Money & Life Report: December 2021
January 4, 2022
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 there are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving 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. This was a very unusual month. We received $894.81 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. Our YTD monthly average is $400. This is definitely not going to cover all the bills!
Spending
Speaking of that hot water heater replacement… $$$$. Just under $3000. Bye, money. šø
We also bought a HEPA filter for the house. It was on sale but still oh-so-spendy.
This was on top of $$$$ that we spent to travel to see family. The level of anxiety we felt sharing space with others even fully vaxxed and even wearing our KN95 masks was so high that we realized that the HEPA filter was a necessity if we’re going to feel any more comfortable having people over any time soon. Especially for Smol’s sake since they’re too young for masks and vaccines.
Not Spending
Unintentional not spending: I ordered a box of diapers for delivery because it wasn’t in stock in store. I’m really glad because when I opened it up and found both plastic packages had been gouged open and were each missing diapers, I was able to report missing items in the Target app and get a full refund. I would have had to go back to the store if we’d bought them in person.
This is where we fight planned obsolescence.
White noise: instead of an expensive white noise machine, we’ve been using a free app on my old 6.5 year old iphone that wasn’t going to net more than $15 on trade in. It’s finally giving up the ghost. Did you know that iPhones can literally come apart at the seams?? I did not. We’re still hanging tight until it really really dies though.
My phone: PiC thinks it’s time for a replacement. He thought that six months ago. I think I can get a few more months out of this baby. It’s 3 years and 8 months old. 64 GB. I’m aiming for 4 years. Maybe 4.5! I don’t want to spend the money and I don’t want to learn a new phone. Also I don’t want to have to research a new phone. Or set one up. (Of course as soon as I typed that, my phone starts acting up. Not yet, silly rabbit!)
My socks are slowly giving up the ghost too but I refuse to give up on them until they’re truly tattered to pieces.
Giving
On giving: we have worked really hard and been very fortunate that our hard work paid off in significant ways that I couldn’t have dreamt of when I first started this blog. Though we have not reached our FI number where I can feel like all income is gravy, we’ve always felt it was important to lend a helping hand. Many people say they’ll give back later, when they’re financially set. I say that if we don’t practice and prioritize giving now, we won’t give later either.
All year round I run the Lakota Giving Project, donate to a number of organizations that do meaningful work to help others in need, and do direct aid.
We took this right down to the wire. I placed my last orders on Christmas Eve since I was so swamped in the start of December. The original plan was to stop at the start of November but I didn’t tell people early enough.
Lots of folks were still sending money in and lots of folks still needed aid so naturally I just keep on squeezing in one more request. Hard to say no when the means to help is available. But I also need to know when to say when! Our final numbers will be in my 2021 Life and Money Report next week.
I should probably set the stop date further ahead of time and then roll over any other money to the following year. This is kind of a real thing we’ve been doing here!
Saving and investing
Same same! Still saving anything we can, and investing everything we can save that we don’t need in cash. I was as aggressive as could be in 2021 in anticipation of a major drop in cash availability once childcare happens. That may be this year?
Net worth
Since our net worth just moves up or down incrementally each month, it’s not newsworthy. I thought it might be more interesting to see the change over time from the historical data.
- It’s broken in bits where I was missing data. Spreadsheets have been eaten by the mists of time.
- PiC and I eventually merged finances at some point along the way. Maybe it was around 2014?
- Our good habits, careful career management and self advocacy, focused frugality, and good fortune started paying off eventually.
On Life
Family time. There was a lot of this. It’s good but also too much all at the same time.
Me time. I was more than usually exhausted so stole away for brief quiet time that included work but no kid minding when we had family around to occupy the kids and it was really good. I enjoyed Netflix’s A Castle for Christmas and Prime’s Boxing Day.
Reading. I’ll have to share this list later, I didn’t have time to pull together this month’s reading list.
Your Lakota Giving Project is so wonderful. I was thinking along the same lines you seem to be – since it’s really year-round, maybe you don’t have to set donation deadlines, just give yourself a mental deadline after which further donations go to the next year.
I was putting a little too much energy into analyzing your $$$$ assigned to the hot water heater! What I was thinking: 3k is about right and I think I’d give that just $$$. I guess that’s because I replaced my roof in 2020 (11k, so truly $$$$ in my book) and my furnace in 2021 (5k, so on the border of $$$/$$$$). Buuttt any amount of money that we’re not happy to spend can in some ways go into the $$$$ bucket. And I’m pretty sure I’m way overthinking this š
My December was good, I didn’t run into travel issues NOR get sick, but the rest of my traveling people did, so it was stressful by proxy. It’s so great that you got a smidge of you time in there. Happy 2022!
I think you’ve actually put your finger on the best answer! I will set a deadline for each year’s buying. The funds can come in whenever they come in with the understanding that they get rolled into the next year after that deadline.
Hah now you have me (over)thinking this too! I guess I equated four digits with $$$$ – one dollar sign per place. But that last dollar sign might be because I didn’t like having to pay that much. That is admittedly different from what the relative expense means. I’m going to be thinking about this for a while to see if I can work out something that makes sense.
I’m so glad you had a good and healthy December, though I’m sorry that your traveling people did! I hope they recover(ed) completely!