Single Girl Life | My Week Ending Oct 19, 2018: Mega Billion, Rollercoaster, Crockpot Pork

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 enjoy 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!

My week

Monday – Another manic Monday. These are the days where I try to remember to be grateful. Even though I did nothing of substance over the weekend, I still keep thinking of one-hundred other things I’d rather be doing than driving in to work today. Today was: buying some lottery tickets and getting a Tailwind subscription. I know this blog is not my ticket out just like winning the lottery is not my ticket out, but what else can I do?

Tuesday – So outing at the fair last night with my old classmate was a success. Primarily because I showed up and didn’t cancel. I got some insight into hospital staffing and the 7 on 7 off shift. I think I would definitely enjoy the scheduling but probably not benefit from the actual work as much as I thought knowing that I didn’t have to work that hard or deal with as much social politics if I stayed at my current job. It especially didn’t help that he’s not making that much more than me.

Other things. I feel assured that my decision to lean out of socializing was the right one, but also nice to know I haven’t missed much. While I did my social exit intentionally, most friendships did indeed fade for others after graduation. I’m not a huge fan of the random text, although I have been guilty of it.

I’m feeling more of a pull to home ownership. I’m approaching it now from a building equity standpoint. I attribute this new perspective to looking at other FIRE budgets where they list their home equity under assets. I think that might be a nice addition to my budget as long as I can stay within my current housing budget. Other things to consider is how this will work with my myriad workforce exit plans. Ultimately, how I see it now, I’m spending $12k a year on housing and I foresee the grind for at least 7 more years minimum, for $12k x 7 = -$84k… so if I come up with any number greater than -$84k in equity after 7 years, that will be a win. What do you think?

Wednesday – New life plan.

Um…resign in 1^st week of Jan 2019 (maybe 1^st week of march 2019).

Idk, the comfort I felt in committing to the grind just yesterday has been replaced with my desire to leave fueled by: ugh, I can’t afford a house I really want; and I really don’t want to work; and I want a break! My mind just won’t stop.

Blog discouraging. Someone reported my using my blog name as my real name on Facebook, not once but twice. Now I’m blocked unless I upload identification. Hard pass.

Think I’m going down to default of quarterly posts of financial updates as that’s where it’s had the most impact in my personal life.  Goodbye weekly update (might do monthly single girl life updates…might not). No more Wed weeklys.

Really going to try to enjoy this cable more… at least until Christmas season is over… Idk. That is all for now. Mega Millions lottery frenzy at work. I love it!

Thursday – My mind is a blur.

Postponed a future guest post with a blogger I was interested in connecting with. Scheduled remainder of previously scheduled post to publish this month. Thinking of taking a hiatus from blog for 2 months. Rationale: this is the easiest thing I can take a break from since work is a bit more high stakes + emotional rollercoaster + lot of time with low tangible return (free therapy, I suppose). Was so sure about it Wednesday morning.

Then Wed afternoon I found 9 comments that were hidden in my trash folder! It was such a delight to find them, I got rejuvenated again!

Then I was tinkering with blog styling again this morning and got lost for a moment. I now feel I will be so lost without blogging things to tinker with.

Part of the reason for the hiatus is the hiccup with Facebook as I was just starting to get traction. 70 pageviews from them in one day! I get tired of the seemingly endless albeit small hurdles.

And I’ve been thinking of taking a break sometime in the early part of next year and I want to make sure it's for me and not me getting sucked into the FIRE life.

Friday  - Spent two hours on grocery ($27) and buying lottery tickets for office pool yesterday. Ended up going to three stores to save maybe $3. Have to remember not to do that next time. What would have been a 45 minute excursion turned into 2 hours…to save $3. That was not a valuable use of my time.

So many questions swirling.  I just decided to make it another post.

Then later tonight I realized my blog was featured on Rockstar Finance email newsletter as "Noteworthy."

I had 3 new comments this afternoon and 2 weren't even other bloggers! How about that! I felt so excited I literally didn't know what to do. I came home after work and went back to the grocery store. I cooked beef and broccoli for the first time and thought about turning that into a post. Then put some pork bbq in the Single Girl Crockpot for this weekend. And even bought chicken to try a new recipe tomorrow. I just felt like chopping something! Look at the single girl go!

And the guest post I had postponed just yesterday ... I suddenly felt a burst of energy and crafted a complete first draft.  See what I mean about emotional rollercoaster...

TV this week: mostly just House Hunters and Cybil to fall asleep to (Oh, I saw someone I knew 10 years ago on House Hunters Intl this week!)
Takeout this week: $20 at the state fair!

Your turn

How was your week? What did you do? See? Feel? Think? Decide? How's your life journey in general?

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Related Content:

• Last week's update


• And the week before that