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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January 9, 2017
2016 highlights
EARNING, SPENDING, SAVING
The good
My day job income stayed the same, PiC’s increased a little. My competitive side HATES that mine stayed the same but my realistic side knows that was part of the deal of accepting the job with more risk. With more risk, I should remind myself to be glad the job is still alive and kicking!
We focused on our areas of our side money project which generated the funds to send much needed support to friends who’d hit rough patches: severe illness, loss of loved ones, injuries.
We didn’t splash out on a jumbo loan for a bigger house, nor did we add a second dog to the pack. I wanted to but reined in those currently unsupportable desires. Reminder, I need early retirement more than I need to take on more responsibility and I don’t want the guilt that comes with taking on more dependents than we can truly care for.
1. Debt reduction is saving. We refinanced our mortgage, freeing up our cash flow, halving our interest, and sending more straight to principal. We had the original mortgage for 4 months of the year, and the refinanced mortgage for the remaining 8. (more…)
January 4, 2017
On Money
Income
Our normal income is two full time day job salaries. We experiment with earning money on the side, including minimal cash flow that we don’t touch from an investment property. The goal is to replace our day job income before my health gives out and prevents me from working.
Our incomes remain the same. I don’t anticipate any danger to them this year, but the election result is very likely to impact both of our industries to varying degrees. I think we have at least a year before we start to see negative changes but that might be optimistic.
Spending
Our normal spending includes the living expenses for two households so this update ignores those ordinary living expenses. (more…)
January 2, 2017
More than ever, it’s been important to do what we can to remember the bright spots in life. Even while I’ve immersed myself in what we can do to make the world a better place, I’ve kept on with paying attention to life and participating in it.
What I read
Jaran, by Kate Elliott. A generous gift from a good friend, I’d been hankering after a new world in a book and I got just what I was hoping for from Jaran.
The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds, Selina Siak Chin Yoke. This was a surprise and a pleasant one at that. Maybe it’s the geographical proximity that I responded to but there were so many parallels between my family and that of the protagonist’s that it felt like reading the biography of grandma’s second cousin. And it was oh so well written, too, blending languages like the flavors of blended cuisines. Oh and life with the changing of the times, losing grip on old traditional cultures with the British influence increasingly encroaching. That too could have been grandma’s dictation as she bid goodbye to her children going abroad for a better life.
Fate of Perfection, K.F. Breene. This was the December free Kindle book for Amazon Prime members. This seemed like it could be interesting but the writing felt stilted and awkward. I wanted to like it but I’m spoiled by excellent writers, who probably also have excellent editors who know how to bring the best out of their raw material, so this was an uncomfortable read. There was exactly one good pair of lines that hit the right note and tickled up a smile in the entire book. Just one pair. And that was my only reaction. Much of the time was filled with painfully overwrought emotions or action. Bored, I was mentally asking, “where’s the baby??” and “when’s the last time you fed her or changed her?” instead of being enthralled by the plot. Clumsy is the word I’m looking for. It’s how I feel my writing is on days when the words just won’t flow. They clunk around, they do the job of conveying what I’m thinking, but there’s no pleasure in reading the result. (more…)
December 27, 2016
Sunday morning, after the first half of the morning shift, I prodded PiC to go off and do his thing – gym, run outside, whatever. I would occupy JuggerBaby. Ze and I unloaded the dryer together: I pulled out a tiny person’s armload at a time, ze ran it to push each load onto the bed. By the time we were done, there were eight molehills of clothing all along the bed’s perimeter.
We sat down on the bed together, sorting and folding, quietly reading. PiC stretched out on the floor, “for just a minute”, then dozed off. JB and I read several pages, folded half the laundry, and then ze ran for another book. We finished folding the rest of the piles while we read Stomp! six times in a row, always ending with a satisfying ROAR on the last page. It’s a great book. Ze slid off the bed and fetched an alphabet puzzle, and proceeded to identify the animals on the letters. We clearly have some work to do:
Baaa! – the sheep
Moo! – sorry, hippo, you’re a cow now.
RAHHH! – this one is true, lions do ROAR.
