Wave Chasing

House – OK – keeping things neat enough, but no time for good deep cleaning this month, but it’s good enough for a repair person to come in, so, go me!

Money – also OK! Ish! Over budget, but not egregiously so – only $60 – and I’m trying to be extra aware of ADHD/anxiety/depression spending.

Work – better, even if I can’t retire tomorrow. Realized that I’m creeping towards burnout, so the resetting boundaries exercise is even more important. Had a client issue come in the last hour of the day and I acknowledged it and still logged off on time – cause end of day brain would have taken 3 hours to figure it out, while tomorrow morning brain will take an hour. It may be a high maintenance client, but it can also wait 18 hours, so I can look at it with fresh eyes.

Mildly annoying bit is I didn’t test the fix the client is complaining about. It really should be directed back to that tester, but they’re out this week, so I can’t even ask them if they recall any problems with it.

Regardless, the couple quiet days have been very, very helpful.

So, the stars have weirdly aligned and I have literally NOTHING TO DO TODAY. Every task on my list is in someone else’s court for the moment. I cannot remember the last time that happened.

I think it’s happened maybe twice in the 3 1/2 years I’ve been in this position?

I was asked if I wanted to move an item from the next sprint to the current sprint, but I politely declined. Let’s keep it in the sprint that actually has a fuckton of time to get things done.

And I am not going to go searching for work today – it will find me if needed, as it always does. And I’m hardly a slacker, but after last week, I needed this, and I’m going to catch up on training hours today.

Since last September, my old team lead had me report every fucking hour of my day back to him, and I didn’t realize how much that stressed me out until he quit and we stopped that BS. Cause I couldn’t have a day like this, he’d be hunting down shit for me to do.

Our capacity was set for 6 hours of testing per day, and I always felt like shit when I didn’t have more than 7, and that’s so not healthy and I’m glad we’re done with that shit – it’s OK to just have a day where YOU’RE ACTUALLY CAUGHT UP ON SHIT.

Of course, there is that one voice in my head going “you don’t have anything to do today cause they’re about to fire your ass” but I told it to shut up and enjoy training time and reading antiwork on reddit.

Today was a good, calm day and I am not feeling quite as FML as I was yesterday.

Logged on at 7, had everything done by 1:30PM (which NEVER happens) then worked on getting caught back up on training hours for the remainder of the day.

Of course, 10 minutes before I logged off, a client issue came in, but I took one look at it and thought, “Fuck if I know, that is why the dev is on this email as well” and logged off ON TIME.

I also realized I hadn’t counted my 401K match in my spreadsheet, which makes a difference and now I’m down to 5,145 days, WOOT.

I’d still quit in a heartbeat if I won the lottery, but today was at least better.

Some idiot double counted utilities in her spreadsheet for the next 20 or so years. (It me, I am the idiot.)

Still sucks and I gotta cut or get a side hustle, but better than this afternoon.

At least according to the little Vanguard tool. I don’t know if I can do it.

This month I should have worked around 104 hours – I rarely hit an exact 8 hour day, but if I did, 104 hours.

How much did I actually work? 159.5 hours. 20 of which while I was on freaking PTO. (Don’t worry, I charged the time, I’m not losing that PTO.) But that doesn’t make for a restorative week off in any way, shape, or form.

This is unsustainable. This month, I’ve barely had the energy at the end of the day to get the bare minimum done around the house. (Thank you, little Roombas for at least helping me keep things off the floor.)

I’m not eating well and not really getting any exercise in, and I am fighting off depression spending.

Roughly $28 today gets me a day in retirement. If I can add or cut $475 a month, that gets me there a year earlier. But I don’t think I have the energy or ideas for a side hustle like that, and I don’t really know what I can cut at this point.

That being said, June is a 3 paycheck month and every purchase is gonna have to be “is this worth X more days of having to work?” I just spent $51 at the grocery store – almost all necessary, but FML – here is the rundown:

• Bottle of cold brew – $6.50 (I usually make my own, but both pitchers need to go in the dishwasher, and this is far cheaper than a week of Starbucks.)
• 92 oz bottle of laundry detergent – $13.00
• Laundry scent boosters, biggest bottle available – $16.00 (Not 100% necessary, but they make the laundry smell really nice and I really like it.)
• Dozen eggs – $5.80 – slightly down in price…
• Salad Dressing – $2.70 – the vegetables won’t get eaten without it.
• Dental Floss – $4.50 – FFS, yes, it’s the “Glide” stuff that doesn’t shred in my mouth, but JFC.

The upside is, I do still really like the work I do, and the people I work with – but June is also going to be “reset those freakin’ boundaries” month as well. And I have a 3 1/2 day week this coming week, which is good and I am gonna do everything I can to actually only work 3 1/2 days.

Really what it all comes down to is that I am very, very tired.

Not too bad!! 18% of my income saved, YAY! Big overspends were on Discretionary (lot of personal care items that are on an irregular schedule) and Charity – and I’m not gonna beat myself up about helping folks. Big underspend was Medical. (Whew!)

