Money & Life Report: June 2026
July 1, 2026
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. The sidebar has ways to support the blog and our charitable giving.
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.
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Dividend income. We received $492 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
I finally had enough Fetch points to redeem for a $50 IKEA gift card. PiC has a notion about allowing JB to personalize their room a bit this summer so this will cover that and any Swedish meatballs we encounter. That gave me a baseline for calculating the average value of a receipt: 2.3 cents per 25 points. My last redemption was for $50 in November, 7 months ago.
Ibotta is a much slower earning site. My last redemption was August 2024 for $40; I just redeemed $35 in cash this month.
Litter watch: we picked up 6 receipts for a total of 14.2 cents at Fetch and 60 cents at Ibotta. Just a teeny bonus for getting trash off the street.
Spending
$$$$. Our home, earthquake, and auto policies drove our credit card bills way up this month. I’m taking this as an opportunity to calculate how much I need to stash monthly, like I do our property taxes, to cover those bills since I won’t be able to cash flow them in the near future.
$$$. I spent a bundle on my team’s thank you gifts.
$$$$. The legal consult fees came due this month.
Not spending
On carbs at Safeway or even Costco because the bakery outlet is so much cheaper. They bought 18 bagels, 6 English muffins and 8 burger buns for $10.08! Plus a free item for meeting the $8 minimum purchase: an extra loaf of bread.
At $5.50 a gallon, and say we get 25-20 MPH, every 5 miles costs $1. By that math, PiC saved us $24 biking 120 miles of his commute this month, in addition to the weekend biking to do errands though that’s a much lower mileage. He gets a small incentive from work for choosing to bike to work, too. Every little bit helps.
Giving
We have worked really hard and been very fortunate that our hard work paid off in significant ways that I only dreamt of when I first started this blog. Though we have not reached our FI number where I can feel like all income is gravy, we’ve always felt it was important to lend a helping hand. Many people say they’ll give back later, when they’re financially set. I say that if we don’t practice and prioritize giving now, we won’t give later either.
We donate to organizations that help people and animals in need and do direct aid.
The Lakota Giving Project is year-round now and we always welcome donations to support Lakota families. See how you can help at the link.
I’ve selected two families to work on at the very end of the month so I’ll report back next month.
Saving and investing
I’ve finally bitten the bullet and created SmolAc’s 529. As planned, I split the existing 529 funds down the middle and transferred it over so they have equal funds. I also changed JB’s holdings to a much more aggressive time horizon. Possibly should have done that rebalancing before but it wasn’t top of mind. Now that they only have half the balance, it feels like there’s a lot of catching up to do.
I locked up some of our available cash in short term CDs for higher interest rates (4.1% and 4.2%). My two i-bonds will reach 5 years maturity this November and next May, so we will have that cash cycling back into the cash ecosystem.
Net worth
Overall down about $50k this month which makes me take a deep breath. We aren’t relying on the portfolio yet. Though, with the state of the job market, it’d be awfully nice if we could sooner than later.
On Life
Reading was a bit light this month for lack of available material. I have 67 (the my number keeps going up) books tagged as “notify me if the library buys them” and 15 more on hold (apparently that’s the max number of books we are allowed to hold which feels very limiting) but the hold times are dragging. Everything is 2-18 weeks out. *Dramatic Slump*
Alix E Harrow, The Everlasting. I’m usually meh on time travel books but this one was really well-done and well-written.
Robert Jackson Bennett, Locklands. It’d been so long since I last read the second book that I needed half a chapter to orient myself. I didn’t like that so much time had passed in the book since the last one, because I was unmoored for quite a bit wondering what had happened to certain characters.
Alix E Harrow, The Once and Future Witches. I didn’t expect to like this one at first but it was gripping. I really wanted things to turn out for the sisters.
CM Waggoner, The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale. This was light and fluffy in a good way.
CM Waggoner, The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society. I forgot at first what the title was when I was getting into this and then the twist happened and caught me by surprise. It shouldn’t have, it was Right There. But it made me smile anyway.
Catherine Mack, Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies. Meh. It was a breaking the fourth wall type book which doesn’t generally bother me but I also didn’t like it very much. I did finish it for the sake of knowing whodunnit but I won’t bother with the next books.
Ilona Andrews blog: I tend to save hoard the blog for a concentrated reading treat especially during a book drought, reading months in one swoop, so here is where I go “THIS KINGDOM IS A TRILOGY??” I thought it was a duologue! Shock and delight. I may not be as good a BDHer as some but more HA is always always better.
If you haven’t had time to read the blog yourself, here are the extra tidbits that came out (warning: some are extra scenes, therefore spoilers!) after the book release:
An Accurate Stelka Guide to the Humans of Kair Toren (Character Art Roundup)
Bonus Scene: Not A Hair On Her Head
Includes a snippet from Maggie 2: The Vellum Media Preorder Is Open
Snippet: The Special Editions and Horde Anxiety
This Kingdom is Best of the Year So Far Again (And Snippet)
To maximize availability of library books have you gotten library cards from multiple systems? Most public libraries in California will issue library cards to any California resident. If you read eBooks consider getting cards from libraries whose physical branches would be inconvenient to visit regularly. Most libraries require an in-person visit to get your card, but I just sign up when I’m visiting a new area. Most have online or downloadable applications you can complete at home, then just drop by the library with that, your ID, and sometimes a utility bill to verify your address. It typically takes less than 10 minutes.
I have just started applying for library cards from other cities/counties, hopefully that gives me a wider expanse of eBooks to choose from.
Out of curiosity, did you consider splitting the 529 funds somewhat unevenly (like 35-40% to the younger child)? Since the older child has a shorter time horizon it feels fair to leave more in that account. I think about this a lot when I fund accounts – we do an even amount to each child but I’ve wondered if I should do slightly more for my older since the younger has 3 more years to compound (and when i could potentially do the whole monthly amount to him).
That’s actually a great question. I always wanted it to be even but you’re right, with the longer time horizon for SmolAc, maybe it makes more sense to let their account have less since it has time to grow.
I’ll think on it some more but I appreciate you raising the question! I hadn’t thought about it before because I think I always figured it’d be a few more years before I did the split and because the cash gifts were more heavily weighted in JB’s favor in the earlier years than now.