September 5, 2016
ON MONEY
I use Swagbucks. Here’s a handy tutorial if you’d like to join and earn.
Spending
Credit card churn, Card #2 of 2016: After $1,000 of paying bills, I’ve crossed the threshold for the required minimum spending to earn 35K Alaska miles. I don’t have a specific use in mind for these miles but I suspect they’ll come in useful in a year or two. The first card was also an Alaska card, in my name, but only earned 25K bonus miles. Humph.
Open ended travel planning: 3 free RT domestic travel tickets costs 75K miles and $36 (we paid $75 for each card, so the actual total is $186). Our current total of 60K miles is still 15K miles short. It doesn’t look like Alaska does discounted mile redemptions like United does, so to shore that up, I’ll sign up for dining miles programs so that any spending we do also earn miles on top of any credit card award points. Then we’ll be set for a trip that costs more than $500.
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August 8, 2016
A
Gai Shan Life turns ten!
Born in 2006, this site has changed names once, changed URLs twice, and changed designs at least seven time. AGSL is a senior in dog years, starts fifth grade in kid years, or could retire as a centenarian in blog years.
I’ve published more than 2000 posts, some of which don’t bear re-reading and some of which I’m still proud of, made literally awesome friends, and found community in the unlikeliest of places.
It almost feels pretentious to celebrate a decade of blogging. I’ve been tapping my keys, chatting with y’all. But I can’t pretend that running this blog this long, despite the slings and arrows of fortune or wondering why I’m doing this, isn’t a big deal.
We’ve come a long way since starting a free blog on Blogger, posting random musings on the complications of fresh out of college income, family, and navigating relationships when you’re bogged down with a freighter’s worth of family baggage. (more…)
August 1, 2016
ON MONEY
I use Swagbucks. Here’s a handy tutorial if you’d like to join and earn.
Spending
In the wake of June’s credit card bills, I cautioned PiC we had to pull back on spending for a few months to let our accounts breathe. We largely did ok with this even with this month’s travel.
Our normal monthly credit card spending on food, household supplies, any utility bills I can charge without fees, medical and vet bills, tends to average around the $1000 mark.
Planning ahead to FinCon in September, unfortunately my post didn’t win any prizes, so I’ll be on the hook for all the travel costs. This makes me triply glad that we had great friends willing to host us and Seamus for the week of SDCC. (more…)
July 11, 2016
ON MONEY
I use Swagbucks. Here’s a handy tutorial if you’d like to join and earn.
- MTurk experiment, total earned: $44.05. Up $31.40 from May’s ending total of $12.65. As money making experiments go, this continues to be teensy tiny beans. I use it in the few minutes a day I designate for my (non-existent otherwise) water cooler breaks so no harm done. Gives my brain a breather from the problems I’m working on and makes, literally, a few bucks.
- Last month’s big news: We spent money and 6 long months to finally refinance the mortgage. Ahoy, the prepayment scheme! I’m really excited about that. That, and cutting our mortgage in half so that the second half of our mortgage payment all goes to principal. DELICIOUS. We’re under $250K now, and I’m eagerly targeting when we’ll be under $200K.
- Last month’s other big news: We finally bought a new to us car. After maintenance and accessories (which sounds so fancy but really isn’t), we are out a couple thousand dollars. For that price, we can FINALLY get around without plotting logistics on a chart.
- We replaced my sad crickety old phone.
- I keep forgetting that our crockpot broke a couple months ago after rendering unto us, in its last faithful service, producing fantastic ribs for our dinner guests. I know it’s “only” $30-40 to replace it but given our pile of other necessary expenses that add up very quickly, and *points up* that list of spending these past two months, I’m extra not ready to spend a penny more. The crockpot recipes must continue to pile up for now. Even that mac and cheese one. *sniff*
- I continue to be not surprised, but surprisingly irritated, by the fact that Dad is behind on his utility payments. He insisted that he could take them on three years ago (four? I can’t remember now) but I didn’t totally trust him so I kept online access to the accounts. Sure enough, when I logged in to the water and electricity bills, they were glaringly overdue. Think he said anything to me? Gave me any warning that he was struggling with them? History repeats itself. So we’re sinking an unbudgeted $100-300 in utility bills every few months because he simply can’t do me the courtesy of talking through the income shortage with me.
- Highlights of my #1GoodMoneyThing this month: I bought stocks instead of stuff which are dropping like rocks thanks to Brexit but I’m buying long; deposited reimbursement checks for various reimbursable things; returned two baby carriers to Amazon because PiC found a decent one for $50 on Craigslist!
- We’ve been holding a lot of cash because I have a problem. An addiction, almost, to keeping cash on hand. Left over insecurity from that long layoff? Maybe. But it was time to get off my bum and move cash into our investments. I don’t want our eggs too heavily in any one basket. Overall, most of our savings go into pre and post-tax investment accounts, and real estate, there to grow and multiply, we hope.
