February 13, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
If you’re allergic to wool and need cold weather layers, Blair Braverman made some recommendations.
Tanja’s (of Our Next Life) article on Marketwatch made me laugh. It’s so true what the FI community judges to be acceptable expenses. And THIS: “We’ve accidentally created the archetype of a certain kind of early retiree: an outdoorsy, fully able-bodied, not too aesthetically focused, beer-drinking guy.” ALSO TRUE. I refuse to read bloggers who pretend that there’s only one way to live FI.
Our friend Kara at BravelyGo, a feminist financial education company, has launched a Patreon!
Marriott has made huge changes to their redemption rates effective March 4, 2020. FlyerTalk put together a summary and it looks rough.
There’s a scammer impersonating a literary agent out there. Not cool.
Anytime people say money can’t buy happiness, I scoff. Oh yes it can. How to get it. We’re almost always mindful of how much we spend, and we are fans of strategic spending (sport for PiC, massages for my pain, a bit of help with the dogs).
Adventures of Coyote and Badger
February 6, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $521.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
I love everything NK Jemison has written. The New Yorker does a good interview / profile with her.
Pick that scat up and/or let it go, a story from Rich and Regular.
“Spending money is a failure to solve problems by smarter means.” This is just a snippet from Jacob’s (ERE) update that made me smile a bit. I don’t REALLY think it’s a failure but this is the gist of a philosophy we try to practice: try not to spend money until you’ve explored other options. For conservation, for practicing self reliance, for exercising brains that might become flabby and weak. There are plenty of times I will actively choose to spend money instead of trying to find the smarter means because I don’t have the time and leisure to do it myself but I like to remind myself to try, too.
PSA: Don’t postpone joy. I am constantly having to remind myself this and trying to figure out that balance in the big picture. It’s hard not to just intensely stare at savings goals for the future when they help me have hope and they take me out of today. That’s a good thing when I’m in so much pain. BUT they also take me out of today. It’s a hard balancing act. (more…)
January 30, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020? Current total: $443.24 for both initiatives.
One Frugal Girl and I are kindred spirits in chronic pain and our pain has been exceptionally bad these past few weeks. I would envy her the financial independence that gives her the ability to not work to pay the bills during her flare-ups, it’s something I don’t have that eats at me, but that would imply that I resent her having it when I don’t. I don’t at all. I’m so glad for her that she does have that ability to not work while having flare-ups. I’m just wistful and wishful that I had made better choices earlier, that I had seen Dad’s fraudulence earlier, that I’d saved my money for myself instead. I’ve never sought FI for travel and glamorous life type reasons. It’s always been self preservation. I just wish I’d seen the self preservation part earlier. I wish a lot of things.
Our immigration policies are ugly and awful and have real consequences for real people.
I watched Togo and was definitely stressed in the tough parts and wanted to read everything about sled dogs (I always do). Blair Braverman came through with a twitter thread on lead dogs.
More Excel formulas to learn! I know a few but I don’t work in Excel that much so there’s lots to work with here.
Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village
I don’t know why this is limited to California but if you want to tell Target not to sell your info, you can! Personally I feel like all companies should be required to not sell info we have given them but that seems unlikely to happen.
Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market
January 23, 2020
I haven’t figured out makes up my metric of “enough”. Since my baseline is so different from other people, some days, enough is the absolute bare minimum: ate a food, drank some water, basic hygiene (maybe). On better days, it might be: prepared food, did some work, read something for fun, walked the dogs, paid attention to our money in some way. What’s your enough?
There are official rules and there are the real rules. It took me forever to learn this and I caused a lot of trouble while I was figuring it out. When did you learn this? How did you learn it?
Rules for girls. I’m sad that not all the posts are live anymore.
This neighbor gifted ham is kind of funny, though it brings back memories of the ham that bested me. Do you and your neighbors give gifts to each other?
We’ve had our share of problems with Marriott points but nothing on this level. They kept telling PiC that his points were about to expire in March, but when logged online his points were “already expired”. Calling customer service came up with “they’re still live but could expire at any moment without notice.” I miss SPG so much. Marriott’s service is nonsensical but I have a lot of points with them so we need to use that up.
Yetanotherpfblog’s charitable giving in 2019. Do you have a giving plan for 2020?
I felt like nothing big was accomplished in my 2019 too but I loved this reframing of that being a good thing (I too read a lot of books): “Transitions, even good ones like promotions, are hard on people; please be kind to everyone (including yourself!). Because I am in a place where I am grounded deeply in living the rewards of having made many positive life choices over time and not too many unexpected curveballs were thrown my way this year, I was able to accomplish a lot. (#stability is a kind of #privilege).”
me after the holiday season
January 16, 2020
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families this year, please read this post.
A Twitter thread on Excel keyboard shortcuts, thanks @PhysicistLisa! I love Stephanie‘s which is so useful to me right now, to paste without formatting: ctrl + shift + v
My Father and the Dragon King
I hope to live a life that warrants this kind of memory / obituary when I’m gone.
