With the whole house thing dropping down on my head like I’m the Wicked Witch of the West, plus the feeling that the world is coming apart at the seams, I need a reminder that slow and steady has brought us through some pretty tough times, and can still serve us well.
I’m reminding myself that not having a cool million in cash with which to buy a home in cash does not a massive failure of me make. (Sherry bought her half of their new home in cash and I’m STILL chuffed by that.)
Highlights
I weathered a year of unemployment during the Great Recession.
I started investing in 2012 in one stock, 7 whole shares worth $500 in total. We now hold 1100 shares of mostly dividend bearing stocks, worth $60,000 at our brokerage with Tradeking. I heartily recommend them. It was so easy to use when I first started out and continues to serve our needs.
We once had a large mortgage loan, a bit of retirement savings, and my cash. Now we’ve halved that mortgage and double my cash savings, doubled the value of our tax-advantaged accounts, and own an investment property.
We’re by no means wealthy, but we have done well. A dear friend pointed out my money management was nearly miraculous given the obstacles and commitments we’ve honored. While I think she might have been at least a little hyperbolic, I respect her opinion immensely, particularly with regard to money given her background in financial fields.
Health and Fitness
I’m uncommonly tickled about this discovery. I was aiming to establish an average of 2000 steps per day starting last June. It was a struggle to get out from behind the desk twice a day, but Seamus and I have hit a nearly 100% success rate in getting out the door for walks two, and even three, times a day, every week day, even when pain was so high I could barely feed myself.
We walked, dadgummit!
My average to date is about 3900 steps daily.
I haven’t been nearly as good at the yoga, so that’s a work in progress. There’s something much more compelling about telling yourself that it’s for the dog’s good, and having Seamus yodeling at me, that gets me off my duff faster and more consistently than telling myself to stretch because it’s good for me. Maybe I need to train Seamus to yodel at me until I stretch every night?
This month, I signed up for an account with Achievemint which pays you $10 per 10,000 points earned. I’m already pushing myself to walk consistently and a little more each day, why not get paid for it?
This took me three minutes.
1. Use my referral link to create an account. This nets both of us 250 points, so right away, you get points.
2. Choose an app to link to Achievement. My choice was the existing Health app on the iPhone. You can choose from, among MANY others: Fitbit, Foursquare, MapMyRide, Microsoft Health, MyFitnessPal, even Twitter!
3. Download Achievement to your phone if you’re linking to an app on your phone. Linking an app nets another 50 points.
I only started out with 50 points since I didn’t have a referral link (sadface) but you can (look up there!) leapfrog over with a lot more points. It doesn’t look like you’ll earn remarkably quickly but this is my one of my favorite things – getting paid for doing something I’m already doing.
The world
Like I said, the state of American politics and government in this very moment has me incredibly concerned for our democracy and Constitution. Is the American experiment over? Did it fail?
I was raised in the bosom of staunch Republican families, surrounded by serving men and women, but none of them recognize what the party has become today. I sure don’t. To see some conservatives still speaking out against what’s happening now does give me a little bit of heart, but I think we’re still deep in the muck and a whole lot of vulnerable people are going to be hurt before it’s over.
This weekend was Lunar New Year. The airports were filled with protests against the unconstitutional Muslim Ban, and Custom Border Patrol officers were refusing to enforce court orders. Lawyers were on the ground doing pro bono work to help those who were being illegally detained: green card holders, visa holders, citizens with dual citizenship.
It’s hardly been any time at all in the new administration and we’re already seeing civil rights being violated left and right. There is almost certainly an intent to fatigue citizens who can’t protest forever, while it’s quite easy for the administration to roll out EO after EO violating our rights. It can be overwhelming.
BUT.
PiC and I are going to stand up for ourselves and our neighbors, families and friends, all of whom are fully deserving of the rights that our Constitution affords us, regardless of age, race, sex, religious convictions, disability, sexual orientation and any other way we can be defined and divided up. I can’t physically march, but we can speak out, organize on a one-on-one basis, donate to those organizations and individuals doing tireless work to protect our civil liberties and reminding us that we were never perfect and that we can improve.
:: Can you share any financial or fitness goals you’ve achieved over time? What’s a great activity day for you? What’s your approach to defending our civil rights?
