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
November 2, 2015
Change from Jan 2015: 19% increase
3% decrease from last month
ON MONEY
I use Swagbucks. Here’s a handy tutorial if you’d like to join and earn.
I kicked some financial-planning tuchus this month!
I rearranged our banking to accommodate new regular expenses, got our estate planning lawyer lined up and retainer fee-d, sorted out the paperwork for Phase 2 in LB’s childcare arrangements, had the life insurance nurse visit for the necessary lab work. HUGE.
Expenses
Three huge checks: One for our estate planning, one for LB’s care. I was expecting those, but they still felt like an elbow to the solar plexus. Then a big whack at our mortgage. That was satisfying.
* (more…)
October 30, 2015
2000: I was a kid making minimum wage.
I had a high school diploma.
I dreamed about buying a house for my parents, and a house for myself. I dreamed about a career, and happiness, and dogs, and success.
2005: I was a 20-something making an entry-level salary.
I had a college degree and a toehold into my industry.
I dreamed about buying a house for my parents, and a house for myself. I dreamed about being able to afford insurance for Mom, and paying for my Masters / PhD in cash. I dreamed about the day I’d pay off the last of the debt.
Confession: There was some grumbling that my parents should have been more strict and some regretting of my life choices. “Do what you love,” they said. “You should pursue a degree in something you enjoy,” they said. Sure I was glad they weren’t the typical, high-pressure “You’re nothing if you’re not a doctor” immigrant parents but couldn’t they just once have said, “you can do what you love but what you love may not love you back”? I would have taken the hint!
I guess not. We didn’t talk about love.
So instead, after obtaining my hard won degree, I was toiling away, making not-engineering money. (Engineering runs in the family but the bug skipped me.)
2010: I was a 20-something making more than $50K/year.
I had a college degree and enough years of experience in my career field to make it to management. I had been audited by the IRS twice because apparently it’s weird for someone in their 20s to claim both their parents and a sibling as dependents. But it’s all legit. They didn’t hassle me after I submitted all the proper documentation.
I dreamed about buying a house for my parents, and a house for myself. I dreamed about being able to afford full health insurance for Mom, and being able to afford any comfort she could ever want.
2015: I’m in my 30s making more than $50K/year.
I have a degree, years of experience, and the respect of the right people so that for the first time, I made a career transition to a job created for me based on my strengths and potential to grow. Combining incomes with PiC gave our net worths a huge boost, and for once, I could comfortably pay for my own existence as well as my family’s. Comfortably is not the same as easily. Every penny has to be accounted for at the end of the year and I’d like to see 10% more going into savings. It won’t happen while more than $10K/year goes home, though. We’ve had reality-bending and I can’t shake the feeling that my happiness is built on the shambles of my old life.
I’m dreaming about an even more independent career, making real money. I’m dreaming about how to grow our first million, and how that becomes the next few millions. I’m dreaming about how those millions will lay the foundation of a Foundation, to help those in need. I know money isn’t always the answer but sometimes it is. I’m dreaming about how to ease Dad’s later years, but I don’t know how to do that without being dragged down the Brother’s Keeper Lane. Taking care of family is just not the same. Not now that we have a small child. I’m dreaming of building a school that functions how schools should: providing education, safety, and opportunity. A school that pushes every student to excel, not just the chosen few, not just the favored. A monument to education that embraces change and experimentation and doesn’t bow to the almighty standardized testing. I’m dreaming of helping kids stuck in the foster system, that broken system, a system that forces kids to scramble to survive and makes an enemy of those who should be there to help. We live in a culture that will idolize a guy who can hit a ball but social workers who actually help kids are overworked, underpaid, and afforded no respect. Everywhere around me, I see broken systems and something has to change.
::Have your goals and dreams evolved very much over the past several years? What do you want to see change? What do you want to change yourself?
October 27, 2015
It’s here!
I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone to do this interview with Jessica, and it’s now here, live!
Jessica’s made it really easy for you to listen:
I’d love to hear what you think.
October 26, 2015
Popular frugal finance says: Want early retirement? Live on less.
But I don’t want to! Been there, done that, still wearing the crappy free t-shirts because holes aren’t a good reason to throw them out. Obviously we CAN live on less, and boy have I, but given the choice, and I’m giving myself the choice, I choose to spend mindfully and selectively so we can spend on good quality or pay for expensive stuff when we have to. Besides, while I know frugality-focused Early Retirement folks enjoy their wage-working-free days, my desire to retire early has a lot more to do with freeing up time and energy to do things I care about like animal rescue, helping foster kids, addressing poverty, etc. That takes money.
Why not do both?
