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
Read More
March 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?
Total collected: Lakota, $640.74; Rural libraries, $321.62.
1. The work on our taxes should start this week. In about two weeks, I should be able to stop holding my breath for the tax hit. Ending that particular anticipation will be nice.
2. I finally got a few outstanding health appointments on the calendar. I need to find out what I’m allergic to because I am sick of randomly itching and random rashes sprouting. Cross your fingers for .. good grief, I don’t even know what to hope for other than an answer that’s palatable.
Challenges this week: My fatigue has been … well, overwhelming. I hate it. I hate it so much. I hate feeling useless because there are 30 things to do in a weekend but I can only do three of them and then I have to lay down for 3 hours. Hate. It. And there’s only so much existential dread I can take over the state of our nation politically, the state of our world medically with COVID-19, and the very serious goings-ons in dear friends’ lives.
3. We had a warm day! I set Ronnie Robot Vacuum loose to do its thing and opened all the windows for fresh air and aired out the house. It’s astonishing how different the airflow feels in every room at the same point in time. The combination of reasonably clean floors and fresh air and warmth was invigorating. Moments like these I miss the SoCal life. Not enough to go back and live in that traffic. But a little.
4. I’m also highly amused every time I watch Ronnie work, or know that Ronnie’s moseying through the house and cleaning the floors. It’s like having a less sentient Mo from WALL-E, except Ronnie gets stuck in random rooms sometimes and can’t tell me which one.
5. It feels like my sunrise alarm clock has been helpful in the dark winter mornings. I’m glad I found one half off but also glad that I bought it at all. (more…)
March 5, 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 have hardly anything this week because it’s been a heck of a week on top of the COVID-19 outbreak worries for people it’s affecting and the uncertainty. I feel like I haven’t read anything of note but here’s John Oliver on coronavirus.
March 2, 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.
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from an investment property (which is all saved for maintenance) and investing in dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running and I’ve added a way to support the blog in the sidebar to the right!
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 have today.
***
Dividend income. We received $545.98 in dividends in February. This was an unusual month.
Ko-Fi! Awwww, another kind reader! I so appreciate the support. Thank you! <3
W-2 income. We’re making a little more money this year. This was just about enough cover our increased costs of living with inflation plus a trickle to savings but thanks to my new health spending category below, that’s gone. Drat. Every bit counts. Especially with PiC’s increasing unhappiness with his job, and the peculiarities of his company’s financial stability, I am banking and investing as much as I can. We’re earning well right now but I also know that can go away very quickly. Maybe this is me being pessimistic but I don’t think so – he’s been unhappy for two years and they’ve been through five layoffs. Also I AM admittedly pessismistic because I feel physically terrible all the time. How long can I keep going?
(more…)
February 28, 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.
1. There’s something immensely satisfying about setting Ronnie the Robot Vacuum to take care of one room while I clean another area and start the laundry. Ronnie’s taking care of the other room! (This seems less satisfying when I get an alert that Ronnie needs help because its left wheel is stuck but I have no idea where it IS because it left the room and to another one. It’s been 5 minutes and the robot’s already gone a bit rogue. I was not wrong to worry about Cylons.)
2. I KNOW it’s not tax efficient but I still get a little zip of happy when my original stock portfolio notifies me of two dividend payments on a Saturday morning. I reinvest all of that money but it feels like a micro payday. Plus I haven’t decided if there is a good tax efficient way to move that portfolio in our index funds portfolio yet. At least not right now.
3. If I had to be wrecked, at least it was on a weekend when I could try to rest.
Challenges: Even though I did everything “right” with my diet – no sugar, low carbs, no gluten – AND even got what seemed like a full night of sleep, an hour after waking up on Sunday, I felt crushed. Zero energy, brain clouded, short of breath. Ugh.
4. Our emergency fund is held in CDs and a bit of cash. I have 2 CDs expiring in two weeks and 2 more expiring in March. The renewal interest rate options are paltry so after kicking around some ideas on Twitter, I think I have a plan of action. I’ll cash the first two out at maturity and deploy the cash into a new savings account for a good bank bonus. When that’s paid, I’ll rinse and repeat in PiC’s name. It’ll be more work for me but it should bring in better returns over the year than the 2% or less APY.
5. I finally got all our tax documentation together and thoroughly vetted our spreadsheet with all the details! *little dance* I sent it off and now I have to try veryvery hard to be patient. And to remember to breathe while I’m waiting to see if my estimates were right. Right here right now, I’m banishing that stupid guilt I always feel for not doing the final lap on my own, every year.
:: How was your week?
February 27, 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.
This employer is so icky.
Don’t break your own heart.
Something I have to practice to battle pain-induced stress brain: The Peaceful Place exercise is practical yet grounded in evidence-based clinical theory. It is one you can do within two minutes’ time with practice. What is the most peaceful place you have even been? Close your eyes and use all of your senses to recall it. What does it sound like, look like, smell like, feel like and possibly even taste like? Be there for at least two minutes. Feel it resonate throughout your whole being. Why does this work? Because our brains are like computers and only respond to what we input.
My Money Blog on Healthcare sharing ministries. TL;DR: his advice is do not buy. I know folks who use them and have had good experiences but I’ve been through the gamut of bad to good insurance and if I have the choice, I’m avoiding HCMs. Insurance is bad enough with their loopholes (though my insurance right now is stellar), I’m not signing up for an even less certain care plan where they aren’t overseen by any agency at all and provide no guarantee of payment at all (at least my health insurance has some guarantees).
