February 1, 2022

Money & Life Report: January 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 $188 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.

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I cancelled my Chase Sapphire Reserve and got the Chase Freedom Unlimited instead. There was a $200 Bonus on $500 spend, no annual fee, 3% Cashback on drugstores/dining and 1.5% Cashback on anything else. I knocked out that $500 spend 10 minutes after activating the card: we had insurance, water, internet and cell phone bills to pay!

I haven’t done a credit card churn in probably four years, I might do two more cards this year to generate some extra income. We could use a bit of padding against the time we (*knock wood*) start paying childcare and/car payments.

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January 11, 2022

2021: Our year in review

HNY

Honestly that “happy” feels really strange to say right now. As hard as 2020 was between COVID and the stress of The US Presidential election campaign (and all the Congressional races), this year was worse for us.

We lost Seamus this year and 8 more loved ones throughout the year. We continued to work full time and parent full time without more than a little bit of physical help (lots of moral support and virtual support but no one here to hand off the baby to for a few minutes).

After umpteen months of coping during a pandemic, there was big upheaval at work and the fallout from that is still swinging a wrecking ball through my life. That by itself would have been bad enough but piled atop the grief and pain and stress of my personal life, it was just too much.

That was the theme of this year. IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH.

2021 Highlights in Health

Without Seamus, I rise to the top of the Complicated Health list again.

I continued brain therapy all year and fit in a couple massage therapy appointments. Physically, my pain improved significantly. I was living in a constant state of excruciating pain and it’s come down to an ebb and flow of moderate to severe pain in some unknowable cycle.
It became obvious that my fatigue was less related to the pain than I previously assumed. My pain had improved but I still felt like I woke in a body weighted down by steel every morning and went to bed with double and triple weights every night. It turns out I check almost every box for ME/CFS.
It took me half the year to physically recover from pregnancy and childbirth. I’m not totally back yet but the midwife who took care of me at Smol’s birth was amazing and my healing from actual childbirth was so much less painful.
I was really lonely this year with much of my support network out of touch or out of reach.

PiC needed a lot more outdoor time than he got this year. He really needed more exercise to feel mentally and emotionally good. We are working on this.

JB, Sera and Smol Acrobat are all (with all our gratitude in the world) healthy.

The wild card: COVID. We got our vaccines as soon as we could get appointments and spent most of the year anxiously awaiting news on the kid vaccines. JB is now fully vaccinated and we’re anxious for the under-5 data.

Given my health and Smol’s vulnerabilities (a new baby who can’t mask and a still-developing immune system), we continued to stay relatively isolated and still stuck to most of the same rules even after we were vaccinated and in the case of the adults, boosted: Always masked, mostly outdoors. Global vaccine inequity haunts me. We needed to be much better people than we were, as a society, in 2020 and 2021, and it just didn’t happen. It makes me despair for the future that collectively we could not deal with this whole mess in a way that cared more about people than money.

2021 Highlights in Life

We celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. We’re still happy with each other, rely on each other, and respect each other. There’s no one else we’d rather be in this whole thing with and that’s something I appreciate every day, no matter how hard the days are. Of course we have our moments, who doesn’t?, but they’re the exception, not the rule.

I marked 15 years of blogging. I’m glad to be here with y’all. I appreciate y’all being here with me, reading and commenting or still lurking (I see you now, C!!)

Last year I said: “Our personal lives will likely shift dramatically with an infant and no childcare.” YUP. But, while I hate the constant juggle, I love that I’ve had all this time with my baby.

JB was in school in person this year. I was highly anxious going into the fall but with their own excellent masking and the many precautions the school did end up taking, our anxiety has been overshadowed by their joy at attending and making new friends. I still hate their principal who we’ve met with a few times. She solidified the foundation for my dislike by lying to us about the communication protocols for COVID.

