I looked through my August expenses so far, and September cuts will be a touch easier than I thought.
I had an annual membership that renewed in August, so that won’t pop up in September.
Some of the “stupid shit” category won’t repeat.
Car expenses should go down a touch – won’t be doing 3 round trips into the city and have an extra fill up.
Baseball is only once a year.
Gas/Electric should drop a bit, won’t need as much A/C or heat.
Taxes will go up cause of the car taxes, though. (Technically not due until the first week of October, but I don’t like waiting until the last minute on that.)
But when all is said and done, it’s $300 less right there.
The trick is gonna be thinking hard before spending anything in that stupid shit category – it’s always a problem.
Not a bad week, but once again, bit of a mixed bag. Can I pay my bills? Yes. Did I hit my activity goals? Yes. Can I get a repairman in without panic? Not really. I’m feeling a bit better today in general, but still kinda frustrated.
On the health stuff, I have upped my activity points goal to 300 – the fitbit I replaced a couple months back is far more sensitive to activity, and I think gives me far too much credit some days. But, made the new goal! And drank all my water!
Household stuff – a bit up and down, but I did get things done.
Financials – I tweaked it a bit and put in estimates for the rest of the month, as month to date can look a bit weird when you have bills due on the 1st and get paid on the 5th and whatnot.
Time to retirement – ~13.5 years – the number is a bit up and down as I’m still tweaking estimates and finding things I’d forgotten to add. I’m trying to figure out how to speed that up, cause, I don’t know how many good working years I have left at this point. Good news, no baseball expenses next month, so that’s something. Granted, the below also assumes I don’t eat for the rest of the month, but whatever.
We’re in a hiring freeze at work again, since we’re apparently not gonna make sales goals, which means bonuses will be crap come February, and they’ll use it as an excuse yet again for crap raises and no promotions – but fuck, I’m too old to find something new at this point.
A side hustle would come in handy – even $300 a month would do it – but I have zero idea what I’d do or if I’d even have the time for it. So, guess I get to see if I can cut $300 in costs a month? (On that note, I did just put up 2 pitchers of cold brew for the week to keep that Starbucks tab down.) I’ll also be calling the cable company this week to see what we can do about the cable/internet/TV bill, cause it’s ridiculous. The last time I was at the shop to replace a cable card, they told me that the retention department could get me a better deal, with an equipment upgrade to boot, so I need to get on top of that.
I think this afternoon I’ll spend some time figuring out what I can cut in September.
OK, that should say “Current Month” at the top, but I’m not arsed to fix it this morning.
To do list is looking better, cleared out the basics and got caught up on a handful of things.
My mind just is stuck on the fact that being a 50 year old woman with what I genuinely believe is untreated ADHD just makes everything around the house SO STUPIDLY HARD.
At work, I’m fine – you’d think I was a gal who completely and utterly had her shit together.
Occasionally I think about actually trying to get a diagnosis for it, but honestly, it’s too late for me, and given that it is insanely hard to get a diagnosis, and the Powers That Be have decided to treat patients like drug dealers – not really worth it.
And maybe that’s why I’m trying so hard to get myself to retirement – maybe if I only have to focus on the house by that time, I could do it. (It may just be a fancy on my part, but you grasp onto what you can.)
Living in the US is so…messy. All you ever hear about is all the opportunity, but I don’t know anyone who is doing better than surviving – myself included. I mean, fuck, we’re all just an accident away from bankruptcy because of our fucked up healthcare systems.
And maybe that’s another reason why I want to get to retirement – I genuinely like my job, but I hate waking up every day and wondering if this is the day I get sacrificed at the altar of shareholder returns. (And also, who likes working, LOL.)
Of course that leads to thinking about all the stuff I have to do to be ready to retire. It’s not just the money part. It’s having the house in a place ready for aging, or finding a place already set for it. Lots of stuff like that. It gets in your head.
And I’m gonna try to get caught up on things around the house and not spend money.
My household to-do list is still completely out of control, but hopefully by Sunday night, things will be slightly better.
Sent $300 to debt reduction today, go me.
Still waiting to see what President Biden is gonna do about student loans, if anything – they told servicers not to send out billing statements just yet at the end of July, then…nothing. I’ve taken advantage of the pause, but still sent some extra when I could to keep the due dates pushed forward, so I don’t have a payment due until 10/4, but another pause or outright cancelation would sure be welcome.
I don’t expect he’ll do anything – I have a feeling his attitude is a bit, “what more do they want?” – but it is what it is.
House health – ehhhhhh… I did spend the bulk of the weekend out of the house, but I am getting caught back up today.
Financial Health. I should have started looking at it like this AGES ago – things I though I spent too much on really aren’t that much at all, so this helps me get better focused. Baseball is once a year, and yes, too much, but – once a year. Usually I buy the tickets as soon as they go on sale, but this year with the lockout and plague, I waited until the last minute.
Debt servicing is obviously awful and I am working on bringing that down.
Taxes aren’t unexpected, it’s always a lot.
Insurance is the one that really surprised me. It’s one of those non-negotiable things, but I guess I never really realized that it was so much every month. Hair Salon is what it is – until I go full grey, these roots gotta be touched up.
Mind you, I had to negotiate with myself like a toddler with “if you do X, you can watch another episode of Sandman” – but it worked. The only items left are bedtime things.
Financial Health – Could be better! Estimated retirement age: 60.8
House Health – not so great!
I hoovered* a half dozen houseflies out of the front window, which isn’t’ a huge deal – but I have zero fucking clue where they came from. Not the litter box, it’s cleaned daily. There are a couple dishes in the sink, but those have only been there a day, so not from there. Haven’t seen any of them anywhere else in the house – so I’m wondering if it’s from one of the plants in my little window jungle. I really don’t want to have to repot all my plants, but that may be on tap for tomorrow… I just genuinely don’t know what else it could be.
*Dyson set to Max + crevice tool – quicker and easier than a flyswatter.
Can’t just say I’m gonna get my shit together and then magically hope it happens. I know myself well enough for that.
The heatwave is supposed to break tomorrow night, and I have this coming Friday off.
To start, this week, I am only to only focus on the “must do” items – just need to get back to realizing I *can* do that, and that it does feel kinda good when I get them done. (Even those have been a struggle of late.)
So, gonna make the bed, make sure the cat’s stuff is all in good order, keep the sink empty, and get the bins out. I know to anyone else, it truly seems like nothing, but too many days – this is a whole damn mountain.
I was doing really great with things around the house and then I just…wasn’t. Some of it was work being insane, but once that slowed back down, I was just, IDK, stuck.
And now we’re in the middle of a heatwave, which makes everything a bit awful and too hot.
I just got back from vacation last week and usually that gives me a bit of “oomph” but not this time.
But I want to have my shit together, I genuinely do.
It’s just that even existing right now is exhausting.
Wave Chasing 