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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February 3, 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 future 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 because I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA.
I aim to make the most of what we can do while we can.
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Accounting and tracking. It felt great to switch all my spreadsheet tabs to fresh tabs for 2020. I have one for our net worth tracking and transactions history, one for our dividend investing, and another one for our index fund investing.
Smaller paychecks. I forget that the first part of the year always means smaller paychecks because we work on to maxing out PiC’s 401K as soon as we can. This is not helpful.
Dividend income. We received $165 in dividends in January.
Ko-Fi! A friend encouraged me to set this up so readers can support the blog. I was skeptical but then tickled to receive a lovely note and coffee from a long-time reader this month. Thank you! <3
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January 31, 2020
If you’d like to join us 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. To combat my restlessness, born of brain fog and moderate pain, I tried to get a lot of money things done. It makes me feel a little better on tough days. A stock purchase I’d set a limit order for finally went through, woo! Then I transferred some cash to our brokerage to prepare for our February index funds purchase, setting the stage for a good feeling in a couple of weeks.
2. I compared our 2019 withholding against our 2018 tax bill. We had a $5000+ bill in 2019 thanks to the tax changes so we increased our withholdings to try to close that gap for this year’s filing. If 2019’s tax bill is the same as or close to last year’s tax bill, we should be ok. I won’t lie – there’s a part of me that would appreciate a refund. That feeling of a windfall, even a fake one, isn’t one to scoff at. It’s certainly better than the sinking feeling of having a four figure bill.
3. I’d made an error in how I was thinking about our mortgage – until we refinance or make greater payments to principal, I can’t actually expect the timeline to be shortened. It’s still a 30 year loan on the current monthly payments, we only reduced the interest we’d pay over the same lifetime. Whoops. Brain fog really sucks but it’s sometimes when I’m most likely to notice I’m missing something and catch my mistakes. And getting my head accurately around our future numbers is important. I greatly appreciate having money-savvy friends to bounce around these numbers with.
4. The Little Bra Company was doing a Lunar New Year sale on Friday and I stepped out of my comfort zone to buy a $50 grab bag of 3 bras. Their picks. Never done that before. Having done the math, even if I only like one of them, I’d still be coming out ahead because a normal priced bra from them in my size starts around $54. As usual my size never shows up on the discounter sites, I’ve looked. My last new bra was purchased 6 years ago so I think it’s ok to add a few new ones now. Here’s hoping I like more than one of them!
The bad stuff I can’t ignore: Too many loved ones are going through tough times right now and I’m serving as emotional support as best I can. One is fighting through a contentious divorce from a covertly abusive spouse who has the support of their church and the spouse only cares about “winning” at all costs, regardless of the well being of their children, but dresses it up as caring about the kids. I’ve been writing up documentation for them of the abuse over the years and that is taking a special unexpected toll on me – I didn’t live that abuse, why is it hitting me so hard? Another friend is getting caught in the sandwich with an elderly parent who is a shopaholic, a bad communicator, doesn’t have the funds to live on their own and is super demanding while juggling their own kids. Another friend has recently lost their beloved pet. DEEP. BREATHS.
5. I think we’ve received half our tax forms. I will be so happy to be done with the slog of filing taxes.
6. PiC and I are totally imperfect and have our own issues of course but we are grateful that we prioritize each other and care about each other.
7. Did you know that Leverage is on Amazon Prime right now? That show is great.
8. I might have found a good first dogwalker for Sera to give her extra exercise and training support! We did a first trial this week and the first outing sounds like they did great together and the walker did a great job with proactively checking in with us whenever she had issues with the schedule, and giving us a detailed summary afterwards. I am hopeful.
:: How was your week? Have you started organizing your taxes? What’s your favorite comfort show to watch on Prime or Netflix?
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 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: $443.24 for both initiatives.
Pronouns
For years, autocorrect has been the bane of my writing about JB. It constantly turns “zir” and “ze” into “she” or “her”. It finally dawned on me that I use the singular “they” all the time in conversation, why not here? DUH. JB is now they, for blogging purposes.
Pop culture exposure
I found out recently that the daycare doesn’t allow their staff to read or share Disney stuff.
I noticed something like that in the past but I mainly thought it was a more of a ban on superhero stuff so that the kids wouldn’t act out hero/villain dramatic play. (They do anyway, of course.) And I’m positive I’ve seen the staff taking small breaks and letting the kids watch Disney music videos or clips every so often.
