By: Revanche

2023: Our year in review

January 10, 2024

“Happy” still feels strange to say. When will it not? Mostly it comes out as Happy? Or Happy-sigh. Actually, truthfully, when I look at 2024, I think “Cheers to a less bad year!” is the more appropriate greeting for me and some of my loved ones.

Each year since 2019 has felt progressively worse in some significant ways. COVID is still a thing. COVID case notifications from the school stopped this year, and other reporting has all but ceased so we really had no good read on how bad it was at any given time. We just had to operate under the assumption it could be a medium to major problem anywhere people were. This supports my misanthropy. The world is a mess – genocide in Gaza and Sudan, civil war and Saudi-led attacks in Yemen, Russia is STILL trying to destroy Ukraine (as JB says “still??”). I can’t even list all the massive horrible things that are still happening when we closed out 2023.

We worked and parented full time all year long and felt every painful minute. This was another hard year for us, and it felt like another decade in a lot of ways.

2023 Highlights in Health

• I continued (brain) therapy all year, again. Massage therapy was harder to come by. We’re still chipping away at my unhealthy mental patterns and building new mental pathways. I continue to struggle with loneliness and disconnectedness. This was not helped by the parade of viral infections the entire year. I am also struggling with that kneejerk “ugh I’m the worst” reaction I have to JB saying I’m “the best mom”. I hated even typing that. I’m getting better at avoiding self-shame spirals when I make mistakes but not much better at remembering that feelings are just feelings, not problems to be solved.
• PiC commuted by bike regularly most of the year barring the extra rainy season in January-March. That was a huge improvement over the past few years.
• Smol Acrobat brought home so many germs. It wasn’t all for me, though, they were hit extra hard in one of the bouts that turned into pneumonia. I felt a whopping load of parental guilt over not even suspecting it. Thankfully it wasn’t serious in the end and they got through it ok. A friend reassured me that it can turn into pneumonia without warning. They also had night terrors a lot. I’ve lost count of the nights I had to sit nearby where they could see me, while they screamed inconsolably. They’d scream “hug!!!?” at me but hit and kick if I turned to face them. They were very clearly “not home”. Not sleeping through the night for 362 nights of the year has taken a toll on both of us.
• JB caught about 1/4 of the germs that Smol gifted me. Not great but not terrible. They are undergoing an early course of orthodontia, and unfortunately they seem to have gotten PiC’s eyes because their vision has deteriorated a lot between their last annual appointment and this one. I think their vision is as bad as mine is now, but mine has taken 42 years to get here! This worries me and honestly, I kind of feel like a failure somehow even though the eye doc commented that sometimes, there’s nothing you can do “right” or “better”, the eyes are going to do what they’re going to do.
• Sera’s arthritis started to bother her so we added medication to her regimen, along with sardines for her skin and a probiotic for her gas. She’s slowing down some, but she still has good pep in her step days for which I am deeply grateful.

We continued to be cautious about socializing, avoiding crowds, and staying masked around other people.

2023 Highlights in Life

Me: still working full time and scraping away the layers in therapy. I’m still a hermit at core so I could happily not leave my hole for days at a time but the school dropoff/pickups, after school activities, and dog walks force me to stay active. Maybe that’s a good thing. Still taking JB to their self defense class twice a week. We finally got to make up for lost time on a long visit with one branch of my family. That was really good visit and I think we’re going to make that a tradition.

PiC: also still working full time and getting more outside time which is good for his mental health. He’s still responsible for JB’s swim progress.

Smol Acrobat: has finally relaxed into a routine at daycare. They have a friend now! That’s exciting. I continue to be edgy about their exposure to serious germs since they’re still too young to be good about masking appropriately and independently. They’re mostly good about tolerating it during family outings but can’t hang for nearly as long as JB. Their personality is developing. The theme for their personality this year is defiantly grumpy.

JB: same as last year. They attended school during the academic year, camp during the summer, and had two regular activities that they still enjoy throughout the year. Occasionally I get a twinge about not having any desire to squeeze in more, occasionally I’m at peace with this. Their ability to make kid friends almost everywhere we go (not all the places only because some places don’t have kids) continues to astound me.

JB’s infant and toddler personality was defiantly mischievous. Their kid personality… I’m still pondering on this. Loud, I know that much.

