Monday - Monday was a great day. I worked 9a-5p. It's so busy at work! I was stacking calls left and right. Nothing too bad though. Explored some visualizations inspired by Four Pillar Freedom (4PF). It took two hours to remember how to use Excel and get my data entered correctly, but once I did the chart was a cinch! It looks great! I just looked at it in wonder. Creating things never ceases to amazes me. Shh...don't tell but I may or may not have hit the $100k mark this month! My savings and investment update is scheduled to publish this weekend so be ready for that! I also downloaded 4PF's mini-Excel course to see if I can learn something new. Eh, had toyed around with a second job for the summer with these long days. But maybe I should just rest? Single girl dinner: 1 cup of rice + 1/2 can of sardines + dried onions sprinkled. Yum!
Tuesday - Inspired by the work I did tracking, visualizing, and updating my savings and investment spreadsheet yesterday coupled with tracking Aunty MERJ's expenses, I decided to tackle tracking my annual expenses. I encountered a few different spreadsheets of late and finally settled on the Google Sheets template for Annual Budget. It had a lot of categories that I tried to eliminate at first but after spending some more time with it, I just used it as is. I think it'll be interesting to see how those one-off expenses add up in the end. I thought it would be too time-consuming, and it did take about 2 hours. And that's with 2 screens. But it felt like a victory to see all my expenses right there. Once I got into data entry mode, I took the emotions out of it and was able to input the data without much reflection. In truth, that's one of the reasons I don't do the zero dollar accounting when tracking my expenses - I can't guarantee how I'll feel afterwards.
Anyway, I did it and it feels awesome! Had another little creation high. The spreadsheet isn't perfect because I couldn't eliminate unnecessary categories without disrupting the formulas and I couldn't find a good way to account for savings so I just listed them as an expense. I mean they say pay yourself first right, so that works for now. I recommend it if you're exploring spreadsheet tracking. If you have a Gmail account just go to Google docs > Google sheets and the template is right there. What really sold me was the summary and the cursory little bar graph at the end. So far I haven't found a good way to track both income, expenses, and savings and investments in one place. I guess that software all the big time bloggers promote is probably the answer. The manual tracking is alright for now. Any tips on getting out of a car loan? Aunty MERJ has paid principal plus about 30% in interest and fees on a usurious car loan and I can't find a way out.
Wednesday - Had the day scheduled off, but my apartment was so warm when I woke up and there was construction noise. Decided to head in after some debate. Only have $6 left on BlueBird card, so not sure what I can spend it on in terms of take-out. Also not much on TV these days. Now I'm at work and thinking of just working a half-day. Talked to Aunty MERJ and now she wants to go to the doctor, but she's in Maryland and I'm in NC. Not sure how she's going to get a ride as all our family up there live active-full-time-job-lives (all 4 siblings, and 5 adult nieces and nephews). She transferred her urgency to me and I suggested she go to urgent care or the emergency room. A friend might be able to take her, might not. I suddenly start panicking. What do I do!
Once off the phone, I looked at the situation more logically. Choice A: arrange for a nurse assistant to take her to urgent care and likely ED @ $26/hr x 4 hrs minimum + miles (I know this readily because I looked into it for my surgery. Choice B: She wait until July when I can go pick her up and bring her back to NC and establish care. She seemed to think she could just go to MD and go to "the doctor" and get checked out. It doesn't quite work like that and now she's frustrated. Likely an internal medicine doctor isn't going to "fix" her in just one visit. She'll have to find one, make an appointment, find a way there, and then likely see several specialists all of which will require phone calls and appointment which she may or may not be able to do. Why don't I do it? Well I initially went to Tampa to bring her back to NC so we could establish care here, but she refused to go because she wanted so much to attend my cousins' graduation. How can you get mad at someone who's lost their cognitive ability to reason well?
The only choice I thought I had to make today was what I wanted for lunch...oh and maybe if I wanted to come into work today. Now have already searched for a mattress, box, spring, bed frame and created an ad to sell my desk to create space for her unpredictable visits. At least some separation might ease the tension. We shared a bed for the ten days she was here last. No bueno!
Thursday - On my lunch break. Just talked to Aunty MERJ. Every day is truly a new day. Now her skin is itching her so badly she's no longer having a good time, likely due to past medical history significant for chronic kidney disease. I don't know what medication she was on that was helping or if it was helping. What I saw when I was last there is not what she told me was working. What I saw before was a cream in a tube. On last visit in March, I saw an oil in a bottle. The only RX I could find in her med list was for the oil. Her last mission was getting to the graduation. Now that that's over, the only thing she wants to talk about is finding a doctor. Somehow she is having trouble "finding a doctor." I can't quite understand what she's trying to do and of course she can't properly communicate. I put my desk on sale on Craig's list last night to try to make room for her. Then she says she'd rather be in MD than NC. When I finally mustered the courage to ask why, she said it's because she has her own room. Ughhh...this is way out of my healthy zone. I don't even want to say comfort, because I'm willing to be uncomfortable but my mental state is at unrest when I can't properly plan for or anticipate the future. I generally cut out things from my life that have variable outcomes. Oy!
