I feel kinda bad that I've been neglecting this blog for over a week. This time, though, the main issue is that there hasn't been that much to write, really. Work is work (aka stressful and tiring but doable), and I'm finally moving officially into my new position pay-wise starting this coming week. There's still room to grow there, but I know I'm well-suited to the work. I'll be making less than the average local Account Manager salary, but the fact of the matter is that if I become a really kick-ass Account Manager, I'll be able to get enough experience under my belt to become competitive in the field. And in the meantime, I have really decent benefits and vacation days. Plus this is a 3-day weekend, which is nice.
And hey, check out that crazy new background. I finished one of my $4 coloring book pages. It's not super professional, but I think it looks kinda cool.
There is some other good news on the horizon, in that husband has a decent job prospect. Nothing crazy, but it's full-time at a local independent toy store, which means he can get more pay + potential benefits + he might actually enjoy his job/life a bit more. He also doesn't have to wear a uniform, which he enjoys. And we are pretty confident about his chances, because he found out they were hiring on Thursday afternoon, immediately went to fill out an application, was told to call back Monday when the hiring manager was there, but then got a call Thursday night to interview on Friday afternoon (gotta love next-day interview offers). And though their hiring manager is still out, he interviewed with the owners, and loved them as well as the interview process - he told me about it and them, at length, with a grin on his face. Apparently, the interviewers are like an older, business-owner version of us. They invited him to call or come in on Monday to check back with them.
So, fingers crossed, he'll get a job upgrade in June, and I should be getting my first higher paycheck either June 15th or 30th - I should be getting $100 extra per paycheck before tax, so it'll definitely be something. And then we can finally beef up our savings account!
I did ask Reddit one thing recently, specifically about my car loan. Look for the post with AntiPixie, asking if I should work on my emergency savings or pay off my loan faster. The one reply I got advised me to put money into emergency savings first, since my interest rate is so low. While I want to be out of debt faster, I do agree with them. And once I can get to the point that we're able to save over $100/month, I'd like to transfer anything over $1000 into an online high-yield savings account. Specifically, I'd like to look into a dream account for the interest bonuses - it's got good reviews, so I'm really hoping it's something we can do soon.
Then once we are done with the emergency fund, transfer that to a regular high-yield savings account or a small CD ladder (whichever gives more interest), finish paying off our one debt, and then finally open a new dream account to start saving for a house downpayment. I still love the idea of paying "extra rent" every month towards a pretend mortgage so that we can be budgeted for a real one when the time comes.
I was also thinking about doing that transcription side gig, but Corey doesn't think it's such a good idea, with my day job being the way it is lately. I was so exhausted from the stress of this past week that I ended up sleeping most of Saturday. I need to focus more on where I'm putting my time, so that I can have more of it and waste less. For the past week or more, I've been basically working and then getting home and watching Korean dramas. While they're great, it's kind of a waste, and I do not have time to waste right now. I haven't been dieting at all (bread!!), so I need to press the re-set button on my dragon, and focus my time on getting healthy. If I do that, and make it into a habit, I'll actually be fit and energetic enough to do a side gig.
Oh, btw, sorry about never updating re:the sourdough starter. I kinda... gave up on it. Making from-scratch sourdough takes more patience and time than I have. On the other hand, working with commercial yeast has been a dream. I've made two batches so far, and I love love eating fresh-baked from scratch bread - and I actually just really like kneading dough! I gave a loaf to a coworker for her birthday. Here's a comparison of the sourdough attempt to the commercial yeast loaf:
You can see that the sourdough yeast did work - there's 2 whole bubbles! But it didn't work well. On the other hand, the commercial yeast packet bread was amazing, and my second attempt (not pictured) was even better and made more bread with an equal amount of yeast. And let me tell you, making french toast out of homemade bread = heaven. Another reason I haven't been feeding the dragon... gotta fix that. But kneading bread IS a workout, I can tell you that much!
Anyway, long story short, I'm doing better mentally, and now I have to do better physically. With my raise that's finally about here, plus Corey's potential new job, we can worry less about money and we might even start making a bit of progress soon. I'm looking forward to a nice healthy coloring page update to share with you wonderful people.
