Welcome back to My Early Retirement Journey. In case you're just joining us, here's a little bit about me. I am a single 30-something, openly Christian, hesitantly immigrant-y, human woman. I love watching TV while eating takeout, and I want to retire early. I currently work as a consultant in a tele-health call center making around $40/hr. I started my professional life in 2015 at the ripe ole age of 31 after a few false starts. I spent 2016 paying off about $10,000 worth of credit card debt. I spent 2017 paying off about $20,000 in private student loans; I still have about $300,000 in federal student loans for which I am currently on an income-based repayment plan for the next 25 years, give or take. I started really getting into savings and investing late 2017 when I stumbled upon the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) community. In 2018, I made the decision to try to save for a sabbatical and maybe if all goes well continue the journey to early retirement. Along this journey, I give weekly updates just like this one. Come along with me, I urge you!
Monday - No work! It's Memorial Day. And after a restful weekend, I sat around; did some blogging chores; did random things online and enjoyed my life! I stayed indoors though to avoid the pollen. Womp, womp. Thanks to my new love, Roku, watched copious amounts of television. I loved the new installments of Terrace House. You must watch it. It's most like a Japanese version of The Real World except with less nonsense. No one gets naked or does naughty things. If I were to learn another language, it would be Japanese! Or at least that's what I say every time I watch it. If it weren't so far away, I might consider Japan's Nagano Prefecture for my next homesite. Every time I watch I pick up (and quickly forget) a new word unlike when I went to China one summer and picked up nothing. So far I know dato (date), konbanwa (good evening), and of course konichiwa. On the show, they eat so many vegetables! I'm jealous. I also binged a little Jane the Virgin and snuck in one episode of See No Evil... it's so good and soo scary! It's actual video footage of young women getting snatched. It's horrible but the detective work is intriguing.
Tuesday - Working 12 to 8p three days this week for a colleague who had to visit her sick mom. Suspect. Busy day with lots of callbacks. The day went by without much complaint. Yay!
Wednesday - Dentist appointment. No cavities! Have so many blog posts floating around in my head. Trying to find a way to really have this blog take off. I know patience and persistence are at the helm, but I want to do so much more! I really don't get social media. Also helping a friend kick off another awareness project, still in the works. So much to do, so little time. Ended up doing some blogging tasks during the week. I prefer to keep it as a weekend hobby, but oh well! Got a lot done for my aunt so that felt amazing. Recouped almost $100 in fees for her. The longer days really help me be more productive.
Thursday - Worked 12 to 8p again. Ate Subway for lunch. Ran errands. Didn't need anything from Walmart (affiliate) this time. Got paper towels and toilet paper from Target (no affiliate). Got lotto tickets for work pool. Got some rolls and cereal from Lowe's and going to have lil smokies and bbq sauce this weekend.
Friday - Yay, working 8a to 4p. Thirty minutes left of my shift as I type this. I'm pretty sleepy from some late night blogging tasks. Trying to drum up some new ways to generate traffic this summer. All ideas welcome. Not a very spendy week over all. Ended up leaving work after 5p because some doctor called with a bunch of questions and some adverse events I needed to report. Oy! Oh well!
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| Gotta make that last till pay day next Friday |
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| $24.65 for gas |
TV this week (via Netflix on Roku): Terrace House, Blackish, New Girl, See No Evil (💗), The Crown, IBIZA (waste of my life minutes), Jane the Virgin, Survivor
Takeout this week : $5 Footlong at Subway, $1.65 oatmeal from vending machine
BlueBird (no affiliate) balance: $9.70 (has to last until next pay day 08Jun2018)
Note: I use the Amex BlueBird prepaid card in my current Working Budget for regular monthly expenses (groceries, eating out, phone, gas, etc..). My last budget update 03Mar2018 showed this line item as $540/mon (down from $600/mon), but in April 2018 I decided to challenge myself to $430/mon based on my idea that my bare bones budget, if needed and possibly in early retirement, is 500/500/500 housing/student loan/expenses. Since my loans are currently $566/mon I subtracted that $66 from the $500 for expenses and rounded down.
Next pay date: $215 is auto-deposited the 8th and 23rd of every month.
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- My Week Ending May 25, 2018: Dominica, Design Your Life, Commencement
- My Week Ending May 18, 2018: Royal Wedding, Sick Again, Misery
I saw plenty of other people mention memorial day but hadn't realised it meant the equivalent of the UK bank holiday! We had spring bank holiday this monday past as well - same day. Bank holidays are always great, they feel like an added bonus and make the weekend so much longer. We even had decent weather for a change. Classic UK bank holidays consist of rain, rain and more rain. Doesn't matter whether it's Easter, May bank holidays or even the late August one, always (well usually) rains. Am sure I've mentioned before that we Brits are obsessed with the weather?!!
ReplyDeleteYep, we call them federal holidays here. Memorial Day is for fallen military. But there's also Veterans day so I'm not sure of the difference?? Oh whoa... didn't know we had that day in common...curious! Yes, in NC they talk a lot about the weather here too...mainly the pollen and humidity. It's hard to breathe!
DeleteWe don't often get humidity problems so when we do boy can we moan! No idea how humid it gets as our weather reports never log humidity as its not something we have or have to worry about!
DeleteHmm...I've been to England once... I don't remember minding the rain. Hmm... but it rains here for days on end and I definitely mind. I was younger and had less to do in UK I suppose....
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