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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October 17, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 206: Hello, hindsight. We meet again. Taking my COVID booster when I was mildly sick and rundown from sleep deprivation was a terrible idea. Not only that, I failed to take the precaution of staggering my and PiC’s appointments like I did our initial vaccines. So I got much worse over the weekend, and even PiC and JB got taken down by the mutant virus. Not COVID, thankfully, we tested everyone twice.
Sooooo everyone stayed home today. JB because they got sick last so are probably still very contagious, and we don’t want to spread their germs. Smol’s usually off on Mondays. We had tried arranging a day of care but it didn’t actually work out since they were sick within 72 hours of today. Me because I got little sleep and my body aches are phenomenal. PiC is still symptomatic but well enough to care for the kids so I can get some rest.
I’d gotten enough done on Friday to only have minimal important work to do today and I dispatched that, and the rehemming of JB’s uniform, quickly and crawled back to bed.
PiC covered the child minding for a few hours so I could be a lump in bed until a work emergency flared up. Thankfully I’d rested enough to take over and whip up some pantry dinner. My large batch of poorly composed garlic ginger rice from a while back was liberated from the freezer and turned into a decent rice porridge to go with the chicken adobo I’d cooked with some excellent foresight on Saturday before things all went kersplat.
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October 14, 2022
1. I normally do all the laundry and run the dishwasher. I quite enjoy the former and happen to be best placed to note when the latter is ready, but PiC did all of it this weekend before I could decide where to slot it into my day. Part of me wanted to be annoyed he stole my jobs, but I’m choosing to focus on the fact that when I’m extra tired and need a hand, my partner is going to step up and that doesn’t mean I’m lesser for it.
2. JB’s been participating fully in their self defense classes and that makes me feel good about the time and money we’re spending on them.
3. Marian Call is having a living room concert! Join the concert, pay-as-you-can, replay available for 24 hours.
Before we had kids, we went to Marian Call’s intimate concerts at Comic Con and she was absolutely wonderful. Support a fantastic Alaskan musician!
Challenges this week: still sick. š¤¢
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October 11, 2022
What would we do in retirement?
I’m thinking of the many pieces of an early-ish retirement puzzle as we wend our way in that general direction. This is a very long term work in progress. At a guess, we have ten more earning or accumulation years before we’ll be set. I’m definitely not focusing on an end point yet given the vagaries of the market and my own tendency to need to get to a goal, any goal, long before I’m due to arrive. Pretending we’re laughably far away helps mitigate my tendencies.
These posts are to help me ruminate because I won’t get everything all in one or even ten passes. It’s a good bet that my thinking will change over time, too.
I’m thinking about this in, of course, the form of lists.
– How do we get there?
– Where exactly is there?
– What will we do when we get there? (Probably most importantly)
How (much) do we save for retirement?
Correlated: how much will we spend?
What’s a “safe” withdrawal average rate for us? I don’t know what I’m comfortable with yet so I’m guesstimating 3.5%. I very much agree with Tanja’s thoughts that in general, the “safe” withdrawal rate suggests there is a percentage that we can always withdraw that will be fine and sustainable when in reality, it’s better not to expect level spending. That’s been borne out by my own personal experience of the past twenty years. Some of our increasing expense was down to improving our lifestyle baseline, allowing myself to spend on things that I couldn’t afford before.
Good and sufficient amounts of food, mental health care, physical health care, dental care, clothing that fits, making our home warm and dry, to name a few. This is different from true lifestyle inflation and setting higher anchor prices but I know there’s some of the inflation as well. Is having kids lifestyle inflation? It feels like it. Everything is more expensive with kids! They eat so much …!
I’m not comfortable with the fallback plan of popping back into the workplace if I took time off and it didn’t work out. My industry is conservative and small. The likelihood of an easy re-entry is miniscule. I only know one person who has lucked into a good return to the workforce in this industry since taking time off. Thus, I am loathe to make a plan that relies on going back to work as a failsafe, especially because my health won’t allow me to do what I had to do the first time around to prove myself. PiC’s preferred work and field is similar. There’s not a good reentry point for him when so many equally qualified and currently working people are vying for the same jobs.