In an alternate universe, I could, so I would! But here in this somewhat crappy version, I simply can’t and I will not sacrifice health for wealth again when it’s not for survival.
Nope. I’m a forever fan of the multi-faceted approach.
Reducing our spendable cash flow: we were saving 25% of our salaries, net. That’s untouchable unless it’s paying down debt or keeping us afloat during job loss. We’re saving another 15% to account for LB’s expenses. Until / unless it’s spent on LB, it’s also untouchable outside of catastrophe or debt paydown.
The one-income life: replacing one of our incomes and benefits, or learning to live without one of our incomes for a while, isn’t going to happen through a side gig right away, but it’s a goal. I’m starting the income replacement with our investments.
Cutting our expenses ruthlessly: I negotiate our internet bill regularly, we don’t have a phone bill, we use the heck out of our cell phones and have the lowest plans appropriate to our usage. I’ve tried to refinance the mortgage several times, to no avail, but no fear! There are other ways to kill that mortgage.
With thanks to Nicole and Maggie for pointing me in the direction of a useful amortization spreadsheet, I’ve worked the numbers:
I love the potential for savings here. It’s time for a good hard look to see how much we could comfortably throw from savings in a big ole prepayment when each dollar is worth two in this scenario! There’s a serious temptation to throw all the cash at it but I’ll refrain from overzealous stupidity, I won’t deplete our savings cushion even if it feels like our jobs are relatively secure for now.
Update: Had a chat with PiC, we’ve decided that we can pull together cash from enough sources to make a big prepayment this month so we’re going all in. It’ll be worth almost twice the value in interest we don’t pay over the life of the loan so I’m over the moon about that. And you’d better believe I’m looking at ways to relieve my cash spending so I can throw more cash at it next year.
October 23, 2015
I recently removed Jack and the Beanstalk, the pop-up version that we have, from the bookshelf. It’s now a chew toy for LB because what a terrible story! What are we teaching our kids??
Let’s see:
Dependence: Jack doesn’t do exactly as he’s told, exercising his judgment, and his mom throws the beans out instead of hearing him out.
Sneakery: When the beans grow and he goes exploring, he breaks into the giant’s home. Excuse me, just because you’re in a strange place doesn’t make breaking and entering OK!
Thievery: Then he decides to steal a goose that lays golden eggs. Child…
Destruction and Murder: Having nearly escaped with his ill gotten gains, he decides to deal with the righteous pursuing giant by cutting down the stalk and killing the giant!
They live happily ever after with the golden goose.
No, no, and no! These are not virtues that deserve to be rewarded with wealth!
Then again, I guess that would be a useful analogy to explaining much of Wall Street, wouldn’t it? Maybe I should rescue that book.
***
We’re big fans of If you give a mouse a cookie, not least because I am that mouse, so we were excited to pick up the other books in that series. I was excited there were other books in the series. Then we read them. And we read them again. And it occurred to us there was something not quite right about them.
I started to think that these particular stories are just cautionary tales about the kinds of friends who you don’t want to have. One day I heard PiC mutter: Did the author just have a bunch of freeloading friends that she was writing about, disguised as these animals?! GET YOUR OWN MUFFIN MIX, MOOSE!
Apparently if you give a moose a muffin, the great honkin jerk eats all your muffins! Then he wants more, but instead of offering to get them, you have to go to the store?? But he wants to come along, for kicks, I guess, so he has to borrow a sweater. And then proceeds to make a huge mess in the house that he barely helps to clean up.
The whole book sounds like that kid is being used and pushed around. At least when the mouse is getting a cookie, he’s asking for things that make sense and aren’t entirely gimme gimme gimme. You want to sweep up? Ok. Wash the floors? Have at it. He wants to draw a picture? Sure! Of course he needs Scotch tape to put it up, why not?
But that Moose, man. He eats all your food, then he makes a mess of the house, and then he asks for more muffins. But GUESS WHAT. You never went to the store did you, Moose? Because you were too busy freeloading!
And that pig…. Never mind, we’d be here forever. (But the number of pictures that pig takes, and the stamps she uses! Are you kidding me? Polaroids are expensive!)
***
We hope that LB learns that if your friends expect you to do All The Work, and provide All The Things, that’s an uneven relationship and they’re probably not the best friends to have. And saying No is not a bad thing.
Also, don’t give a moose any food ever. Have you seen those things? (Although really, I would just have pulled over and waited that moose out. From her perspective, you’re stalking them!)
October 21, 2015
For subscribers, a version of this went up when I thought I was ready, but the writing itself wasn’t ready yet. Apologies for the confusion!
Once upon a time, I could only work lying abed. Propped up on a nest of pillows so that typing would require the least amount of effort, staying upright drained me so completely, I’d just rinse and repeat the next day. After several months, I graduated to working from the sofa sometimes. Last year, I made it to my desk.
