Happy Resurrection Day (and more free money)!

Happy Easter!
No church this Sunday. I didn't even bother listening online.

Today I feel compelled to adopt a relative that lives overseas. I tend to want to make these sweeping life changes on Sundays. I'd say it's been ongoing for at least 5 years. It is on these idle Sundays that I applied to teach in Spain; applied for 200+ jobs in 2019;  attempted to legally change my name to Sparkles McFairy (not that exactly, but still); signed up for half a dozen bank bonuses a couple weeks ago.

I did bake some resurrection cupcakes. And yesterday I baked bacon in the oven. So I am actively using my oven. I meant to make potato salad today, but lost interest after the cupcakes were done.

I got my first mortgage bill! That's what excites me these days. Paying bills. Well, routine mostly. I'm still trying to pin down a routine as a homeowner who now permanently works from home.

Right now, I'd like to find an indoor hobby - craft or exercise.

Dental hygiene is also an issue. I usually brush because I have to see people, scary but true. When I don't have to see people, my hands and feet can't be bothered to brush and floss.

Things (I'd like) to do this week

• Make potato salad
• Take trash to the dump
• Update mortgage information in BillPay/Explore Mortgage Servicer's Billpay site

More Free Money
A peer sent me an email yesterday that her stimulus check was about to post. She was notified via text from her bank.

It seemed a little Big Brother-y to me, but hey. I hadn't been following the news and had only heard this was a possibility, but now it's actually happening. Wow. As the young kids say, I am here for it!

I really am hopeful it helps those who need it most.

As a person who shelters in place by default, it feels like a nice cherry on top. Who can complain for getting money for doing nothing. Not I!

I checked to see how much I'd get, if any, and because of my period of unemployment in 2019, I actually qualify for the full amount. Strangely, with my 2018 pay, I would not have. I maintain that even though I make a little bit more in my current job, I'm bringing home less - due to actual hours worked and high insurance premiums.

I wonder when I'll receive the stimulus check because I've moved since filing my taxes and I didn't do direct deposit on my tax return.  Additionally, only some of my mail seems to be forwarded for reasons unknown.

It seems these days, some of us on this side of the spectrum are awash with "found" money. I received $5k in life insurance from my dearly departed. I mentioned earlier this week, that my student loan payments have been suspended for 4 or 5 months (~$2500). Then the bank bonuses I'm currently churning, granted I won't see much of that for 6 months. And for 2 years, I'm going to get about $700/ mon from my dearly departed's pension. Blessed. Fortunate. Financial security, or some semblance of it, really is freeing. Really.

A couple people I know have mentioned getting mortgage payments suspended and leniency with other debt payments. The friend I mentioned above is one of those. She also received a promotion, her regular bonus and yearly increase at her job.

Then there's others I know who work retail and their jobs have been suspended. Another peer is a physician, and Kaiser is making them use their accrued vacation time followed by unpaid leave. A doctor! That is so unexpected to me.

My employer actually sent out an email that they were putting a hold on "merit" increases for now. This is mostly the 2-3% cost of living increases.  So there's the pinch I've felt. But the stimulus check and suspended student loan payments more than make up for that!


Simple things affected by COVID

I have not been keeping up with the COVID news. I'm mostly just waiting until the stay at home order is lifted. Not much will really change for me; I hope to at least get a washer and dryer and maybe a fan installed. Lowe's will only deliver to the door now whereas in normal circumstances they'd install for free.

My cousin is getting married in May; I'm curious if the bans will be lifted by then. Actually, I'm not all that curious but other people are. It's not a wedding I was planning to attend.

I'd really like to get some volunteer work in and try to explore my community a bit before it gets too hot.

I really wanted to see the new Mulan movie that was supposed to premiere in March. Not sure if they ever launched it.

How has life been for you this Easter/COVID season??

Free Money from Student Loan

Thanks, government! So yes, I know this is my third post today, but so many feelings, so many things!

I checked my email right before logging in for work and I had a communication from FedLoan, my student loan servicer.

Me being out of the loop had no idea the CARES act was passed granting forbearance on federal student loans. Luckily, I kept my loans out of the hands of a private lender.

So from March 13 to Sep 30, 2020, I have to make ZERO student loan payments. A colleague had mentioned she was taking advantage of forbearance on her loans due to COVID 19, but I had not given it a second thought thinking I had just come out of forbearance and just wanted to leave my auto-pay as is.

But I didn't have to apply for it, it was just granted. I think my April 12 payment was already on the way so that may post, but as for May, June, July, Aug, Sep...that's free money in my pocket! At $529/mon that's $529 x 5 months = ~$2500!!

Thank the Lord!!

Best Easter ever! j/k. Obviously the first Easter was the best.

And it was easier than I thought on my BillPay to just change my next payment to Oct 2020. I thought I'd have to cancel it and reset it up in October.  Nope, it was just a few clicks - my favorite!