The house has been A STRUGGLE, y’all. Work is just taking a lot out of me and I’m only hitting the bare minimum any given day it seems. BUT – Iggy the Roomba has been a huge help – I run it every day in the kitchen/foyer/powder room, 3x a week in the living room/breakfast nook cause they’re heavy traffic, and 1x a week in the dining room/parlor. It forces me to take a couple minutes every day to make sure nothing is in the way and it is weird and awesome what a difference that has made.

Like, I’ve long had a problem with junk mail accumulating on the sofa, getting knocked to the floor and then just kicked all over the living room. No more. I am very seriously considering getting a second Roomba for the upstairs. I mean, anything that helps me keep my shit up off the floor…

But somehow, I did manage to beat Dusty this month!

Bring on May!

And a catch up day around here, since work decided to suck very hard again this past week.

But the downstairs is all clean and whatnot, and while the upstairs needs some attention – I am tired. But, this coming week shouldn’t be near as awful at work, so I can (and WILL) spread that all out over the course of the week so I don’t have a list a mile long when Saturday comes around.

Money is still good, not spending more than I make, so – go me! What is freaky is that I am carrying more debt than I ever have in my life, but cause it’s attached to my house, it’s all good and my credit score has gone through the roof. Fuckin’ weird.

All in all, things are OK.

Things are still going well around here! Work has been BRUTAL the past 3 weeks, but I am in the thick of a much needed 4 day weekend. I’ve only been able to keep up with the bare minimum around the house, but thanks to the Big Clear Out – it’s at least repairperson ready should the need arise. And I couldn’t always say that.

March and April are weird budget months cause the first mortgage payment isn’t until May. Put a ton to savings in March, the big overspends were on household stuff, the big underspend, medical. (Whew.)

April is looking good, too – if I can stay on track, looking like I could put 18% to savings & retirement. If you’re thinking “Why is Christmas there? Are you already shopping for that?” – it’s really a visual marker for me to remind me “don’t spend that money even if it’s in the bank, you’ll need it in December.”

So far the only big overspend for April has been the Books & Newspapers category – I had to replace my dying Kindle, but I’ve read 3 books since I got it last week, so – not a bad purchase. Reading has been a struggle since the pandemic started, but my brain has FINALLY decided to settle down a bit. (Though I feel oddly guilty spending time reading, but the fact that my brain can finally process a damn paragraph again is awesome.)

Comparatively, May is gonna suck, LOL. But even with the mortgage, I should still come out ahead, so, yay!

I am so insanely lucky I have this house and the equity to basically cover my fucking medical expenses. If not for this cash out refinance, I’d be in bankruptcy court. And yeah, I am still angry with myself that it’s taken me this long in life to get my shit together, but better late than never.

And I realized after I posted just how freakin’ cavalier I sounded about an 11K budget shortfall – but I knew I’d screwed something up in my projected expenses – and I had.

Found the double counted things, and forgot I’d not added in interest income, which I actually have for a change!

I’d initially not included medical expenses in my numbers, because I have money specifically set aside for it, but I went ahead and put it in – I want to try and keep setting aside that amount, so if I do have to spend that much, I’m at least also getting it back into savings.

Given history, probably about $800 a month. (Teeth are FUCKING EXPENSIVE.) $250 is covered by my HSA, some (but not much) by insurance.

Of course, that put me back over for the year, but if I cut discretionary stuff by 20%, which isn’t terribly severe – I should be OK.

March has been good – no mortgage yet.

Big overspends were on student loans – paid ahead. Household stuff – So. Many. Cleaning. Supplies. Paid extra on car loan, and we had an unplanned vet visit for the LilyMonster.

Utilities were high – seasonal variations, not worried about that. Went over on clothes – replaced my winter jacket, and my flats that were falling apart – but I doubt I’ll be buying anything next month, so that will even out.

Still nicely under on groceries, discretionary, and car stuff – even with the 20% reduction.

Of course, I really thought that getting the house together would put a pin in the “buy because I can’t find the thing” ADHD issue… Went upstairs today to get work laptop. Heard the mouse slide off the top when I took it off the shelf, didn’t see where it landed.

Searched, could not find it. Searched more – found old broken one (that I thought I’d tossed?) – gave up. Went to Staples, got replacement. (Not pricey at least.)

Get home, say out loud, “Well, this will guarantee I’ll find the old one!”

Walk back upstairs. Immediately see mouse. In my defense – IT WAS SOMEHOW ALL THE WAY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM FROM WHERE I KEEP THE LAPTOP. Like, how the hell did it go that far?

New mouse is safely tucked away in the drawer with charging cables and batteries and whatnot for when it is needed.

Well, time to go get some work done to keep from having to use that “oh shit” fund. 🙂

Both in the house and on my books.

Worked up my budget for May-April (first mortgage payment is May 1) – and somehow I am coming up 11K short, but there is something screwed up with my discretionary calcs – something is getting counted twice somewhere – cause even this month, I am somehow under “budget” by $570 for groceries and miscellaneous stuff, and groceries have gotten hella expensive, but not that much.

But I’m not gonna lose sleep over it, I’ll get it figured out.

But my god, the relief in general just having everything under control and not wanting to vomit when I saw that my tax bill is way fucking higher than I thought it would be.

It’s gonna be a good year.