By: Revanche

2020: Our year in review

January 12, 2021

I hardly know where to start with this year’s recap. It feels nothing like last year’s for obvious reasons. Obviously, COVID blighted the world and changed nearly every aspect of life. The US Presidential election campaign (and all the Congressional races) dominated the US news for months.

Throughout that …

2020 highlights in Health

Seamus was our resident mess this year.

• We spent the entire year treating recurrent bladder infections and incontinence.
• When we went into quarantine, he dropped so much weight I was convinced he had cancer. It turned out we were just stressing him out.
• Then he scratched his eye and, despite treating it right away, it turned into a deep ulcer. Our vet also unexpectedly closed for over a week so we had to go to a new vet to get new meds and that still wasn’t enough. It got very close to a serious “lose the eye” situation and we ended up at a canine opthalmologist. We battled through nine eye medications a day and it finally healed.
• After we had a nearly clear bill of eye health, we were back on the bladder infection train. Sigh.
• Then another three months of bladder infection treatment.
• Then we needed to add even more supplements to relieve his arthritis comfort, and to help prevent more bladder infections.

I wasn’t much far behind, having hit rock bottom in February.

• My pain and fatigue were beyond even my resigned tolerance and I couldn’t do it any more. Thankfully my mentor who had been gently reminding me to try therapy reminded me yet again and this time, it clicked. I’d been reluctant only because I couldn’t see a point to therapy for physical issues. None of the therapists I’d tried felt that there was anything wrong with me and how I was living because I was “not self sabotaging.” Certainly they had no clue how to unpick the mess that was my emotional state and the connection to my pain. But last December, a friend shared their therapy choices with me and how they were looking at their childhoods and past traumas (intentional small t) and how it was helping with their health. They got a referral for me to a private practitioner in March and we started virtual sessions. While she’s not a perfect fit, she’s been pivotal in helping me make important mental shifts which has significantly improved my quality of life. The timing couldn’t have been better, either. We started working together at the start of COVID and all of this stress from living and working and parenting in a pandemic probably would have broken me entirely without therapy.
• I also had a second opinion for my mystery itching situation and that allergy doc was far more helpful. We ended up doing a maintenance low dose of antihistamines to prevent further outbreaks and so far so good.
• Then also, pregnancy!! I’ve never taken so many naps or just laid down because I needed it before in my life.
• Mentally and emotionally it was hard to face the fact that, in spite of my usual hyperindependence, I did want some support through the pregnancy and that very few of my closer circle had any capacity to offer that support. The very closest among them did offer moral support, but it was necessarily limited in nature and scope. There were benefits to being isolated for a pregnancy, which I relished, but definitely also drawbacks.

PiC had troubles with his knee for a while, making his runs unpleasant and the lack of running even more unpleasant. Thankfully we were able to get him out for his other very distanced exercise weekly until the fires hit and wreaked havoc on our air quality.

JB and Sera fared the best of us five with no health issues to note. Thank goodness.

The wild card: COVID. We had many health professional friends in the front lines of COVID and until their regional spikes got better, we were so worried for them. One childhood friend was seriously ill with Covid and complications related to it early on, though he was slowly recovering by the summer, other friends on here had long tail symptoms.

Dozens of friends and friends or family of friends have been diagnosed, most of them have recovered relatively well. I hope they won’t have long haul issues.

We went into isolation in March and given my shaky health and the pregnancy, we weren’t taking any chances we could avoid. No matter what tier we were in here in CA, we pretty much stuck to the same rules. Always masked, always outdoors, if we see anyone, and we space any visiting 2-4 weeks apart. PiC did outdoor solo sports in the vicinity of his friends because they could be very far from each other and that helped him stay sane. We allowed a few visits with very local friends who were always good about respecting the masking so that JB wouldn’t go completely out of their mind and that helped a lot.

2020 Highlights in Money

• February: I intensified our saving to ensure that if we lost our jobs or our tenants, we’d have extra cash buffer.
• March: We moderately stocked up on basics so we could avoid going to the stores for a few weeks at a time.
• May: PiC changed jobs
• July-August: I refinanced our home and sold the rental.
• Fall: We spent a BIG chunk of cash on home maintenance.

We were both very fortunate to keep working full time and to work safely at home. Our companies are both run by people who are being cautious and sensible about the pandemic. I was grateful we had had enough time and resources to do our stocking up, before we shut down.

Though it was incredibly complicated and draining to have all of us home, because JB needed a whole lot of time and attention up through the fall, PiC was able to field most of their care and activities for several months around his work. He also changed jobs just in time to be classified as non essential, so he didn’t have to be on site by summer’s end like many of his co-workers had to be. Both the refi and the sale in the summer were unplanned but it was the right call. Removing the rental from my list of jobs was a full body sigh of relief.

