Single Girl On Holiday for the Holidays!

The Single Girl is on holiday for the holidays (read: watching Christmas movies and eating festive snacks). Feel free to subscribe in any of the many boxes to be notified of the freshest life and money updates sure to come in 2019! In the meantime, please enjoy these top ten posts from 2018.

 

1. Sabbatical 2020: In Which I Take Back My Life


2. Why Yes, This Is My $300,000 Student Loan Repayment Plan: REPAYE 2018


3. How Being A Victim of Identity Theft Helped Me Take Control of My Finances and Pay Off $30,000 of Debt in 2 Years


4. List of Single Girl Money Bloggers


5. Review | 3 Free Spreadsheets You Might Want To Try


6. Why I Love My Roku So Much! (Cable-whathat?)


7. Single Girl Life | My Week Ending Sep 28, 2018: Regrets, Resignation, Murphy Brown


8. Sunday Funnies | Life Before and After Blogging


9. A Bajillion Tiny Little Indisputable Facts About Life In Your 30s


10. Single Girl Life | My Week Ending Oct 5, 2018: Meaningful Work, Making Money, Missoula

Bonus. My 5 Favorite Posts You Need to Read Today

1. How To Recognize Your Privilege: A Beginner's Guide for White Men


2. 10 Ways To Tell You Have Impostor Syndrome (and what to do about it)


3. 5 Unexpected Lessons from Freeform's The Bold Type


4. Single Girl Review | A2 Milk and My Lactose Intolerance Journey


5. Sunday Funnies | Normal Nancy Meets I-Love-It-Lucy!

 

How My Income Skyrocketed and Net Worth Plummeted with My Education

Welcome back to My Early Retirement Journey! I'm so glad you're here. So we've all heard it from one source or another that one of the best reasons to graduate high school (and eventually college) is not just for the sake of furthering your education, or accomplishing a goal, but for the promise of a higher salary. But is it true? And at what cost?

The data

A recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics did in fact find that high school graduates made on average about $400 more per week than their non-diploma holding counterparts.

COHORT	MEDIAN WEEKLY SALARY	ANNUALLY
NO H.S. Diploma	$515	$26,780
H.S. Diploma	$718	$37,336
Bachelor's degree	$1,189	$61,828
Advanced degree	$1,451	$75,452

After simplifying some of the data from that report into a chart for comparison, it is easy to see that statistically, salary does increase as education increases. Conceivably, a high school dropout can reasonably expect to make one-third the salary of someone with an advanced degree. Naturally there are those who defy expectations and you might be one of them, but probably not.

Sometimes you'll even see these cohorts working in the same place. For example a medical assistant at a private practice; or a pharmacy tech at a retail pharmacy;  or a receptionist at a law practice. Is there anything worse than slogging away the same number of hours at the same place, and being paid far less?

My story

Statistics don't often tell the whole story.  They are just a compilation of data points after all. Given all the jobs I've had and the degrees I've earned, I was curious to trend just how much my salary did change with educational advancement.  And at what cost. Here's what the data shows for my story.

No high school diploma

I got my first job in middle school. I used to babysit for my best friend's little brother after school. I was in middle school from 1995 to 1997. During that time frame, I made between $5 and $5.15 an hour babysitting.

In high school, I used to work at my church answering the phones one to two hours a week. I made $5.15 an hour. I did that for a year before we moved. The summer before my senior year of high school, I wanted to go to a dance camp. After applying for "nicer" jobs in the mall, I got a job waitressing at a local diner making about $3.00 an hour (not including tips).  After I made the $600 I needed for dance camp, I quit. I suppose you could say at an early age, I knew long-term work was not for me. I was in high school from 1997 to 2001 and graduated in 2001 (debt-free).

I never worked full time before I graduated from high school. I don't think work permits even allow that for child workers.

The breakdown

My range: $3.00 - $5.15/hr

Median: $4.08/hr

Median weekly (if full time): $163/wk

Annually (if full time): $8,476

High school diploma years

I graduated from high school in 2001 and started college about six weeks later. I was accepted into an early matriculation program, and I was ready to leave my hometown.  I made it through the summer program debt-free because the program was private grant funded. I got through fall break of my first semester of college, and it turned out I didn't have the right immigration status to qualify for federal funding. Surprise! I couldn't afford to go back.

Between 2001 and 2004, I had three jobs (at different times). Two were part-time and one was full-time. My first job was at a hot dog stand in the mall. I finally got a mall job! I was making $5.15 an hour part-time. Then my brother referred me for a data entry job at his company. I started off making $9/hr and ended at $12/hr. I was rich! The company went bankrupt a couple years later, and we were all laid off.

Then I got a seasonal job at my community college's book store. I was making $7.50/hr for the spring rush.  Somewhere in there I also signed up with a temp agency, making on average about $10/ hr.

In 2004, with the help of Google (and God), I successfully applied for and was granted political asylum by the United States. That's the short version. Asylees qualify for federal funding. I could go back to school! Back in college, I had a work-study job that paid $5.25/hr working at the front desk of a 24-hour desk of one of my college's residence halls.

In the summer, I worked at a residential summer camp. They paid us $2,500 lump sum for 3 weeks (12-hr days).  Because of Hurricane Katrina, I spent one semester at another college and worked at their campus grocery store making $6/hr.

The breakdown

My range: $5.15 - $13.89/hr

Mean: (5.15 + 9 + 12 + 7.50 + 10+ 5.25 + 13.89 + 6)/ 8 = $8.50/hr

Weekly (if full time): $344/wk

Annually (if full time): $17,888

 

Postgrad years

I had no job prospects and hadn't even started looking before it was time to graduate. I even missed my college graduation. It just snuck up on me. I guess you had to order tickets. I don't know. Former President Clinton and Former President George H.W. Bush were there so maybe that's why. I graduated in 2006 and went straight to graduate school, so I don't know what the salary was for bachelor's degree only.

Oh wait, yes I do!

For about three months in graduate school, I worked part-time at Blockbuster making $7.50/hr. That was fun. Awe. Remember Blockbuster.

I did a one year Master's degree and got a teaching certificate to boot. I graduated that spring in 2007 and didn't go into teaching right away.  I moved to Hollywood and this is where it gets sticky.  I fully intended to get a full-time job, but with limited experience, no connections, and no desire to be a teacher, this turned out to be harder than expected. However, if ever one wanted to thrive in the gig-economy, Hollywood is the place to do that.

I lived in Los Angeles County or adjacent from 2007 to 2009. While there I held all sorts of part-time gigs and some that paid no money. I halfheartedly tried to join the entertainment industry, hence the unpaid labors of love on different production sets. As a tutor, I made anywhere from $30 to $50/hr. As a substitute teacher I made $135/ day.  As an extra or wardrobe assistant, I made $100/day for a 12-hour day (and free food).

