By: Revanche

Money & Life Report: September 2021

October 5, 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 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 $270 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. Our YTD monthly average is $319.

I received a tiny $7 settlement for milk something or other and redeemed it as a MasterCard payment so I can put it toward our next water bill. That’s jumped 50% due to rate increases. 👀

Spending

• I got spooked by some of the supply chain issues so I focused on a small thing I could deal with: I stocked up on a big lot of shampoo and conditioner when I found my favorite one at Walgreens at the normal price (about $3.50 for a 28 ounce bottle), Target previously had them for that price normally but it’s doubled in the past few months. I also earned $10 in Walgreens cash which was nice.
• We sent our recently widowed loved one flowers, and bought JB another 6 months of Spanish lessons. We had to rely on take out during our very bad terrible week, and were so grateful to a friend who sent some cash to nudge us into making our lives a bit easier during a tough time.
• We splurged a bit on a nice dinner for my birthday, and enjoyed a free small Bundtlet for dessert.

Next: I need to buy a family computer, a Universal Power Supply for our power hiccups though we’ve been lucky so far this year, and … eventually a car. That car is going back on the waitlist because frankly they’re just not available. Plus it’s a headache I don’t want to deal with right now anyway. I’m committing to spending a ridiculous amount on a rental car that’s big enough for us all when we have to do holiday visits and that’s just going to have to take us through.

Not spending

PiC thinks I need a new phone so naturally I’m resisting until 2022. I need something to be contrary about some spending in the name of fiscal responsibility.

Daycare is not happening in 2021 so I’m going to be grateful for not feeling super squeezed financially until next year. Yes, it means a lot of tough actual days the rest of this year but there’s still a lot to be glad of as well: no extra commute (since PiC still isn’t allowed to be back on site so daycare drop-off would be an extra hour of our day), no need (yet) to figure out bottle protocols and wasted formula because Smol’s appetite is ridiculously unpredictable, getting to play with the little monkey during the day, and fewer daycare germs. The last one is probably the biggest one, IMO, I HATE all the lost days to illness and pain (because my getting sick always triggers a pain flare up).

Giving

On giving: we have worked really hard and we have been very fortunate that our hard work paid off in significant ways that I couldn’t have dreamt of when I first started this blog. As our good fortune grew, 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 to others. 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. All year round I run the Lakota Giving Project, donate to a number of organizations that do meaningful work to help others in need and do direct aid.

I didn’t get a chance to add this to my August snapshot so the August families are here with the September families:

Family 8: The family just welcomed the fifth baby boy and Mom has 4 older boys ranging in age from 1 to 13 who needed clothes and school supplies. She specifically didn’t ask for anything for herself and I felt strongly that a mom of five kids really needs SOME basics so I picked a few things for her use as well. Because she wasn’t asking for anything for herself, I didn’t have any basic info to guide those choices, I just went with some basic hygiene supplies. We shipped 1 large flat rate box crammed to the brim with good hand me downs from Smol for the newest baby, a car seat and diapers for the baby, and clothing and shoes and school supplies for the four older boys. Total cost after discounts, free shipping: $704.29

Family 9: is a grandmother who cares for a large extended family including her grandkids. She needed laundry detergent, hygiene products and cleaning products as she is living off food stamps which cannot be used for bath supplies or cleaning supplies. Since she uses a laundromat, I decided to go for pods so they’d be easier for her to carry than lugging a giant bulk box or jug of detergent. I remember going to the laundromat with my mom when I was a kid, and that kind of thing adds up. We sent detergent pacs, bar soaps, toothpaste and toothbrushes, shampoo and conditioner, fabric softener, hand soap, and floss. Total cost after discounts, free shipping: $139.91

Family 10: This mother and her two daughters lost everything in a house fire. The fire gutted the house and they lost everything. They were in particular need of beds and bedding and towels. They had been on the list for a month, and we were able to outfit them completely with two bedframes, mattresses, bedding, towels, and blankets. Total cost after discounts, free shipping: $620.44

Family 11: A mother and her two daughters live in a trailer with no running water. We supplied them with cleaning and bathing supplies, some clothing for each of the kids, and shoes for mom. Total cost after discounts, free shipping: $222.54

Saving and investing

I got annoyed with the scheduling and cash flow of saving once or twice a month after payday, the transfer dates kept moving around and causing headaches if the timing was off. I’ve switched to a weekly transfer of saving smaller amounts and it’s been much more smooth.

Apparently September was a bad month for the market. Since we don’t currently rely on it for our income I have the luxury of not worrying over the day to day and month to month fluctuations. I hope that whenever we do rely on it for income, we’ll have made good enough choices that we still don’t have to stress too much.

Net worth

Bit of a drop this month, market stuff. We carry on.

