By: Revanche

Money & Life Report: January 2024

February 7, 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) and affiliate links to Bookshop and Amazon sometimes pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running. 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.

***

Dividend income. We received $1852 in dividends from the stocks portfolio mostly made up of a surprise dividend from Costco. Well, surprise to me. They announced it last year to the whole world, I just wasn’t paying attention. My buy-and hold, and not timing the market, strategy all lean heavily on the “don’t even pay attention to it at all” tactic. It’s very effective! As you can see. But the value of that, plus my annual bonus, have hardly had any time to spend with me before it’s flown off to take care of home stuff and health stuff. It was nice knowing ya.

Spending

$1600 and counting. Sera’s sick. We don’t know what it is yet, we’re slowly determining what it doesn’t look like. I can’t help kicking myself like somehow I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. But I didn’t rush her into the vet in December because she was just eating more slowly than usual. Even then, it wasn’t that she stopped eating. She just ate a bit less and more slowly now and again. Until the week she vomited twice, I just didn’t have enough to go on that couldn’t be explained by being annoyed by the constantly fighting kids or age. Labwork shows she’s a little anemic and a little jaundiced so we were looking at possible internal bleeding, cancer or liver failure. The labwork came back and thankfully she’s (maybe?) not in liver failure. It’s looking less like cancer, too, thank everything. <– that was premature relief. We did x-rays and ultrasounds. They’re not seeing fluids in her liver or a mass on it, or lesions on her chest, so that’s a small relief. We bought her several pounds of ground turkey and I’ve been cooking for her every other day. It’s gotten so she starts drooling at the first whiff of fresh cooked rice. Me too, puppy. Her follow up blood work came back and she responded wonderfully to the meds but her liver values are through the roof so now we don’t know WHAT is going on. Add to that: she’s more energetic and happy than she’s been for a couple months. Confusion abounds.

We’re going to see a specialist for a second opinion and more ultrasound, next. That’s another $1200+ coming down the pike.

PiC bought a used $80 toy for Smol Acrobat for $10. It’s in surprisingly good shape, too. We usually don’t buy the kids toys but we’d definitely never buy an $80 toy for a 3 year old. We may never beat that price but he’s going to keep a lookout for other similar toys for the young niblings.

Not spending

This one’s a bit of serendipitous kindness. We had to spend a night in a hotel to visit a relative. I used a free night credit with Marriott and was going to pay the $100 pet fee for Sera. The room was ok, there were a few problems. I didn’t complain, I don’t do that until after we check out if it’s necessary. But! When we checked out and I asked to confirm that they’d charged the fee, just as a matter of course, they had already swapped it out for an $11 parking fee instead. Surprise! So kind of them. I’m not sure why they felt so generous. I just asked for a set of sheets that weren’t torn and I wasn’t upset about it. I even fetched them from the front office myself instead of calling and asking someone to deliver them.

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 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.

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.

Due to being the House of Disease this month I couldn’t do anything for Pine Ridge. Lots of mutual aid this month, that was manageable, mostly helping folks stay housed. Fiqah, Missy (at Bluesky), Rica’s charity run.

Saving and investing

It feels better that I’ve restarted, at a very low number, investing again this month. It’s basically the trickle charge version of investing. Better than nothing!

Net worth

I have no explanation for why the net worth line went up when the investments line went down this month. I’m too tired to dig into that why.

On Life

Entertainment.

I started The Wonder Years (with Dule Hill) on Netflix and chuckled at the Psych callouts (Clisby, Pluto). I wish it had gotten a third season. There are so many similarities between the main character’s families and my family back in the day.

Michelle Yeoh’s The Brothers Sun. Lots of violence but let’s be honest, I’ll watch Michelle Yeoh in anything and she is, as ever, brilliant.

David Levy’s Good Grief. An unlooked for movie on grief that was messy and complex and leaves the heart feeling raw. Much like its subject matter.

The Diplomat was unexpectedly delightful. The characters were a lot more funny than I expected even against a backdrop of geopolitical intrigues and tensions.

The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill, Rowenna Miller (Amazon, Bookshop). This was well-written and I wanted to keep reading it to find out what happens in the end but it was also, in hindsight, a bit predictable. There was a pivotal detail that I actually caught and was yelling at the characters in my head the whole time, and that’s not normal. Am I actually getting more perceptive (less likely) or was it just a little clumsy (maybe?) or have I just read way too much about the fae (very likely)?

:: How was your month?

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