After a couple years of no health insurance and mounting debt, I decided to give full-time teaching one last try. That lasted for a semester at $23/hr.

I moved back to suburban D.C. and signed back up with the temp agency at $10/hr until my aunt referred me for a job at her company. From late 2009 to mid-2011, I made $18/hr as a human resources assistant. Then I went back to school to amass the remainder of my enormous student loan debt.

The breakdown

My range: $7.50 - $50/hr

Mean: (7.50 +30 + 50 + 16.88 + 8.33 +23 +10 +18 )/ 8 = $20.46/hr

Weekly (if full time): $818/wk

Annually (if full time): $42,557

Post post-graduate

I went back to school and got a professional degree. From 2011 to 2015, I amassed enormous student loan debt and chose not to work. My mentality was that I would have to work for the rest of my life and a minimum wage job during my degree program wasn't going to change that. Had I known FIRE was a possibility, perhaps my approach would have been different. As many before me have said, financial independence was not a part of any of my degree programs' curricula. I was not financially woke, as the young kids say.

I graduated in 2015 and was licensed soon after getting my diploma in the mail. I didn't attend this graduation ceremony either. I don't know what my problem is. However, this time I started my job hunt early. I got my first full-time job in my profession before I even graduated after one of my classmates referred me. I started at $41/hr and three years later I'm at $44/hr.

The breakdown

My range: $41 - 44/hr

Median: $42.50/ hr

Weekly: $1,700/wk

Annually: $88,400

 

Effect of education on my net worth

The math for this is simple. I had no concept of financial independence until December 2017. I didn't know it as a concept in abstract or reality. I came to America to escape civil unrest in my country and get a better education which was supposed to give me a better life. It was to be had at all costs.  I obviously started and ended adolescence with no debt. Now in my mid-30s, I have six-figure savings that are outweighed by my six-figure debt.  Ostensibly, I achieved my objective. I got a great education three times over and it has afforded me a better life across almost all counts.  Financial independence will just have to be part of my second act.

Net worth breakdown

H.S. graduation:  +$1,200 in gift money

College graduation:  -$5,000 in debt

Graduate degree graduation: -$60,000 in debt

Professional degree graduation:  -$300,000 in debt

Professional degree + 3 years of full-time employment: - $300,000 (debt) + $100,000 (savings) = -$200,000 (net worth)

The verdict

So did my salary really increase with education as promised? Let's look at the data.

SINGLE GIRL	AVERAGE WEEKLY SALARY	ANNUALLY
NO H.S. Diploma	$163	$8,476
H.S. Diploma	$344	$17,888
Master's Degree	$818	$42,557
Professional Degree	$1,700	$88,400

I am making 10x as much with an advanced degree as I was with no high school diploma. So, I would say that is a resounding yes.

One question to myself when I started this post was something like this: Yes, I am making a respectable salary now, but was it worth the monumental student loan debt it took to get here? In this moment, I would say yes. Shocker, I know!

What you should take away from this

I like to tell the truth as plainly as possible because I too have fallen for the smoke and mirrors show in just about every aspect of my life. So as any college graduate between 2006 and 2010 will tell you, having a college degree doesn't guarantee a job with a great salary. More than a few of my undergraduate classmates found themselves slinging coffee for a few years after graduation until they either found themselves; found their calling; found a network to plug into; or got enough experience to get a better job. Some like me skipped the under-employment line and headed straight for another degree program.



Yes, dear one, that diploma, high school or college, does not come with a job offer stapled to the back, but it does buy you a place in the race. Admittedly, it's a race from which a growing vocal minority of people is now actively trying to sideline, trading in their badges for spectacles.  Nonetheless, unless you have the next great idea or super-talent, furthering your education wisely is a pretty good bet.

 

My 30 Day Gluten Free Journey

For the month of September I went gluten free. If you're just joining us, 2018 has been a year of health issues for the single girl. I had surgery in March 2018 and it has not healed well. Specifically I had granulation tissue after my wound was supposed to be done healing. To help combat this, I decided to go gluten free. Wait, what? I know, hang in there, there's a rhythm to my madness.

What is granulation tissue?

In my case it was new vascular tissue in granular form on the healing surface of a wound. It can be associated with a non-healing wound.

What does gluten have to do with granulation tissue?

My story

So here's the deal. As I said, my surgery was in March 2018. At my six-week follow-up, which ended up being a three month follow-up because I was working two jobs, my doctor told me I had granulation tissue. She wasn't too alarmed, so I wasn't either. She applied some silver nitrate and told me to return in a month.

A month later I returned. Now it's July. Same thing. Lay back and spread 'em. Sizzle, sizzle with the silver nitrate. Come back in a month.

A month later I returned. Now it's August. Same thing. I'm sure I cried during at least one of these appointments. The granulation tissue was still there! At this appointment, she happened to mention that my immune system was sill trying to protect me. Aha! A light bulb went on.

Gluten and granulation tissue

So granulation tissue to me is like a part of the inflammatory process that isn't cooperating. Wounds are supposed to heal. When treated well, the body is a well oiled machine. When she mentioned my immune system kind of doing more than it needed to (doing the most! as the young kids say), it triggered a memory. I had heard a couple anecdotes from people I know about gluten and a disease called Hashimoto's. It's a type of auto-immune process that leads to disease.  Because gluten is sometimes recognized by the body as an antigen (basically an intruder it tries to rid itself of), some osteopaths have tried to mitigate the condition with a gluten free diet with intermittent success.

I normally have a hard time digesting gluten anyway. Most people do, they just don't know it. It's why baby food is mostly rice based. Gluten is freaking hard to digest. If I eat pizza or sub sandwiches more than three days in a row, I feel as though I'm going to die from the gas, bloating, and constipation. It just sticks around and it makes me feel icky.

I digress. So having heard that gluten is sometimes recognized as an antigen by the body, I thought why not try life without it. Not eating bread hasn't killed anyone that I know of. Without my doctor's instruction, I decided to just stop eating gluten until the next sizzle and poke visit. I was getting tired of using my vacation days for these appointments with a $40 copay to boot!

My 30 day gluten free diet

What the heck did I eat, you might ask. All sorts. It wasn't that hard in terms of missing out because pizza and sandwiches aren't my favorite foods. The hardest part was that wheat is in most convenience foods so things like crackers, which were a staple in my lunch box, and fast food burgers, which have supplemented many a single girl lunch, were no longer an option. Here's what I did eat.

Week 1

What I ate: potatoes, li'l smokies, more potatoes, peanuts, pistachios, bananas, oatmeal, apple sauce, refried beans and nachos, rice with corned beef, rice with sardines, rice with salt, rice with egg, gorged on Unreal chocolates because my sweet tooth could not be satisfied without my nightly snack of packaged cookies

Biggest thing I missed: snack food!