Other life update
Remember the I-reject-you-before-you-reject me scandalous email I sent this morning. Well the contract company, of course, didn't respond, but the client responded with a 'Thanks for the update and interest in our company.' That was unexpected and for an instant I thought maybe I jumped the gun (even though it's been over a month). Then I remembered oh wait, that's not an offer which is the objective of a job interview. They're just being polite. D'oh!

Some money, life, and housing updates

So I just posted about my new investment changes I'm implementing. I feel like this whole year so far I spent a lot of time thinking about money - moving money, making money, saving money, money-hacks.

Money update
The last bank bonus I was trying to get was with a small Christian Credit Union, and they have me jumping through so many hoops and creating so many log-ins. Not a fan! Luckily the last 4 days of work have been very manageable, so I've had time to jump through the hoops.

I updated my 2020 Budget spreadsheet, and as of March, I've spent about $8,000 on housing so far. Of which, $3,000 was rent for my old place and the rest was related to my new house (that I have on a lifetime lease from the bank).

In total I've invested about $135,000 in my lifetime, and it's currently valued at about $125,000. Ouch.

In other money news, I've opened a few checking accounts and hope to earn at least $1,000 this year in bank bonuses.

So far, through the pandemic, I'm still employed. Praise the Lord!

Life update
I scheduled quarterly check-ins with a total of 4 old pals that I reconnected with in 2019. I don't even know if I should call them friends. Colleagues? In 2019, I had hoped to have that instant friendship after years or decades of not talking. That didn't happen. I sort of wanted to let them go, but I realize every now and then it's nice to have a check-in with someone, just to get a pulse on life outside myself, I guess.  Since the check-ins are mostly virtual (think email, text, or chat), it feels moderately low-risk. So it's a good compromise for me.

I spiraled a little bit yesterday after not hearing back from the Delaware pharma job. The salary she quoted (not offered) was a little lackluster but still more than I make now, so that plays a tiny part in my desire to do nothing in terms of follow-up. I think the reasonable part of me says I should follow-up with them, but the emotional part of me is screaming: pick me!! The fractured part of me is saying oh, well, this affirms your ordinary life in this ordinary house living an ordinary existence. I don't think anyone I know personally even knows my new address. Just bill collectors.

In my spiral, I applied to 3 jobs online.  I broke my rule of getting out of the job market, but I just needed an outlet for my angst and the assumed rejection.  I also rafted an I-reject-you-before-you-reject-me email to another outlier I never heard from; it was a contract company so that rejection stung a bit. And I think I'm breaking an unspoken rule and sending it to the client directly as well. But I'm doing it as BCC because part of me knows it's wrong and I don't want the contract company to know. And to compound that, the client is actually the Delaware Pharma company who the other interview was with but for a different job. I know very convoluted, right! I self implode during a rejection crisis and especially when people ignore me.

Closely related, as much as I want to be comfortable talking about money matters, I think when people are making more than me or the same as me with less qualifications or education or "smarts", it makes me think I "deserve" to be making more. It's prideful, I know. Well that's another trigger identified. So when people are in jobs I think I could do better or I didn't get and are making more than me, the spiral continues.  This is why I told myself not to apply to any more jobs until I could properly heal and recover from the 2019 Rejection Crisis.

Housing update
I got a futon couch! I'd originally mentally budgeted for something nice, definitely comfier. But with Covid, going out shopping is a little difficult. I found something at Walmart that I was able to touch with my hands (but not sit on), and it felt soft enough for a temporary solution. It's not that soft in reality, but it'll have to do.

I finally changed the shower head and the water pressure is like taking bath in a puddle. So I'll have to change that again.

I've used the oven twice now! It's Good Friday, so I'm hoping to have some nice breakfasts this Easter weekend.

I think that's enough for now.

Why I'm leaving my robo advisor for Fidelity

So since 2018 when I entered the world of investing and really keeping my eye on my personal finance, I try to update my expenses and account balances spreadsheet. Since other bloggers have been talking about the market going down, I tried not to pay too much attention to my balances on my last update.

Then another colleague was talking about her balance that went down $40,000. So yesterday during a lull at work, I did a better job of modifying and updating a spreadsheet I'd started after the first downturn in the market I experienced. It tracks what I actually contributed vs the actual value of my investments. It's easier to understand the "loss" when I see how much of my money was actually invested vs some increased value compared to a decreased value.

After my first downturn, I found myself re-allocating my stock/bond ratio. I read that's not what you're supposed to. I eventually landed on an 80/20 split with my robo advisor and convinced myself to hold it there.

Throughout my periodic updates, I also noticed that my 401k seemed to outperform my robo-advisor. Mostly, when there were losses, the losses were greater with my robo advisor. I'd noticed the trend but wasn't quite sure what to do with it or what I could do with it. Mostly, since I was so new to investing I didn't trust myself.

Two years later, I'm still noticing the trend especially now that the account balances in my 401k and individual brokerage account are about the same.