While I want to do nothing but rest for a year, afterwards I’ll want to do something to generate income. Whether that desire bears fruit is a whole other story. None of my creative endeavors tend to generate much income.
Also, I don’t want to have to rely on that income. I want it to be bonus money, or else that’ll mean I traded a relatively secure consistent income for inconsistent income and a lot more stress.
My money questions:
- How much do we need for living expenses up to age 60 (covered by our brokerage accounts and short term money on hand)?
- How much do we need from age 60 on (covered by our 401k and IRAs)?
- How much is good healthcare and how do we find it (??!??!)
Definite expenses:
- Housing (plus taxes, insurance and maintenance)
- Transportation (plus maintenance and insurance)
- Healthcare – the biggest question mark of them all
- Travel and entertainment
- Kids – lessons, activities, sports (??)
- Food
- Utilities
- Clothing (minimal now, it’ll increase once the kids stop living in hand me downs)
I took our highest annual spending to roughly guesstimate how much we need to spend in the future without cutting back on our current lifestyle.
I want to plan for a moderate lifestyle: to have reasonable freedom of choice, the ability to buy anything we need, a few things we want, and give to others.
I’ve roughly outlined how much we need invested in two separate pots of money (the first two bullets above) and run several different calculators to validate my guesses.
Healthcare costs and education costs for the kids are still big blanks that I can’t fill in. A knowledgeable friend suggested that we budget $12k per year if we retire before Medicare and that both makes me faint and sounds realistic.
I don’t know what the kids will ultimately do for college. We just know we’ll have some money saved and plan to cashflow some expenses for them. They may still have to take some loans if they choose more expensive paths than we had budgeted.
We’re far enough away that I don’t have the information I’d need to fine tune the financial goals. I’m making minor adjustments here and there to focus intensely on investing in our brokerage and that’s good enough to worry on for a few years as far as money goes.
Am I missing anything big?
What does retirement look like for us?
I can spend my time figuring out what we plan to do with those reclaimed hours and years because I want to retire to something, not just drop work and then feel adrift if my hobbies alone aren’t fulfilling. Then again, I can’t imagine I have to worry about that TOO much for the next 15 or so years. Our kids are our biggest priority, and biggest expenses after housing, assuming they’ll have educational expenses. So their needs provide a soft landing for a transition. Then there are so many possible hobbies! I’ll dig into that later. For now, I’m enjoying the feeling of forming a structured plan even though dire warnings about the future are hard to shake.
Also, just a quick consideration of future possible expensive curve balls: I will continue working on my mental and physical health. That costs money.
Familial curveballs: I’m fairly sure PiC’s parent has enough money for their needs, they have an estate even if we don’t know the details.
I still feel like there’s another shoe that’ll drop on my side of the family but I’m doing my best not to think about my abusive parent or brother. It’s hard not to feel like there’s unfinished business there. I am glad to have laid the groundwork that I don’t have anything more to give them after they used me as a bank for so many years. They contributed significantly to destroying my health, without remorse or care for me, I don’t owe them one more cent. (Repeat repeat repeat, in therapy and out, since I obviously still feel some guilt over this. But I don’t owe them the rest of my health or life.)
My surrogate families are generally ok financially. My niblings are a vast group of kids and I plan to be modestly generous with them since there are so very many of them.
Alongside the structure and planning, though, is the realization that we have a long road ahead of us, both in getting to retirement and in spending time in retirement if we are lucky.
I want take advantage of this long path to do all the thinking and planning of what life after retirement might look like.
This got too long so I’m stopping here and picking up in a new post…
October 10, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 199: Another Monday at home with Smol Acrobat. Mondays continue to be the hardest day of the week. You’d think that would work for me. I prefer to get the hard stuff out of the way first. Maybe I should remind myself of this when the grumpiness meter rises.
