By: Revanche

Money & Life Report: November 2019

December 9, 2019

On Money

Income

Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property (saved for future repairs ) and investing in dividend stocks (reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Ebates, 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 because I know from my Mom’s experience that relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA.

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Dividend income. We received $545.98 in dividends this month. Our year to date net dividends are $3,609.38.

Drips of money. I made $9 from a User Interview, woo! I’m 74% of the way to my next $25 Target gift card from Bing, almost woo! We also sold an old shirt on Poshmark, netting $2. Wheee!

Spending

Emergency arrangements. We had do last minute international travel and it cost a big chunk. I think we were in the neighborhood of $3000 by the time we covered the last minute passport, clothing for services, airfare, transit, and other expenses. On the one hand, it’s a kick in the teeth because I’d JUST gotten our buffer rebuilt and it was already going to be slashed in half by the earthquake renovations. On the other hand, it won’t be debt so I remain cautiously positive or neutral about the whole thing.

More emergency arrangements. We had another crisis before Thanksgiving which cost $1300 to start and will likely require another several hundred dollars just to figure out if we’re going to be ok. Sigh. Big big big sigh.

Lumpy spending. I hate lumpy spending. Sadly, when you defer necessary spending, it eventually pops up with a dozen minions and friends. I cannot keep up with Seamus’s nails, his quicks grow out unbelievably fast in his old age, so I’ve been using a nail grinder to do it more painlessly. Alas, the battery in the last small grinder I bought pooped out. After months of frustration, I put in the order for a Dremel. It’s not my ideal one because this will require replacement heads, which I hate buying, but this is for his comfort and it’s got a 2 year warranty. Cross your fingers for us!

We also needed more DampRid to fend off mold and mildew. We needed more dental chews for Seamus. We also needed a backup set of flannel sheets for all the beds. I had both a sale and a coupon, so we picked up a set for each of our beds. PiC’s needed a second pair of jeans so he picked those up, as well as his next 7 years of underwear. I found iron knee pants for JB in hopes that they will be comfortable and longer lasting than 5 wears each. This child tears through pants like they’re tissue paper. Only heavily reinforced pants have lasted a year and even they’re starting to go. Sigh. We needed training treats for Sera, I stocked up on 4 bags to take advantage of higher cashback.

Holiday spending. This adds to the lump: Secret Santa gifts, the nibling gifts were pretty much done already minus a book or two. Teacher gifts: both an individual gift for the teacher and a donation to the center to gift the teachers. I suspect we’re being asked to contribute to this pool so the corporation doesn’t have to pay bonuses and that annoys me greatly. Some alcohol for very good, long-time friends who will enjoy the tasting. A pair of leggings for a friend, and a backup pair for me since mine are getting very heavy wear. It feels like the spending is endless. When can I stop clicking on “submit order”???

Clothing. Is it sad that I gave up on tracking this after all that spending this month? Uh, clean slate next year.

Spending summary: I’m basically sitting here like a stunned ox.

Not spending

Using it up / holiday gifting. I pulled out a huge stash of old Christmas cards for the other niblings we don’t do gift exchanges with (15!!) and we added sticker packs I’d been hoarding through the year as small gifts.

Giving

• I cannot wait to find some time to write up our last round of Lakota family giving. But it will have to wait a little bit. I’m swamped.
• We went to the mall to return some pants for PiC and then we wandered around doing donation things.

We spotted that Macy’s has a Make a Wish arrangement where they donate $1 per letter to Santa up to $1M so we sat down and wrote two letters to Santa: “Happy holidays” and “I like you.” We don’t ask Santa for gifts in our family right now. 😁

You can also submit letters online at Macys.com/believe.

Then we went to the Lego store to play with their Lego bins and saw that if we tweeted a build with #BuildtoGive, Lego will donate to children in need.

So we did that too! The mall still has its uses and it doesn’t have to cost a mint.

Saving and investing

It looks like we are on track to meet our minimum savings goals for the year! No stretch goals with the anticipated spending on home maintenance next year, but meeting our set goals is no small thing considering I’ve spent the whole year trying to rebuild our one month of expenses in cash buffer.

Net worth

My graph is kaput. It was so pixelated it was basically worthless. But the update is: we’re up 3% for the month. I think this was both being really dedicated to savings and investing. The joke’s on me though, next month is going to hurt when I pay all those bills. EEK.

On Life

Food.

A frustrating thing I realized is that as much as I enjoy cooking, it drains me excessively. I have to rest for hours to recoup.

• I tried this low carb zucchini bread with some adjustments: +1 Tbsp cocoa powder, +1 egg, +1/2 cup of walnuts, +1/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I did 1 Tbsp cane sugar and 1 Tbsp honey. 2 big zucchini with the water squeezed out makes about 1.5 cups of zucchini. I’ve decided that I don’t like sugar replacements so I’d rather go without sweetener or use very minimal amounts. I’m going to keep reducing the sweeteners in this to see how low I can go before it’s no good anymore.
• My coconut curry is pretty awesome, even when I’m doing a stone soup version like say, when I find that one of my key ingredients has gone off. Oops. I ran out of energy and didn’t manage to prepare the curry earlier when the mushrooms were still good, and I feel bad about the waste.
• It’s been REALLY HARD to eat right this month. I love love love carbs and sugar, my body continues to hate them, and it makes me so sad that I cannot have them and sometimes I sneak some. Then I pay for it, in spades. *hangs head*
• I was resisting adding any appliances to our kitchen but after roasting soggy vegetables, I’m about to throw in the towel and look for an air fryer. Does anyone have one and have thoughts on this?

Family and friends.

We spent a LOT of time with chosen people this month. It ate up a whole lot of my energy but it was also nice because, chosen people. We spontaneously invited people over, twice. I never ever do that! It was neat. But I might need to practice having more food on hand so that can happen again if I want it to.

:: How was your November? What are you loving to eat? What are your hosting go-to foods? 

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