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July 6, 2016
Philosophically speaking
Building up a portfolio that throws off anything like real income in annual dividend income is challenging. We need a lot more capital invested.
To add to that challenge, as I shared at the Jolly Ledger recently, I have some rules.
- I’m a long position investor, otherwise known as buy and hold.
- It cannot be built on blood money. Companies need to conduct their businesses in a way that would make me want to work for them. Disclaimer: I aim to invest in ethical companies as far as is practicable – I’m not an expert and don’t have an army of researchers at my fingertips to confirm that all my choices are good but I’m doing my best.
- I won’t invest in tobacco or gun companies. Even though I do not disapprove of gun ownership in principle, the way this country is unduly influenced by the NRA and gun lobby isn’t acceptable. There’s a difference between short term mistakes and long term wrongdoing or simply being harmful and the gun lobby has long ago crossed over to the dark side.
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July 4, 2016
What I read
Spirits Abroad, by Zen Cho
I can’t say enough how much I loved this book. It was gifted to me and I’m so grateful I have friends who will insist that I MUST read this or that book because the few from whom I will accept that badgering are always right.
The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough
A freebie from ECCC, this was a mildly entertaining read but I couldn’t help but be distracted by the protagonist’s “attraction” to the standardly beautiful female scientist character that rang false. It was, of course, his motivation for action and felt pretty stupid. As written, I would have been a lot more inclined to believe his motivation if the physical attraction was never mentioned / didn’t exist. I suppose you could say I object to distracting romance but it’s more that I find so much written romance to be unbelievable. (*thinks* maybe I find standard human romance unbelievable too…)
Which leads me to a friend’s book. As a rule, if I am friends first with an author, I often hesitate to read their writing. It’s oddly uncomfortable for me because I’m an alien to know an author as a person and read their works. What if I don’t like it? I’ve evolved beyond grade school is so many ways but not in this: I want to like and respect my friends but I cannot do that if they display a lack of integrity or write poorly. I was, therefore, both relieved and impressed that Erica Monroe’s A Dangerous Invitation was both well written and engaging. Her heroine was both spirited and believable and the research into the language and society of the times blended so well it was a joy to read. Yay I get to keep admiring my friend. (more…)
June 1, 2016
ON MONEY
I use Swagbucks. Here’s a handy tutorial if you’d like to join and earn.
- MTurk experiment, total earned: $12.65. I originally planned to try it out for ten consecutive days. Since I can’t stay not-sick for more than a few days at a time, that didn’t work out. No big deal, this is still just an interesting experiment. This will be added to our side money when I cash it out. So far, most of the HITs (human intelligence task) have been very low payouts. We’re talking about less than a dollar. I happened across one that paid more than pennies on a Wednesday evening, completed it immediately, and banked $6. I suspect that, for my purposes, if I just use this intermittently as I have time on weekdays, I’ll build up a tiny nestegg of earnings. This isn’t likely to be a true source of income replacement unless I’m willing to put quite a few more hours into it. If I do get past the beginner’s hurdle, and am offered the more lucrative HITs, it’ll be worth the time I put in. Like I said, it’s an experiment and I’m willing to see how it plays out, picking and choosing the higher payouts from this point forward.
- I still hate that daycare doesn’t make it easier to automatically pay them. I still refuse to set up autopay at their site because I will NEVER authorize withdrawals of “any amount” from our checking account, are you kidding me?
- On the subject of being stuck in the Paper Ages, I don’t understand why our new FSA contractor refuses to do direct deposit. They mail a paper check and statement for every redemption. I wish the company had consulted us even a little before changing but it’s done now. What a waste!
- You would think that offending the stomach gods and being unable to eat for 5 days running would translate into savings, but that has not been true at all.
- Three notices from TradeKing this month: Dividends paid! Woot! My portfolio is still small enough that three dividend payouts only add up $100 but we’re heading in the right direction. Bearing in mind that my investing strategy is to buy and hold, I also intend to earn income from the dividends with the expectation that they will provide income before retirement age. My body hasn’t done what you’d call IMPROVE with age so we have to plan for the scenario in which I’m still alive but too disabled to work for income at an early enough age that it creates financial hardship. I refuse to be complacent and pretend that won’t happen in hopes of getting better – that’s not yet done me a lick of good and believe you me, I spent plenty of time in denial.
- We spent money and bought a car. That deserves a post of its own. Especially because it looks like more money is needed.
- We spent money and refinanced the mortgage. That also deserves a post of its own. Coming soon.
- I’ve been just as frustrated as you might imagine with all our free time being monopolized by the car, the mortgage, and the estate planning. So much so that I’m happy we spent money and resolved the issue. Mostly.
- Our net worth is down 0.1% this month. The aforementioned expected, not awesome, spending took us down a tiny peg.
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