October 4, 2022
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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 $384 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
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I will be getting a decent raise this year. It’ll help reduce the pain of daycare. Not that daycare only comes out of my paycheck. We pool our income and everything comes out of the one pot. It’s just the money pot is feeling the squeeze of higher prices everywhere plus daycare. Every bit of income helps.
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I finally won my battles with the IRS! They finally correctly calculated my tax rate for my long term cap gains and are coughing up the last $41 they owed me. I’ve had the bulk of the money since last October, but hesitated to deposit the check because it’d throw off my account balances and I wasn’t sure if they would issue a check for the difference or if they’d stop payment on this check and issue a new one. The latter solution wouldn’t make much sense but it’s the IRS and they don’t make much sense. I didn’t want to take any chances. So the big check has been deposited, yay! The last $41 should be coming in 4-6 weeks. ::skeptical face::
Update: they paid up! Woo!
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September 6, 2022
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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 $909.36 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
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JB gets McDonald’s once or twice a year and this year’s Happy Meal treat came with a bottle of spoiled milk. I gave them a chance to make it right, but they didn’t, and so I went to charge back that portion of the meal. It’s the principle of the matter: we paid extra for the milk even! But Citi is a terrible card issuer in terms of customer services. After four tries, I went back and followed up very firmly with the management. After four weeks, and several follow up calls, they coughed up a $25 Visa gift card. I’m still irritated with Citi but that just reminds me why I must prefer using American Express. I’ve never had any trouble using their services when there was a problem with the merchant. I used the card to buy diapers.
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August 2, 2022
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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 $214 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. All reinvested.
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PiC’s company did a compensation evaluation and decided they were underpaying large swaths of employees and bumped up their salaries. Turns out he was one of them. Bummer that he’s been underpaid for the past who knows how long but yay for the out of cycle increase now.
I wasn’t surprised he’s been underpaid. He changed jobs in the middle of the pandemic and there’s been a lot going on with layoffs and suchlike. Despite being married to me, he’s never been in a situation where negotiating his salary was possible versus my consistent and persistent self advocacy for raises and promotions through the years. There’s an irony in that I’ve very actively grown my career at every step and I still don’t make as much as he does. I’ve been in a quiet competition all these years trying to beat his salary.
Anyway, I’m glad the dust has settled enough that they’re bringing people up to standard. As usual, I’ll take this opportunity to bump up our savings rate a bit to assuage my guilt over our spending.
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July 5, 2022
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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 $270 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
We recycled 5 ink cartridges to earn $10 in Staples rewards. That brings our rewards total to $30.70. That $0.70 is just going to keep on rolling over for a while since we don’t buy a lot from Staples regularly. I wonder if they will expire after 6 months… Ah ha: “Unissued Rewards will expire at the end of the following calendar quarter, unless a qualifying purchase is made.” I suppose I can just keep them alive with a periodic purchase if I actually need something. Otherwise those rewards under $5 will just expire. JB is obsessed with Staples now, btw. PiC took them to run errands for me and they’re obsessed with ALL THE OFFICE SUPPLIES 🤩😍🤩 Just like me. We are absolute suckers.
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June 14, 2022
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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 $904.36 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
- PiC sold a big set of hand me down stroller accessories in a big bundle for $140. Cha-ching! Love freeing up space and putting away cash (the equivalent of which is already long spent).
- Closing a fallow checking account brought home a $100 check.
- Ibotta: $0.10 for a total of $0.30 this month! One more dollar to go before I can cash out.
- Bing: I’m over the 32500 point redemption threshold! I may have to redeem to replenish our Target gift cards because we’re nearly out. We use it for diapers, wipes, and other household essentials when we’re not spending it on our Lakota families.
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May 3, 2022
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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 $284.46 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. All reinvested, of course.
Little gripe: I’ve been trying to hit the $20 cash out threshold at Ibotta for months and months. I’m determined to get that last bit of the way there before I close my account. Just another $1.30 to go!
Both federal and state refunds landed already from our 2021 filing. Also, one more tax amendment refund came in as well. Everything went straight to our savings. I joked PiC could have $35 of the amendment refund since they calculated a slightly higher amount than we submitted for but ha ha just kidding he can have it when we retire. That leaves me waiting for two federal and one state refund. Naturally the biggest refund has been on hold for the longest time for evaluation. Ugh.
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April 5, 2022
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. There are ways to support the blog and our charitable giving in the sidebar.
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 $270 in dividends from the stocks portfolio. Our YTD monthly average is $188. Not nothing, but also not self sustaining.
Tax refunds. We had a series of mistakes in my accountant missing our cost basis on some stock sales going back to 2017 which inflated our taxable income. We’ve been correcting that for the past 18 or so months and the refunds have been slowly trickling in. We have received $1300, two more filings worth $3000 and I’m still waiting for the big kahuna to be processed for a whopping $5200. All of those will likely go right back to paying the tax bill due this year or next depending on when they’re filed and paid. Probably next year since the IRS is s-l-o-w.
We’re going to be fined for all the Form 8608 that she missed too.
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