So the purpose of social media, it seems, is braggadocio - boasting about one thing or another. This is why I've taken myself away from Facebook apart from a small update post once per month. People brag about different things, of course. Most brag about success or relationships or how clever they are. I've been guilty of this myself, back before my Facebook diet, because it's just such an easy advertising platform. If you have friends, you have people who are at least mildly interested in you, which means that your words will be heard. Another form of bragging is, of course, the opposite - bragging about the cruelties of life and how awful things are. This is often displayed as very public mourning, another reason I've withdrawn from that shallow digital world. Advertising your pain just so that people will hit a Sad button on Facebook seems to me to be very unhealthy. Telling people that someone passed away, to inform them of a major event in your life? I understand that. Posting once a week about how much that event still effects you? Wouldn't it be more effective to actually talk to a person?
At the same time, it's so easy to do. You feel sad, hop on Facebook, and write a 2-sentence post about how much you miss your mother or how sucky life is when a coworker stabs you in the back, because you might get the instant gratification of knowing that someone saw what you said via a comment or a like. Having someone know and understand your pain can be soothing, but when it comes to social media, it is a temporary balm because you know in the back of your mind that by the time you see their response, they've already moved on and are probably watching a video of someone's kid petting a cat.
Now, I realize the blatant hypocrisy of this post. Yes, even this blog falls under that umbrella, both for boasting about successes and mourning my own losses. But here's the difference - I could post a sentence on Facebook, and it would be viewed for 1 second by the 200-some-odd people who would then keep scrolling for something more interesting, while I sit back and hope for someone to pay more than 1 second of attention to my joy or pain. Or I could post a full discussion of my pain and how I'm trying to overcome it by journaling, which is well known for its therapeutic properties. And instead of worrying about those 200-some-odd people seeing this and paying me a few seconds of attention, I'm posting this on a platform where I've had maybe one view per post. This is for me. If someone else reads it and can identify and feels less alone, then it's for them.
So... therapy-wise, it might be working. I'm just not doing as well as I'd hoped by now. Sometimes I'll be at work and read a message about something and just... deflate. I recently used some background check software that I have to get to know for work, to look myself up. Mom's name came up, and I clicked on it, and it noted that she would have been 65 today. Stupid idea on my part, to put myself in that position, but it happened. And later that day, a friend talked about hanging out with her friend's child, and it just deflated me even more.
It just feels like... not only am I not over this recent pain, but I'm not doing well enough to move forward. My diet's at a dead end, even moreso because I'm on my period. I've managed to save only $100 since I started this blog, and I've been lax enough with my spending that we're a little over budget for the month. Eating out too often, indulging in comfort food when I'm feeling sad, and then the fact that I'm not making progress keeps me feeling down. Vicious cycle. I know there'll be an upswing again at some point if I keep at it, though.
So here we go. I forgive myself. I forgive myself for spending too much of my minimal income. I forgive myself for overeating and losing track of my calorie counting. I forgive myself for being human, and for using any means necessary to stop being sad when sad things happen. And because I forgive myself, I can remake myself. I'm going to get up, take a shower, and spend time with a friend. I'm going to focus on healthy, positive things, and I'm going to be gentle with myself. I'm not going to be harsh or cast blame or say I'm a bad person.
Because I'm the only mother I have, and the only child I have. If I can love myself the way I would have loved my baby, if I can trust myself the way I trusted my late mother, then I'll be okay. And I'll do better. And I'll move on.
So this has nothing to do with money (unless you count breadmaking as a healthy/frugal activity). Mostly, I just thought this was neat... my sourdough starter is apparently badass. Maybe because I'm using flour that was sitting alone in a baggie for a while, I don't know. But I've already got some growth and some bubbles this morning after its feeding last night:
I mean seriously, it looks like the pictures from way later on in this post about how to make the starter. I'll have to move it to a bigger container tonight. I might be able to even make bread with it before the coming weekend. Kinda awesome. :)
Hey guys,
It's been a while, huh? I just wanted to ensure everyone that I am still alive and still remember this blog. I'm even still making some progress on my goals, though the weight loss has trickled out a little bit since Thursday. But it's only Sunday, and I have time to get back on track. Tomorrow I'll track Thursday through today as like 2400 calories as a guess-timate since I am still tracking my weight and it hasn't skyrocketed up.
