About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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July 6, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property (which is all saved for maintenance) and investing in dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running and I’ve added a way to support the blog in the sidebar to the right!
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 $271.80 in dividends in June.
I redeemed a $10 reward from Achievement early this month but they still haven’t paid or replied to my emails. Not sure what’s going on with that. *update: I’ve contacted them four times via ticket and email, AND tweeted them twice. They just like the tweets and do not answer them. What is going on??
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July 3, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. While I was grumpy that I’d miscalculated the sizes of the storage bins I should use for my office, I’m taking it as a win that I actually finally started up my organization project in a real way.
The wrong size bins were repurposed as underbed storage for JB now, which has been solely needed as their games and puzzles have undergone a population boom, and that was a really nice secondary effect.
2. I took a first stab at making my own gluten free fish sticks. They were just average, but they weren’t terrible either.
3. My massive cleaning effort unearthed my ancient Nintendo DS and eventually the charging cord too. SCORE.
Challenges this week: My pain decided to flare up big time again after going quiescent for about a minute.
4. The four perpetual box-occupants of my office have been an embarrassment for the past two years. I finally emptied one out!
5. Our local donations charity has begun pick-ups again so I’m going to start pulling together a big box for them. I have this feeling I should have already had this ready, considering all the time we’ve had since they last did pickups, but that’s ignoring, ohhh everything ELSE about life during this period. Getting a pick up together for next week would be plenty.
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
July 2, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Quinisha Jackson-Wright: “While I’m sure they mean well, the difference between them and me is I don’t have the option to only think about race when it’s all over the news. Once the dust settles and the protests are over, I don’t get to breathe a sigh of relief and return to business as usual. I understand that the times in between this hashtag and the next are when racism is at its worst. It’s more subtle than a video of a cop taking away an innocent human being’s last breath but just as insidious.”
Ambition is not the problem: Women want the top jobs—they just don’t get them
An Open Letter to the Ballet Community
Precious Adams interview: ‘Ballet people have strong ideas about tradition, but it’s natural to question things’
How I Feel Right Now as a Black Woman
Anti-racism resources
Kayla Shaggy (@KaylaWayla20): Anti-Blackness within Indigenous Circles and How it Contributes to the Mistreatment of Rebecca Roanhorse, a Black Indigenous Author
This article on COVID in this moment in June resonates. Thankfully we haven’t been getting invitations but we do see some folks out and about in ways that seem reckless and we are just not ready to risk that: “Because, what seems like five minutes ago, we were all on lockdown. Because people in every nook and cranny of the U.S. are still getting sick. Because even though it feels like we’ve aged 10 years since February, the coronavirus is still very new and we don’t know a lot about it. Because my number one job is to protect my family.
But it’s this “decision fatigue” that’s the new tired. Before, it was the holy-crap-what-is-happening-is-it-safe-to-get-the-mail daily fears that made us crash by 9 p.m. every night. Now, it’s the everyone-else-is-going-out-and-living-again-but-what-if-its-not-safe-and-there-is-a-new-spike-next-week fear that’s bringing me down.”
And while some people are having very mild or no symptoms, this COVID experience is more what I expect we need to be prepared for. Hattip to Nicole and Maggie.
A good framing for teaching someone how to stop and think before they react at work: “You’re very passionate about your job and you want this project to succeed at the highest levels, and that’s great. But keep in mind that the first response to a problem isn’t always the best solution. Sometimes we need time to absorb all the parameters of a situation and to listen to the perspectives of your teammates before moving forward.”
Dinnertime!
Seamus used to pull this kind of thing with me but he was much more emphatic and a little bit patronizing. After several weeks of banging his bowl, and incremental one hour changes, now dinner is at 2 pm and we have peace again.
https://twitter.com/byVanessaNorth/status/1272621247118049281?s=19
June 29, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,634.50; Rural libraries, $321.62.
I Haven’t Bought a Latte in 2 Months. Why Am I Not Rich Yet?
Originally I was just going to add @KWright0702‘s post to my link love with a comment but it brought up a lot of memories. This is just my recollection and reminiscing, this isn’t a “How you should…” anything.
I most certainly tracked every penny back in the day when every cent mattered and adhered to the general principle of the latte factor (roughly between 2000-2015).
I didn’t let a nickel leave my wallet if I didn’t absolutely have to. But that’s only what kept the bills paid at a bare minimum. It’s not what made me financially stable. That required many uncomfortable conversations advocating for raises, pushing my way up the hierarchy, negotiating hard for myself every single chance I got, and banking as much of those big dollar increases I could get my hands on. Then too, coupling up with a partner who wanted to learn better financial habits from me, and did so, and trusted me implicitly to manage our money for both our benefits was invaluable. I could have made it on my own eventually. But doubling the income with an actual partner to share the high COL SF area bills and only moderate conscious lifestyle improvements? That was a huge advantage.