Roaring is such great fun that ze had to slide down to share with the now deep in sleep PiC. Standing over his head, ze stretched out zir arms and quietly whispered “raaaahhhh!” Three times, each time more quietly but somehow more emphatically, while I stifled my laughter and carried zir back to the bed: “no roaring at Dad right now, he’s sleeping!”
Ze was so very worried about leaving dad out of the revelation that lions go ROAR that I had to propose a game of Caps for Sale to distract zir wherein you try to stack as many caps on your head at a time as you can.
It was a great weekend. I want more of that goodness, not just on the weekends.
I don’t want to be a SAHM, I don’t have the energy for that, but I do want to have more of those moments.
It’s no secret that I’m building wealth for our future, and lately I’ve been thinking about what and why I’m building towards. Or rather, I’m absorbing there’s more than just the standard “before I become crippled” reason.
For more than half my life, I’ve battled chronic illness twins of pain and fatigue. At 21, I was already exhausted by being exhausted every day of the past 8 years and predicted that my decline could leave me crippled by my 30s. While things aren’t that dire yet, today’s bad days are a few steps up on the Richter scale than a bad day 13 years ago. The consequences are more dire, too. This affects everything.
But more than that, having a great career to support my family just isn’t good enough. Creating a power career, making the money, saving the money, investing the money, making sure we have enough to live til 80 or 90 with adequate care – that was all dreamed of. The bounty of these past few years reminds me there’s more to the journey. There’s joy, and food, and travel. There’s being present in the moment, along with ensuring we’re ok in our old age.
Maybe it’s all the memories of lonely Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks where my family didn’t have time or energy to celebrate, lonely weekends where I volunteered to help friends with their chores so that I wouldn’t be home alone. I was lonely whenever I wasn’t helping my parents work. Now it’s my turn in the parenting seat, and I don’t want to just survive. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to have survived this long. But despite the constant setbacks, the tumult of life, I still find myself wanting more for us. I find myself wanting early retirement so PiC and I can enjoy as much life together as we can.
I only just read Ms. ONL’s posts on why they’re aiming to retire early this week, and this resonates deeply with me. In my case, while my parents were forced into early retirement as well, I’m the one with the disease and no certainty that I’ll have many good years ahead of us. Nothing is promised, so it’s more important to me than ever before that I find a way for us to enjoy as much of our lives as we do have.
What stands in our way: family and uncertain health
I’ve been taking a vacation from my responsibilities as a daughter and maybe some responsibilities as a sibling. The bills are still getting paid but I needed to deal with my feelings about Dad, and how to move forward.
The jury is still out on any responsibilities I have as a sibling. My brother has been nothing but harmful to me, both directly and indirectly when I had to clean up his messes or live with the consequences, except for a very few times he wasn’t. But even if a broken clock is right sometimes, those times don’t mean it’s not broken, right? Bad analogies aside, I needed some emotional distance for a while.
It’s been months and I’m just at the point of accepting that this is the situation. I need to reduce their reliance on my income, and I need Dad to be in a safe situation where his basic needs are met. Whether he decides to meet us halfway so he can be in JuggerBaby’s life or not is up to him. That’s not up to me, and I don’t need to take that on myself anymore.
What I have to decide is what to do now. It should start with moving him to a new place but the rent at the current home is lower than rents for apartments a third that size. He doesn’t need the size but I don’t need the expenses to go up. That’s a huge barrier – his living expenses, and potentially health care costs. I have no intention of planning an exit from the workplace only to find ourselves depleted if he has a long illness like Mom did.
On that health note …
Our ending to 2016 is a jab-to-the-ribs reminder that health costs are neither fun nor small, non-catastrophic costs of elective but not so elective care get serious fast. I don’t expect we’ll keep having expensive “elective” care every year, but it’s not safe to assume we’d want to have the choice should the situation arise. Plus we have a kid who is somewhat accident prone and it’s our responsibility to ensure to the best of our ability that ze gets the best care ze needs.
We have great insurance now, but I have to do research and guesswork to estimate what it could cost us in retirement, assuming another ten years in the workplace.
If I had to say, I’m probably less than optimistic about our future goals, though not deep into pessimism territory. This isn’t a bad thing – it keeps me driving forward, it keeps me from feeling complacent and being complacent.
