By: Revanche

Money & Life Report: August 2022

September 6, 2022

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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.

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 $909.36 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.

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JB gets McDonald’s once or twice a year and this year’s Happy Meal treat came with a bottle of spoiled milk. I gave them a chance to make it right, but they didn’t, and so I went to charge back that portion of the meal. It’s the principle of the matter: we paid extra for the milk even! But Citi is a terrible card issuer in terms of customer services. After four tries, I went back and followed up very firmly with the management. After four weeks, and several follow up calls, they coughed up a $25 Visa gift card. I’m still irritated with Citi but that just reminds me why I must prefer using American Express. I’ve never had any trouble using their services when there was a problem with the merchant. I used the card to buy diapers.

Spending

We’ve started paying for daycare: $$$$ a month. Please take a moment with me to just breathe through that pain. This is only for part time. If we were to go full time, it’d be even more. Oof. But with the potential that PiC might not have to go back to the office full time, we may keep trying to make it work with just three days of childcare. We’ll see.

Just a historical note: the same part time services that we are getting now costs 47% more than it cost when JB was enrolled 6 years ago. By contrast, even with regular raises, my income has only gone up 25% in those six years. Hell of a thing, y’all.

Not spending

Here because I already listed it as spending last month. The Pixel 6 is both what I expected and not. It’s generally the same OS with some updates to how things work so I still had to learn how to navigate and do basic stuff. Boo to that. It’s also massive. The Pixel 2 was too big for my hands so this officially feels like I have a tablet for a phone. Meh. But the functionality! The storage! The battery life! I had to charge the 2 at least once, if not twice, a day with normal use. It’d shut off randomly regardless of battery life but at 30% and below it was definitely going off. The 6 had 7% battery life and warned me I only had 56 minutes of use left. FIFTY. SIX. AMAZING. The photos continue to be really good quality. I don’t have to worry CONSTANTLY about running out of storage. So it’s a pain to use in some respects but amazing in others.

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A brain spiral: I started ogling label makers. I ogled even harder when I learned that you can print iron on fabric labels (for Smol’s daycare gear). After pricing them out ($$$), it occurred to me that I could just order premade iron on fabric labels ($20). After searching Etsy for a bit, it hit me that I could just get a fabric marker ($3). After texting a friend, she confirmed that fabric markers are fine. Then it dawned on me to ask if there’s really any difference between using a fabric marker and a Sharpie for something like marking Smol’s masks for school. And no, there’s not. Hello, avoiding unnecessary spending! (For now. I still want a label maker because I’m still me.)

Giving

On giving: we have worked really hard and 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. 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.

All year round I run the Lakota Giving Project, donate to organizations that help people and animals in need and do direct aid.

Saving and investing

I have pushed my cash flow luck as far as it’ll go, so much so that I have to reduce our investing rate to match our savings rate. I’d funneled all money from other non-paycheck sources (dividends, reimbursements, refunds) to fund a higher investing rate earlier in the year. That was fine because that money was going to be saved one way or another but that well has mostly run dry.

Our investments are way down so I’ll take minor comfort in seeing our iBonds go up by $440.

Net worth

The past 12 months has been pretty flat. We continue to pour disposable income into the market which continues to hiccup and burble.

On Life

Health

This is so fun (not) it deserves a whole blurb. I seem to have evolved a new set of stress or ME/CFS related symptoms: severe sore throat, cough, and dizziness. There’s a side order of lightheadedness. All of this is in addition to the usual joint and muscle pain, intermittent headaches, intermittent hot flashes at night, and very frequent brain fog. On bad days, it’s like I have the flu all the time, and there are a lot more bad days than good. Goody gumdrops.

July’s reading

• Once upon a K-Prom, Kat Cho (Amazon, Bookshop). An unexpected delight of a story.
• While we were dating, Jasmine Guillory (Amazon, Bookshop).
• Maker Space, KB Spangler. A Rachel Peng story (Amazon). I like these characters – despite? or because of? – the trauma they’re having to work through together, privately and publicly.
• State Machine, KB Spangler (Amazon).
• Spanish Mission, KB Spangler. A Hope Blackwell story (Amazon). I didn’t see all the twists before they came but I wasn’t trying to peer around plot corners anyway. This was a fun read.
• The Mummy Case, Elizabeth Peters. I am trying to figure out why this made it on my list. Did someone on Twitter recommend it? Did Nicole and Maggie? It’s set in a particular period where this stuff was normal but the white privilege archeologist digging up other people’s lands bit was a bit jarring throughout and I finally gave up on it.

August’s reading

• Old Man’s War (Amazon, Bookshop), The Ghost Brigades (Amazon, Bookshop), The Last Colony (Amazon, Bookshop), John Scalzi.
• Castle Hangnail, Ursula Vernon (Amazon). I read this again because PiC was reading it with JB and yep, still delightful! We need to pester the publisher for more.

Entertainment.

I’ve been running The Vampire Diaries in the background while working. I’d never seen it while it was showing on the air and it was more distracting than expected. (I did watch Legacies and enjoyed that.)

• Television high school / teenagers are kind of insufferable. Why is there so much drinking, drugs, and sex? Aren’t they are all underage?? Was I just remarkably sheltered in high school? I think yes but also I hope that this isn’t actually anywhere close to the norm.
• Why didn’t they just lace the whole town’s water supply with vervain since the last issue with vampires?
• This makes small towns seem terrible. I guess this is the flip side of the Gilmore Girls portrayal of small towns.
• Shouldn’t Damon and Stefan be better at all this vampiring stuff? Shouldn’t Lexi have had better fighting tactics or situational awareness?
• Gina Torres! I love her. Damon, you jerk.
• This is a lot of drama and stress.

:: How was your month?

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