I... got through Mother's Day okay. It's been rough since I lost my mother at 16, and I expected that it would be even more rough now that I lost my second pregnancy, but it was okay. Still. People who are single get to whine on Valentine's day. People who lost both their mother and their pregnancies should get to whine too, right? I'm just glad I "quit" Facebook so that I don't have to look at the 20 babies currently being shown off.
So hm. Happy updates. Well, the biggest one (weirdly enough) is that we switched phone services last weekend. Due to my compulsive morning financial blog habit, I've learned a thing or two about super-cheap wireless services, mostly from Mr. Money Mustache and his Republic Wireless reviews. But when I was doing my Republic Wireless research, I discovered Google Fi (apparently there was a review of Google Fi on his blog, but I wasn't aware of that until today). Corey and I researched the services, the phones, the little extras like making your phone a wireless hotspot, and decided that Google Fi was the competitor we wanted to go with, so we chose to embrace our new Google overlords and make the switch. Here's the fun part:
Current plan with Sprint: $188/month after taxes for both of us, unlimited data
Current plan with Google Fi: $89/month after taxes for both of us, 2gb data/month each*
Cost to purchase 2 new phones compatible with the plan, after tax: $422
Months to break even: 4.5
Monthly savings after that: $99/month +$1 for every 0.1 GB of data unused
*I checked my data usage with Sprint before we started, and the most I've used is 1-2 gb.
So in less than 5 months, we'll get an ROI of over $99/month, especially if we aren't spendy with data usage and stick to wifi as much as possible. Plus, Corey's phone was on its way out anyway - his power plug had stopped functioning, since we've only ever had 1 smartphone. So we get an upgrade. Plus instead of texting from my phone, since the plan uses Hangouts with SMS as a texting function, I can send and receive texts from my computer instead of checking my phone at work.
Okay, enough squealing about my cheap upgrade though. Let's see, what else... I had a quasi-fight with a coworker last Friday, which wasn't fun and had me very upset to the point of tears. But it led me to find out that that coworker had been against my promotion, and put a bug in my ear about both increasing my work performance and panicking about not having a good emergency fund. So as soon as I could, I threw another $100 into the emergency fund, plus I've been on my toes and shared some ideas management liked, and I feel a touch safer now.
I also made a grocery list that is semi-based on this Reddit post in which a super-cheap and reasonably healthy meal plan is described. I've tweaked it for our own use, of course, but I love love this post. I'm wondering if I can start price-tracking all of the necessities I put on our own grocery list across the 3 stores where we buy things, so that I can buy lots when prices are extra low per unit.
I even started a batch of sourdough starter. I'll let you know how that comes out. So far so good, and I'll be "feeding" it tonight.
Hm, what else. I did slip up here and there. Made a few impulse purchases (most recently $6 on a coloring book and some candy) and ate out a little, which isn't great. Still, I think we're doing better than the average, and we even have more in our eating out fund than usual, which is amazing.
I guess that's it. Next, I'll work on coloring in my bubbles and posting the updates to the side bar. Hopefully I can get a little more done soon. Until next time!
So, you may or may not know that I like to "advertise" to myself by reading articles in the morning oriented toward my goals. I'll check my favorite finance blogs (Get Rich Slowly (less so lately since they started advertising credit cards on a blog that encourages 0 debt budgets), Mr. Money Mustache, the Non-Consumer Advocate) and reddit's /r/personalfinance to kind of get into a mind set of non-spending early in the morning. It doesn't always work, but it's better than watching a McDonald's commercial and then immediately wanting McDonald's breakfast.
Or even typing that sentence. Ergh. Now I want an egg white delight damnit. Focus, Rae. Remember, you've got good healthy paid-for 50-cent pineapple yogurt in the fridge at work and skipping a $2 sandwich today will save you $1.50, which will be $12 in 30-odd years if you put it into your IRA instead! Is that sandwich worth $12 and a spoiled yogurt? I don't think so.
