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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February 25, 2019
When I was 7, my parents took all of our money, my life savings from New Year gift packets included, and sank it all into Dad’s business venture. I would call it “theirs” but we all know it was Dad’s brainstorm and his thing. Though I had no use for the money other than buying postage stamps, I was still sad about losing my stash. Even then, I was a saver (*cough* money hoarder). Though, I could have blown the whole thing on books if I’d known how to get myself to a bookstore. I figured out how to take the dog to the vet for shots when I was a preteen, I think the bookstore mystery would have been solved in a jiffy with money in hand.
Once in a while I idly wonder how much I’d have today if my savings had been invested back in 1980-something. It was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $2000 or $3000 by the time I was seven. Our family tradition tends to gift young kids a lot of cash in your earliest years when you have the least use for it. It’s confusing but a proper steward of that money could have made a real difference with that money.
In any case, that money went to funding a business venture that supported our household for almost ten years and then it all disappeared. The money going away as easily as it did impressed on me the importance of saving relentlessly. That and my health problems.
Today, we make good money. We also live in one of the highest COLAs. Go us. *snort* It wasn’t intentional but it is what happened. (more…)
February 22, 2019
1. Saturday: The ability to zap food warm in 30 seconds is amazing. PiC thoroughly disapproves of my callous “30 seconds fits all” methods of reheating, preferring to bring all foods up to an acceptable temperature gradually and gently, respecting the food, but I am glad to have the brute force ability when I need it.
2. Sunday: Whatever the cause, whether it be because of mindful gratitude or a change in my brain’s chemical needs or because we had a beloved friend visiting, I was only Growly Bear irritable a couple of times over the weekend. Mind you, if I still need to add back my anti-depressants if I need them that’s not a problem. I just wanted to try my hand at a few other options first. Perhaps I need a touch more socializing than I realized?
3. Monday: The sun is out today! It makes such a difference in the logistics of the day.
4. Tuesday: After a harried morning, being crabby, getting JB off to daycare, getting a next day appointment for Seamus set, and getting gas for the car, I managed to put in a whole day of work. Partway through, I realized that the irritability and anger had lifted. No matter how temporarily, I savored those moments of calm and peace.
5. Tuesday: Completed our second HSBC application – yay!
6. Tuesday: I only had to sternly scold JB a few times today. Not one mama bear roar was needed even though we cooked together. Whew.
7. Wednesday: We made it to the vet and back without incident. Sera is still seriously in training and it’s good for her to go out to places with people and animals so she learns not to freak out every time she sees them.
8. Thursday: It was a brilliant blue sky day today. It also feels like the fog is lifting a little bit.
9. I have a wonderful partner.
Wishes:
- May the prices on my long watched-for backpack, water flosser, and alarm clock drop by at least 30%.
- May PiC’s job search turn up the role that he’s looking for without the expected cut in salary.
- May both parts of that Huge Thing I’m working on at work turn out well. I’m setting things right after taking some risks that were total flops and my next two months depend on this working out.
Please join in with good things from your week and what you want!
February 21, 2019
The Truth About Culturalism Amongst People Of Color And How It’s Affecting Your Finances
This Planned Parenthood serves their trans patients well.
More zero waste efforts from Sarah at Smile and Conquer.
What’s your financial game? On second thought, I have a lot of financial skills but I can’t say I feel like any one of them is a single great superpower. I’m good at pulling them all together to make the small contributions and action meaningful. We’ve recently established patience is not at all my game.
This is about talking to a high schooler about college but OMGoodness the opening paragraphs about the years before then wrench my currently tender heart. And then I was very sad to see that this was the blogger’s last entry since May. I was so excited to find another substantive writer.
Brooklyn Bread’s zero waste wins. We’ve got to do the pancake thing.