Our incomes which I am exceedingly grateful for remain the same. This is good from a stability standpoint. There have been too many nights lying awake after working a 100 hour week for the overtime and wondering how long it was before I fell apart completely and could I get us to a safe place before then? So I’m grateful for what we have.
I’m also aware that the clock could run out on my particular job, whether it be my patience or my professional stagnation, so there is some internal buttkicking going on in trying to nail down the important things I need to address when crafting my next step. (more…)
A More than Minor Injury was sustained by JuggerBaby.
We shared many moments of toddler distress, and equal parental distress for the pain ze was experiencing. Zir whimpers of pain were pathetic, especially for a kid who shakes off bleeding wounds if there’s something better to pay attention to, and heartrending when it escalated into cries of distress.
After a worried hour of coddling, icing, comforting and feeding but no resolution, we ended up at the ER. They were, despite zir panicked screams and tears, caring and efficient, trying their best to put zir at ease and bribing with many many stickers. Despite their best efforts, we ended up back in the hospital doing follow-ups when that treatment didn’t resolve the issue, and then several more hours picking up medical supplies.
Prognosis? About three weeks of healing.
If that’s all it is, and I’m hoping and praying that’s all it is, then it could have been a lot worse. JuggerBaby left a trail of snot and tears streaked across a few of my shirts so ze might have a different opinion, but I’ve tended to far worse wounds in my day. For now, ze isn’t an unhappy camper, ze is more comfortable and is coping bravely.
There were a lot of moments when I didn’t feel anything in particular. It wasn’t panic numbness or guilt-spacing out, it was knowing that this was painful and inconvenient and difficult, and just plain awful as parents seeing their child in pain. But foremost in my mind was thanks for our good fortune in life right now, because even as we tackled one hurdle after another, it was entirely manageable. Tiring, even exhausting, hauling many pounds of distressed child, trying not to jostle zir, but as long as ze comes out of it fine in the end, that’s all we have to really care about.
We are so fortunate that we have good health care and insurance.
The ER visit copay was $100, our followup copay was $20. Our FSA covers that with ease. The five x-rays were torturous, and the casting was worse, but we didn’t have to ask how much every single test or exam cost. I know exactly how much it costs to take X-rays for dogs and I swallow hard whenever we have to take Seamus back for another $200-400 visit – human medicine is multiple times more expensive. Part of this is because we chose an HMO, part of this is because the level of plan we have in the HMO is really good. Our premiums are relatively high, but the tradeoff was not having to think and worry about the cost of every item.
Intertwined with that lack of worry was the level of care we got. When I wanted an extra x-ray to be absolutely sure there wasn’t a third problem lurking, we had already been surprised twice, the technician got right on the phone to request it, and made sure that we got authorized for exactly what we asked for.
In my decades-long history with medical care, I’ve been seen by grossly incompetent doctors, strings and scads of them, who dismissed my pain as imaginary or in my head. I was prepared to go to war for my child, but I didn’t have to. They accepted that zir pain was legitimate and treated it as such.
We are so fortunate to have money.
We’re not rich, hence my iron-clad rule that we always save first and never spend more than we make. That means that we have reserves in case of emergencies.
That means that cost didn’t determine if we would get the medical supplies and clothing ze needed to be warm and comfortable.
We can afford ten dollars for a cast cover for daycare, since they won’t be able to take the same caution we do to keep zir cast dry. When it became clear that zir arm wouldn’t fit into any sleeves, I had a hoarded gift card to cover the cost of a warm coat – 50% off, a bargain hunter never quits!
We are so fortunate to have the mental space to plan ahead.
I always keep an eye out for clothing 6-12 month sizes larger than ze is currently wearing, gathering them piece by piece so that when ze has a growth spurt, we’re not scrambling to keep zir dressed. Ze needs looser, roomier clothes for a month? No problem, I dug out the little stash of larger clothes. We’ll have enough clothes to last a week.
We are so fortunate that our jobs aren’t run by tyrannical nincompoops.
When we had to drop everything and go back to the hospital, without a question we both got ready to go. We spent the time we needed taking care of our child with a second thought. The nurse asked us if we needed doctor’s notes during one of the visits and we both just looked at her blankly for a couple minutes before realizing why she asked.
What an utterly upper middle class reaction.
It’s been a decade since that was my life but I remember shift work. I remember not being able to make a doctor’s appointment without finding a replacement to cover for me. (My managers never used to find coverage for us so, sick or bleeding, you had to cover your shift. They sucked.)
