Money & Life Report: January 2025
February 5, 2025
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 $212 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
We picked up receipt litter and scored a 6500 point bonus in Fetch for our trouble. The points from each of these programs (Swagbucks, Bing, My Points and Fetch. Ibotta doesn’t do much for us.) helps to fund my giving habit, like buying for the Lakota families and for the unhoused folks in New Mexico.
I finally picked a
Spending
California insurance went through the roof in 2024 and some of our policies are coming due now. They increased our auto premiums by 20% and 18%, home insurance went up 10%. Our earthquake policy is the only one that only went up less than 10% and that’s probably because it was already really expensive to begin with. Tiny bit of savings: AmEx had an offer for paying insurance bills, if you have an AmEx check their offers. The most important terms on the offer we had was: Enroll by 5/6/2025. Earn 10% back as a statement credit after using your enrolled eligible Card to make a payment on your insurance bill by 12/31/2025. Limit of $20 in total statement credits per eligible Card Member. I immediately put the maximum on the AmEx ($200) against our insurance bill – we will take every penny of savings we can get! Most of the time the offers aren’t useful to me but it’s worth trawling every quarter or couple months to catch these little gems.
Not spending
We had been kicking around the idea of a big Spring Break trip but we were too busy to plan it so that’s cancelled. Probably a good thing for my desire to save as much money as we can outside of our big existing commitments. I might use points to book a hotel for a day or two for spring break, if my brain can manage the logistics. The kids love a hotel.
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. See how you can help at the link.
We’ve donated so much this month: so many GFMs for the LA fires that I lost count. Plus the Pasadena Humane Society, World Central Kitchen, Yellowhammer Fund.
We also shopped for three Lakota families this month. My credit card panicked at all my spending and froze it temporarily on the last family’s shopping trips so I had to wait til February to complete that purchase.
Saving and investing
Our savings numbers aren’t lining up going into February. I’ve been deducting more from the investing cash funds than depositing. Whoops. Better fix that.
Net worth
I’m both glad our numbers generally keep going up and feel despair at the world where such terrible things are happening and our money can keep going up. The only good here is if our money keeps steadily growing, then we can personally help more people. You know what would be better than personal wealth, though? A world that is systemically better for everyone.
On Life
Entertainment.
On Prime: Miss Scarlet and the Duke, Season 1. It could do with a more diverse cast but it was interesting. No spoilers but I definitely remember learning (from Twitter or Bsky? I can’t remember which) to be a hell of a lot more skeptical about missing persons reports and that was relevant to my twinges of “something is wrong!” I never usually spot plot twists before they happen. Debating whether I want to see Seasons 2-5 enough to pay for PBS Passport. On the one hand, $60 is more than I’d normally spend on something only I would briefly enjoy. On the other, I do support PBS outside of this show.
Reading.
Django Wexler: How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying. It took me a while to get into the writing but this was entertaining.
Jessie Mihalik: Polaris Rising, Aurora Blazing, Chaos Reigning. These were fun easy reads. Touches of stress, because adventure! Chaos! Etc!
Mur Lafferty: Chaos Terminal, Ghost Train to New Orleans. The first one is space adventure, the second was supernatural adventure. Both were fun.
Hisashi Kashiwai, trans Jesse Kirkwood: The Kamogawa Food Detectives, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes. I want to go to this restaurant and get my mom’s recipes replicated.
It is quite unusual for me to DNF a book, even more so to have two such in a month. But here we are.
Toshikazu Kawaguchi: Before the Coffee gets Cold (DNF) – I don’t know why I wanted to read this but even after a few chapters, I couldn’t get into it. Maybe it’s just my stress right now but I returned it.
Eva Jurczyk: The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections (DNF) – the premise of this was intriguing but the writing style completely squicked me out. I got to this passage and closed and returned the book: Liesl stepped back from the men and their mating. Percy preferred his conquests in ill-fitting blouses, but all attention gave him a hard-on. A powerful ego responded to stroking. The Peshawar was an international treasure, a clue in the development of modern mathematics, into the complexity of thought and writing carried out by people about whom scarcely any documentary history existed in the West. It was being treated as some Indian curiosity. Percy Pickens was a collection of sweaty chins and family money. He was being treated as remarkable, rousing. She walked backward toward the door. Cardboard ripped, someone opened a new case of wine. A roar of laughter. Someone had had one too many. The suits in the room were expensive, but one of these posh people was sure to ejaculate in the stairwell before the event was over. Nothing in the library was as it seemed.
