By: Revanche

Money & Life Report: September 2023

October 3, 2023

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. The sidebar has ways to support the blog and our charitable giving.

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 $415 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.

PiC also unexpectedly received an out of cycle cost of living adjustment. We’re more than happy to have the few extra dollars. Bills keep rising like yeast. It does make us wonder when and how his salary falls behind enough that his company notices and adjusts. The cynical part of me assumes he’s been underpaid for longer than we’d like but I have to ignore that voice because he doesn’t have much recourse. We’ll just focus on stretching our dollars.

Spending

Ugh. My computer eyeglasses prescription was updated last November but I meant to price compare before ordering a set. It’s always extra expensive from the optometrist and figured I’d get them in December, maybe from Costco, and save a little. Or a lot. Then I got sick in January and didn’t stop getting sick until … erm. Last month? Needless to say, I didn’t remember to get new eyeglasses. So at this year’s annual exam, I paid $250 to get my new computer glasses from the office. I’m paying for convenience, my insurance benefit doesn’t offset enough of the cost to be competitively priced, but I also can’t go another year without updated lenses. If I walk out of there without ordering them, I won’t order them at all. Saving a hundred dollars isn’t worth deteriorating of my eyesight.

Up to now, my garden project focused on veggies going to seed. Sprouting potatoes, onions, green onions – saving them from going into the compost by regrowing new food. The starting up costs ran about $150. Some of the potatoes have always produced, some just became part of the soil again. We have not grown $150 worth of potatoes but we have grown a few dinners’ worth of different potatoes in different shapes and sizes, and that’s fun. The onions and green onions are a recent addition as I get more comfortable with my bushels of soil.

We’re adding another $200 to that total (paid for by gift cards earned by credit card bonus churning) to expand the project to growing berries. We love berries here and it’s exciting to think we can pick our own berries if this goes well, but this is a whole other dimension of growing. It’s not just about reclamation anymore which was a much lower stake. We have to keep these guys alive and producing. That’s a little bit stressful.

I see our water/sewer prices creeping up again. Rude.

ALSO the daycare that offers the good 12 hours of coverage (and charges us accordingly) is going to start charging when kids arrive in the early and late hours because there isn’t currently good usage of those early and late hours. They claim it’s about more efficient staffing, fine. Be more efficient. But we already pay them for that full coverage. Why are we being charged more when we need to use the early and late hours? Make this make sense because it does NOT.

Not spending

We saved $60 on haircuts this month. We continue to self administer haircuts even though Smol Acrobat is still deeply suspicious about the whole process.

Giving

We have worked really hard and been very fortunate that our hard work paid off in significant ways that I only 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.

We donate to organizations that help people and animals in need and do direct aid.

The Lakota Giving Project is year-round now and we always welcome donations to support Lakota families. Here’s how you can help.

I’m making up for lost time with our Lakota families. Dealing with the school took up so much of my time and brainpower in August and early this month, I simply couldn’t tackle this until after that was mostly resolved.

Once it was, I picked up Family 1 and bought mini-wardrobes for 6 kids plus a box of snacks. For a mini wardrobe, I aim to get every kid 3 or more tops and 2 pairs of bottoms, a sweater, socks and shoes. Approximately a week’s worth of clothing. Then I picked Family 2 and shopped for mini-wardrobes for 2 more kids, plus household supplies for Mom. Then I picked Family 3 and outfitted another 2 kids with mini-wardrobes as well. As I finished up with them, the coordinator asked me to take on two more families way out in Wounded Knee but they haven’t been able to answer my questions about the sizes that the kids wear due to a death in the family.

Saving and investing

We’re slowly making up our spent savings for the car and for TGT stocks.

Repayment progress: 30% 30%

“Just” another 70% to go before I can start investing again!

Net worth

I’m mildly annoyed that markets are down enough to make a dent in our investing balances. I don’t know why they’re down now, vs any other time, but I’m not motivated enough to find out why. Knowing why won’t make any difference in our strategy or timeline anyway.😝

On Life

Ever since PiC committed to the e-bike and child seat attachment, our car usage has changed dramatically. I got curious about how it breaks out and idly wondered if we could ever be a one car family but it’s unlikely with two young kids and my own limitations.

Best case scenario (good weather, no injuries): we are a 1-bike, 0-car family 3 days a week and 1-bike, 1-car family 4 days a week.
Worst case scenario (bad weather, injury, extra errands): we are a 1-car family 5 days a week and 2-car family 2 days a week.

We ping pong between the two based on the weather, mostly. They tough it out through some pretty yucky weather but we don’t like them riding on poor visibility days.

Reading.

I needed to re-read the Innkeeper Chronicles, it was a mood thing. Fortunately I had them all on Kobo. Unfortunately they needed to be organized. Fortunately Kobo has a collection tool so I can group these books easily. Unfortunately that’s about the only good thing I can say about the Kobo app. I’d been trying to change over from Amazon Kindle but the UX of the app is blergh. The lag time for page flipping annoys me, the inability to quickly and easily scroll through the book from start to finish is frustrating. Oh, but I discovered that there was a new book out, Sweep of the Heart, so I added that to the collection and accepted I’d just have to be annoyed by it being in Kobo (Amazon, Bookshop). Yay new book! I still need to know what happened to the DeMille parents and what’s up with Klaus.

Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel, Bonnie Garmus (Amazon, Bookshop). This was recommended by a friend who often reads popular fiction, and I couldn’t decide how I felt about it most of the way through. I hated the sexism, of course, because it was an accurate fictional depiction of what many women have experienced in the workplace.

Rattlesnake Wind, Lilith Saintcrow. I really could have done with the content warnings at the start of the book, not the end. It was a mix of the things I like (myth, magic) and real world problems (poverty, abuse), and I only spotted the first in the summary but not the second. It was well written but had me in tears at the end because life is unfair and I hate reading fiction that’s too like real life unfairness. The magic doesn’t make up for the loss. I’m over books that have to mimic the crappiness of our current realities. I only want to read new worlds, imagined better.

Black Adam on Amazon Prime. I didn’t realize it’d been so long since this movie came out that it was available on streaming but sure has been! I watched this when laying down to rest one weekend and it was amusing. I especially liked it because Aldis Hodge was a main character (DAMMIT HARDISON).