I remember that I couldn’t afford to lose the wages by being out sick, so I worked through illness, and pain, and without a doubt exacerbated my fibro. I had to suck it up, I didn’t see a doctor.
(And that’s when I was lucky enough to have health insurance. In the year before I was working a full time job, in the early days of my fibro, we couldn’t afford health insurance. I didn’t know what the “oh, self-insured” comments meant for years but opted out of the repeat humiliation of trying to be seen at the local clinic. When I did get an appointment, without fail, a mid-50s male doctor would look at my x-rays and tell me that my pain was in my head. There’s a reason I look at male doctors sideways to this day.)
I hate that this happened but …
Comparing this ordeal with when I had to deal with Mom’s illnesses, the near-hyperventilating math trying to figure out where the money was going to come from, while navigating the near impossible, many hours-long waits in the Medicaid-accepting medical offices – it’s just no comparison at all.
Money and good care makes life a thousand times easier. I cannot be more grateful that while I couldn’t provide the care that Mom deserved, we can now for JuggerBaby.
There are so many, but right now I’m thinking of Aleppo. I’m thinking of the X Clinics and especially the one in Texas serving rural populations who have the least access to reproductive healthcare.
:: Who would you support when your cup runneth over? What are you grateful for today? Have you ever broken a bone?
When we talk of heroes, I imagine people doing big, important things, of the lifesaving variety.
I grew up on dramatic heroics, capes and cowls, and icons like Amelia Earhart,Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman. People who stand up to the whole world, sometimes against unspeakable odds, and changed the world long after they were told to sit down and be quiet.
This video brought unabashed tears to my eyes and got me thinking. It’s not often that we get to see the results of our good deeds for others, if at all, but it’s the rare person who hasn’t benefited from the help of others who never expected thanks in return.
These are a few people who made a bigger difference in my life than they knew.
Bus driver #1
Randy was driving the last route of the night and, as usual, I had lost track of time. Running out into the deserted street, in the dark, in a bad neighborhood, I leapt onto the bus’s steps, making him jump. I made it!
But I hadn’t. He’d just returned from the last drop-off. When he understood why my face fell, he swung into rescue mode and stomped the gas pedal all the way to the nearest train stop. I thanked him profusely as I ran for the train. I never got to thank him in person after that – he stopped driving that route soon after.
Bus Driver #2
The second driver, Johnny, was driving my regular route during a particularly bad time in my life. Everything was falling apart. Mom’s illness had suddenly progressed, leaving a Bizarro Mom in our house, and my bosses had gone ’round the bend. Things were bad bad bad but I still needed that job. Every morning, I tried to breathe deeply to make it through another day, and held back a surge of stress-induced nausea. Johnny would drop us off, booming: Have a good day and don’t let anybody steal your joy!
It always made me smile. It was often my only smile of those working days, and I was grateful.
Mentor, Codename Sabrina
I’d worked several years years of retail by the time I started on my first industry-job but I was still a young pup in the white collar professional world.
My introduction to office life was tumultuous. It was rife with poor management and terrible people, and directly led to my discovery of Alison at Ask A Manager (Googling “is [terrible boss thing] normal?”).
There was one person I met in the course of that work who made it survivable. She was an institution at her job, working with us from her coordinating office, and she taught me so much I needed to know to succeed at my job and more. Without her almost daily feedback and steering, and diplomacy when our managers were being even more unreasonable than usual, I’m not sure if I would have overcome the many and barbed hurdles thrown up by my direct colleagues and managers.
With it, I went on to be a high performer both in that office and well into the rest of my career.
We kept in touch over the years, and I’ve always been grateful for her friendship, wisdom, and warmth.
:: To whom do you owe thanks? Why? What little things made a difference in your life? Tell me your stories?
MTurk experiment, total earned: $44.05. Up $31.40 from May’s ending total of $12.65. As money making experiments go, this continues to be teensy tiny beans. I use it in the few minutes a day I designate for my (non-existent otherwise) water cooler breaks so no harm done. Gives my brain a breather from the problems I’m working on and makes, literally, a few bucks.
