Money & Life Report: July 2026
August 5, 2026
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 $255 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
Litter watch. 28 stray litter receipts this month resulted in $1.425 cents in Fetch (1 receipt was a big winner at 86.8 cents). Lots of receipt (and non) litter was properly disposed of.
Evidation. I finally earned 10K points and redeemed it for a $10 gift card to pay for future home maintenance. We need to re-grout and re-caulk all the things. The counter is reset to 63 points (earned since redemption).
Spending
$$$. We covered dinner for three families (everyone took a turn), twice. The first dinner was not at all economical but the second dinner was roughly $60 so it averaged out. It was also for more than ten people so the costs were always going to be higher than our usual home dinners.
$$$. We bought part of dinner, a lunch, and small birthday and some holiday gifts for a wide swath of folks.
Not spending
The kids enjoyed free personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut thanks to the summer Bookit program. They’ve also picked up new sand buckets and shovels, tiny toy box build kits, sunglasses and a little travel tic tac toe toy from Lowe’s.
All four of us earned an incredibly cute tote bag prize from the SFPL for completing the Summer reading program challenge, plus we adults received two free books. They’re both horror though, which is usually not my thing unless it’s Ursula Vernon (who gives me the absolute willies in ways that don’t haunt me, quite) writing as T. Kingfisher.
We requested San Diego Public Library cards for the whole family and got access to a whole lot more books. They’re distinct from the SD County Library system which is an important factoid that I didn’t have in my head before.
The last T-Mobile Tuesday perk of the month was useful: 10 free photo prints for each adult gave me the photos needed to complete one set of nibling holiday gifts.
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 took care of needs for two families and filled two more moving boxes full of clothes and backpacks for the reservation.
I just found out that the Okini Market burned down in April, which is just heartbreaking. They worked so hard to fundraise and put it up. I’ve not quite pulled myself together to figure out how to support them on that front but I’ve checked in with them to ask what the plans are.
Saving and investing
I opened my ABLE account! It took all month to fund it because they took so long to open the dang thing that I hit my busy period and couldn’t get back around to it but it exists now and I’ve transfered existing savings to it. It can be used for living expenses so it’s not locked away the same way retirement money is.
Net worth
Sometimes I think maybe I’m investing wrong. The market gains seem mostly fake (and they’re all theoretical because I’m not cashing out), but friends are seeing much more dramatic increases than I am, month to month. The difference makes me wonder what I’ve got wrong here. But it’s mostly a passing thought. The line is moving up shakily-steadily, even if not exponentially, so my hope is that means we’re less affected by the AI garbage than I’d worried.
The goal line went up purely for aesthetic reasons. It was annoying me that the numbers didn’t break evenly and moving that bit up helped with the unevenness.
On Life
Reading. Total pages read: 5479.
I reread the Mercenary Librarians again while waiting for more books to become available on my hold list early in the month. Then they started coming in fast and thick in the last week.
Caitlin Rozakis, Dreadful. This one made me laugh a bit.
Martha Wells, Platform Decay. Ahhh, it was nice returning to our favorite neurotic depressed Murderbot’s head.
Jim Butcher, Brief Cases. I really need to read these books in order someday. I’ve read some of the Harry Dresden files – enough to be familiar with some of the names in these short stories but not to recognize where the stories fall in the canon timeline.
Caitlin Rozakis, Startup Hell. Stayed just on this side of twee, it was amusing but not the level of engaging that the other books this month were.
Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn. More cozy comfort reading. I absolutely love the idea of portal inns.
Jeaniene Frost, A Curse of Beasts and Magic. A twist on Beauty and the Beast, I could use more world-building in this one.
Kate Quinn, The Astral Library. Maybe a light touch of predictable but I liked the story nonetheless.
Sarah Beth Durst, The Enchanted Greenhouse. Number two in the Spellshop book series that I’d asked to be notified of when it became available but wasn’t so I got to enjoy it this month. I am really happy that she came back to this character. I hope there’s a reunion in the next book.
John Wiswell, Wearing the Lion. An unexpected read just like his first book (which was completely different from this). I would say that he exists in the same interesting-bizarre-unexpected angles category as Premee Mohamed. She’s an excellent writer and I can never predict how her stories will unfold.
Lee Child, The Killing Floor. I was just curious what the original was like. I can see the differences the cast described between the original and the adaptation and I think the TV adaptation makes a lot of sense.
Leonie Swann, The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp. I kept thinking I knew what was going on but I didn’t!
Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl. A friend shared this one and when I started reading it, I had a moment of trepidation that it’d be something like Battle Royale where it was just brutality and I wouldn’t be able to deal with the tension (as I’m somewhat stressed right now!) but Dinniman balances these things rather well and I ended up finishing the book in short order. I won’t be grabbing the second book yet but that’s because I have 3 more books fresh off my hold list to attend to.