Unlike for some folks, the pandemic didn’t save us money. Our spending went up!

We replaced our spending on JB’s daycare with many other things related to maintaining education and sanity and a slew of creature comforts. I don’t think we went overboard anywhere, it wasn’t spending with reckless abandon, but it was spending on perhaps twice as many wants than we’d have entertained last year simply because our usual free and frugal options had narrowed so much.

We spent less on: daycare, internet

We spent more on:

• Weekly takeout to support local businesses (new expense) and my taco habit (not new),
• Giving to many charities (more organizations, higher contributions),
• Furniture (new),
• Food for humans and dogs (costs went up),
• Electricity and gas (heating went up),
• My therapy (new),
• Organizing supplies (new),
• Educational supplies and tutoring for JB (new),
• Book gifts for kids from independent book shops (new).

We spent months decluttering and organizing the house for our incoming bundle of entropy. That cost more money. It cost time as well, which felt increasingly precious, but it created comfort and tranquility so it was a fair trade.

Choosing to stay home for our safety and the safety of others, we tried to be very mindful of how our related choices affected others. Where possible we purchased direct from local shops and restaurants because the dollars we spent there kept them in business. We avoided Amazon where possible since they’re doing perfectly fine financially and independent businesses needed our money more. We didn’t bask in the ease of delivery services because other people needed those services more than we did.

Ultimately we had an approximately 50% savings rate this year only because we also had the extraordinary income boost of having sold the rental. Without that, it’s a nail biting 87% spending / 13% savings rate. Suffice it to say, though I had the cash saved for home maintenance, I felt much better cash flowing it in a year we had a lot more income than usual. I did set aside 20% of the sale money for taxes since I gave myself a headache trying to calculate the exact tax on the sake after deductions.

2020 highlights in Life

JB learned how to ride their bike this year. They also learned to draw a LOT and seriously boosted their confidence in their ability to try to draw things by watching video tutorials. At the start of the pandemic, they had the “but I don’t know how to draw X” mentality. At the end of the year, they were Team “I can teach you how to draw X!” They kept up academic work with their tutor and I’m so proud that they are reading and enjoying chapter books now. They also learned how to do a lot of chores around the house and, in spite of age appropriate protests and whining, they do pitch in a good amount.

I learned how to cut PiC’s, JB’s and even a friend’s hair. My own hair remains untouched and unkempt. I wear it up all the time so when I leave it down, JB exclaims why is your hair so long?? I committed to the work of therapy and did my best to absorb even the most unpleasant of messages because in the end, as I accepted the possibility that she had a point, I opened myself up to a level of healing I never imagined possible. It feels woo-woo to talk about but it has been truly significant.

We spent a lot of time and money supporting friends going through incredibly tough life changes, and then I had to pull back dramatically (time-wise) to tend to myself as the pregnancy got harder.

We then welcomed Smol Acrobat into our home and life turned upside down. That brings us to…

2021 outlook

For the most part, PiC and I don’t expect the situation to be much improved on the COVID front for our immediate lives. We still see far too many people pretending or believing it’s not a real thing or simply not caring if they get sick or if anyone else gets sick. Though vaccines are rolling out, we have children under 12 and they can’t get vaccinated yet. So even if we get vaccines, it’s still possible for them to be susceptible.

Our personal lives will likely shift dramatically with an infant and no childcare. We prepared as best we could materially knowing we’re going to be juggling four dependents with all very different needs at the same time.

Until we see massive improvement in the handling of the virus and vaccine, JB is staying home for remote schooling. I don’t know what the school district will do in 2021 but frankly I hardly care. I also can’t stand JB’s kindergarten teacher’s negativity about remote schooling and constantly pushing the “I can’t wait to be back in the classroom” commentary. Even JB has noticed and is annoyed by it. Our expectations for kindergarten were low to begin with so I’m not concerned that JB will be missing out on their education by staying remote but we do have concerns about how this educator handles the classroom. We are supplementing their education to prevent boredom from entirely taking over and will need to discuss better options with the principal this year.

Unless another major shift hits for any reason, (and after this year I take nothing for granted), we aim to maintain the same course we’ve set this year: save more, invest more, give back more.

I don’t know if I can truly make up for my lost investing decade (years without a 401(k)) but I keep trying my best. I’m investing weekly and trying to ignore numbers. I would have been better off if I had dumped it all in at once back in the fall but I couldn’t bring myself to do that so this is the second best option.

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