Overall: I was so hungry! But I had some great potty time. It was more difficult to snack or indulge in convenience foods as my work lunch go-tos were fast food burgers, Subway, KFC Chicken Littles, or even hummus and pita at the Middle Eastern place around the corner.

Week 2

Breakfast: oatmeal, nuts, cantaloupe, bananas

Lunch/Supper/Dinner: Hunan shrimp and rice, chocolates, rice and onions, majadara

Overall: I started to get more organized with the eating once I realized some of my go-to fast food options were out. I ate Chinese take out two or three times during the week. I started to get sick of it, and my gut wasn't having the last bit. I think soy sauce probably has gluten in it, but my body didn't complain too much. And I actually didn't realize it until now.

Week 3

Breakfast:  nuts, dry cereal, banana rice bread

Supper: rice and chicken, Kind Bars, fruits (grapefruit, cantaloupe, grapes)

Overall: I found I was hungrier more. I didn’t stay full as long. I woke up hungry and was generally hungrier throughout the day even though I was snacking more. Overall, I was snackier. I just couldn’t get full on rice and potatoes. To sustain a gluten free diet, I suspect I would have to train my stomach to recognize satisfaction from hunger rather than that feeling of fullness. I guess that’s why they call the bread basket you get at restaurants fillers.

The banana rice bread was my favorite friend. Here's the recipe, if you're curious:

Recipe

4 brown bananas

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup cream of rice

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 tsp teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 tsp  cinnamon

1 tsp coffee

1/4 tsp  nutmeg

1 tsp fresh ginger (1/4 tsp ground ginger), optional

Muffins: Mix it all together. Bake 22 minutes at 375*F or until dark brown.

Week 4

Breakfast: peanuts and grapefruit

Lunch: popcorn, rice cakes and peanut butter, Kind bars

Dinner: rice and greens, more banana rice bread muffins

Overall:  I was running out of ideas.

The Results

For the diet itself, with limited food options, namely Chinese or Mediterranean vegan rice, I found myself eating out less at lunch. I just went with smaller meals and packaged snacks and bars. Or just got tired of trying to figure out what to eat and just waited for the next meal time.

As for my health, my granulation tissue did in fact heal! It took six months and a radical diet, but heal it did! Praise be! I went to my last visit at the end of September. My doctor was unimpressed by the strategy I tried when I told her. I’m guessing she just thought I was another backseat-Google-doctor whacko. But hey, she said my immune system was being overprotective. So I took it out of overdrive. I didn't die and my immune system is back to normal. I call it a win for the single girl! Why, yes, I would like to keep that $40 copay for my chocolate and cable habit. Thank you very much!

Your turn

You ever get into fad diet trends?

 

Sunday Funnies | Normal Nancy Meets I-Love-It-Lucy!

Welcome back to My Early Retirement Journey. The single girl is at it again. This one took a lot less time than a full Saturday. I guess I’m getting the hang of this creating thing after all.

These are scenes inspired by the girl in the cubicle next to me. They like to call people like me Negative Nancy, but compared to this girl, I feel pretty normal.

Find the original illustration created on Pixton in case this doesn’t load properly:



You might also enjoy:

Sunday Funnies | A Midwesterner in California

Sunday Funnies | The Life Cycle of a Corporate Drone

Single Girl Review | A2 Milk and My Lactose Intolerance Journey

So I have been drinking A2 milk (no-affiliate) on and off since the beginning of 2018 because I can't digest milk. I think I've always had trouble digesting milk because in childhood I would get diarrhea often but without regularity.  Milk was in everything and not a known allergen at the time.

My story

I thought cheesecake hurt everyone's stomach after two bites. But I had no trouble with my first love - ice cream. At church potlucks, when I would get diarrhea after gorging on cream of chicken casserole dishes or dairy filled sweets, I thought I just ate too much other-people food.  At birthday parties, I thought you were supposed to take the cheese off pizza before you ate it. It tastes better when you know you won’t get a stomach ache afterwards. Duh.  But I had no problem with chocolate chip cookies or puppy chow or cake and ice-cream.

In college, I thought it was just unsanitary conditions in my school's cafeteria that gave me diarrhea when I ate the cheeseburgers because it only happened sometimes.  Or when I ate the cafeteria's cereal with milk and got diarrhea, again only sometimes, I thought I just got a bad batch of something. I mean sometimes they did leave some spoiled milk in those dispensers. When I missed my college graduation events because of some cheese dogs I ate the week before, I just thought it was nerves about leaving the comfort of college (and cheese dogs).

It wasn’t until I was living on my own and cooking for myself that I began to really pinpoint what I was eating that was not agreeing with me. Most of the times it was cheese, specifically cheeseburgers. So I thought it was only American cheese. So I stopped eating American cheese. And so it went until I realized I could not properly digest dairy in any form.

What came next was a years-long foray into milk alternatives. It started with soymilk and ventured into Lactaid, Lactose Defense Formula, Almond Breeze, vegan cheeses and spreads, and the like.  Eating out really became inconvenient because I would have to check allergen menus beforehand and of course those are posted, if at all, for big chains and fast food joints. So long, local diner! So long, food truck! So long, trendy hot spot and fine dining!

I’ve adjusted I suppose, what choice did I have. But it was really hard to let go of baking. After several tries of vegetable oil spread sticks, this vegan butter and that vegan plant oil spread, I found Smart Balance and that really does taste like what I remember butter tasting like. So I can still make several of my tasty treats.  However, I personally have grown weary of milk-alternatives in any shape or form to the point where I don't really buy it anymore.

Then after some effective marketing, A2 milk popped up on my television channels. After months of commercials, I decided to give it a try. And try I did. So I thought I'd share my experience here in this handy chart in case there are some fellow lactards out there who are looking for an alternative.

A2 Milk Review - How does it compare

[caption id="attachment_1181" align="aligncenter" width="1087"] A2 Milk Review Comparison Chart[/caption]

A2 Milk Review - Summary

For first time users of A2 milk, I recommend easing into it. You won't suddenly be able to drink milk three times a day without effect. It's a new food. Your body likely hasn't had it before or hasn't had milk of this kind in a long time. I know with my body, when I introduce new food items, it has to be done gradually over time.

Additionally for some reason, A2 milk doesn't taste cold. I have enjoyed it best with an ice cube. I suspect this may be why this gene was phased out, but this is currently unsubstantiated. I imagine eons ago some clever ad girl started marketing ice, cold refreshing milk and so that's what the people wanted. Demand went up and A2 cows were phased out. At least that's my speculation. 

