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 more personal than finance updates just like this one. Come along with me, I urge you!
Monday – Off around 4:30pm. Got home around 5:30pm. Didn’t go to bed till after 12 a.m. Even missed dinner. Why, you ask? It took SIX HOURS trying to figure out how to do 301 directs on my site. It was a pain. And I got nowhere. Buyer, beware. This is why I quit Bluehost for the first and second time. I’ll be putting out an essential guide soon on this nonsense just so people know what they’re getting into; it’s not this 3 steps and bam you’re a blogger. I seriously thought about quitting again. I even changed my domain name server to point back to Blogger for a few minutes, but after crying, I pointed it back to SiteGround to sleep on it.
The point is, none are really better. Pick the one that meets your price point. There’s no magic choice. So yes, world, I'm back on self-hosting, somewhat begrudgingly.
Tuesday – Did a big fall haul at Walmart. Spent about $100 (budgeted $50/wk), but I got to fill my pantry. Shouldn't need to get as many staples for the next 3 months. Felt so pumped that Aunty MERJ has moved forward in the home-care assistance program that I just wanted to get another task crossed of my never-ending list. She has a in-home visit on Friday! Hallelujah!
Wednesday – Yay. Feeling wired and discombobulated. One good thing happened - a girl at work needed someone to work her late shift today and I needed someone to work my late shift in September when I start my fitness class as I need to be off by 7p. Win for the Single Girl. Also featured on The Financial Diet. Such a fun site! Another win for the single girl.
Thursday – Feeling tired and restless. Although I was asleep I felt very awake. There was no REM sleep. I still felt like was in the “falling asleep” stage the whole night. Obviously woke up not feeling well rested. Thoughts on my mind: blogging, blogging, blogging. I don’t know about this decision to go to self-hosting. Bloggers call it self-hosting, but the platform says it’s shared hosting, so I don’t even know what it’s called. Eye twitch is back for sure.
I haven’t written anything in a week. That’s unusual for me. So on that front I’m glad I was on Blogger for the first six months. There was no creative block. It’s hard for me to create when there’s so much administrative and technical things to do. I can’t create when there are mental to-do lists in my way. I have to have a clear path. This is in regular life as well. So right now I would say I’m unhappy with the move, creatively. I have thought everyday about going back but I guess I have bigger plans for my blog, so I persist. I've been seeing a lot of media lately about "doing it scared." I guess the it for me right now is this blog on this platform.
Friday - So...sorry for all the links. I just need to engage with my blog again. I've felt so disconnected from it this week with all the tech stuff. I've only done a manual redirect for half of the links. I wanted to complete them this week but I'll forego that to create some new content. I at least got the featured images added back (also had to do manually). In other news, didn't eat out much this week. Just one time. Spent $20 over the weekend when my mattress was delivered though. I got so anxious with the delivery men and I didn't want them to complain and come back and slash my head, that's basically what I was thinking. So I gave them $20. Still not eating that well, not much really, lots of cookies though. Oh, the greatest highlight of my week was another free 7 day trial of DirecTV on demand. I wanted to binge watch The Bold Type. It did not disappoint. It's sooo what I thought my 20s and maybe my 30s was going to be like. It's just pretty girls trying to do big things. Why can't all shows be like this! I loved every minute. Worth all the DirecTV crashes. Sigh. On tap this weekend: tacos, avoiding my family, and trying to get this site up to the way I envisioned +/- finishing the 301 redirects.
TV this week: The Bold Type (free)
Takeout this week: Peruvian chicken ($10)
What are your plans for this summery August weekend?
As a boomer who never had student loans and as the parent of three grown millennials who never had student loans (except for the MD who is going to make a fortune after residency) I'm curious. What field of study cost you $300k in loans and is it limited to $40/HR or will it lead to much higher pay over time? I tried to find the answers on your site, I hate to ask questions when I can get the information myself, so I apologize if I overlooked it.
ReplyDeleteSo pleased Aunty MERJ had an in-home visit - am really hoping it went well. Sounds like it's been a really tough week but well done on moving the blog again, you will be glad you did it in the longer term, just need to finish the short term pain of those re-directs. Is there no plugin you could use to do this work for you?
ReplyDeleteGiven you have a plan for Fall I see nothing wrong with your cookie diet this week - needs must. And remember they do contain some of your 5 a day. Wheat = 1, Chocolate (cocoa bean) = 2. Butter (from cows, they eat grass) = 3. Nuts = 4. Raisins = 5. Dang those cookies are healthy!
It's a lot to wade through, so thank you for checking. No student loans...whathat?! I ended up with three degrees. My undergraduate degree I think I probably could have gotten out of with no loans but it's been so long now, I don't remember. Graduate school at a big ivy...cost me $60k for a teaching degree that would've been been forgiven had I gone into teaching, but I didn't. Then the 200k+ for a doctorate degree in healthcare... I'm a little underpaid cuz I got tired and my job is really easy. A higher stress job in my field is about 50 to 60/ hr. Honestly in retrospect, I just thought loans were the way to do it. I really thought I'd have to work for the rest of my life so it didn't seem to matter how much I borrowed.
ReplyDeleteShort term pain is right. No dice on plug-ins. Decided to pause that for a sec and tackle it again after getting some other stuff stuff done. Do not encourage my cookie eating! It's getting bad! I have 3 kinds currently and sometimes eat all three in one sitting: Walmart brand chips-ahoy, oreos, and these other walmart brand animal cookies. Plus chocolates.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on your article on The Financial Diet! That was a fun article to read. "Old" is not the "new" anything and everything does start to hurt! A doctor once told me that after the age of 28 someone can get a slipped disc from just about anything (brushing your teeth or rolling over in bed were examples)...thanks Doc.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It was equally fun to write. Yikes on the slipped disc. Thanks for stopping by, Patrice!
ReplyDelete