Microfiction.
I was thinking of Sarah’s thoughts on how FIRE intersects with feminism, particularly as a well paid woman in STEM. She makes a great point in her reply comment: I worry that so much of our feminism is focused on getting women promoted and paid – getting that representation at higher levels, with salaries to match.
We do need feminism to get us up there with the promotions and payscales, but is that the only way to do feminism as a STEM woman? I would like to think that advocacy for and building cultures where URM including women feel welcome is as much feminism as climbing the ladder and staying in the workforce but maybe that’s simply not possible if you aren’t a higher-up woman who is being paid well. Thoughts?
Speaking of feminism, I’m still mad about Tokyo Medical School and their sexism.
I was thinking about how I’ve not ever just lived on my own, or lived off my own income by myself, I’ve always had someone to care for or support. I’ve also never been in a position where I didn’t need to save for the future, so the idea of figuring out a retirement spending budget where I’m only spending and not saving any longer feels weird. Over at Abby’s, I was wildly guessing that we might be good in retirement with $110,000 in annual income but it’s such a guesstimate. I don’t know if we’ll still have a mortgage (assume yes?), what we’ll do for healthcare, or what other regular expenses we’ll still have (little to no childcare I hope, pet expenses vary widely). Tanja made the very real point that we can’t blindly rely on a 4% withdrawal rate for these calculations. It’s a tough needle to thread. I neither want to spend the rest of my life working (no matter how long or short that life is) nor does my health suggest I have a long good life ahead so I don’t want to spend what’s left of them working all the time. But we don’t have enough saved to change that picture any time soon. How much do you think you’d need if you were no longer needing to save?
On the subject of early retirement, I like following Tanja’s journey into this unknown to me realm. I’ve got a few early retired friends who have been retired for many years so I know it can be done but it’s nice to follow Tanja’s journey from the saving period to the doing it period.
Baby goats and forage
January 9, 2020
How are you awesome?
Even though I’m personally opposed to buying Tesla because I can’t stand Elon Musk and I think he’s terrible on labor, I really appreciated the lessons here on driving long distances in a Tesla and for electric cars generally.
A New York times feature on Lupita Nyong’o. I’d like to see her on-screen a whole lot more.
Rich and Regular reflect on 2019.
Emma Pattee’s flash fiction. I was musing on whether I’ve developed the writing chops to write our family’s story yet and every time I read a beautiful piece like this, I think, no. Not yet.
Speaking of beauty, I love Penny’s reflection on her nana and her blog.
The SECURE act is being called the biggest retirement bill since 2006 but I’m mostly annoyed that the last point, that’s most important to me, is mostly just removing a couple barriers and not actively making 401ks possible for small businesses, or even just letting those of us who don’t have 401ks have some other means of tax deductible savings. I’m saving no matter what but it’s frustrating that I’m missing out on a huge opportunity for tax savings just because my employer doesn’t offer this benefit. Shouldn’t health insurance and retirement options be employer-agnostic? It makes no sense to tie them together, to me.
Ask A Manager’s top posts this decade.
This literary twist on the AITA subreddit Twitter account is hilarious:
![I [32W*] bit off this guy’s leg because he wouldn’t leave me alone. He’s been following me ever since, I think I’m a kind of metaphor to him. Here’s where I might be the asshole: I’ve sort of been leading him into dangerous situations for my own amusement. AITA? *whale](http://agaishanlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Screenshot_20200104-194800.png)
![I [111H] found an abandoned piece of jewellery a few years ago while being dragged along on a road trip more or less against my will. I brought it home with me and now my world is in peril. WIBTA if I left my nephew to deal with this while I retire to a cushy elf community?](http://agaishanlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Screenshot_20200104-200812.png)
December 19, 2019
This is my last link love for 2019, I’m giving myself a wee break and starting again January 9th next year!
I really enjoyed this: how Ruth learned to think about problem solving. This kind of memory makes me happy. It also made me ponder: what little things am I modeling for JB that will go on to have real and positive impacts? I strive in a very different way now than I did ten years ago, I’m softer now and less gritty than I was and I worry that ze isn’t going to have the chance to observe that we can overcome tough circumstances. Of course I don’t want zir scarred by early traumas of knowing too much too soon, but how do I demonstrate that quality and encourage zir to keep at things persistently?
I love Eve Ewing’s Ironheart series and her thread on breads. It’s a special kind of torture but also I love it.
Financial Independence Let Me Walk Away From Harassment at Work. This brings back some harsh memories of when my boss was the person making my work life impossible and how much I still hope he reaps what he sowed.
Honoring lost loved ones around the holidays. I lost Mom too close to Thanksgiving to ever want to celebrate it again and out of respecting that feeling sprang a new tradition that I hold dear.
Unfortunately we had reason to draw on this wisdom on writing condolence cards recently.
May I be able to listen to what my child is telling me like this