Overall, A2 milk is a viable alternative for lactards for whom Lactaid or lactase supplements do not work well. It has a real milk taste (because it is real milk), but it is not cold and refreshing like milk you may be used to drinking. Single Girl does not recommend A2 milk for daily use, but if you want to enjoy it for your weekend hot cocoa or cold cereal + reality TV binge watch, it is an option. I do hope they come out with ice-cream sometime soon.

Your turn

Have you tried it yet? If so, what'd you think? Are you one of the lucky humans that can still digest cow's milk (you know mammals aren't designed to drink the milk of other mammals, right?)?

Dear God, It's me. I have some questions.

20Oct2018, I was editing my week in the life of a Single Girl update for later today, and it was getting too long so I decided to break it up into two posts.

These are mostly some unanswered questions swirling in my head this week.

I'm vacillating between taking a break from work sooner than FIRE and sooner than my proposed Sabbatical in 2020.

Right now, it's bedtime and I feel a bit settled. I also cooked two meals after work and drafted a guest post and found out I was in the Rockstar Finance Newsletter, so I'm feeling pretty good. But when the high dies down I'm faced with these lingering questions...

1. If everyone is so committed to the grind, why do I struggle so hard?


2.  Do I renew my lease for 1 year?


3. Do I take a break in Jan 2019?


4. Take a break in March 2019?


5. Take a break from blogging?


6. Buy a house in Fuquay?


7. Buy a house in Montana?


8. Do I keep grinding?


9. Do I just wait to take my Sabbatical in 2020?


10. Seek and find a 7 on 7 off position?


11. Do I get a part time job to get experience to make me a competitive applicant for a 7 on 7 off job in retail/ hospital?


12. Do I keep grinding?


13. Do I just take a break and figure it out later?


14. If I take a break, is it worth it to push back retirement by x years?


15. Do I keep grinding for x more years?


16. Ughhhhh what is a single girl to do?!


17. Reasons for not taking a break:
    
    
    
    • Pushes back retirement
    
    
    • I might not come back
    
    
    • I'm just coming back to the same grind
    
    
    • What exactly am I taking a break from? What do I hope to accomplish?
    
    
    
    


18. Should I just wait until next year (2019) for my planned six week vacation which might only be four weeks now due to some recent policy changes at work?

Thanks, God. Sincerely awaiting your response,

MERJ

 

P.S. I'll update this as clarity comes.



 

10 Ways To Tell You Have Impostor Syndrome (and what to do about it)

We've all heard the term impostor syndrome. It was a buzz word a few years ago and still clings to the wall of every women's studies lecture hall.  But what is it? Basically, it's the fibromyalgia of workplace dynamics - it primarily happens to women and if you've never experienced it, you don't really believe it exists. Well for my fellow early career girls, here are a ten ways to tell you have impostor syndrome inspired by my journey thus far.

How to tell if you have impostor syndrome

#1 You've accepted you have to pay your dues.

Wrong.  A #girlboss rips those dues in half and returns to sender.

#2 You've accepted more work for the same or less money.

See #1

#3 You qualify your statements.

Before making a declarative statement or expressing a strong opinion, you tend to start with "maybe it's me, but..."  or  "I could be wrong, but..." Stop butting out of your own life. Stop doing that. Now.

#4 You find yourself apologizing for your strong beliefs.

Similar to #3, you find yourself saying things such as "sorry, but that's how I feel." Who are you even apologizing too. The men don't care. And the women should know better. Learn from the younger millennials #sorrynotsorry.

#5 You thought you had to get an advanced degree to supplement your experience.

Wrong, the men at my job are constantly getting promoted with minimal qualifications from no-name online school.  Their male presence, posturing, confidence-despite-mediocrity, and thinking they deserve their jobs is enough. Try that. Don't worry, if you already earned your M.B.A., completed Six Sigma, or some other nonsense leadership certification before applying for a leadership role, I fell for that trick too. They fooled all of us, I have the debt to prove it.

#6 You're afraid to negotiate your salary.

This isn't entirely your fault. You've probably tried to negotiate your salary in the past only to be turned down by that WOMAN in HR! It hurts all of us. Now, you think if you ask for more money, they'll get someone to replace you for being ungrateful for the favor of your being employed.

#7 You thought you were better at being a mom.

After having your first child, with no training and experience, you thought you were better at being a mom than the job you paid thousands of dollars and gave years of your life to learn how to do. That's B.S. That's the impostor syndrome talking. You're good at your job, you just don't get paid in hugs and warm fuzzies. Go back to work!

#8 You find yourself redefining accepted terms to preempt criticism.

You find yourself making up words and redefining regular vocabulary words to avoid criticism and ridicule because the foremen before you like to police you.  You say things like FIRE-my way or lean-FIRE or fat-FIRE. Stop hyphenating stuff. If you are financially independent of course it's on your own terms, you don't need to overstate it.

#9 You announce your privilege.

Men don't do that. They are very sure they got to where they are solely because of their perfect choices, nothing else - Maslow's hierarchy and lack of equitable opportunities, be darned!

#10 Someone has openly tried to gaslight you.

You know when you ask a question after a presentation and the presenter doesn't have the answer so they pretend your question doesn't make sense or worse they provide a mansplanation for a question you didn't ask? This has happened to me more than once. Next thing you know, you're not asking any more questions. Don't shrink back, persist.

 

(09Sep2018, MERJ)

#1 Way to Save 100k in Your 30s

I have been in the PF blogosphere for awhile now and have gorged on net worth updates and debt payoff stories. Much to my own chagrin I even published my own debt payoff story. I harbored some reticence because I didn't think the story was really much of an underdog story, but other bloggers had it as cornerstone content, so I did it too.

Lately, I've been stumbling on a few more how I saved x dollars by y time and while enticing at first when I close the post I find myself a little disappointed. It is all starting to get a little sententious for me, I suppose.

Case in point, when I did my post on selective poverty, I hoped to compare FIRE budgets with poverty and be surprised that wow, these people really are living on so little. The data didn't really show that. Then I remembered my own life. My aunt raised 4 kids (none of us were her biological children) on a max income of $40,000.   She did that because that was the best job she could find even after getting her doctorate. She faced a lot of discrimination and eventually went into substitute teaching and staffing group homes until she retired at age 62.

But while she was raising us, we ate free and reduced breakfast and lunch at school because we qualified for it; we had hand me downs and home-made clothes because before reaching her max income that's what we could afford. When things got better, we took lots of fun road trips around America with our pb and j kits in the back; sneaking into hotel rooms when they wanted to charge for each kid; splitting extra value meals at McDonald's; and getting Dairy Queen blizzards in the middle of winter when they were free.

