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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November 29, 2017
I knew this would be a multi-step process but who knew it’d require a Trello board of its own. I’m assuming there will be more updates after this.
My first step was to tell Dad that the support has to stop. I legitimately tried to call and speak to him like a decent human but when he didn’t pick up, I took that as a sign to just leave him a message and emotionally shift the burden. That night, I also emailed to make sure that if the voicemail wasn’t heard for some reason, he had the email, I know he checks that.
He didn’t respond for a day but I wasn’t waiting around for a confirmation.
On to step two, realizing that the move has turned our lives upside down and this was collateral damage – I can’t find my car title anywhere. ARGH. After several fruitless searches, and annoyingly finding a digital copy of the title but not the physical copy, I sent off to the DMV for a duplicate title. Waiting for it is torture but it’s given me time to strategize. (That thing is going to turn up when the duplicate arrives, I just know it.)
Third step, stop making the same mistakes. (more…)
November 27, 2017
Today’s money fun: mortgage recasting!
I caught a tidbit about this tool a while back on my usual rounds of interesting PF blogs, and filed it away for future use. Someone somewhere said that “no knowledge is ever wasted”. While that might not be true of everything tucked up in my grey matter, like the Thundercats theme song, this one was exactly what we needed.
You may recall our monster mortgage. You may recall my stress about said monster mortgage. You may recall that I was nearly obsessive about eliminating our mortgage as fast as possible even before it turned into Godzilla because I hate debt and I hate that our monthly obligations skyrocketed with this move.
I had a plan.
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November 24, 2017
My turn, this time.
I felt silly even broaching the subject because it wasn’t that bad but according to my doctor’s instructions, the lower right side abdominal pain I’d been having for days was now joined by bonny companions nausea, dizziness, and chills so that meant it was either nothing or something and the only way to find out short of waiting til something terrible happened (or didn’t) was to get me to the ER. Excellent.
PiC insisted it was better to be safe than sorry and while I intellectually agree with that for everyone else, I would personally feel quite foolish wasting time and energy going to the emergency room for what may turn out to be not an emergency at all.
Thankfully, we happened to have my favorite relative in town willing and able to look after JB and Seamus so we didn’t have to wake a toddler from peaceful slumber (the sinniest of parenting-JB sins) in the wee hours of the morning. We let Seamus out for an early toilet then patted him on our way out, assuring him we’d be back soon, and crept off in the predawn gloom.
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November 23, 2017
Opera is a mystery to me but this article on the highest notes sung at the Met was still fascinating. I’d like to see an opera just to experience it but I wonder what I should bone up on to be able to follow it.
How many more players have to die of or suffer from CTE before this country stops worshiping football, I wonder.
Educators who don’t think they have a professional and moral obligation not to pursue their students as dating material make me sick and should be fired. It’s appalling full stop.
This spoiler free movie review of Thor:Ragnorak is beautiful and now I want to see it.
As someone who views the ocean with a whole lot of suspicion, this perspective on expected sea level rises makes me want to sell and move to the middle of the country.
This is an oldie but goodie from Bitches Get Riches on the Subjectivity of Wealth.
Lobstering in Maine, a legacy and identity
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November 22, 2017
JuggerBaby legitimately and of zir own volition apologized this month for the first time. It might have been for elbowing me in the throat.
We learned from daycare that at age 2, it’s not good to pressure kids to apologize because that mainly teaches them to say the words but not necessarily mean it when the more important lesson is for them to use their empathy and care if they hurt someone. It was a little bit of a struggle but we banished “say sorry!” from our stock phrases and just demonstrated the appropriate use of apologies in our everyday interactions.
JB has offered a couple of offhand apologies, since. Big steps!
Speaking of daycare
We’re really struggling here.
Ze has at least one of our tempers, or both, and most definitely my lack of tolerance for kids encroaching on my territory, or getting in my face. A kid taking things away from zir, or yelling NO in zir face usually gets a physical reaction. That’s one big problem. (more…)
November 20, 2017
Mimicking my favorite tax blogger Kay Bell’s “Moves to make” posts, I’m making some moves before the end of the year to maximize our tax efficiency, minimize our expenses, and ensure we’re saving / investing as much as we can for retirement.
Step One – examining Vanguard accounts!
My Rollover IRA has held my retirement contributions since 2007, and my personal rate of return over that time has been 10.4%, but the fund selections are really outdated.
Over the past decade, as my contributions grew, I’ve shifted from holding Investor Shares to Admiral Shares which have a much lower expense ratio but that was only true for two of my five funds:
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November 16, 2017
Does Disney pay its fair share to the City of Anaheim?
A Japanese company called Family Romance hires out actors to play all kinds of roles and I had to wonder if this was real?? For the most part it seems harmless but some examples are horrifying. He’s playing a fake parent to a girl who has no idea he’s not her actual father. I’m reeling from revelations about my actual father and am imagining how incensed I would be to have been deceived at this level growing up. And I don’t understand renting an infant to present a grandchild to your parent. Isn’t the jig going to be up when you walk in still fully pregnant?? The fourth trimester doesn’t leave you THAT bloated.
Working mothers and their daughters talk: Ting added a bit of humor: “One of her main ambitions in life is to get paid more than my dad. It’s kind of mean, but what she was saying is that she wants to be respected as much as everyone else.” (that’s me!)
Doesn’t anyone feel like a cartoon villain when they talk like this?: “You’re all going to lose your heads over this!”
What’s your splurge? Donna asks. I haven’t splurged exactly, we’ve just been buying necessities. Oh, food. I bought Brie last month and it’s heavenly. We had to buy a bed and mattress for our guest room – we already have about 14 days of guests planned for the next three months. Possibly more.