Notes on Life | My Week Ending Aug 24, 2018: Fasting, F Bombs, Liar

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	tues	wed	thurs	fri
finance	$10 Peruvian takeout	$2 Wendy’s	$8 Chinese takeout $9 Peruvian takeout	$9 Thai takeout	TBD
work	9:45a – 7:30 pm	9:15 a – 9p	9:30 am – 6:00 pm	9:30 am - 6:15 pm	Time Off

Monday - Doctor’s appt this morning. Still have granulation tissue. Wound from surgery still won’t heal. Decided to do chart this week because going to be busy. Attempting to work 10 hour days because off Friday to check on Aunty MERJ in Tampa.

Thinking of doing a gluten and dairy fast till my next appt Sep 28. Gluten is a protein that can cause inflammatory process, makes me bloated and just general malaise (but cookies are so yummy!).  Milk is a protein my body generally doesn’t digest but have had some success lately with A2 milk. May stop that for awhile.

Tuesday -  Pretty mild summer I have to say. My skin hasn’t wanted to melt off every day. Work is so busy, there’s no time to think. Fear making a mistake. Lower tolerance for nonsense. Feeling ddgy with coworker across the cube who bangs on his desk all day and swears up a storm. Actual F bombs. It makes me anxious.  This 10 hour day thing is not working out. Why do I keep fooling myself into thinking I will willingly work more if I just say I will.

Another convo with random co-worker about career plans and retirement. Some suggestions for other options to make more money. All in all, I think my focus is saving money for my sabbatical, at least 1 year, maybe 5, maybe 10, maybe forever.  I’m open to a new job for more money but I’m past the stage where I am aggressively pursuing that. Did that for a year.

Wednesday -  Realized last night as I’ve been thinking- it is pretty mild these days. Didn’t even use a/c last night. Wow. Mid-August in NC with no a/c?!  Eye twitch continues. Cousin mad that I prefer email instead of calling her. She wants to help; I give her to do list; she says what exactly do I need her to do? Whatevs. Affirms my decision to be relatively phone-less. 16 months and counting.

Selfish me really doesn’t want to go Tampa. Working extra hours to have day off to go do more work is not really what I want.  Will I ever be a better person? Doubt it.  Glad I didn’t purchase future tickets especially for September. Looking forward to having that whole week for myself. Thanks, Brain. Well really, thanks God, of course, but also busy PTO calendar that didn’t have free days for the time I was going to spend with Aunty MERJ in Sep.

For first time since starting Wed Weekly, I forgot to create the post last night. Whoops. I guess there’s not really a good reason I can’t create these on Sundays. Didn’t think about that.

Glad savings was set up and automated at beginning of the year. When I feel this way, I just feel like making bad decisions. That usually means poor self-care (not flossing, cookies for dinner) and careless financial decisions (buying random stuff).  DirecTV raised their prices to $40/mon. Realized how much joy I get out of scrolling channels (works) but I rely so much on the OnDemand service (crashes) that I have to pause about signing up for their service. Free trial ends tonight.  Decided to go with Hulu 1 month free trial to see if it meets my binge-watching needs for the fall. Got sloppy though and signed up with FB profile for my blog because I didn’t want to create another log-in!  Stay tuned!

Thursday -  Another cool morning. North Carolina has made a liar out of me! I complained so much about the skin melting summers and this summer has been unexpectedly mild. Had another mild breakdown last night getting ready for trip. This no-phone life definitely has its inconvenient moments. Super Shuttle from airport is $50/way. So decided to get Uber app. Had to have a cell phone to verify. Ugh. That took 23 minutes to find a work-around.

Friday - In Tampa with Aunty MERJ!

TV this week: Bachelor in Paradise (via free trial of DirecTV Now and free trial of Hulu)
Takeout this week: see above

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