Self forgiveness is something I have to keep working on
February 24, 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.
It’s time for a more pragmatic look into whether or not we should get out of the landlord business. I can’t just make a decision like that based on my irritation level and a vague recommendation from the PM who hasn’t given me enough data to go on. The thing is, they were originally pushing me to consider selling because of the money, now it’s because of “the neighborhood”. When a professional’s recommendations are vague and unsubstantiated, I have to do my own research.
I consulted with a friend who’s a veteran in the business and we did some searching. Initial research says: the neighborhood isn’t sketchy. Maybe the next one over is, and there’s overflow, but their gut feeling was to keep the property. The PM just sounds lukewarm about it, but as Veteran Friend advised, if it was an actual problem, they would say so outright and refuse to handle the property any longer. This bears observation but not a rush to sell.
So it was time to run the numbers. Getting into this rental cost about $34,000 out of pocket. After 6 years of rent, rent has paid down 10% of the mortgage, and the house has appreciated on paper by 66%. We have about $140,000 in equity if it sells for what the assessed value is now. (more…)
February 21, 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.
1. Actually my first challenge was also a good thing. The success of the thing I was organizing was why it became a little too much, but that’s still a good thing!
2. PiC and I split the work on registration for kindergarten. I am not ready.
3. I found Ann Leckie e-books at the library – woot!
Challenges: I was working nonstop last week organizing support for a loved one. I most definitely bit off a little more than I could chew and I most definitely pretended that I didn’t. My checking account was a total mess so I opened a new checking account at Ally just for their funds so that my neurotic money managing self could clear things up and that was helpful. Then I ordered a gift without actually reviewing the order and that was a bit of a mess, I had to frantically message the seller to tell them not to send ME the gift. *FACEPALM* Work was a mess of many messes to clean up.
4. Watching that episode of Psych where Juliet’s dad comes in and tries to reconcile with her at the same time as pulling another con, I found myself curiously ok. For the past two years, seeing fictional characters clashing with their fathers (and especially this where her father also conned her) hurt. Why didn’t my dad love me as a father should? Why didn’t my dad care enough as much about our well-being as his? Not this week. I had just told a beloved mentor of our estrangement. An excerpt of what I shared:
“I have needed all this time and careful intentional revisiting of the facts to help my heart adjust to the reality that was painful for a long time. I usually make painful decisions with my head and then let me heart catch up, this was no different! Even though it is a sad and regretful situation, I am slowly healing.
I’ve done what he should have done – protected my family – and I will heal from the less obvious wounds he inflicted, like feeling doubts that anyone can love me if my own parent didn’t. I am slowly accepting that his choices and actions don’t make me a lesser person. Even if he couldn’t love me the way a parent should, others do, and even if I have moments of doubt, I will grow away from them.
Not that I don’t still get angry at him. I do. Every single time I have a flare-up that’s incapacitating, and feel too painful and fatigued to exist, and I have to keep working because I spent so much money caring for him instead of saving for my future when he was much more able than I, that he was a selfish liar knowing he was hurting my health. THAT part still makes me angry.
For all that anger that’s left, I am lucky and I can see that. I got to choose to walk away before he drained us dry and ruined my marriage and future. We aren’t in the place we could have been, but not even he could destroy the fruits of my careful money management and that gives me a redemptive feeling of control. I think that choice I took when I did made a big difference in my healing.
The thing I now work on is how I feel about the future. I do not want to feel obligated to again endanger that recently saved financial foundation for either of them. As a daughter in this family, it’s very hard to say that. Taking care of your elders in their old age is ingrained in your mental and emotional self down to the cellular level! But he abused my sense of duty for 20 years, he would have let me die of the pain and despair, for his own benefit. I had told him how severe and debilitating the pain was, to the point of suicidal ideation, and that didn’t change his behavior other than to stop him insisting that we have the 14 hour wedding ceremony and reception that he said was necessary. (Because that’s just what everyone does and he wanted to look like everyone else.) But he still demanded his prerogatives like a bottle of the finest ($$$) liquor so he could share with his friends and pretend he had money. So I am working on weaning myself off that gut level sense of obligation.
I don’t want it. If I keep saying that, it too will slowly become ok.”
5. The refresh work at the rental is nearly done! Details to come.
6. I’d forgotten, it’s been so many weeks since I’ve felt up to it, how fulfilled I feel when I get to go to a store, pick out a new food to cook, AND get to cook it in the same weekend. It did entirely wipe me out but the fact is, I haven’t been close to feeling up to doing that much in so long. I loved the feeling of anticipation and it renewed my sense of wanting to cook and eat. I hate that dull feeling when I don’t have the energy to think or cook anything new. I love the zing of chasing down new recipes I might be able to make.
7. It “only” took me six weeks to take our new robot vacuum out of the box, charge it, and install the app. I finally ran it! It’s been kind of fascinating to watch and also it makes me very self conscious about all the stuff cluttering our floors. I’m in yet another period of transition in my office where lots of boxes and bags are strewn about. We’re in yet another cycle of: organizing, decluttering, package up things meant to go to new homes, and donating. None of this makes it easy for a hard-working robot vacuum just trying to clean up these floors! It was pretty distracting at first as I figured out how to get myself and my towers of STUFF out of the way. JB was fascinated by it too. The only one who thought the robot vacuum was nothing special was Sera. Go figure. She’s normally a basket case about anything too new.
:: It has been A WEEK. How was your week? How do you say “no” to a sense of obligation that will only harm you? What makes cooking fun for you?