*****
I was catching up on old posts this weekend and Hawaii Planner’s post reminded me of my first gift card snafu: Lack of organization is expensive. It was maybe ten years ago that I went to the trouble of buying $500 Costco gift cards to meet the minimum spend on a credit card bonus.
The gift cards were intended to cover gas and groceries at times that I wanted to keep our credit card bill down a bit, or just to have some non cash backup money in our wallets.
I didn’t have a good system in place back then and I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that I didn’t fully use up all the cards and maybe ended up negating the bonus value we earned. Since then I’ve tended to stick with either physical cards that I label with a date and a balance or I add the gift card to my online account for the specific store. I only feel confident about the latter for some, larger corporate type, stores though. I lost $119 in Munchery gift card credit when they went under and I’m still salty about that. I regularly buy Target gift cards during their 10% off promotions which we use as gifts a lot and picked up a few Penzey’s gift cards when they have the $35 for $50 sale so I’m always open to better tracking systems.
Year 3, Day 200: The dawn came draped in a grey, gloomy, break out the puffer jackets, fog blanket that matches my cotton brain and mood perfectly.
I’m limping along on 2.5 hours of sleep today. My body had a bizarre reaction to absolutely nothing, acting as though I’d taken Serious Pain Meds. I hadn’t but most of the night was spent feeling drug-induced nausea sans drugs. I can’t express how very annoying that was! But I’m thankful that if it had to happen, it was before a daycare day so I had the option to find an hour or two to rest. Most days, that’s not an option at all.
Our unexpected half day power outage reminded me that we still need some things for (minor) disaster planning: a UPS for our modem and server, a backup battery for our garage door opener, and portable generator big enough to power our fridge/freezer for short periods if we have an outage for longer than five hours. That’s at least a couple thousand dollars or more in the case of the portable generator, but I’m hoping to spot a good sale. We already have a gas generator but it’s only safe for outdoor use. This graphic made me laugh. Yes, doubling and tripling your generators DOES create “even more power”.
Year 3, Day 201: I ran out of nesting on this comment thread at Nicole and Maggie and I was still pondering. Is there such a thing as an authentic or unauthentic life? My religion doesn’t say anything about it. I do think that our actions speak louder than our words. But I’m also not sure if I believe that we are who we act like we are, either. It feels too final. But maybe the idea isn’t that we’re immutably who we are, just that whoever we act like is who we are in that moment and if we choose to change, then that’s who we are.
Then again, my cotton brain has not improved since last night’s sleep was terrible too. I was adrift in what felt like a conscious sleep most of the night, so it’s possible my synapses are just not connecting.
*****
Three weeks ago I decided to start writing cards or letters regularly to an older friend who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. I don’t want to jinx myself but I’m now in the middle of my third letter. I’ve sent a letter once a week for two weeks now, and this would make the third. They’re utterly mundane letters but I hope they bring a touch of diversion in their boredom.
Year 3, Day 202: Massage day!
I spent 20 minutes clearing up emails and checking for critical stuff and then headed out for a session. It was both massage and brain therapy, my massage therapist and I had a wonderful conversation digging deeply into our behavioral patterns (perfectionism, dismissing and ignoring birthdays and anniversaries because we learned that we and our accomplishments weren’t notable, subtracting joy and substituting duty for it) and we have offered each other homework. She asked me to write a list of what used to bring me joy and what brings me joy today. In turn, I asked her to consider what she might enjoy in honor of her birthday. It’s nice to have someone to talk to about this as I mulled over my therapist’s suggestion that I’ve blocked much of what brings me joy because I don’t think I deserve it.
After getting home, I did get right to work as soon as I gathered up a nice snack for myself and realized: I normally wouldn’t even do this much because I’ve convinced myself that I don’t even deserve to eat or drink first. Wow this pattern runs deep.
Year 3, Day 203: A routine rapid test round turned up three negatives for the rest of us, and a faint positive for Smol. I’m starting to think they just don’t work for Smol. We took them for a PCR test and that turned up negative (thank you 2-hour PCR testing!) It’s baffling. But they ARE a bit sick. They have a runny nose, aren’t napping well, and seem to be running a temperature. Can’t really confirm that last so well, none of our three thermometers are behaving.