2021 Highlights in Money

I ended 2021 with almost the same amount of cash in our checking account as we started. I like that weird feeling of stability or consistency that gives me.
Our net worth went up 22% from last year. I think our savings rate worked out to approximately 50% but I’m not totally sure if that’s accurate. My spreadsheet turned into a bit of an octopus and well, tentacles everywhere. The data is good enough though, I don’t need it to be exact down to the penny for this summary.
I stuck with our weekly investing plan all year, starting in June! This is a big accomplishment for me. This is related to the next point:
On reflection, I realize that my reaction to the pandemic in 2020, though logical at the time because we had more risk exposure than I was comfortable with in the face of a pandemic, really emphasized that I need to stick with regular investing. We had enough cash in hindsight but that real uncertainty with the rental and lack of good tenants scared me into pulling back on all investing so I could have cash in hand to take care of a second mortgage without getting in over our heads. I really wish I’d had more faith that things would be ok if I carried on investing but that’s not how I work! So I am reminding myself to go into 2022 with my plan and stick to it.
I went many many many rounds with the IRS working out amendments for my last three tax returns when I discovered an error in our accounting. Resulted mostly in refunds needed but also much teeth gnashing and hair rending.
I added iBonds to our portfolio which I hope not to regret as I am still fighting with Treasury Direct for access to my old account.
I quit our HSA / HDHP plan for 2022. In CA, we don’t get most of the tax benefits and the stress of tracking the costs we incurred through the year had driven me to avoiding seeking care as needed. I suspect that’s the design and frankly it’s not worth the rather minimal savings.
Collectively, we did an amazing job with our Lakota families project. We fulfilled 18.5 requests for aid (the 0.5 is a box I haven’t been able to send because I’m in a fight with USPS over my account but I will get that done in 2022!). We started the year with a big load of kids’ supplies to the Allen Youth Center (part of the reservation meant to help the kids of course), and ended the year with a big load of gifts for kids. In between we helped 49 individuals in total, ranging from newborns to elders in their 70s and all the folks in between.

We continued to be fortunate in continuing to work full time and safely at home all year. PiC’s company went through some layoffs and reorgs, which was cause for some anxiety, but we have a solid money plan and we’ll stick to it. If we get hit later on with a change, we’ll deal with it as it comes. (I say through clenched teeth and deep breaths.)

Our spending stayed high this year. We had our internet covered for the year because of PiC’s working from home long term but that was a drop in the bucket compared to our spending. We spent a lot on direct aid, my therapy, insulation for the house, take out a few times a week when we were basically laid out on the floor with fatigue. We also spent a lot on groceries: some convenience foods, some decent ingredients for me to cook bigger batches of meals.

Financial Checklist for 2022

Confirm that all our accounts have the right beneficiaries.
Roll over the HSA from our employer-sponsored company to Fidelity (no fees!)
Figure out our savings / investing schedule so that we don’t ever overdraw the checking account

Thoughts for 2022

Our family doctor said: “I don’t want to be a downer but I just don’t know about 2022.” Though that was very vague, I feel the same way. There’s so much that’s up in the air: Funerals, weddings, will Comic Con happen and can we go?, when do we get vaccines for the under-5 group?, the world is both metaphorically and at times literally (I do live in CA after all) on fire, Republican politics and politicians make me sick to my stomach. It’s so inhumane and the Democratic party continually caving the Republican pressure makes me want to scream.

My financial goals are the same: save more, invest more (weekly), give more. Aim for an FI number that’s not impossibly high but not too optimistically low.

Our expenses are going up. We will likely be paying for childcare and maybe a new car sometime this year (chip shortage dependent!). Both are still a little up in the air for various reasons but if and when they happen, they will be big wallops to our wallets. If interest rates stay the same, I’ll take a loan instead of paying in cash since the cash in the market is making more than interest is costing. This is a very weird choice for me in that I hate loans but I much prefer that to overspending.

We know to expect a minor increase in PiC’s salary. That will be going towards defraying the increased expenses, but it definitely won’t cover all of them.

COVID remains our wild card going into 2022 as we closed out the year with omicron sweeping the nation. CAN we get vaccines for our under-5s already? PLEASE.

:: I hope that 2022 is kinder to all of us. How was your 2021?

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