Oh hey, Roth my mutual fund purchase went through. And I got it cheaper than last month's purchase even with the market up. Neat!
Ahem.
One of the ideas I read the other day, I think on reddit? I'm totally stealing it. The suggestion was that if you want a certain price house, you should calculate exactly how much it will cost you per month - in mortgage + interest + pmi (if any, which since we don't have a downpayment there would be) + taxes + insurance + estimated maintenance. I would even add HOA fees to that, since locally, almost every place you purchase is going to have an HOA. And once you have that number, you budget for it, even though you're not purchasing the house yet. Then, when you pay your rent every month, put the rest of that amount into a savings account.
I love that idea. Not only is it a realistic way of looking at whether I can actually afford a house, but it will definitely help me save for a mortgage downpayment. And if we need to pull from that money to pay bills or get groceries, well, we have to wait longer and make more money if we want a house, and that's that.
So, my goal is to get a $200,000, single-family house with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I want to estimate high with my numbers so that I can be pleasantly surprised. So, with an interest rate of... let's go crazy in case it's a while from now, 5%, 0 downpayment, 2% for taxes, $2000/year for insurance, HOA fees of $100/month, PMI of $163/month. So using some online calculators, I get:
Mortgage Principal + Interest: $1074
PMI: $163
Taxes: $330
Insurance: $167
Estimated Maintenance: $167
HOA: $100
Total: $2004/month
So yeah. I am aiming very high of course, but that's about the total cost. It'll be a lot less if we save up for a 20% downpayment of 40k, because that'll bring the mortgage + interest way down, and nix the PMI entirely. But that would be an awful lot of saving, and I want to be putting my current rent cost into equity sooner than later.
So... time to start pretending my rent is $2004/month, and see where that goes. Hoo boy.
Progress, y'all.
I gotta say, I'm enjoying this whole coloring thing. I spent a whole $7 on the "good" set of Crayola colored pencils and went to town. Now I've got a veritable army of goal images on the right sidebar. The weight loss one I'm just having fun with - I did the whole background in blue to represent the first 1000 calories lost via dieting - those were hard. The rest are getting progressively easier, though. Hopefully I'll be finished with that dragon in no time and on to the next. There are multiple dragons on that site, and I'm planning on setting up a few of my favorites. Not sure if I want to go with a Chromatic set or a Metallic set. Heh.
Anyway, here they are, so that eventually I can compare the bubbles I've colored in at this point in my life to the ones on the side bar later on.
The colors, Duke. The Colors.
And now, to go plan death for my Friday D&D group. Muahahaha.
This post could be considered a blatant plug, but be assured that I am in no way affiliated with Goodbudget or any associated businesses.
But dear god, I love Goodbudget. Check out this report:
So that's my year to date spending for 2016, for the first third of the year. It includes pretty much everything except savings, since I have the paid version of Goodbudget and my savings counts as another account I transfer funds into, rather than something that comes out of checking. I've also put about $620 into our retirement fund and $100 to our emergency fund in that same timeframe. Not sure how that would change things, but it's a sliver for sure. :\
As an explanation, "Bills" encompasses rent, utilities (gas, water, and electric), phone bill, cable internet, my husband's health insurance, and our car insurance. "Household" encompasses groceries, gas, and some miscellaneous spending. "Debt" is just our car loan and nothing else. "Leisure" is eating out, Netflix, our Twitch subscription to Geek & Sundry, any games we buy. "Standard" is a little wonky - it should say "spent from savings" or something, I don't know what I was thinking when I came up with that name. But it's just what I spent out of our tax return windfall at the beginning of the year and all it includes is my medical bills and a haircut.
Still, this honestly makes me feel kind of good that only a little over 8% of our spending has been on leisure, even though I get a little sting of guilt every time I eat out. I would love to do the 50/30/20 needs/savings/wants split everyone seems to recommend, but right now our income just doesn't allow for it. What I really need to do is cut down on our needs, like reducing the per-month cost of my phone bill and maybe cable, because that Bills envelope is a monster chunk of our outgoing funds and has been ever since we moved into this nice apartment. If we can cut down on our monthly necessities, we'll have way more wiggle room, you know?
I can try, anyway. I'll let you know how it goes.