Financial infidelity. In our earliest years, I definitely struggled with trusting that PiC would be responsible with money, as I defined it, and wanted to hide money from him to save more. He didn’t do anything to earn my distrust, that it entirely stemmed from my fears built over years of being betrayed by my dad. I had grown to adulthood being lied to by adults about money and had a thick shell to protect myself – control everything and trust no one. Thankfully I realized that long term, that was a terrible solution to a trust problem engendered by someone else and I made myself work with him to make sure we were on the same page with the same goals so I didn’t have that impulse any longer. I have complete control over our money of course but I share all the information with him.
Are they playing?
“Kangaroo and Rottweiler are best friends” pic.twitter.com/eoPE4iXSgw
— Fluff Society (@FluffSociety) February 6, 2019
February 18, 2019
How would you spend…
The dogs and I were walking enjoying a rare spot of sunshine while my mind wandered over to J. Money’s post on what you’d do with a windfall of $50,000. He reminded us of a movie I hadn’t seen before, Brewster’s Millions, where the main character had to spend $30M in 30 days and wasn’t allowed to buy anything that was an asset that could be sold later.
I could do that easily! I have these daydreams a lot about random things I care about.
This time, I started thinking of what I’d do with free millions. The answer: outfit rural libraries!
Coordinate with the librarian of a rural area like one that my friend Andrea lives in to gather the reading wish lists of everyone in the county.
Buy
– $1M worth of physical and ebooks,
– $0.5M in electronic equipment: computers for the library itself, e-readers and laptops for checkout.
– 3 electric vans
– A lot of comfortable chairs for reading in at the library.
Hire three drivers (paying a real living wage) to drive those vans as mobile libraries, delivering and picking up books for kids, people who aren’t mobile, or can’t get to the library for any reason. Ensure the librarian is paid a living wage and that the place is adequately staffed with people to service the mobile libraries. Network all the rural libraries together for an interlibrary loan system.
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February 15, 2019
I’ve been tweeting good things in my daily #GoodThingsThread hashtag to promote a more positive mindset. As a dyed in the wool pessimist, I have to actively push to think positively in the first place.
The past several months, I’ve been laboring under a near-constant feeling of irritability. My temper is Smurf-level short. I’m bored with and unhappy at my job even though it provides everything I want from a job and I’m very good at my job. I’m illogically discontent with our daily lives, even though the routine is exactly what I wanted. Nothing is cheering me up, or even denting in the fug. Not food treats, not petting the dogs, not having beloved old shows in the background while I work.
It doesn’t help that a lot of these days have been gloomier than usual. Long walks with the dogs usually get my chin up again when the sun is out, less so when battling winds that blow me backwards and rain in the ears.
It’s possible this is a side effect from the diet experiment. I discontinued my anti-depressants (prescribed for pain but definitely helped with my mood) while trying out the new diet to fix the pain issues. For a true read on the diet’s efficacy, I needed to be off the medications. If this mood relocation to the emotional equivalent of Mordor is really a chemical thing, I may have to start them again. It’d be nice if that wasn’t the case, though. I’d like to be off medications for a whole six months of my life for the first time in 20 years, it’d be novel! But no shade on medication here. If that’s what’s necessary, I’ll take them.
I was pondering making a formal weekly post on that theme here. Reading Disabled Girl’s post on the flood of good things, and a really awesome thing to do with a vehicle made up my mind. I’m going to try it out and see what happens. This doesn’t need to be big stuff, money stuff, or any particular level or category – just things that made you feel good. Plus this is where I am going to think positively about the things we want.
This was going to be FIVE good things Friday for the alliteration but I changed course halfway through. If I have more than 5 that I want to share, I should! As should you! It felt like I should try to have at LEAST five though in the spirit of thinking positively every single day. That turned into an argument for 7 things, for every day of the week, and eventually devolved into – I’m not setting a number in the title. I’m just going to aim for 7 or more.
1. My blister paid off! I spent an hour erasing pencil marks out of an old textbook, thus incurring a massive blister, and sold it for $45.
2. Tanja‘s book Work Optional was released on Tuesday! I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC and so enjoyed it that I purchased copies for people I love.