The thing is, my building blocks happened to be those latte factor type ideas in the beginning. I can’t discount the fact that being a total tightwad made a difference because it did. It trained me to value every cent I made.
The next step was to look for all ways to maximize income so I could have enough of those cents to keep at least one for every one I spent. And then two for every one. Then three.
As they say in improv: Yes AND.
Yes I obsessed over every penny. And I pushed myself to make more dollars. Yes I paid off debt. And I stretched to save as frequently, if not as much, as I paid off.
By the time the credit card bills and the other family incurred debt that I knew of had been zeroed out, I also had a nest egg of my own: $5,000 cash.
I always had two goals going at the same time: fill that pit over there (debt) and build that fortress over here (reserves, savings, investments).
@KWright0702 got me thinking. How would I get through the pandemic today if we weren’t financially stable? (more…)
June 26, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. I muttered a bit about JB stealing my intended napping nest on the sofa. They came to apologize and offered me a consolation pig stuffy to cuddle instead. I notice they didn’t offer to trade back but this was good too.
2. I think JB’s most motivated to do chores when I’m down and out. I was hurting pretty bad and needed to lay down, and I heard them clinking around in the kitchen. They were setting the table for dinner without being asked.
The best hilarious part was that we had run out of clean plates so they carefully selected the cleanest of the dirty plates in matching sizes from the dishwasher to reuse. They do know how to wash dishes but I normally don’t let them wash the bigger plates since they get so slippery so this was the best compromise they could come up with.
3. I sorted out a work tangle that’s been bothering me for weeks! It was a headache and stressful but I have a good grip on it now so I think it’ll be ok once I smooth out the rough edges.
4. In a burst of motivation, I plotted some organizing for my office. It does involve buying some storage which I’ve been avoiding but I think I have a handle on how to do it without spending a lot. And of course, cashback from Mr. Rebates.
Challenges this week: We nearly lost a very dear family member this week. I’m so glad the doctors were able to save them but it was incredibly scary. Things on the cancer and abusive spouse fronts have also been very bad so it’s been a hell of a lot of support or attempts at support from afar.
:: How was your week? What would make next week better?
June 25, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
While I’m still not yet optimistic that we’ll see true and lasting changes in society after just two weeks of outrage and protests, I do feel like this time feels different and this article talking about protests in small towns across America is exactly why I sensed a difference. I don’t know if it’ll last, I truly hope it does, but I was startled by the number of people from small places I was familiar with coming out to protest. Even my predominantly middle class white suburban hometown turned out.
The ‘3.5% rule’: How a small minority can change the world – “Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests.
Why the American Dream Is a Myth
Why We Need to Be Talking MORE About The LGBTQIA+ Community When We Talk About Money
Music’s week during the protests: “It’s hard to walk into a store knowing I may not get service because of the color of my skin, it’s tiring to remember to get a receipt because I don’t want to get stopped for shoplifting. It’s painful to think about my brother getting pulled over for a traffic stop and having guns pulled on him (which actually happened, in front of our house, when we were in high school). In my particular corner of the world, it’s hard to be many of my friends’ only black friend. It’s hard to ignore the Trump-supporting crap my in-laws post. It’s hard to surf social media (which I have to do for my job) and see the awful racist stuff people post, the whataboutism, the well-meaning but tone-deaf stuff from “allies.””
The dark truth of wildlife tourism. This breaks my heart.
FinCon’s current situation isn’t about just one tweet.
Bring ’em in, Guvnor
June 22, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Weeks 13 and 14 of shutdown in the Bay Area.
Week 13, Day 87: Mondays. Are. Terrible. PiC’s got half a day of meetings and I’ve got a full day of work every day, and so I have to oversee JB most of the day since my work doesn’t interact with other people. It’s fair in that when he didn’t have so many meetings, he’d take them all day but it’s also so frustrating to barely have the patience to deal with work nonsense and at the same time be patient in any way with JB’s shenanigans. They’re just being a typical 5 year old but my patience bucket has nothing left.
My sanity fraying is most obvious on Mondays.
Maybe it’s because I completely let it all go on the weekends now instead of trying to keep on top of some work and household stuff. Especially this past weekend. I did next to nothing because I felt terrible. Ten word searches, managed JB for some hours on Sunday, a fair bit of Sesame Street when I couldn’t get out of the recliner, started working on PiC’s Father’s Day gift.
PiC did all the grocery shopping and food prep both days.
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