Which reminds me! Target’s running an early Deal Days thing and I have a list of non-essential things to buy. Some hangers, my supplements, the plastic bags for our storage space. I’m trying to balance what we need and not get suckered trying to meet the minimums on the Buy $50 of X and get $10 back deals.
We have our COVID boosters tomorrow, and three of us still need flu shots. PiC’s employer took care of his flu shot already. I meant to do our flu shots today and adult boosters tomorrow but Smol can’t and I shouldn’t if I’m also feeling unwell. Even if it’s not Smol’s viral thing bothering me, I’m rundown from this week’s inability to sleep.
I’m already taking a risk keeping our boosters appointments but we’ve waited weeks for these and I’m not willing to wait another 3-4 weeks for another appointment.
Also! I love Aliette de Bodard’s books and you may too!
October 7, 2022
1. PiC’s bike had a flat (boo) but I remembered that I had run across an old REI gift card circa 2018 when I was working on some other chores. It covered the two inner tubes with 89 cents to spare. Since gift cards don’t expire, back into the bin it goes until the next REI adventure calls!
2. I’ve balanced our planned income and expenses for the rest of the year. I just need to adjust one rough spot where we’ll be short $700, briefly. It may be a matter of timing of debits and credits but we’ll see. Fingers crossed!
3. Our 2023 spreadsheet is set up and ready to go when January rolls around. There is something deeply satisfying about having a fresh spreadsheet waiting to be populated. At least for something I enjoy populating.
4. I took some notes from this chili recipe, and a couple on the fly liberties, to modify my current favorite chili recipe: omit water entirely, use baking soda with the beef, spice the cooking ground meat first before adding the liquidy ingredients and it produced quite a tasty chili. I had every intention of saving half to freeze but the family ate it all by Day 2.
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October 4, 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.
***
Dividend income. We received $384 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
*****
I will be getting a decent raise this year. It’ll help reduce the pain of daycare. Not that daycare only comes out of my paycheck. We pool our income and everything comes out of the one pot. It’s just the money pot is feeling the squeeze of higher prices everywhere plus daycare. Every bit of income helps.
*****
I finally won my battles with the IRS! They finally correctly calculated my tax rate for my long term cap gains and are coughing up the last $41 they owed me. I’ve had the bulk of the money since last October, but hesitated to deposit the check because it’d throw off my account balances and I wasn’t sure if they would issue a check for the difference or if they’d stop payment on this check and issue a new one. The latter solution wouldn’t make much sense but it’s the IRS and they don’t make much sense. I didn’t want to take any chances. So the big check has been deposited, yay! The last $41 should be coming in 4-6 weeks. ::skeptical face::
Update: they paid up! Woo!
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October 3, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 192: Mondays are always hard with the combo of solo-parenting plus working but today my brain decided to up the ante with stress nightmares that woke me at 3 am and then the pain kicked in at high force so I couldn’t go back to sleep for hours. Ruff. PiC took the kids in the morning so I could rest a tiny bit longer at least. He also ended up staying home to help me get through the day.
*****
This post landing in my inbox was perfect timing. I’d recently gone through a pile of foreign currency and was pondering how to exchange it all: HOW TO EXCHANGE OLD BRITISH POUNDS FROM THE U.S.
I wonder if I can do the same with other foreign currency.
*****
Year 3, Day 193: A most annoying discovery: our wood underbed storage can’t be in contact with fabric or it’ll start to mildew. Mildew EVERYWHERE. I gathered all the jumbo bags that came our way over the years and put everything I’d begun to store there in sealed plastic bags, but it’s still not enough for that space to be truly useful. Grump. I avoid accumulating new plastic wherever possible but it doesn’t seem avoidable in this case. Either we don’t use the space I need at all or we buy more jumbo plastic bags. It’s not a tall space, it’s about 6-8 inches tall, so bins won’t fit. I’m sitting on a Target order in hopes there’s a better idea that will come.
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