Friday - Worked till 2p. Spent breaks and lunch trying to get a ride to urgent care or a new refill for Aunty MERJ. Got the refill. Phew. Praise the Lord! Eye-twitch came back. Creative energy zapped. Had some ideas to add to this post but feeling a bit drained. Ugh. Had doctor's appointment ($30) at 3p. After a 40 minute drive, waited on drafty exam table for an hour with no bottoms. Was about to leave 1 hour after my appointment time and finally doctor came in. Saw her for 17 minutes. Ugh. Blocked GI again. Was going to watch the 50 Shades of Grey Trilogy this weekend but not in the mood right now. Overall, bought a few non-essential items at my weekly Walmart errand run and have a couple more planned. So far bought 2 boxes of cereal and a pair of sandals totaling about $17 plus tax. This happens sometimes when I become aware of my budget or finances. Goal seems daunting = spend more; goal seems achievable = spend more; right on or near target = no change in spending or slightly more thrifty. Overall though the Amex Bluebird card worked because when I had no money on it, I didn't want to use my bank card to get fast food. It felt... a bit much? Unnecessary?
Alright it's 8pm EST. Gonna lay down on my belly and wait for the next day to come. If I were to take a beat and count my blessings this week a number of positive things happened including: getting featured on WomenMoneyTalks, reaching another financial milestone, re-learning a new skill and more.... It doesn't feel like it at this exact moment, but I was happy just yesterday.
TV this week: 100% Hotter, New Girl reruns at night, Jane the Virgin, Champions (ahhh, I didn't know The Mindy Project was reincarnated into a half-Indian gay teen-aged boy!!! why did no one tell me), For The People, The Middle
Takeout this week: Jerk chicken and rice
BlueBird (no affiliate) balance: $111.60
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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Aunty MERJ is a worry I can tell. Not sure why you feel the 4 siblings and 5 nieces/nephews live full active working lives so they can't help but you can? You are working full time and active, hell, until a couple of weeks ago you had 2 jobs! All the time you try and do it all, they won't step up as they won't want to ste on your toes. They are likely to convince themselves you are happy to support Aunty and want to do it. You took time off to travel to MC, they can take a couple of hours off to take Aunty to the doctors.
ReplyDeleteMight need a family conference soon as Aunty sounds like she is getting worse and will become unsafe in her own home of she cannot remember what medication she has and what/when to take it. Feel for you - not something I want to navigate.
On a positive note - you had a couple of cracking wins - WomenMoneyTalks and £100k - wahoo!
Tuppenny! You are such a voice of reason. Come be in my family and lay down the law. You're right though, next time she has a medical need, I'm going to notify everyone.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, let's talk about my high moments this week... it was so awesome. I had to hide under the covers I couldn't believe it!
Also, are you on the Women Who Money Directory? Actually today, my task is to find some more lists/collectives/directories to join. Hope you have a smashing weekend!
Ha! DD1 calls it being negative or overly practical so thank you for appreciating my twopennyworth. Given you are not in Maryland but other family are, why not try to get to a point where perhaps you deal with the admin of Aunty but they are responsible for boots on the ground stuff?
ReplyDeleteI know there is potential for Aunty to go into a care home at some point (Nords is fab!) which will take a lot of organising and negotiating which may make a good fit for you with others dealing with the home clearout out, settling her in, viewing suitables homes etc.
I am in the Women Who Money directory, right down the bottom as its alphabetical :-) Must admit I read somewhere about getting on other directories but only got as far as WWM, RockstarFinance and FIREhub.eu (for EU FIRE bloggers). Now I'm going to have to add that to my to do list as well - you're giving me work MERJ! First a 1/4ly blog report and now finding directories!
I'm in those 2 and on the post on Tread Lightly (as are you). Didn't have much luck... was looking specifically for female bloggers in their 30s... it's a bunch of travel stuff... but that was my first go at it as they say where you are. Found one potential opportunity on the 30 spot... it was interesting to see some old lists of "best" blogs that are now no longer attended to... the mommy blogs seem to have quite the following...there might be some treasure there but that's another thing for another day. I just love reading all the about me stories though!
ReplyDeleteOh totes forgot about the Aunty MERJ stuff... i like to keep it out of sight out of mind if you can't tell... you've got a point about delegating tasks but i am pretty much one of the youngest members in my family so getting my elder relatives to do anything I ask will be an interesting feat. But as you say, the admin tasks are what I can do for now. As for Aunty, it's really hard to reconcile what she says she wants and what makes more sense realistically...like does she go back to FL with possible home care; do I find assisted living here where I can keep an eye on her; or find assisted living where most of our family lives and they can collectively pass the buck (similar things happened to my grandma). A bit premature anyway given we don't even have a diagnosis but still something i think about.
ReplyDeleteBeing harsh but honest, it could be less about what Aunty says she wants and more about being realistic. Appreciate elderly relatives can't take up the baton which I think means you need to be more strict and keep a sense of distance between you and Aunty MERJ. It's not good to suddnely become in effect full time carer and responsible for another person without other family supporting. You are only one person, work full time and have your own dreams and plans. The old Aunty MERJ would not want you to give up everything. She may not be able to articulate that now and I appreciate there may be customs you have to negotiate as well.
ReplyDeleteSo true, so true, Tuppenny! I will keep these words of wisdom. Sigh.
ReplyDelete