2023 Highlights in Money

• I ended 2023 with roughly the same amount of cash in our checking account as we started. That only worked because I stopped our December savings to make up for November spending.
• Our net worth continues to ping pong all over the place with the market .
• I stuck to our weekly investing plan from January through August. Then we had to stop investing to pay back the emergency fund for the car. We also had to stop saving in November. Did not love that.
• I’ve been saving some cash for the kids in a separate savings account under the assumption they’ll need some money for incidentals and living expenses at some point. Like the 529, I’m basically expecting to split it down the middle even though JB had a 5 year head start. Every so often I wonder if I should have separate savings and 529 accounts for them. JB will have their own Roth IRA soon if I can get myself in order enough to file taxes on their income from this year. Alternatively, we could pay the tax ourselves (as originally planned) and put it in some sort of liquid savings account. Thoughts welcome!
• The Lakota families project helped so many people.

We continued to be fortunate in having two full time incomes. There may be changes on the horizon for either of our jobs but that’s completely up in the air. PiC’s employer is still doing layoffs. We had news of another couple of rounds but we have no idea if his job will be on the chopping block next. So much for unclenching my fists a little more each year. I’m trying but it feels counterintuitive.

We spent a lot on daycare ($$$$$), my therapy ($$$$), lots on food (take out, groceries, convenience foods), a new vehicle ($$$$$), an e-bike ($$$$) for commuting, and orthodontia ($$$$) for JB. No WONDER this year felt so much tighter than it should have felt in a year when we both earned full time incomes.

Financial Checklist for 2024

Unfortunately it’s still the same list as last year and the year before. This was one of the things I was never able to get to. Adding: Our paperwork and plans still need to be digitized and made accessible to our key people.

• Update our will and trust to include Smol Acrobat.
• Change executors to two friends who have more ability to deal with our mess in case something happens to us.
• Make the important financial documents securely available to the key people.
• Add details on our bequests and set up secondary beneficiaries.

JB and I are still having those “what happens if you/Dad die, what happens to us?” conversations. We have one legal guardian listed in the will and trust, but it would be good to add a backup guardian and some details such as never allowing my next of kin (dad or brother) to get custody of the kids or touch our money.

Thoughts for 2024

I stayed isolated from the branch of family whose politics and views of COVID made me uncomfortable. I’m quite sure more than one of them has been impacted by Long COVID and the greater family group are still denying that it’s anything serious, so that’s hard.

Keeping my emotional distance from my chaos-driven loved ones is still healthier, even if I’m lonely. Lonely is still better than getting sucked into their self destructive spirals that are really difficult to maintain my own equilibrium within.

Our money

Same: Save more, invest more, give more. Achieve FI in 5-10 years.

Our expenses keep going up:

• Full time childcare is increasing 5% again.
• We still have one more large purchase planned for 2024, deferred from 2023. Roughly $4000.
• Karen has me thinking about whether I am irritated enough with my rosacea to go the laser route. Maybe it doesn’t fit 2024’s budget but we’ll see. PiC thinks I should at least get some consults lined up but he always thinks I should do anything and everything I want. Someone has to keep an eye on the budget!
• With luck, even a minor increase in my and PiC’s salaries will offset the sting of greedflation and increased daycare costs. Those increases aren’t ever a given, so I never plan on them, I just hope.

Little life things

Last year, I had committed to monthly phone calls (anathema though they are to my introvert self) with a couple loved ones who connect best by phone. I kept this up well with one, but not the other. The first had a more routine schedule and the second was doing a lot of travel this year so it was a little harder to line up. We’ll keep at it, though.

Last year’s big picture project: Declutter, donate, organize. ✔️

Last year’s small specific thing: Print out gift labels for people we regularly gift to since that’s one weak point of my gifting. I’m the worst at gift tags and gift labels. ❌ I never got around to this. I decided to shift to gift bags instead and that made a huge difference.

And: figure out people’s gifts early in the year. ✔️/❌ Half yes, half no. Most of the (22) kids were done pretty early but there were still kids I hadn’t thought about until the last minute. That sounds mean but seriously, 22 kids. Let’s see if I can prep better for 3/4 of the kids in 2024.

I try to declutter the house in semi-regular spurts. That seems to be the best rhythm for my lifestyle.

I had hoped to expand the Lakota Giving project a little more this year but the demise of Twitter-as-it-was limited my reach drastically. We were lucky to do about the same as 2023. Also it seemed like a much harder year, financially, for more people. But maybe that’s not causation. Maybe the people who were doing well financially dropped off socially while those who were not in good shape stayed plugged in. I’m very grateful that our regular contributors stayed the course with us this year and I hope that also means they’re also fine overall financially.

:: I hope that 2024 is kinder to all of us. How was your 2023?

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