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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November 20, 2017
Mimicking my favorite tax blogger Kay Bell’s “Moves to make” posts, I’m making some moves before the end of the year to maximize our tax efficiency, minimize our expenses, and ensure we’re saving / investing as much as we can for retirement.
Step One – examining Vanguard accounts!
My Rollover IRA has held my retirement contributions since 2007, and my personal rate of return over that time has been 10.4%, but the fund selections are really outdated.
Over the past decade, as my contributions grew, I’ve shifted from holding Investor Shares to Admiral Shares which have a much lower expense ratio but that was only true for two of my five funds:
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November 16, 2017
Does Disney pay its fair share to the City of Anaheim?
A Japanese company called Family Romance hires out actors to play all kinds of roles and I had to wonder if this was real?? For the most part it seems harmless but some examples are horrifying. He’s playing a fake parent to a girl who has no idea he’s not her actual father. I’m reeling from revelations about my actual father and am imagining how incensed I would be to have been deceived at this level growing up. And I don’t understand renting an infant to present a grandchild to your parent. Isn’t the jig going to be up when you walk in still fully pregnant?? The fourth trimester doesn’t leave you THAT bloated.
Working mothers and their daughters talk: Ting added a bit of humor: “One of her main ambitions in life is to get paid more than my dad. It’s kind of mean, but what she was saying is that she wants to be respected as much as everyone else.” (that’s me!)
Doesn’t anyone feel like a cartoon villain when they talk like this?: “You’re all going to lose your heads over this!”
What’s your splurge? Donna asks. I haven’t splurged exactly, we’ve just been buying necessities. Oh, food. I bought Brie last month and it’s heavenly. We had to buy a bed and mattress for our guest room – we already have about 14 days of guests planned for the next three months. Possibly more.
November 15, 2017
I’m not normally a big fan of BF. I’ve not been out in the early hours of the morning since I last humored my woollyheaded friends who really really wanted to go to Best Buy and the mall over ten years back – I went along to keep the boys company and hang out.
These days I only shop online but I hear tell that this year, online sales will outpace sales at physical brick and mortar locations so with some good luck, the sales get better accordingly. I’m sharing my list here
- iPhone charging cable, preferably 6 ft. My Amazon Basics cord has been abused terribly and is about to snap in two. Can’t decide if this is due to user error or poor materials but I’m willing to take the blame.
- iPhone for PiC with as much memory as can be crammed into a hand computer. His hand me down phone is dying a slow and painful death. Mostly painful for me, the Home IT person on call.
- 8 TB external hard drive. I missed that Amazon sale during FinCon where it was running about $130 but I also didn’t have a chance to do some research on which one is compatible with both PCs and Macs since we use both.
- Fireproof safe.
- Portable generator. I’ve got my eye on one that’s about $1000, I suspect they won’t be having a sale on them but it’s worth checking just in case. If no sale, we’ll keep on waiting because I’m working on cash flow recovery.
- Husky Universal SAE and Metric Mechanics Tool Set, 60-Piece set
- (Only a want) Purely if there’s another $25 sale or the like: a new Kindle. Mine has been dead for over a year now.
- Edit to add: blank address labels! I print our own address labels to spare my hands and save on costs. Maybe Staples?
:: Are you watching the sales for anything particular? Have you seen any great deals on any of this stuff?
November 13, 2017
I thought I was rocked back on my heels before.
I had a painful and necessary conversation with a friend last weekend. It was about feelings, which I mostly hate, money, which I love, and family, which I am 100% conflicted about. The conversation itself was tough but what followed was far worse than anything anticipated.
I supported my parents more than half my life because I genuinely believed my parents loved me and I wanted to help them. Turns out, Mom loved me, but Dad? He skated on the strength of her love and sacrifice which was so strong he could mimic both just from the reflected glow.
My theory is that, for Dad, love only mattered so long as my path mirrored his. When I was a dependent child, and when I was an adult covering his expenses, my interests were aligned with his. Mostly. He was never willing to put aside his own pride, and sense of self entitlement, for my sake, though. He may love me but much less than his perceived needs.
In hindsight, it feels like I should have seen the signs earlier. (more…)
November 8, 2017
We walked past some two foot tall Santas at Michael’s the other heat, loaded down with our fifty cent Halloween sticker packs, and JuggerBaby pointed at them. “Is short, mama!”
That got me thinking.
Did you believe in Santa?
Our parents, as relatively recent immigrants, celebrated Christmas when we were young, complete with the gifts from a “Santa”. It’s not clear why, maybe it was fun enough to do at the time because kids are cute when they’re little. It’d track with Christmas not being celebrated anymore after I was about 9 or 10 – we were a whole lot less cute once we hit the double digits. Or it could be because that’s when my parents launched their small business and were so wiped out that we stopped spending time together as a family.
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November 6, 2017
On Money
Income
Our normal income comes from two full time day jobs.
We experiment with earning money on the side, including minimal cash flow that we don’t touch from an investment property and investing in dividend stocks.
Our side income comes from Swagbucks, selling clothes on Poshmark which is hit or miss, using cash back sites like Ebates, Mr.Rebates, and tracking activity through Achievement (my introduction to it).
The long term goal is to replace our day job income before my health declines enough to prevent me from working.
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November 1, 2017
Coming so closely after our massive renovations and moving, I was unconvinced I should fly off to Texas and leave PiC with a toddler for five days. I sure wouldn’t let him ditch me for five day, solo! 🙂 At least not without calling in reinforcements!
I didn’t leave him high and dry, though! I made them a crafts box to keep them busy: special crafts scissors, construction paper, glue sticks, play-doh, half price Halloween googly eyes foam stickers, a list of projects they could do. A meatloaf was baked and left in the freezer to make sure they could eat real food at least 2 of the week days since we all know it’s a huge pain to start dinner after you get home at 6:30 with a toddler also demanding that you play with zir. We scheduled zir favorite local person to come over for dinner one night, and a playdate with a favorite toddler friend for the weekend. Seamus wasn’t forgotten, of course. Our sitter was great, dropping by to take him out for the afternoon walks that I normally take care of, and we arranged a swap of walking favors instead of payment.
Thankfully, we all survived!
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