Last month’s big news: We spent money and 6 long months to finally refinance the mortgage. Ahoy, the prepayment scheme! I’m really excited about that. That, and cutting our mortgage in half so that the second half of our mortgage payment all goes to principal. DELICIOUS. We’re under $250K now, and I’m eagerly targeting when we’ll be under $200K.
Last month’s other big news: We finally bought a new to us car. After maintenance and accessories (which sounds so fancy but really isn’t), we are out a couple thousand dollars. For that price, we can FINALLY get around without plotting logistics on a chart.
I keep forgetting that our crockpot broke a couple months ago after rendering unto us, in its last faithful service, producing fantastic ribs for our dinner guests. I know it’s “only” $30-40 to replace it but given our pile of other necessary expenses that add up very quickly, and *points up* that list of spending these past two months, I’m extra not ready to spend a penny more. The crockpot recipes must continue to pile up for now. Even that mac and cheese one. *sniff*
I continue to be not surprised, but surprisingly irritated, by the fact that Dad is behind on his utility payments. He insisted that he could take them on three years ago (four? I can’t remember now) but I didn’t totally trust him so I kept online access to the accounts. Sure enough, when I logged in to the water and electricity bills, they were glaringly overdue. Think he said anything to me? Gave me any warning that he was struggling with them? History repeats itself. So we’re sinking an unbudgeted $100-300 in utility bills every few months because he simply can’t do me the courtesy of talking through the income shortage with me.
Highlights of my #1GoodMoneyThing this month: I bought stocks instead of stuff which are dropping like rocks thanks to Brexit but I’m buying long; deposited reimbursement checks for various reimbursable things; returned two baby carriers to Amazon because PiC found a decent one for $50 on Craigslist!
We’ve been holding a lot of cash because I have a problem. An addiction, almost, to keeping cash on hand. Left over insecurity from that long layoff? Maybe. But it was time to get off my bum and move cash into our investments. I don’t want our eggs too heavily in any one basket. Overall, most of our savings go into pre and post-tax investment accounts, and real estate, there to grow and multiply, we hope.
Depending on how it goes, you might wish it had, but it won’t.
Spoiler Alert: We survived flying with an active, task oriented, curious, very mobile toddler!
We took two trips this year that required flying, changing time zones for one. The flights ranged from pretty good to Are we there, yet??
We flew Alaska Air for the first time in a decade, and discovered they were both pretty infant-friendly, and had a nifty 20-minute baggage guarantee that meant we waited zero time at baggage claim. I LOVED that. There were no other children on our Alaska Air flights but the flight attendants were actively engaged with us as parents, and offered us coloring books and crayons. They also encouraged us to belt JuggerLB in when appropriate, reassuring us that safety was more important than avoiding crying. All of that was really helpful in calming my slight case of nerves since it was our first flight and I didn’t know how ze would react to all of it. This flight was only about three hours so it was a useful data point in seeing how an airline might handle parents flying with children, and how JuggerLB handled travel.
We then crossed time zones with United, which had no baggage delivery guarantee, but was pretty quick. On the flip side, they misplaced our stroller for a while, and that gave us a bit of a scare. They weren’t actively unfriendly towards kids, but they definitely didn’t have anything for them either. While we were prepared to entertain JuggerLB, every little bit helps.
Booking midday and midweek flights
At this stage of life, I’m finally all about the Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday flights.
We flew with JuggerLB as a lap infant but since the midday and midweek flight was only partly full, the flight attendants shuffled seat assignments to make sure we had a seat for hir anyway. As long as we didn’t get the absolute back row, we didn’t care where they put us. On Alaska, at least, it seemed to be such a routine thing they didn’t even mention it to us. The drawback of booking a midday flight is that it cuts into both morning and afternoon naps, and for a shorter flight, JuggerLB isn’t about to sleep and miss a minute of travel fun.
Getting to our destination with plenty of daylight, whether in a new city or getting back home, was a new and delightful change. We typically get in late at night when we travel and I much prefer the midday arrival. We had time to settle in and have a leisurely dinner without cutting into a full night’s rest.
Things I found especially useful
For quiet play, I left all the chiming or electronic toys at home. Instead, we packed board books, plastic rings, colorful window clings. Your mileage may vary from airline to airline but on one flight, we were offered a small box of crayons and coloring book which we happily accepted, and everyone was given snacks and drinks in plastic cups which came in very handy for more toddler distraction.
