November 29, 2017
I knew this would be a multi-step process but who knew it’d require a Trello board of its own. I’m assuming there will be more updates after this.
My first step was to tell Dad that the support has to stop. I legitimately tried to call and speak to him like a decent human but when he didn’t pick up, I took that as a sign to just leave him a message and emotionally shift the burden. That night, I also emailed to make sure that if the voicemail wasn’t heard for some reason, he had the email, I know he checks that.
He didn’t respond for a day but I wasn’t waiting around for a confirmation.
On to step two, realizing that the move has turned our lives upside down and this was collateral damage – I can’t find my car title anywhere. ARGH. After several fruitless searches, and annoyingly finding a digital copy of the title but not the physical copy, I sent off to the DMV for a duplicate title. Waiting for it is torture but it’s given me time to strategize. (That thing is going to turn up when the duplicate arrives, I just know it.)
Third step, stop making the same mistakes. (more…)
November 27, 2017
Today’s money fun: mortgage recasting!
I caught a tidbit about this tool a while back on my usual rounds of interesting PF blogs, and filed it away for future use. Someone somewhere said that “no knowledge is ever wasted”. While that might not be true of everything tucked up in my grey matter, like the Thundercats theme song, this one was exactly what we needed.
You may recall our monster mortgage. You may recall my stress about said monster mortgage. You may recall that I was nearly obsessive about eliminating our mortgage as fast as possible even before it turned into Godzilla because I hate debt and I hate that our monthly obligations skyrocketed with this move.
I had a plan.
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November 20, 2017
Mimicking my favorite tax blogger Kay Bell’s “Moves to make” posts, I’m making some moves before the end of the year to maximize our tax efficiency, minimize our expenses, and ensure we’re saving / investing as much as we can for retirement.
Step One – examining Vanguard accounts!
My Rollover IRA has held my retirement contributions since 2007, and my personal rate of return over that time has been 10.4%, but the fund selections are really outdated.
Over the past decade, as my contributions grew, I’ve shifted from holding Investor Shares to Admiral Shares which have a much lower expense ratio but that was only true for two of my five funds:
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November 15, 2017
I’m not normally a big fan of BF. I’ve not been out in the early hours of the morning since I last humored my woollyheaded friends who really really wanted to go to Best Buy and the mall over ten years back – I went along to keep the boys company and hang out.
These days I only shop online but I hear tell that this year, online sales will outpace sales at physical brick and mortar locations so with some good luck, the sales get better accordingly. I’m sharing my list here
- iPhone charging cable, preferably 6 ft. My Amazon Basics cord has been abused terribly and is about to snap in two. Can’t decide if this is due to user error or poor materials but I’m willing to take the blame.
- iPhone for PiC with as much memory as can be crammed into a hand computer. His hand me down phone is dying a slow and painful death. Mostly painful for me, the Home IT person on call.
- 8 TB external hard drive. I missed that Amazon sale during FinCon where it was running about $130 but I also didn’t have a chance to do some research on which one is compatible with both PCs and Macs since we use both.
- Fireproof safe.
- Portable generator. I’ve got my eye on one that’s about $1000, I suspect they won’t be having a sale on them but it’s worth checking just in case. If no sale, we’ll keep on waiting because I’m working on cash flow recovery.
- Husky Universal SAE and Metric Mechanics Tool Set, 60-Piece set
- (Only a want) Purely if there’s another $25 sale or the like: a new Kindle. Mine has been dead for over a year now.
- Edit to add: blank address labels! I print our own address labels to spare my hands and save on costs. Maybe Staples?
:: Are you watching the sales for anything particular? Have you seen any great deals on any of this stuff?
November 13, 2017
I thought I was rocked back on my heels before.
I had a painful and necessary conversation with a friend last weekend. It was about feelings, which I mostly hate, money, which I love, and family, which I am 100% conflicted about. The conversation itself was tough but what followed was far worse than anything anticipated.
I supported my parents more than half my life because I genuinely believed my parents loved me and I wanted to help them. Turns out, Mom loved me, but Dad? He skated on the strength of her love and sacrifice which was so strong he could mimic both just from the reflected glow.
My theory is that, for Dad, love only mattered so long as my path mirrored his. When I was a dependent child, and when I was an adult covering his expenses, my interests were aligned with his. Mostly. He was never willing to put aside his own pride, and sense of self entitlement, for my sake, though. He may love me but much less than his perceived needs.
In hindsight, it feels like I should have seen the signs earlier. (more…)
October 23, 2017
Othalafehu’s post on their year on year growth got me thinking about exactly how much our money has changed over time. I took advantage of a really bad pain day to dig out the stats because what else could I do with my bones on fire and my brain on the fritz?
I still spent way too much time on this but data! Pretty graph! (Ok, not so pretty.)
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October 18, 2017
Othalafehu’s old post about a problematic sibling surfaced on my radar recently, reminding me of a memory that struck me a few weeks ago.
I think I was 18 at the time this happened. I had been working at my post-high school job for over a year and had become one of the most reliable staff. The power of youth, by the way, is one of the few reasons I could power through my chronic pain. It’s heady stuff!
The office manager sat me down one day, asking me to weigh in on an application. This being totally out of the norm, I was puzzled. Then I was horrified. She revealed that it was my brother who had applied, and would I have a problem working with my sibling?
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