Anyway, I think it’s good to have ONE space in their lives that isn’t overrun by Disney marketing. It’s not like it’s a totally Disney-free zone, the kids are allowed to bring their own clothes and toys and books that are Disney, and they do. It’s just that the teachers have to bring in all other learning tools and toys that aren’t Disney, so there’s a better balance.
We’re also making an effort to expose JB to other art and shows and intellectual properties. Some are nostalgic, the new She-Ra and My Little Ponies because I have fond memories of them and the new versions are pretty fun. Some feel more cultural, Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro and Ponyo were lovely gentle good for kids movies and I’m discovering SG movies I haven’t yet enjoyed. I’ve always meant to watch Kiki’s Delivery Service, and now I will share that with JB. (Note: turns out it was too early, they weren’t ready.) (more…)
January 24, 2020
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Current total: $313.24
1. After my seventh day of too much pain, and six nights of not sleeping because of the too much pain, I got more than 6 hours of sleep!! Hallelujah! Breaking that vicious cycle is really tough.
2. I truly dislike Fidelity’s contributions interface. It did a weird thing with our IRA contribution last year and then again this year, and I had to chat with them twice to straighten it out because the first CSR was dismissive and also wrong with his advice. BUT it’s done now!
3. I asked Jay a question that I realized applies to me too: What gives me the same rush as spending money? For me, spending money doesn’t make me happy, but buying things makes me think things are getting done. I’m the Family Quartermaster, buying supplies is half my job around here: dog treats, dog food, canned veggies for the dogs, medications for Seamus, groceries, stuff for the house, the list feels endless. But that tricks my brain into thinking that buying things = productivity. So what else gives me the “rush” of productivity that isn’t buying frivolously?
Today’s answer: I think I have to create things to feed that appetite.
Brief interruption to say: Whew. So many bad things happening this week. Family is going through some really rough stuff and I’m doing everything I can to help. It requires research and consulting with people who know better than me and more work. The rental is a whole $$$$ THING, so much work, thankfully I have someone to consult with for that as well. I’m doing all this work to get our taxes in order. JB is due to start kindergarten this year and we’re getting all the information needed for that and I can’t pretend that I’m not freaking out about that a bit. My checking account looks like it’s going to be running about $2000 short and that’s coming out of savings. ARGH.
4. Sera did well with major distractions on a few of her walks: a kid running up to pet her, a small dog running by (running dogs seem to freak her out for some reason).
5. I resolved to get a dog walker to help with Sera’s continued training and to relieve PiC’s tasks up to a few times a week.
6. Thanks to a supporter who wanted to do monthly donations, I figured out how to set up a donate button! This was intended mostly for our Giving but hey if someone wants to support my labor of love that is this blog, I have no objections.
7. I created! I made a thing! I’m so proud of this one. It’s particularly good for the Very Organized Gift Giver, or the aspiring organized gift giver. The look inside feature should be live (not on mobile, alas) so you can see the cool pages I designed. Whee!
8. Achievement stopped syncing with Google Health a year ago and I’ve wasted a whole year of walking by not getting my act together and getting a new app to track my step. FINALLY found an app to use and created an account and synced it. That shouldn’t have taken me a year. But it’s done.
:: How was your week?
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
https://twitter.com/Rocioceja_/status/1210988574264320001?s=19
January 20, 2020
2020: If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families this year, please read this post. We have $25 in contributions so far!
Frustration upon frustration.
At first, I thought that my PM was overreacting to the tenant’s first late payment in four years, but we set up a plan in case that was the start of a pattern.
Unfortunately, it was. The tenants were mother and son but the mother was the person paying rent and that first late rent occurred as soon as mother was moved out for health issues. The rent has been late every month ever since.
Not only that, the late payments continued accompanied by repeated (totally preventable) HOA violations that cost $100 a pop and a lot of time to fight back to save that money. Sometimes the time spent was wasted anyway because they wouldn’t remove the fines.
I only do a little better than break even on monthly costs so a tenant that doesn’t pay on time, racks up very avoidable fees that we have to take time to fight, and takes up precious extra time meant that I could no longer afford to charge below market rent.
If he’d actually talked to us honestly about issues with his income, if he’d cleaned up after himself and didn’t rack up extra fees every month ($100-400 a month!), we would have continued to work with him. (more…)