3. Booksgiving was last week but I participated this week and it was lovely.
4. I took some casualties (farewell, layer of skin on my finger) in the doing, but I successfully adapted this short rib stew on the rainiest day of the week and that was totally satisfying. Note: 2 hours is simply not long enough to braise 2 lbs of short ribs (bought them on massive sale!) I do need a good no-sugar low-carb/higher-fiber substitute for potatoes though.
5. I packed up two big boxes of books for resale and got them out of my office. This also helped me rediscover some books that I should reread.
6. We still have our jobs – financial stability FTW. If we have to change, I hope it’ll be on our terms.
7. We worked out a new set up with JB for therapy and the first session went pretty well.
8. I have a wonderful partner.
Wishes:
- May the prices on my long watched-for backpack and water flosser drop by at least 30%.
- May PiC’s job search turn up the role that he’s looking for without the expected cut in salary.
- May both parts of that Huge Thing I’m working on at work turn out well. I’m setting things right after taking some risks that were total flops and my next two months depend on this working out.
Please join in with good things from your week and what you want!
February 14, 2019
The Racial Wealth Gap
This measles outbreak is horrifying. Anti-vaxxers are terrible people.
Are You Selling Yourself Short Professionally?: As women, I think we tend to sell ourselves short when we talk about our work, not just because bragging is hard. (Though to be fair, it is.) It’s also because our culture doesn’t value the soft skills it takes to make a company withstand the test of time. And it doesn’t value support work.
Things I didn’t know about RMDs for inherited IRAs. No one in my family has enough money to leave an inheritance so this was all new information to me! Our generation is the first to invest and may be passing money down to the next generation. Though I wonder what’s really going to be around in 50 years, considering climate change.
I didn’t learn about Jane Elliott and her Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes experiment until adulthood but her work is hugely impactful. It makes me sad to know that not that much has changed since she started her work, though.
Luxe’s $6000 rental car debacle: I’ve always used my AmEx for anything that I might need to make claims for and that’s because I absolutely loathe working with Chase. They are the pits and they make everything, like this claims process, incredibly difficult.
By contrast, I have filed multiple claims with AmEx for various things (like that purchase protection claim) and think the most difficult claim I had with AmEx was one that I didn’t bother completing because I got the manufacturer to actually honor their warranty.
Life as an adjunct is intensely stressful – low pay, tons of work, scarce stable work.
I think we know the answer to this
February 13, 2019
The conversation that broke my heart
Checking in with JB’s preschool teacher, they told us that ze was really eager to share zir art with classmates, and oh, by the way, the kids did great in their lockdown drill. They were all really quiet, and they knew not to speak up or answer if someone came in calling for them. They were tested – someone came to the classroom and called out “[Class name!] Hi! Where are you?” and they were all quiet and hid.
JB chimed in: yeah, you don’t answer when someone comes in!
My heart broke into a million pieces and I wanted to set this country on fire. They are THREE to FIVE year olds, being tested so they stay quiet enough that in case of some entitled evil (probably domestic abuser because they usually are) guy coming in with a gun, maybe they won’t be murdered. All because this country won’t do anything about the domestic terrorists allowed to murder freely in schools, churches, synagogues and public spaces.
Learning to give
I sat JB down one day to explain why I was so preoccupied over the holidays. It kind of worked but it also kind of didn’t: “You know how you always have food to eat, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and snacks? (*ze nods*) And how you always have clothes to wear? And how we have a safe warm home to live in together? (*ze nods*) And around the holidays, mommy daddy give you some books? And grandma and grandpa will give you a toy and some clothes? (But just one toy!) Yes, just one. Some kids and families don’t have that. Some families don’t have enough money to buy food and clothes, so they didn’t have money to spend on gifts.”
JB lit up: Then WE can give them!
Me: Yes exactly! Mommy and Auntie Crystal put some money together and we told our friends, who gave us some money to help, and we bought presents for a lot of kids and warm clothes for some families.
JB: I want to give Bestie one of my toys.
Me: Ok, that’s sweet. Your bestie does have a LOT of toys though ….. maybe we should think of people who don’t have so many.
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