MIA for a while and I hoped it was for a good reason. It was, but not a happy one. She reminds us of something very important: “FIRE doesn’t matter if you don’t have your health. FIRE doesn’t matter if you can’t be there for your loved ones.“
I hope you’re feeling better this week. Sending good thoughts.
I go back & forth on my sharing real numbers perspective. I think it can be helpful for others, but had a come to jesus moment with myself a few days ago. I think the reason I share (elsewhere, not on my blog) is that I’m looking for affirmation. Not a “hey, good job, you’re doing great”, but more affirmation that i’m not going to be eating cat food in retirement. It’s about financial insecurity more than what I originally told myself about helping others. That was a useful reality check, & a good reminder that I need to go deeper and ask myself what I’m really worried about & how I can resolve that in my mind.
Hawaii Planner recently posted…Frugal Friday
I have the same worries that you do about winding up broke in retirement. I think it makes sense, at least for me, to have people you can share numbers with to help work through the feelings of insecurity. Sometimes they’re just feelings that need to be acknowledged, sometimes it helps to have someone to bounce ideas off of which helps the feelings.
The Lyme disease article link goes to something else
Thanks for spotting that, Jen, I’ve fixed it now.