So when I went to write my How I Saved 100k by Age 34 post, the idea stuck around in my draft list for two months because I couldn't in good conscience tell my 10 readers that the way to six-figure savings was to live simply- buying second hand stuff, using credit card rewards, getting a cool side hustle; oh and save 90% or more of your income.

No, I can't do that. I know better. So here's my #1 tip to saving $100k by your next milestone birthday...

#1 Find yourself in a position to earn $100k/ year and then don't spend half of it. Do that twice.

MERJ out!

5 Unexpected Lessons from Freeform's 'The Bold Type'

One of the shows I thoroughly enjoyed this summer was Freeform's The Bold Type. The series is available on Hulu and Sling, so if you have access to one of these streaming services, I highly recommend watching it.  I recently binge-watched the second season in two sittings after enjoying season one last summer.  I like the show because it is essentially pretty girls (Jane, Kat, Sutton) doing big things. It is how I always imagined my life, so every time I watch it I find myself momentarily introspective.

Go in there with the confidence of an incredibly average white man.  - The Bold Type

If you have never seen it, the show, based on career commentary of former Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Joanna Coles, centers around three friends in New York City who start out working at a fashion magazine, Scarlet, in different capacities. It touches on issues such as race, religion, immigration, privilege, feminism, female empowerment, politics, and of course fashion and beauty. All the things. In my opinion, The Bold Type does so in just the right doses. The show's magic is being able to draw viewers in with thought-provoking topics; keeping viewers engaged without being too preachy; and leave them wanting more.

Watching a second season of single girls, albeit fictional, create and innovate was the tipping point I needed to take myself and my blog more seriously.  Here's what I mean.

#1 The headline is just a part of the story.

One of my favorite episodes from season two was entitled "Betsy." Betsy was the name of Sutton's gun, and Jane, her roommate, had just found it in their apartment. I watch an enormous amount of television and this was not a topic I had seen approached by a group of girlfriends. Conceivably, there were only two outcomes to the gun in the home, but I found myself extremely curious on what the show's commentary would be on the matter. Jane, the young writer trying to make it in publishing as a "real reporter," was able to turn the issue into a story.

From this I realized  that anyone can write down all the things they did or ate or spent today, but the craft is in asking yourself: how can I share this point of view in a way that relates to others. When I was exploring catchy titles in my summer challenge, I thought at first the secret to creating shareable content was rearranging titles to make them attention-grabbing.  That is part of it but it is not the sum of it. No, the goal is sharing your story in a way that relates to others and their story - therein lies community.

In the episode "Betsy," writer Jane was strongly opposed to having a gun in the home she shared with Sutton. However instead of an op-ed piece on gun control laws, the story became "I love everything about my BFF except her gun." That title draws a reader's attention because  laws are as complicated as relationships. People live in between the layers. That's where the story is. That's where the connection is. So now you've grabbed the reader's attention; engaged them; and left them wanting more.

#2 The uniform matters.

The girls work at a fashion magazine. They live, eat, sleep, breathe fashion and popular culture. That is their brand. You cannot be taken seriously in their industry if you don't look the part.

Outside of this fictional world, I am reminded of a time when I was on clinical rotations acquiring my massive student loan debt. One of the medical residents was bemoaning her single status (how dare she!), but to look at her you wouldn't tell she was on the market, so to speak. Inside the hospital, she looked like a medical resident trying to get through her residency. She wore scrubs and carried a pager, a stethoscope and a well-worn copy of MDPocket, so we knew she wasn't the janitor. But nothing about her uniform told any interested parties she was single-and-seeking. Outside of the hospital, she had cut-hair (different from a styled haircut), wore no make-up, and often times stayed in the scrubs. She looked efficient and industrious, not single-and-seeking. There's a uniform for that and she was not wearing it.  The uniform matters. It tells people who we are and what we're about.

In the case of my blog, there's a uniform for that as well. If I wanted to be taken seriously as a blogger, I couldn't remain on Blogger.  I created 100 blogs posts from my mind, and I needed the world to know that I was here and I had something to say. Moving to Wordpress and self-hosting was my way of doing that. If I don't take myself seriously as a blogger, who will. Even if I never receive any recognition, it won't be because I didn't believe I was a worthy contender.

If I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down swinging.  - The Bold Type

#3 Creating achieves flow.

The parts of each episode of The Bold Type where I am most captivated are when the characters are using their creative energies to complete a task; solve a problem; or overcome and obstacle.  In Season 2, Episode 4, I was right there with Jane as she tried different writing styles after losing her job for standing up for her beliefs, and eventually earned recognition for piece that was difficult to write. I was a part of the conversation in Season 1, Episode 3 when Kat used her social media influence to give a voice to gender inequality.  Sutton's journey throughout Season 1 with the issues women face in the workplace was a part of my journey, and her ability to succeed and surpass even her own expectations for the underfunded shoot in Season 2, Episode 8 to make it to Paris in Season 2, Episode 10 was the picture of a woman coming into her flow.

That intersection of skill and challenge is where we as humans optimize our flow. Working on my blog has been that for me. It has become both my creative outlet and my source of flow.  The female brain responds to stress by nurturing, organizing and grooming things. It's why people start families, seek relationships, and even religion - for what is religion if not a relationship with God and other believers. It's not why I started blogging, but it's why I started to take blogging more seriously.  Even without remarkable page views or income, I can't stop thinking about ways to make my blog better. It keeps me from plateauing. Every time I see a post to completion, my mood is elevated. I call it my creator's high. To know that one day I could potentially reach another single girl like me trying to find her place in this space moves me forward towards that next challenge and that next level of skill to be mastered.

Keep bringing your passion, it’s how you’re going to make your mark. - The Bold Type

#4 Inspiration is everywhere.

As I said, even though I am spending almost all my free time on a blog that gets unremarkable page views and generates no income, I keep at it. I keep writing. I am a writer.  And my inspiration is everywhere.

We should be taking in every experience. We should be living our lives, taking risks, and [...] putting ourselves out there. - The Bold Type (Jane, Season 1, Episode 10)

Much like Jane who uses much of her personal life as writing prompts for her stories, I find inspiration everywhere. Much of it stems from my personal life and my past. It used to be my life, my history, my thoughts, my dreams, things unsaid. It has since evolved to include inspiration from other bloggers, my co-workers, the nasty man behind a customer service desk... I have yet to run out of things to say. As long as I keep breathing, I have found there's always a way to connect to a reader.

#5 I'm good at this.

In the last episode of season two, after pulling off the Paris shoot amidst a few obstacles, Sutton recognizes the truth of her talent and simply utters, "I'm good at this." She's good at what she does and the realization makes her smile.