As you can see, at nearly $60k in both, the robo advisor went down a lot more in recent months. So I'd just had it. I dug a little deeper and saw that my old 401k was wholly invested in a Fidelity Freedom 2045 fund. Since that seemed easy to replicate, I opened a brokerage account with Fidelity and stopped the auto-payments to my robo advisor. What made it a bit easier was my new employer has our 401k through Fidelity, so I just had to add the 2 new accounts as opposed to creating an entirely new profile with them.

The hard part
So I may not have posted this, but actually investing with an actual broker is hard for a novice like me. With the robo advisor, it was pretty easy to open the account. It's millennial friendly and much like opening a bank account. I pretty much just set up an auto-deposit from my bank and they do the rest. That was the initial draw to the platform, so I'll give them credit for that.

I opened a Vanguard account a couple weeks ago, and thought maybe it was just that site that was hard. Nope, investing with Fidelity is just as hard. What is difficult for me is you actually have to "buy" the fund. I don't know if I know what I'm doing. So I'm glad that my plan is just to stick with the Freedom Fund. So yes, I can transfer money from my bank account to Fidelity, but unless I actually trade or buy a fund, it just sits there. I just fear I could accidentally forget to actually invest it. I haven't found a way on either Fidelity or Vanguard to automatically invest money I transfer over from a bank.

Another hiccup is Fidelity is giving me an error message about automatically transferring funds from my bank to the Roth IRA. I have to do it manually any time I want to move money over. Help!

So again, I'm glad my first foray into individual investing was with a robo advisor or else the process might have intimidated me, but now that I at least know the destination, i.e. the Freedom Fund, I can maintain focus through the frustration.  The other thing I'm not sure about is that sometimes I see extra letters next to the Fund name. For example the Fidelity Freedom 2045 Fund sometimes is listed as Fidelity Freedom 2045 Fund K or 6 or something odd. I don't know if those are the same thing.

Also I looked up that same Fidelity Freedom 2045 Fund on Vanguard and the Vanguard website said it was not available to purchase. So I don't know if you can only purchase Vanguard Funds from Vanguard or what??

Lastly, I think my plan for now is to just to move my future contributions from robo-advisor to the Fidelity accounts. Once I get more comfortable and my balances with my robo-advisor shore up again, I might move them over.

Housing Diares: 1 Week Later

So I've been in my new place a week now. I moved in last Saturday, so I've spent 2 Saturday nights here. I officially turned in my keys to my old place yesterday. Well "officially" meaning that because of COVID 19 they just asked me to leave it in the apartment and 3 days later, they'd come by and walk through the apartment when it was safe.

Oh well.

Now that I'm getting into a routine here, I'm leaning into my "shelter in place" life. I've stocked up on yummy goodies for the next 2 weeks. I'm hoping to not have to leave my house for the next 2 weeks. It's like a paid staycation - my favorite kind of vacation.

I hope work continues to be a non-issue.

I miss my sainted aunt and that led to crying on and off for most of the afternoon yesterday into this morning. Well, I mostly just regret that her last days were not so great. I just wonder if I were supposed to play a bigger part in that. I feel regretful that I was so selfish. I blamed work and how unhappy I was.

Some things that are going well in the new place:

• I've gone a week without eating in bed. (I've been eating in my office or on the floor in the living room.)
• I think I did 6 out of 7 days not eating after 8p.
• Only woke up once with heartburn cough so far. 
• No internet use in the bedroom, so that has cut down my clicking around, not to a quantifiable amount yet, but getting there.
• No TV in the room (I've been falling asleep to audioboks instead). 

Not too jazzed about:

• Killed 3 or 4 bugs already. Gross.
• I keep knicking and marking up the walls accidentally. They're so sensitive!
•  Side swiping the neighbor's car with the moving truck. Whoops!
• Different things that have ended up costing more because I was trying to be frugal (see bullet point above).
• Undue pressure on myself to try to frugalize everything especially given the state of things. 

In other news, realizing I'm always going to need someone to talk to. Some things are exciting, or new, or anxiety ridden, and it helps to get it out there.  I don't know what this looks like in terms of friendship and my hesitancy towards them.

Still trying to reconcile my death date and how that informs my choices in regards to friends/family, career/career opportunities, seeking joy, personal finance choices.  Do I shoot for a basic life? A life with the least amount of upset? Pursue joy (knowing the risks of disappointment)?

In financial news, my bank bonus churning has slowed down. I think I only applied for one more account. I did get approved for one of the  Chase credit cards. I wish it would come already! I already spent at least $350 getting stuff for the new house. But, I think for my sanity and to keep things simple and not slide into that slippery slope of credit card debt, I'm saving the Chase cards for my washer/dryer. So I only have to charge it once and can pay it off immediately.  So I really need to exercise some patience and temperance and focus!

I should go, lest I continue to ramble on.