:: What are your thoughts on your eventual retirement? Do you have a good idea of how you’d like it to look? How are you planning for it?
*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich. *
December 21, 2016
2016 was terrible for unplanned expenses, to the tune of $20,000, and I soothed myself with hopes for recouping losses and building wealth in 2017.
Now? I’m twitchy.
We only have the one FSA account between us since my company discontinued theirs so our family is only eligible for $2600 in tax-free medical expenses each year. This is usually not a problem. We can manage my therapy-massages, medications, and their odds and ends of medical supplies or visits well under that amount but this year we are looking at another set of unusual expenses and I’m antsy.
Usually I don’t stress (much) about unusual one-time expenses, but we’ve had them three years in a row now and that constitutes a pattern for which I have to budget.
In 2014, we got pregnant and traveled internationally. The former was unplanned insofar as you can’t ever know when or if you’re going to be able to conceive, the latter was planned without the kind of notice I prefer for a big trip (2 years because I’m a Type A planner) so it felt unplanned.
In 2015, I paid legal fees to organize our estate and trust (which only took a YEAR to complete), and I started my life insurance policy. Total, $6000 over budget.
In 2016, tax issues, car problems, and something else I can’t remember right this second racked up $20,000 in bills and losses.
Now we’re looking at a very expensive procedure for PiC, and a TBD amount for my teeth that are being diagnosed with something potentially serious. The bill for PiC lands in 2016, thus continuing the “2016 is not awesome for my country and my finances” theme, while my dental mystery won’t be diagnosed until January.
None of this, the bills or the realization, does an iota to induce the good holiday cheer I was determined to ring the new year in with.
I had been considering some orthodontia for a couple of teeth that are misaligned and bothering me, but with these expenses, that’ll have to wait.
I’m trying hard not to be pessimistic about it all but these super-sized expenses turned me into Grumpy. Even while I’m working hard at reducing our everyday expenses, and generated extra income, that savings is just being eaten up and therefore isn’t savings at all! And that’s intensely frustrating.
:: Have you had any trouble with unexpected medical expenses lately?
December 19, 2016
I’m not big on Christmas gifts like I used to be. I used to overcompensate for loneliness and being poor by trying to give as many gifts as I could, wrapped and tied up with a nice bow.
These days, I have as healthy and happy a family life here in the Bay Area as I could hope for, and supportive friends all over.
I still love giving gifts but only when they’re truly meaningful, usually practical, and serve a purpose in the lives of the recipients rather than taking up room, gathering dust, or being regifted because who needs a fourth coffeemaker in their kitchen? I know some people have go-to gifts they give everyone for simplicity’s sake – I give books, for example, but can it please not be a huge, clunky, appliance that only one person in the family can actually use?
At this point in life, my money wants to go toward retirement investing, building our real estate empire, and helping people and animals.
Fantasy gifts: if money and space were no object
$290: Seamus would get the 93-inch plush bear from Costco. Currently on sale for $260. It’s a tossup whether he would sleep on it or tear it apart. Probably both.
$70: JuggerBaby would get this magnetic tiles set. But ze would have to donate or pass along at least three other toys.
$290: I would get this Kindle Oasis. Just kidding, I don’t need all that flash. I’d get the Paperwhite for a third of the price. (But the Oasis is so LIGHT.)
$5000: PiC would get that super fancy bike he admires from afar and we’d get a sitter twice a month so he could go on super long rides on the weekend.
$2000: We have five favorite daycare full time teachers, and five part time teachers or support staff, who have been amazing with JuggerBaby. They’re warm, caring, attentive, all things that make it possible for us to leave zir and work on the weekdays. We’d love to be able to give them each a substantial thanks.
$5000: There are several charities I’d like to support with more than just a small bit of cash.
Reality gifts: because money does matter
$250: Family gifts. I think all but $50 of this is frivolous and we should skip doing it altogether but we have yet to convince the family of this so here it is. The remaining $50 goes towards clothing for the kids so I don’t mind that, since we all pool the clothes we use and pass them along.