It's as though I needed somebody else to say it first. Blogging helped me realize I am a writer. It's something I've always enjoyed doing and hoped was true, but could never say aloud.  Who decides if or when you are a writer, I wondered. Is it after you've been published? Is it where you've been published? Is it when?  Or is it after you've made money with your writing. Who decides? You. Just you. I am a writer. For now my medium is this blog, but I am a writer. One of my creative writing teachers once said, you know you're a writer if you always carry a notebook. That's always been true for me. I am writing notes for my blog everywhere. Everywhere. I write notes at work, full drafts on my break, scratch notes while driving, notes at my bedside, my side table, my purse, my laptop, my iPad, my planner, receipts...

I woke up the morning of Sep 5, 2018 after publicly announcing my sabbatical, and my first thought was this is what I am meant to be doing. Maybe I was caught up in the moment of the start of something new, or an upcoming week off from work, or maybe it's true. Affirmations and self-realizations are a central theme to a life lived more boldly. So, I say to you, dear reader, recognize your truth and live in it, splash around a bit.

I am good at this. This is what I am meant to be doing.  ~ My Early Retirement Journey

 

Single Girl Must-Watch List - Fall 2018

For as much time as I spend talking about it, I thought it would be helpful in the documentary of my journey to share my carefully curated Fall TV lineup aka my Fall watchlist. While I technically did cut cable as of February of this year, it was supposed to be only seasonally. I was really busy with my side hustle and didn't have time to watch my $80/mon cable in the spring. Then summer came and there were no good shows on. So I impatiently awaited Fall, not for Fall colors or Fall sweaters or pumpkin spiced latte. No, I've been waiting all year for Fall premieres. And so far so good.

I currently stream live TV on my Roku device. For those new to the streaming stick (as I was just months ago), Roku basically allows me to watch shows that I used to watch online on my television set. For example, I can watch things like Hulu or Netflix or individual channels like ABC or CBS as apps through the Roku. Instead of wondering if my seven year-old laptop is going to crash or have sound or start at all, I can just stream these shows through my Roku device and watch it on my television set with full sound and HD quality.  For live basic cable and network cable shows, I pay $43/mon for DirecTV Now.  DirecTV Now is a pretty sucky user experience but it's wining because no other providers offer live network and cable channels through an app.

At $1.43/day, I can't complain too much, but I do want to make sure I get my money's worth. As a result, I made myself this little schedule today at work for my upcoming cool Fall evenings.  Plus, if I don't make a schedule, I'll spend all my evenings changing fonts and spacing on this here blog. So while the rest of you are picking up toys in the evenings or getting cozy by the fire with a loved one, this single girl will be picking up the remote and getting cozy by her Roku.  Here's my fall watchlist!

Monday

FOX block

8p The Resident

9p 9-1-1

Tuesdays

ABC block

(+/-) 8:30p The Kids Are Alright

9p black-ish

9:30p Splitting Up Together

(+/-)10p  The Rookie

Wednesdays

ABC block

8:30p American Housewife

9p Modern Family

9:30p Single Parents

10p A Million Little Things

Thursdays

(+/-) 8p Grey's Anatomy

NBC block

9p Mom

9:30p Murphy Brown

Fridays - Sundays

Catch-up on shows, preferably in On Demand binge sessions, I'm interested in but too lazy to track down: Bull, TLC's The Little Couple, Home Sweet Sextuplets, Lifetime's You, My Lottery Dream Home, Survivor, Big Brother, Chicago Med, all the reality shows I have yet to encounter!

Nightly, I like to relax from 10 - 11p with episodes of House Hunters and House Hunters International.

Your turn

What will you be doing these cool fall evenings? If TV shows are a part of your nightly routine, what do you plan to watch?

Related content:

TV and Takeout Mash-Up

My Bite-Sized Goal For the Fall

Single Girl Life | My Week Ending Sep 14, 2018: Paid Time Off!

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

So this week I won't do my normal structure of separating the days. Why, you ask? Well, frankly all the days were the same. I didn't have to work this week, so that was a huge win for the single girl! I'm finally on to this holiday thing so I scheduled paid time off every three months this year: March, June, Sep, Dec. You get it.

I haven't quite mastered the let's go somewhere part of a holiday, but I'm okay with it. This week was another staycation. Since I started this job in 2015, I haven't been anywhere on my paid time off. I'm a fan of the staycation mostly because it requires the least amount of planning and money.  It just hurts too much to spend money on something that won't bring me the same amount of joy. For example, the easy-to-plan vacations that are a couple clicks away on Groupon Getaways seem to hover around $2,000 for about a week of excitement. It would take me a month to save that much money. Thus, I would expect the vacation to make me happy for at least a month. Usually after the vacation is over, the happiness is over because I still have to go back to work. As a result, the staycation meets my current needs.

The staycations are not completely free however, I think this one cost me $200 for prepared food I ordered through the mail; $40 for cable; $50 for snacks and luxury grocery items (e.g. cut fruit, fancy chocolates); grand total = $290.  At an average of 50% savings rate, that would take me about two days to save. And I'm happy for 7 days, so it's a win. Outside of that, this is in my budget, so there's not really any additional savings required. But I was trying to make a point.

So what exactly did I do? Eat my yummy food. Side note, the food I bought actually provides about four to six additional weeks of dinners, but I wanted variety so I got a few different things. Watch TV. I watched: 90 Day Fiancé, 911, The Resident, Younger, Alone Together, copious amounts of House Hunters/ International, Wives with Knives, Who the bleep did I marry?, Disney's Weddings, Bachelor in Paradise. It was fun to mix the dating shows with the true crime shows to remind myself what happens after the honeymoon. Bahahahahah.

Not so fun

Things I did that weren't so fun. I spent two hours a day, at least, Facebook stalking old friends and old crushes from my past through my blog's profile. (I don't have a personal FB profile specifically for this reason.) Then I would get sad wondering why they weren't thinking about me. Then I would shut my laptop and swear not to go back on Facebook again only to turn around and do it again the next day. I also tried to stay off blogging activities. That worked, sort of. I didn't create any posts during the actual work week and Brain only came up with one fluffy post idea from my TV shows, namely 90 Day Fiancé. It's amazing what some men do for a beautiful woman, and it's equally amazing how creative some women are when they craft a relationship from nothing! Guilty. I held strong feelings for a boy for ten years because he said hi to me once. But I was in my teens; these women are adults.  The best counter for these irrational feelings are true crime stories on Investigation Discovery. That sobers me up quickly.

Well for the rest of you toiling away for the man this week... what did I miss?

TV this week: All the things.
Takeout this week: See above.

