Money & Life Report: January 2021
February 9, 2021
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 tiny 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 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. 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 $175 in dividends from my stock portfolio.
Disability income. Dealing with EDD this time around has been 29 kinds of headache. They left a message asking questions about my claim, didn’t give me a way to respond, won’t pick up the phone when I call, and denied my claims. I went three rounds with my HMO’s records office, had a call with my doctor, and got the documentation needed but I’m still trying to get it fixed. Cross your fingers for me?
Spending
Spending is artificially low this month because some of our bigger ticket items were pushed to next month. Our house maintenance projects aren’t completely paid for yet, the rains have stopped some of the finishing work, so that’s rolling into February. Part of those projects were partly to mitigate moisture issues and unfortunately they’re still not fixed so we’re going to have to add a dehumidifier to the shopping list next month. I’m also researching other tech for our emergency preparedness which are going to be on the expensive end of the range.
Not spending
I’ve returned the latest unused refills of Seamus’s medications and won’t be refilling any of his 9 or 10 long term meds anymore. I’d far rather pay the money and have him here with us, but stepping back, it’s also a stark reminder of how hard it had become for him at the end.
Giving
I launched this year’s Giving Project and am incredibly thrilled that people matched my initial $300 (and then an additional $150) really fast. We kicked off this giving year with a serious donation (diapers, wipes, lotion, shampoos and conditioners) to the Allen Youth Center attached to the Oglala Lakota / Pine Ridge Reservation.
We also had enough to outfit our first family of the year, a parent with five young children. We sent blankets, soap and basic bath products, two tops and two pants, a set of underwear and socks for each child. I want to do more more for them, two outfits feel paltry and we didn’t have enough to send pantry foods, but there are also still so many more families to help.
Saving and investing
Some years back, I made it a goal to save enough in the prior year to fully contribute to my IRA at the start of the new year. It’s become my one lump sum investment I can regularly manage. After a few years of stretching to establish the habit and budget, I added PiC’s IRA contribution to the list. I’ve now checked both IRAs off the list for the year and that feels like a good start to the year.
Weirdly, I’m fine with Lump Sum Investing those accounts but seriously struggle to do that with any other larger amounts of money. First Gen American and I share this problem. I know that over time, LSI does better, but even when I’ve got a lump sum to deposit, it’s like pulling teeth to get myself to commit the full amount. I “what-if” myself into the oblivion of inaction.
After FOUR MONTHS of dithering, I finally committed the money I had transferred to my brokerage account to a couple small lots of stocks. I will continue to DCA index funds to our other brokerage because I haven’t managed to overcome my mental block about that and it’s better to just keep putting in chunks than to sit on that for ages and do nothing with it.
Net worth
Our total net worth dipped this month while I continued to dump money into our investments. Nothing exciting, just doing my best to keep saving and staying the course. I am occasionally tempted to work on paying down the mortgage more but have to settle for the slow and steady method there while I intensely focus on building our investments. We can only seriously handle one of the two at a time.
On Life
Kat Cho, Wicked Fox (Bookshop.org, Amazon). A YA “fantasy-romance set in modern-day Seoul.” Recommend if you like that type of story. I like learning about other cultures’ fairytales and beliefs so it was a good read.
N.K. Jemisin, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? (Bookshop.org, Amazon) I don’t tend to like short stories but Jemisin’s writing is so strong I couldn’t not read these.
Kacen Callendar, Queen of the Conquered (Bookshop.org, Amazon). I can’t decide how I felt about this book. It was at least a bit unsettling and I knew the whole time that something was off that the protagonist didn’t seem to realize but I hadn’t quite put my finger on it before the reveal.
