Money & Life Report: December 2023
January 4, 2024
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, cash back sites (Rakuten, Mr.Rebates). As an Amazon and Bookshop affiliate, I may be compensated for purchases through my links. The sidebar has ways to support the blog and our charitable giving.
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 $510 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
Spending
This month is mainly about paying the piper from last month: the last Christmas and birthday gifts for December and January together, and paying all the bills.
Not spending
I suppose not immediately replacing my ruined Sanuks is our not spending for the month but it’s more like delayed spending since I’ll need a pair of flip flops.
Giving
We have worked really hard and been very fortunate that our hard work paid off in significant ways that I only dreamt of when I first started this blog. Though we have not reached our FI number where all earned 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.
We donate to organizations that help people and animals in need and do direct aid.
The Lakota Giving Project is year-round now and we always welcome donations to support Lakota families. See how you can help at the link.
In my last push of the year, we managed to make Christmas for a large family with ten kids. They are a combined family of siblings and cousins, the mother took in her niblings after her sibling died to keep them out of foster care. We bought every kid at least two things from their wish lists and the mom was very grateful on their behalf.
Saving and investing
I haven’t been able to make any contributions for the latter half of the year as we’ve been refilling our emergency fund. You’d think after repeating the reasons for this every month, I’d have come to terms with it but it still makes me grumpy. We’re making progress, though! It turns out, between our cash and the i-bonds, we’re very close to my required 12 months of emergency funds. I had not been counting the i-bonds because I had set their accessibility date out to 2025 and wouldn’t you know it, that’s next year. That leaves some gaps to fill between 2024 and 2025 to make sure we are continuously covered in case of job loss / illness but not quite as much as I’d originally projected.
Quibble: costs rise every year but the dependent care FSA stays at $5000 annually. That’s pants.
Net worth
The (weird to me) end of year market rally pushed our investments up a large amount compared to every other month this year.
On Life
Reading
Fated Blades, Ilona Andrews (Amazon, Bookshop). This was available through Kindle’s borrowing thingie. I can never really remember how to navigate back to that but I should probably figure it out at some point. Oh right, it’s called Prime Reading! I thought it was the Lending Library. But the book – I enjoyed it.
Birthright, M.A. Vice. The author was promoting this as a free trilogy on Kindle so I thought why not? I made it as far as 26 pages in and just couldn’t like it. I wanted to… but it just wasn’t happening.
Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi (Amazon, Bookshop). This was a good read!
The House Witch, Delemhach (Amazon, Bookshop). I borrowed this from the Prime Lending Library. It was an interesting premise and the world building had promise but the prose needed a much more thorough edit. There were so many places where the text dragged from awkward phrasing.
Cursed Cocktails, S.L. Rowland (Amazon, Bookshop). Same as The House Witch. Interesting characters and world building (though the changed spelling for alcohol just felt silly) felt like it was drawing on Travis Baldree and Robert Asprin, but it really needed a better editor to clean up the prose. It was clunky throughout. This would be such a good read if they’d edited the prose more heavily.
Emily Schultz, Sleeping with Friends (Amazon, Bookshop). An ok read.