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• Last week's update


• And the week before that

Sabbatical 2020: In Which I Take Back My Life

Welcome back to My Early Retirement Journey. I have a lot on my mind at the moment, and this post has been brewing for a while. The initial draft was started earlier in the summer, but the idea of taking time off from work is documented in my personal journal as early as March 2017 (1.5 years after I started working). I bet it was even earlier but I keep paper journals as well and those are not as searchable. I am just beating around the bush because although I have been thinking about leaving the workforce for a long time, announcing it publicly even to a small forum of readers makes it seem indelible somehow even though I am only really accountable to myself. My thoughts are scattered both figuratively and literally all over the place.  To try to organize them in a meaningful way, I am going back to elementary school expository writing structure. In this post, I shall identify the who, what, when, where, why, how of my decision to take a sabbatical in the year 2020. I reserve the right to update and change this post over time.

Who?

Me, this single-on-purpose girl, and me alone (oh, and my bff God, of course). I recently posited for the first time in public whether I wanted to take a sabbatical in five years or FIRE for good in ten years. Given the recent series of events to include the mild but regular downward shift in my personal health and wellness and the added responsibility of managing the affairs of an elderly parent, a sabbatical seems imperative... sometimes.  I want to include my hesitation here because on some days I am strongly convinced a sabbatical is the next best move, and other days I think I can just stick it out like everyone else. The latter occurs when my back and shoulder do not hurt as much; or it is the weekend; or I have not spoken to Aunty MERJ in a couple of days. I feel selfish even typing this, but I just want to get away. This desire to escape from the stagnancy that is my current life is not a new or temporary feeling; the recent events I described are not a nidus but more an impetus of this desire.

Read more: Sunday Funnies | The Life Cycle of a Corporate Drone

What?

The whole reason I started this blog was to document my journey out of the workforce and into financial independence. I am simply redefining the parameters at this point. So, while I shall certainly not be financially independent by 2020, my plan (God-willing) is to save enough money to be financially-able for a while. Five years to be exact.

Until this moment, I was vacillating between leaving the workforce (on my own terms) in two years and sticking it out a little longer to properly reach financial independence and retire early. But I am about 51% sure now. So here is my declaration of intent. I intend to leave the workforce on my own terms: Labor Day 2020, Monday, Sep 7, 2020.  That will be five years from when I first started working at my current job in my chosen profession in medical communications for a pharmaceutical company.

I knew this was the job I wanted when I was still in professional school (or graduate school to some), and I was so happy when I finally got it, thanks to a fellow classmate who referred me. The work itself was exactly what I thought it would be - structured and rote. Just as I thought I wanted my life to be. I was wrong. It turns out I would rather be inspired by my surroundings. I am not growing as a person or professionally.

The workplace dynamics while not unexpected is not completely ideal. I do not really like any of the people I work with, but I do not suppose that is all that unusual. In general, my motto is I do not go to work to make friends, I go to work to make money. I am not one of those people who is proud to say I have been working since age 12 or age 16 or the like, nor am I one of those people who believes if you love what you do, it won't feel like work.  If that were true, it would just be called love. There would not be a separate word for it.

You can call it frame of mind or work ethic. You can call it whatever you want; I do not have it.  These different facets of the workforce may have played a role somewhat in where I am now, but my health has played the biggest role. I have never been sick so many days in any time frame or paid so much for healthcare. Given the last nine to twelve months of my health history, I do not seem to be getting better health wise. It is perfectly acceptable for parents to take time away from the workforce to nurture their family. Similarly, I am taking time off to nurture myself.

Physically, I have carpal tunnel in my right wrist aggravated by eight hours a day of computer work; poor gut health; persistent mild to moderate neck, shoulder, back, leg, tailbone, leg, side pain. Additionally, my incision wound from my surgery in March 2018 still has not healed. It weeps like my soul. My mental health seems to be on the decline as well. I have intermittent trouble focusing and recalling event details.  I used to be really smart and clever and sharp. Those seem like different words to mean the same thing, but not to me.

On the wellness front, I would love to be part of a community again, do good works, and be part of a church. I want to work on my spiritual growth and seek joy.

Overall, what I hope to accomplish with this sabbatical is to heal within and without.

When?

Start:  Labor Day 2020, Monday, September 7, 2020


End: 2025 (tentative)

Where?

I do not know yet where I shall go. I currently live in North Carolina, and I think a proper fresh start would involve a big move. However my primary focus will be a place that is in my budget. Logistically, it would be easier to stay in the United States.  Some affordable cities I have looked into include Lillington NC, Missoula MT, and Bloomington IN. Adventure is certainly built into trying out a brand new identity in a brand new country. Some affordable countries I have looked into include Chiang Mai Thailand, La Algarve region Portugal, Croatia, and Spain.   The first roadblock for me with international destinations is obtaining a visa to stay longer than three months. Travel and adventure is not my priority so moving to a new place every few months would detract from my goal of finding calm and peace and a simpler life. Overall, my focus for a destination is one that is in my price range that will allow me to accomplish my sabbatical objective.

Read more: Using Scenes From My Childhood To Figure Out Where To Live Next

Why?

As I mentioned, I want to nurture myself back to whole again. I am achy all the time. I sleep but I am not well rested. It could be something as simple as my mattress. Or it could be mental stress manifesting as physical pain.  It could be sitting in the same position eight hours a day.  It could be my lack of social interaction. I do not know, but I am starting with eliminating my job. Even as I write this, it is not as cathartic as I thought it would be. I am mostly just scared now. What if leaving my job fixes nothing. I shared some of these same thoughts in my guest post on another blog.

...The wrench in the situation is I still do not know what exactly to do once I retire. In fact, once early retirement became a possibility, I found myself retreating a bit. I had  gotten used to this idea that I would have to work for the rest of my life. It was my security blanket of sorts. I had gotten comfortable in my mediocrity and my pursuit of nothing. I got comfortable having work be a time-suck and energy-drain.  Because if work was sucking all the life out of me, no one could blame me for holing up in my house every night and weekend, right?

...I mean who says just because I have time to do it that I am suddenly going to start eating more vegetables; exercising more; flossing twice a day; communing with nature on nature walks; be a service to my community; end world hunger;  bring about world peace; find a church family; find my purpose; or experience life altering, past hurt-erasing joy?

Perhaps the question is not whether to FIRE in five years or ten years, but rather what if I do all this, and it does not work?  What if after two or five or ten years, I am still just as aimless and discontented as I am now?  I shall be out of options, then what? ~ My Early Retirement Journey on Scotch Street

I shall say this though - having this milestone makes the noise more bearable. On the other hand, maybe I am just getting pulled into a different kind of noise.  Honestly, I do not know if this is the right decision, but it is a decision. And it is something to which I can look forward. Even if I fail, my life now is not that bad.

How?

So how exactly will I be able to swing this financially. More than one person has pointed out that even my initial plan to FIRE is flawed because of my massive student debt. But my financial independence plan never included student loan debt elimination. So maybe that means I do not match that definition of financially independent. I am okay with it.