At least $100 of that $250 will be gift cards that I purchased at a 4% discount, using GiftCardGranny. The second $100 will mostly be covered by a gift card we received, and the last $50 was covered by gift cards that I earned through Swagbucks and the Carter’s Rewards from last year’s gift purchases. Most of these gifts won’t cost much out of pocket at all, I’ll just have to wrap them.
$75 + $100: The daycare organizes gifts for the center by way of contributions from parents, requesting $60-75 per child, per family. They pool it, then split it across all the teachers and staff at the center. We give the $75, which works out to about a dollar per person, but we’re also going to give some small token of appreciation to our favorites. A card, and perhaps a small gift card? I’m not sure yet but we have about a day to figure this out.
Making new traditions
While I work towards a gift-free holiday season, PiC and I splurged on our own Christmas tree for our home. We went with an artificial tree, to my inner sadness because I miss the smell of a fresh new tree, but the deal was good enough for what we were looking for. We found it at Target, originally $67, marked down to $42 which was covered with a gift card. Add a couple strings of lights and a few ornaments, and voila, 4 weeks of wintery, Christmassy cheer in our living room.
It feels very splurgey, we don’t typically spend money on decor, but it’s a long term happiness thing.
:: What are your favorite winter holiday traditions? Do you typically exchange holiday gifts? What’s your perfect gift to give or receive?
December 14, 2016
JuggerBaby has been transformed partly into the Unstoppable JuggerBaby with the addition of a cast. It’s a club that’s bashed about with great vigor, never mind who gets in the way. It’s made zir approximately 15% more reckless. It’d be worse but ze hasn’t discovered the extent to which ze can take advantage yet. Cross your fingers that ze doesn’t catch on before it comes off.
We just hope that amid all zir fun, ze is also healing up well.
The really annoying thing is that ze has been congested for about two months now, and so have I, and I don’t know what it’ll take to kick this dratted thing. Ze is taking Zarbee’s for the resulting cough because there’s nothing you can really safely give a kid zir age, but it’s not that effective. We still have reports from daycare that ze is coughing a lot during zir naps, and every night, it wrenches my heart to hear the hacking cough issuing from zir crib.
Since the cold set in, I’ve been doing remarkably well. I was pretty sure I’d adjusted to San Francisco type weather. Then I wasn’t. This Sunday’s temps were exactly the same as they had been for the last two weeks but this chill went straight to my bones, then from there zapped my muscles so that nothing from neck to toe didn’t ache. Literally down to my very toes and the tiny bones in there – ache ache ache ACHE.
It was a point of pride that I’d only had to bundle up to endure the ever-so-frigid days and nights that drop as low as (horror! gasp!) the 40s and 50s. I know, I know. But look, I’m from the tropics, genetically, this is unnatural for my people. I’d adjusted mostly but my fibro gets eccentric at times. All this wind-up means we had to run the heater for more than ten minutes. We had taken to running it for a little while to take the chill off since JuggerBaby can’t wear sleeves, and then leaving it off for the night, and it makes me grumpy to know that we had to run it longer just so that I could feel mostly human again. I know it’s not a big deal really in the grand scheme of things but there’s that knee-jerk frugal reaction of no! don’t waste money like that!
Meanwhile, PiC’s got a thing going on with his back, and his vision (unrelated). I’m hoping that it’s nothing serious, although I think it’s safer to say I hope it’s something that will resolve itself and go far far away soon, because we have trouble enough on our hands. Also he’s not used to being in pain for prolonged periods of time and it makes him grumpy.
Under the mental health column, I hit a glacier of Zen this month. Lots of things could irritate me but with the exception of one Friday, it hasn’t bothered me enough to even shout at the computer. That’s new. Also it’s appreciated by Seamus who is not at all convinced by my “it’s not you” reassurances. He’s a smart dog but I don’t think he quite grasps how the box I stare at all day could be getting itself in trouble.
I don’t know if the weird calm comes from having maxed out my stress receptors after November, or maybe I have gone numb from the three month long series of working more than twice my usual hours, but it’s kind of nice. Bizarre, but nice.
:: How long can you go before you have to run the heater when winter sets in? How’s everyone doing at home?