Money & Life Report: June 2021
July 6, 2021
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from investing in index funds and 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 (Rakuten, 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 $204.00 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. Our YTD monthly average is $215.
Spending
Big Spend: After months of comparing quotes, the insulation project finally came together in a rush. PiC scheduled the work and it was over in a day instead of the 2-5 days that we’d been expecting.
Other spending: Target had their 5% off gift cards sale so I stocked up on those using a different credit card to get a 6% savings. I’m finally running out of my big stash of cool stamps with all the correspondence we’ve been sending, so we’re expecting Droids, Sun Flares, Heritage Breeds, and Japanese-American soldiers to land on our doorstep soon. We finally replaced some cushion covers. Not only are the corners just holes now, the surfaces of the covers are worn through in many places. They were VERY well used. I think they’re only good for recycling now.
Delayed spending
We might maybe get childcare back in October. Maybe. I am bracing myself for the gut punch of the cost. We’re thinking about starting part time but even that might not be enough once PiC is no longer working at home and it’s just me managing Smol Acrobat on the at-home days. I’m remembering how we started JB part time and how quickly they fell in love with the place and demanded to go everyday. It wasn’t subtle. They wrapped themselves around his ankles on their at-home days trying to make him take them with. I wonder how Smol will feel about socializing. They’re slowly getting used to the sight of other people at the park, though it’s overwhelming when lots of kids are running around and they’ve been abandoned by JB to go run around.
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We talk on and off about our next car. There’s no timeline on this, so it’s easy to kick around since there’s no pressure to agree or make a decision. While we are prioritizing an environmentally friendly car, we still can’t agree on what it should be. I suggested I was having a midlife crisis, he pointed out we’d have a minivan were that the case. We both want a minivan for the dogs and kid and luggage but he vetos it now on the grounds that $30,000 would be better spent on doing something useful on the house. He’s not wrong. But I still want a minivan.
Giving
I’ve been doing direct aid (cash to people in need) and giving to a few more of the causes on our usual list. Those are easy to do, I just have to make room in the budget. This month is extra swamped so I’ve put off the next Lakota purchases which require a fair bit of time and attention to do it right. I am working on them as soon as I can free up some time and brainspace.
Saving and investing
I finally set up automated investing at Vanguard. There was absolutely no good reason for resisting, however passively, all these years. Since we needed to sell some investments to reallocate funds, I transferred that sum plus some cash savings that had been growing slowly since the start of the year. That’ll cover one quarter of once a week modest transfers. In three months I should have enough cash to add another lump sum.
Net worth
I’m looking at our five year goal that was set in August 2019. That means from August 2019-August 2024, I was hoping to quadruple our investment holdings. Ambitious. We have inched our way to sort of close to the halfway point but we are still quite a ways away.
On Life
Reading. I can’t work out why my Bookshop links keep showing as broken but they’re not.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo (Bookshop, Amazon). A ZJ Thorne recommendation. A young Chinese-American girl discovers she has feelings for women in a time and culture when it wasn’t safe to be queer. (And it’s a stark reminder that in many parts of the world today, even here in America, it’s still not safe to be queer.
A Deadly Education, by Naomi Novik (Bookshop, Amazon). I couldn’t put this down, not even for sleep which is massively annoying but also a strong recommendation since I love love love sleep. Granted, painsomnia was involved too but I was pushing through the next book painfully and it wasn’t anything like flying through this book to see what happened next.
Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik (Bookshop, Amazon). I really thought I had read this already but surprise! I hadn’t. It’s really good.
Prudence, by Gail Carriger (Bookshop, Amazon). I really wanted to sink into this steampunk / supernatural alternate universe but it just didn’t suit my mood. It has all the clever bits in it that normally appeal to me, but I could not get a grip on it. I’ll have to try to come back to it later.
The Midnight Bargain, by CL Polk (Bookshop, Amazon). Another page turner that I couldn’t stop reading though I desperately needed sleep.
The Smoke Thief, Shana Abé (Bookshop, Amazon).
Food! I made faux bibimbap bowls using our leftover Korean side dishes and roasted pork: seaweed, pickled veggies, seasoned Japanese squid, anchovies.
Entertainment. The Blacklist. As usual, the supporting characters are my favorite: Dembe and Aram and Samar.
I read a Deadly Education earlier this year and was REALLY mad at myself for finding out about and reading it before the rest of the trilogy is out. I am not good at waiting to find out the ending.
I am so bad at that too! But I did hear that it helps authors with series for the earlier books to be well read, otherwise they aren’t picked up for future projects. So, we’re helping!
Hooray insulation project completion! Also, hooray (?) for possible childcare help on the horizon. Our biggest expense, but our most valuable!
Definitely a qualified hooray since we very much want the help but very much still need to ease into feeling like people are taken appropriate precautions.