It doesn’t mean that I’ve been without pain. Whoa, no. It’s just there are many levels of terrible and when you’ve gotten used to your particular circle of hell, lo, there is another lower one. I’ve been lucky enough to stay just out of that bottommost canto until our beloved Angry Inchworm came on the scene.
Pregnancy didn’t significantly increase my usual familiar pain but incubating a tiny human-to-be was hard on the system. I did not like the weird and uncomfortable but it was after delivery that I found myself in trouble for a second time.
It wasn’t postpartum depression. I very much wanted to take care of our newborn, dredged up every iota of energy I could to do so, and was grateful for each day that I could do what was needed. But I also wanted to feel the affection I knew I had. I wasn’t crying or irritable, nor was I having mood swings. My can-do and love for hir was just buried by the fatigue, pain, and unadulterated fear that it might not get better. Most symptoms, in my experience, don’t.
I started an antidepressant this spring. It was prescribed specifically for pain control but the on-label use is for depression. This is, I learned, not unusual. Chronic pain travels the same brain pathways that depression does so chronic pain sufferers are more prone to depression. But you know what? Even if we were biologically inclined to have it (thanks, bodies, no, really), you know what’s depressing?
Being in pain 24 hours, every day, for the rest of your life.
Know what’s not depressing? Less pain.
The trouble was that this wasn’t my first go-around with this medication. The first time was three years ago, and I’ve never spoken of it.
In my family, depression is either not spoken of, or it’s casually referred to like the common cold. A thing that comes and goes and there’s nothing you can do about it. I knew my cousin had a bout with it only because it was offhandedly mentioned that she’d lost an entire summer, curled up on the couch, when she was normally very productive. It’s not taken seriously lest it become a serious thing. And if it does become serious in their accepted range of “serious ailments”, it still isn’t directly addressed. There’s a reasoning that makes no sense at all and guarantees you won’t get help.
It’s true for many people that depression sits on their shoulder, a cruel imp whispering nastiness, sowing doubt and self loathing. Many people start to believe the things depression says, that they’re not good enough, awful and deeply negative things. And for many people, after years of this, cannot fight any longer.
That wasn’t my experience.
My fight had been of another variety, purely for survival, and it lasted years. There was no time to think or feel, just do. In some ways, that saved me from emotional turmoil, but only for a while. I was primed, starting this antidepressant, I just didn’t know it. I was taking it, then, as now, for purely physical pain. That, it did help. It helped me function, in a detached, vacant way. I didn’t precisely have energy but I was no longer feeling completely hollow. I could go to work, get home and do some housework, rise from bed in the morning and fall back into it night after night. Not much of an existence but at least my body was in motion and it would probably stay that way.
The trigger was some trivial non argument with PiC. We disagreed about some nominal thing, something so inconsequential that even though it triggered the worst experience of my life, I don’t remember what it was. My brain, ripe for the shift, turned over.
I didn’t just start wondering or believing that I wasn’t good enough or that I wasn’t deserving. I knew.
I knew that I was a failure. If not, Mom would be alive and well.
I knew that I wasn’t strong enough. If I were, I’d not need help to function on a daily basis. Anyone could live my life and make more of it than I had.
I knew that I couldn’t fix the mess that I’d made of my life because if I could, I would have.
I was absolutely certain there was no point in trying anymore. I was a failure, I didn’t know how to fix everything, and therefore, though perhaps Doggle would miss me eventually, there wasn’t any reason for me to stick around.
Probably the most terrifying part of all was how quickly I went from having a Really Bad Night to feeling like I was ready for it all to be over. I didn’t tell anyone. I wasn’t looking for help, I wasn’t afraid of the consequences. I wasn’t in the least bit interested in alternative solutions. I was tired, and I wanted to be done.
Wanting to quit, permanently, should have been a huge blinking sign that something was fundamentally wrong. Of all the things that should have triggered a fear or any response at all, that should have been it. But it didn’t feel wrong. It felt like that “Depression Lies” or that “it’s always better to choose life”, the lack of choice, was wrong. I even knew that it was possible that this state of mind was directly linked to the medication, the label states a side effect could be suicidal thoughts, a dear friend told me that it can take time to find the right medication that won’t be worse than the pain, but it simply didn’t matter.
Unlike many more common descriptions of depression that I’ve read, my reaction was to become even more “rational”: in a simple calculation of worth, I was worth more dead than alive. Therefore, it made sense to stop being alive. I became even more productive than usual, sorting my affairs so that I wouldn’t leave a huge mess behind for anyone else. Coldly functional. Robotic. Unresponsive to any emotion, and unemotional myself. Except at night. Every night, after a long day of preparations and planning, I’d huddle in the bathroom corner, hot tears running down my face as I apologized to the air. To Mom, mostly. For failing her. For failing us. For failing at life. Asking for her forgiveness for things I should have done better and failed to.