We packed multipurpose washcloths for cleaning up spills, to hold taut and form a pretend tray for LB to stack toys on, and save my clothes from sticky accidents. Drool bibs were a must because a teething toddler is drippy drooly, empty water bottles doubled as toys, and hir velcro tabbed shoes were entertainment for a solid ten minutes at a time.
We had our own snack bag: crackers, pretzels and cheese, raisins and pre-cut fruit all staved off the hunger between milk sessions. Ze was being weaned off bottles for our first set of flights but travel was not the time to be fussing about cups with those uncoordinated hands. SFO TSA was remarkably efficient, by the by, they simply sent us through with hir, and scanned all hir liquids, the stroller, and the car seat, and even helped me carry the car seat over to our pile of stuff after the security check. Pleasant and helpful – never knew they could be so good!
Plastic baggies were huge time-savers. I stored clean clothes, extra empty bottles, diapers and wipes, and medicine in them. When things spilled, as they do, the wet stuff went into the plastic bag and we moved right along.
First flight recap
LB was bouncy-excited about a plane full of hostages to hir. They were all in one place and couldn’t escape!
We were lucky, the flight attendants were already rearranging the passengers for weight distribution so they graciously made sure that we had an extra seat for LB. Wonderful surprise! We did lots of in-seat play, focusing on keeping hir attention on us and our games, taking advantage of that third seat to move more freely and keep toys on the seats. Ze zeroed in on rearranging the seat back reading material for at least 20-40 minutes, so we were scrupulously careful about not letting hir actually touch the seat back. The people in front of us weren’t crankypants and giving us the evil eye to begin with, like some child-haters do, and we weren’t about to give anyone cause for it.
When the wiggly was uncontainable, the two of them did lots of walking up and down the aisle, waving and smiling. Ze made a friend of most people with hir smiles, and more probably with hir generally quiet play. I think ze hollered in excitement about three times and cried once. But ze completely missed takeoff and landing, impervious to the pressure changes, and may that forever be the case.
Second flight recap
We did all in-seat play, due to unexpected turbulence, but we had a few unlooked for perks. The plane wasn’t full, again, so the attendants rearranged seating to give hir a seat which the person in our row was offering to do (random nice people!) when he thought we’d been separated, AND the middle seat in front of us was empty. That meant we could let hir play with the seat back materials and also use the tray. We don’t let hir use or touch the trays if people are in the seat. Ze likes to bang things on the tray, or bang it up and down, and that’s just rude.
We thought we needed the iPad but we never even got to most of hir regular toys because ze was having so much fun pulling out the safety cards and rearranging them. I’d brought some cool window clings that ze didn’t quite know what to do with so we spent half an hour with me placing them on the window and hir removing them. Those things probably won’t be able to cling to anything ever again.
Third flight recap
I felt like a terrible parent when we realized that ze was having teething pain after we took off. Ze has never noticed take off or landing, I should mention, so far ze has had good luck with the change in pressure. May that always be the case! Since ze hadn’t been drooling or teething for a few days, I’d packed up all hir medications and checked the bag. ERROR. I won’t be making that mistake again! An hour into the flight, ze was huddled, miserable and feverish, and in need of Motrin.
We lucked out in sitting near a lovely family with an infant of their own, and who hadn’t foolishly checked in their medications so they gave us their travel bottle. I offered to pay or replace it but they waved me off. It’s amazing how nice some people can be.
We had some trouble getting hir to take all the meds but the side effect of hir discomfort was that ze took two catnaps on the long flight. That’s totally abnormal and was clearly because ze wasn’t feeling well but it got us through the flight somewhat less exhausted than if we’d had to entertain hir for the full 5 hours.
Fourth flight recap
No such mercy on this flight, though. Not that I’m wishing JuggerBaby was sick, even if ze is easier when sick. I just hoped that ze would have found it old hat enough at this point to relax and nap. Instead, ze played hard and grouched harder. There was some crying on this flight, and that sucked. We took it in turns to play, feed, and distract hir, wishing heartily for time to pass faster.
Obviously we made it back safely and each in our respective pieces but you couldn’t have sighed a bigger sigh of relief than we did once ze was fed, clean, and put to bed. HOME SWEET HOME.
:: Do you find flying stressful? What makes it easier?
A More than Minor Injury was sustained by JuggerBaby.
ON MONEY
Depending on how it goes, you might wish it had, but it won’t.