On Life

Food! I experimented with batch cooking this month and frankly I wasn’t thrilled with the results. My Hainan chicken and rice had to become Hainan porridge and chicken because I screwed up the proportions of liquid and rice – a mistake I haven’t made in 30+ years. But I did achieve the goal of putting up two weeks worth of meals for later in the month and it came in handy. I’d like to manage the time commitment of cooking large batches better though. It was such a lot of work.

Reading. I can’t work out why my Bookshop links keep showing as broken but they’re not.

Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne. (Amazon, Bookshop) Whoof. This was an engrossing but tough, because it was so compelling, read.

Jasmine Guillory, Party of Two (Amazon, Bookshop) and Royal Holiday (Amazon, Bookshop). I really needed something light in between epic fantasy worlds, especially when I was reading 2-4 books a night (thanks painsomnia) and these fit the bill perfectly. Fun, minimal angst, light.

Zen Cho, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water (Amazon, Bookshop). I knew this was a short book but the ending still caught me by surprise. There’s so much more story here that I want to read! Maybe the author will come back to it someday.

Anthony Bourdain, A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal (Bookshop). I used to watch Bourdain’s show No Reservations when I could catch an episode. (I typically avoid cooking shows, either it’s too much showboating or the results look too good and I’m left hungry and angry that I can’t eat what I just saw made.) Normally his show would have fallen in the “avoid” category except that the care he took to respect the cultures he was visiting caught my attention. I couldn’t stand watching loud brash dudes dive-bombing countries with some sort of all knowing or savior attitude, mocking the culture and cuisine, but Bourdain didn’t do that. And I thought it was a real loss when he died. I couldn’t watch the show for a while and I couldn’t read his books either. I recently picked this one up and it was a good read. I know it’s not all the truth of him but a whole lot of who he seemed to be shows up in these pages and while I don’t agree with everything he said, I retain a fair bit of respect for the damaged yet striving person he came across as. I think I relate to his damage. His bemusement and discomfort or awareness of how much luck with involved in his making it as a household name resonates with me. Not in being a household name, of course, rather in feeling some of that imposter syndrome despite clearly doing well in a way that couldn’t have come to fruition without our hard work because our connections are nothing to brag about. That and his description of food finally made me decide that we should try for a reservation at The French Laundry someday. That dining experience sounds exquisite though I’m not at all a foodie. I have no desire to share the experience with anyone offline, if we did. The people who would care are pretentious and not my cup of tea. I just want to go and immerse myself in the wonderful food and hold that close to my heart forever. Like the time PiC and I went to Chez Panisse years and years ago for a wedding anniversary. Superlative meal, I’ll remember that starter broth til I don’t remember my own name anymore.

Soman Chainani, Quests for Glory (Amazon, Bookshop). The license for book four was renewed so I get one more shot to see what happens in this series. I find myself quite irritated at the protagonists and I wonder if this is because the teens are not well written or because I don’t understand and am irritated by actual teens acting like normal teens. Still, towards the end I suspected I knew who the baddie was and I was right.

B. B. Alston, Amari and the Night Brothers (Amazon, Bookshop). A middle grade book I grabbed while putting another book on hold, this was an absolutely wonderful read. An amazing kid, the supernatural world, heart and realness and love and adventure and grit! I adore Amari and want to read about her and Quinton’s next fifty years.

Zen Cho, Black Water Sister (Amazon, Bookshop). I’m emotionally curled up after reading this. So much of the protagonist’s life, excluding most of the supernatural but not all, took me back. I’d say a former life but I’m still healing from it, is it really former yet? The lifelong bond, shackles even, of filial duty and expectations for a daughter. The sense of worthlessness if you disappointed your parents. The need to protect them from all the troubles you faced because none of their life experience that drove them to help you have a totally different life was suited to help guide you in that totally different life. The one time I had to discuss a troubling interpersonal situation at my office job with them, it was very clear all over again that we were in completely different worlds. The story itself was right up my alley, ghosts are our thing too (though less rife with worry since my mom always pointed out that ghosts aren’t going to hurt you, people were much more dangerous). This line “you’re in a prison of your own making” is so painfully true that even now it stings. Which means it’s the perfect time to start..

Melody Beattie, Codependent No More (Amazon, Bookshop). “… the pain that comes from loving someone who’s in trouble can be profound.” Boy howdy. If that’s not my family in a nutshell. Mom’s pain watching my brother become a carbon copy of my dad no matter how much she fought it. Watching me grow into her fixer/codependent role feeling “so responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little: they were just taking up the slack.” That’s our entire culture before you take into account standard issue misogyny and laying all the responsibilities at a woman’s feet so the men can do whatever the hell the men want to do. Or not do.

:: How was your month?

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