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
Joe talks about inheritances. I want to leave JB *something* but that’s more along the lines of a solid foundation with less debt than the average kid, self respect and skills to make zir way in the world, without being overly burdened by caring for us. And in the end, I know I’m just hoping my hardest that ze will turn out to be a good person.
Yet Another PF Blog asked some great questions recently: Bloggers: Are you transparent about your economic class on your blog? Is your content geared toward readers in your same demographic / level of PF knowledge? How much do you work to make your content accessible? Readers: What level of transparency do you want from your personal finance bloggers? What kind of content do you want to see? Do you feel like the community as it is now has sufficiently targeted your interests and questions?
This week was supposed to be about experimenting with recipes and getting comfortable with the new diet but it turned into a week of survival because the Flu going around tackled me to the ground and sat on me, taunting me.
Rude.
As someone noted, I probably underestimated how long this diet trial has to last – I may not document beyond the six weeks, though, if there’s not much interest.
Day 1.
Breakfast: Bowl of two cereals – GF “honey nut O’s” and the weird maple ladder cereal. Yes to the Os again and no to the ladder cereal again.
Snacked on bars and a couple slices of dressed cucumber – cross contamination? Felt tingly and weird after. But that might have been sleep deprivation.
Lunch: Grilled cheese and apple slices
Dinner: Grilled shrimp and cheesy buttery sliced grits
Pain/Discomfort: Less pain than yesterday’s weird night but my lower back is a mess.
Side income! I happened across a side job that would fit easily into my normal schedule without having to commit to a set number of hours. That’s perfect for my incredibly limited free time! And very important for my peace of mind because we’ve got a slew of expenses coming down the pipeline.
Stacey Abrams’ debt shouldn’t disqualify her for running for governor. Point one: the life she describes – supporting her parents who took in her young niece, student loans, etc – is a hugely familiar story to me. It’s repeated over and over in my family and doesn’t mean that the person in debt is bad or makes bad decisions. It means that they feel responsibility well beyond what the average American feels to their community and they do their best to step up. Ignoring the fact that many others in our country are burdened by similar kinds of debt is shameful and stupid. Point two: people tend to assume that being in difficult financial straits will push you toward corruption. I point you to our President and countless politicians who don’t have debt and are happily lining their pockets with lobbyist money. At least her debt comes from trying to do the right thing.
Just act like a cat
Raccoon 1: “Here’s the plan, you go in the house, act like a cat and they’ll give you food?
At this point, the gluten should be all out of my system except for that one oops of the hash brown I ate with an egg, thinking that it was fried potatoes! Potatoes are GF, right?
Not these. Drat. There’s likely still some residual contamination in this week.
I THINK my exhaustion is less intense and my pain spells are maybe a little shorter. It’s still hard to be sure whether it’s related yet because I normally have irregular cycles of pain and fatigue. I do feel like there have been some minor differences in how I feel.
Day 1.
Breakfast: I defrosted a huge batch of homemade muffins for PiC and JB to eat feast on. For myself, a slice of GF bread with peanut butter does the trick, and I have half a glass of milk.
Lunch was an experiment with the millet and rice ramen that PiC found. I made up a broth with a base that I use for chicken soup, gently simmered onions, salt, a dash of onion powder, a dash of garlic powder, sliced roast pork. The ramen noodles looked really strange but they were not bad! The broth was awful, though. Next time, I’ll just boil the noodles, fish them out, and dash some sesame oil and sesame seeds on top with the pork slices.
Dinner: Leftover pork roast, coconut rice, sauteed spinach. Simple, filling, and easy! Also this reduces the cost per meal even more.
Pain/Discomfort: Medium – several joints are out of whack but I can still walk so yay for that.
This flu season is particularly terrible with a death toll. We’d all gotten our flu shots early but we also stayed away from humanity as much as possible. It didn’t save us from the common cold, of course, one of the lesser scourges of having a preschooler attending a daycare where only fevers and vomiting are stay home worthy. Generally it’s ok, we’ve gotten through the worst of it in year one but I’m still pretty cautious and don’t share food and drink with JB if ze is dribbling fluids. We’re really lucky that ze has been relatively robust, certainly more so than I am, and recovers well or has been only lightly touched by most germs but even still, those nights when ze can’t stop coughing rend my heart. Ze is having one such night so I’m sitting up cuddling a bundle of mostly sleeping three year old so that, even if the propping up doesn’t help zir breathing and coughing, ze knows I’m here and loving on zir. It’s almost more for me than zir. I miss my mom fiercely, never more so than when I’m sick or hurting to the point of vomiting, and long to lay my head on her lap. I understand now why she was sad that I didn’t do so as a young adult, when I was busy trying to carry a burden twice my size. At the time, I didn’t think I could afford to need my mom. I had to be strong every minute lest a crack in my shields break them wide open. All the more my loss. I could have gotten and given comfort that I’ll never have again. Now, with my own child, I know to hold on tight on these late nights when maybe all the comfort I can give is being a human pillow. That’s fine. As long as ze still wants me, I’m here to be zir pillow. (more…)
The focus on Vicki Robin as one of the most core referenced people (instead of FIRE bloggers who are newer to the scene and the lifestyle).
QUOTE: Missing is any acknowledgment of the privilege embedded in the ability to save 50% or 75% of your income to begin with. The FIRE movement, to a large extent, remains a culture of “very entitled white men who are very proud of themselves when it wasn’t much of a stretch for them anyway,” says Emma Pattee, 27, a writer based in Portland, Ore., who retired last year at 26 after making successful real estate investments. Many FIRE followers, she says, are already high earners who “disdain all the Midwest minions who can’t get out in front of their truck loan.”
QUOTE: Tanja Hester, a FIRE follower who leans toward the frugal strain of the movement and retired late last year at age 38 from her career as a consultant for political and social causes, realizes she’s in a privileged position. “I feel like one of the luckiest people to ever live, and if I can’t use some of it to help others, it will feel like a waste,” she says. She and her husband, who live in the North Lake Tahoe area of California, volunteer at the local humane society and plan to start teaching financial basics in their community.”
QUOTE: For her part, Robin gives back by investing in local businesses. Aside from using royalties to pay for cancer treatments in the mid-2000s, she says she’s given away a significant portion of the money she’s made over the years from her bestseller. And she still thinks our society places too much stock in paid work.
PRINCE!
Nothing Compares 2 U: Previously unseen rehearsal footage of Prince & The Revolution from the summer of 1984.
Week 4
On Money
Week 3
Viral