Here is what I have so far in my financial plan to pursue a sabbatical in 2020.  Check out my Budget Struggles page for notes on this and other calculations along this journey.

The best thing I have taken away from the FIRE community is not just great tips and support on savings and investing but learning to get comfortable with the numbers. I may have doubts about what I may actually achieve during my sabbatical, but as for funding it - either I shall have the money to do it or I shall not. That need not be one of the unknowns.

Sabbatical 2020 Budget: $1,500/mon  ($18,000/yr)

Duration of time: 5 years

Total needed: $90,000

But, and this is a big but, I need to save and have this money in my bank account and my brokerage account. I do not plan on taking money out of my 401k to fund this sabbatical, nor do I plan on stopping contributions to my 401k. I may do a Roth conversion ladder after the fact, but that is down the line.

Sept 2018 check-in. (accurate as of 30Aug2018)

Savings (currently earmarked as my Safety Net Fund): $22,628

Brokerage Account:  $33,378

Total: $56,006

Difference (left to save): $90,000 - 56,000 = $34,000

Left to save: $34,000

By my calculations, I should be able to save this much in my savings and brokerage account by Sept 2020.  My annual savings target is not going to change much from where it is now, I am just going to access it sooner.

As the time gets closer, the plan would be to max out my 401k and Roth IRA early in 2020 and funnel the rest to my savings (as opposed to brokerage account) so it is easier to access when I pull the trigger.

FAQs

Maybe all you need is another job?

Maybe not.

What if you lose your job before then?

I shall continue along the plan to raise my goal amount and sabbatical when I reach that amount.

What if you get to your goal amount before Labor Day 2020?

I don't see how that could happen.

What if you fall in love and get married or pregos?

Don't make me laugh.

What if your health declines further and you need routine doctor's visits?

For this I have no answer. I would probably have to keep working to get health insurance. Alternatively, I would need to figure out how much health insurance would cost on the marketplace and sum that figure into my Sabbatical Budget. Furthermore, I am in the process of taking preliminary steps to at least maintain or better my current health. Check out my back to school life list for more info.

Updates:

TBD

Read more: My Alternatives to Returning to Work After Sabbatical

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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• Last week's update


• And the week before that

My Back to School Shopping and Life List

My body is rejecting my current level of inactivity. But obviously, like a human, instead of trying to fix the problem, I'm throwing money at it. I love back-to-school season anyway. It's a new spring so to speak. Historically, I do better with structure and automation. The less decisions I have to make in any one day, the better. In trying to get my life back on track so I can make it to Sabbatical 2020, here's some pending expenses to hit my budget this Fall.

 

1, A new mattress
Rationale: I've been waking up with back and shoulder pain which is only compounded with my 8 hour workday behind a desk.  I looked at the two mattress companies that appeared first on a Google search. One has 2 locations on my way to work. Stopped in and it was mildly helpful, but went with the the one, US Mattress (no affiliate), that had the better clicking experience and hauled my old mattress away. I picked the mattress based on number of reviews, cost, and estimated comfort. Eh, we'll see. It took me about 10 days to make a decision from when I identified the problem.
Cost: $700 (rounded) for mattress + box spring + frame
Budget Category: Incidentals, $340/mon x 3 mos + Miscellany, $144/mon  x 3 mos

2, New shoes
Rationale: Because of back pain, along with shoulder pain, my tailbone starts to hurt near the end of the work day and the end of the work week. My work has accommodated me by providing me a sit-to-stand desk. However, while the standing desk alleviates pressure off my tailbone and shanks (do humans have shanks), it makes my feet and legs hurt.
Cost: $125 $0
Notes. I mentioned interest in getting Dansko clogs (no affiliate), and my nurse colleague offered up her old ones from her clinical days. Win for the single 30-something!

3, Meal plan
Rationale: I haven't been eating well lately. I thought I'd kick off back-to-school season with some prepared meals (not meal kits) delivered to my house. I  did a quick Google search and a few names (no affiliate) popped up that met my lactard needs (lactose-intolerant): The Good Kitchen, Pete's Paleo, and  Trifecta Nutrition. The Good Kitchen provided the easiest clicking experience, so I ended up going with them. I might try the others, might not.  Trifecta Nutrition was definitely the most interesting, but it was too many clicks.
Cost: $75 (rounded) for 5 meals
Budget Category: Groceries, $200/mon

4, An Activity
Rationale: So I guess I'm taking a small step in doing something about the rapid decline of my physical health. Walking for free hasn't really worked much in the last 2.5 years. Although I promised myself that I would never buy a gym membership since I'm not that girl for a number of reasons, desperation and loss of common sense got the better of me. I picked out a class in the community recreating guide, T'ai Chi, that may help me loosen some tension and fits in with my schedule.
Cost: $88 for 7 classes
Budget Category: Incidentals, $340/mon

5, Working late shift
Rationale: I'm having so much trouble sleeping lately, I decided to ask my boss for a more regular shift. Usually we rotate start times between 8a-12n. The two reasonable options were 11a -7p or 12-8p. I don't like being the last person walking across that dark parking lot, so I think I'm going to go with the 11a-7p. At the very least I can wake up a few times during the night and still have time to fall back asleep. And maybe staying up longer will help me stay asleep longer.  We'll see.
Rationale 2: Also helps automate my life as I focus on getting to Sabbatical 2020. Regular shift can mean regular bed time, regular meal times and regular times to decompress.
Rationale 3: Work day goes a little slower, but overall the day goes by more quickly.
Cost: $0 but we'll see (I may end up eating out more, or I may end up eating less altogether)

6, Plane tickets to visit Aunty MERJ (Aug - Dec 2018)
Rationale: She's not doing well and I feel a sense of duty because she took care of my first 10 years in America. And I'm managing parts of her life until we can get her full time care. I spent about 2 to 3 hours searching Allegiant (budget airline), Southwest, and Kayak and looking at open vacation days on my work calendar to pick out these monthly visits. I was initially thinking every 3 months, but I don't know, somehow this seemed easier. She just seems to need so much little stuff done and last minute flights not only increase my anxiety but cost more, so I'll just start here and see.

Cost: $1608, est. initial transactional cost  + whatever incidental expenses that come with travelling
Budget Category: Tithe/Gift, $250/mon x 5 mos +  Incidentals, $340/mon x 1 mon + Miscellany, $144/mon x 1 mon
Note. Hmm, now that I look at this number, this would probably be a good time to look into credit card travel-hacking, but I'm trying to automate my life not add asterisks to it. So, while I hear the virtual frugalists cringing, I've accepted my limitations.

Total estimated costs: $2471 (my budgeted expenses for a month! Will see how this stacks up at next quarterly or annual income and expenses report)

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