Hindsight is powerful, though somewhat useless. And sometimes it’s just downright damaging. This was one of those times.
For two long months, I was a mess internally, and there was nothing anybody could have done, because I wasn’t telling anyone or asking for help.
Then one day, weeks after I stopped taking the medication and went back to being about a thousand pounds per square inch, the fog seemed to lift. The hatred, the self loathing, the despair, it was still there but it was a little lighter. Just an ounce less. Just a little bit easier to bear. Just a little bit more possible to live with.
The next day, again, it was a little bit lighter. And the next day, still a little lighter.
There was no great revelation, I wasn’t glad I didn’t follow through. I just felt like the deafening bellows of my psyche quieted down, but that it was still echoing in the back of my consciousness, and there were days I was just standing on the edge of the cliff. Months after the depression passed, there was still a weight on my chest. I couldn’t even talk about it, lest that push me over the edge. It hadn’t passed, so much as retreated to loom over my shoulder.
20 months later, I still felt that pressure and could only discuss it vaguely to a very good friend who had had experience with it. Until one day, a dear friend was helping her roommate get past a suicide attempt and said, “I don’t know how to help, because I don’t understand it.” That was the first time the words “I was suicidally depressed” came out of my mouth, and the first time PiC heard them. Hiding my pain from my family had become such an ingrained habit that it never occurred to me that he should help me through it.
***
I don’t have any grand revelations. May never, really. It’s a mystery how an entire world and sense of self can be upended, shaken and strained, then laid back down again. There’s no guarantee that next time, if there is one, when there is one?, that it will be ok.
For the first time in a very long time, though, I realize that even though I still can’t explain the experience, now that we have LB and have found peace with each other, I find myself knowing that no matter how hard it gets, as long as we have hir and each other, I want to live. I never want to deliberately cause hir the pain of having to bury hir mother as I did mine. Or of never knowing me, or never having my love, or protection. But it’s not just the negative. I also want to be here. I want to see the day to day, to be there on the special days, to watch hir grow, proudly and with wonder, hand in hand with PiC. To share that love and those memories with cherished friends, and cherished family, and to build a good life.
Life was crushing, for a long time, but we came through it. We probably can again.
And for now, that’s enough.
October 19, 2015
Daily #1GoodMoneyThing had a great run but, as expected, life got hectic so it’s good that I planned to ramp down to more of a weekly thing. Nothing like setting expectations accurately! Still, I got an awful lot done for not trying to do it daily.
Check, check, check:
Updated all my rental property income and expense transactions from the summer.
Submitted FSA claims.
Adapted a TMobile micro sim to match the ATT micro sim size.
Renewed our @MontereyAq membership for another year. Tax deductible and lowers the cost of entry each time we go!
Found an Amex offer for $15 off Chewy.com purchases. Check your card benefits!
Counting pills: Seamus is on a long term medication so I order refills in 6 month increments, 360 pills at a time. His annual bloodwork shows that he needs to be on a lower dose by 25%. 1-800-PetMeds is willing to exchange it for the lower dose but they want to know how many he has left. Damn, I just broke into the new bottle a couple weeks ago. Should have done his bloodwork in August. Better mark the calendar to check it in a year, before his next refill.
Travel budget strategizing: Paying for our upcoming travel in miles and points is a particular point of pride. I’m working furiously on the miles strategy that will put us in great seats on a good summer flight.
Home maintenance: where an ounce of prevention beats paying a plumber and then being traumatized by a stranger’s plumber’s crack.
I scrubbed the guck out of our tub drain, clearing up the build up out to let the water run free again. There was only one strand of hair in the much, incidentally, so I’ve been doing a great job keeping hair from clogging it.
Home maintenance: our dryer doesn’t like to stop when it’s supposed to. It could be the sensor, since the timer zeroes out at the end of the timed cycle, but it just doesn’t stop. I’m assuming the sensor is the thing that tells it to actually stop. More research needed!
Money maintenance: My last Citibank CD with a high interest rate (ha “high”) matured and that money is now being held for our investing portfolio. This drops my minimum account balance. Previously I had the Citibank Account package with a minimum balance of $10K across combined accounts. Since I don’t want to be charged a monthly fee, I’m converting it to the Basic Account package which has a minimum balance of $1500 across all accounts. That only took a solid hour on customer service chat, but better than an hour on the phone, I suppose.
Lots of good thoughts from y’all here