Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.

I am 35 years old, I made $67,665 gross last year (between multiple jobs) and live in Buffalo and work in higher education and retail.

Title: I am 35 years old, I made $67,665 gross last year (between multiple jobs) and live in Buffalo and work in higher education and retail.
This is my 5th MD update. Previous MDs in June 2019, October 2019, February 2020, and July 2020.
Ref29 questions:
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Absolutely. Both of my parents have bachelors degrees, and it wasn’t even a conversation of “if” I was going to college, but “where”. I ended up going to a private 4-year college, with a 75% merit scholarship. I was able to pay for the first semester with savings bonds/general savings, but took out loans for the remaining semesters. I worked 2 on campus jobs (tour guide and TA), plus at a coffee shop - this was more for spending money/gas etc. Looking back, I wish that I had put more of that income aside for paying for school, but I was definitely headlong into the student loan trap of “it’s ok, this is good debt….blah blah.”
I thought that i had the exact idea of what I wanted to do for a career - and that basically required a masters degree - so I went straight to grad school after undergrad. Private - and took out the maximum student loans for both years. I cannot stress what a terrible financial idea this was. The last half of my MA was in DC, so I used the loans for rent/food, as I had a full time unpaid internship. Long story short, what I thought was my career goal wasn’t.
I am FINALLY nearly done paying off my loans. If I had to go back and give my past self advice, it would have been to not go to grad school directly after undergrad. I still might have gotten my masters, but I would have done it in a much more financially responsible way.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
We had conversations growing up - but it was much more of a conversation now that I’m an adult. I’ve noted in past MDs, but my parents have told us that they regret not being able to help us all more as teenagers/college/young adults, so they’ve been extremely supportive of my focus on debt repayment.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Not really. I remember being conscious about it - we didn’t have new cars (EVER - like it’s still a thing), and we used coupons/budgets/bulk freezer meals for shopping, but I think a portion of that was that there were 4 of us kids. We were all involved in a variety of extracurricular activities as well, but I don’t remember even being like, limited or restricted from doing anything.
Do you worry about money now?
Absolutely.
While I am noting that I’m making progress, it is still very overwhelming. It’s really hard for me not to beat myself up when I either buy “treats” or things that aren’t really treats, but are just home comforts. I finally bought myself 2 sets (!) of decent sheets this past month after having 1 set of crappy sheets for the last 2 years lol. I still have so much work to do, on debt repayment, fully funding my emergency fund, and (massive goal here) saving for a down payment on a house.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I would say I was financially responsible for myself when I moved for grad school in the fall of 2008 (so when I was 22/23).
That being said, I definitely have had a financial safety net - my parents always assisted with grocery money if I needed it - when I was married, that definitely was not only a safety net, but also got me in a lot of bad habits.
Since my divorce, my parents have assisted with cell phone, car insurance, and letting me live with them for a few months when I moved back to the US. I know that if something happened, they would absolutely assist with a place to live if I needed it.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
As previous MDs have noted, my parents have assisted with assorted checks when my dad got a bonus, and they have always been extremely generous with holiday $.
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): $33,194.67 (up from $23,800 in February 2020)
This is a combo of Stash Retire ($1721.52), 401K from a previous job ($17,330.01), retirement accounts from my current job ($2807.58 in my optional IRA to which I contribute extra; $2947.46 in the basic retirement plan, to which my employer contributes 7%), and TSP from a previous job ($8,388.10).
Savings account balance: $1000
Checking account balance: $1381.07 (at the start of the money diary)
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it): $7,558.08 (focus has been more on student loans, plus I am a bit guilty of using it at random points) (down from $19,556 in June 2019).
Student loan debt (for what degree): Current remaining balance is $972.57!!!!! This is down from $23,645.37 in June 2019) (combined loans for undergraduate and graduate degrees in International Relations. To give you an idea of how much I’ve paid off - I’ve paid $118,297.81 off up to this point).
*note: December was a PHENOMENAL debt payment month for me (just over $4k).
Section Two: Income
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $2847.53
*after using the IRS refund calculator, it became clear that I was expecting a much higher refund, so I stopped having extra withheld. Eventually I’ll get the hang of it.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: $1442.72 (average monthly take home August-December 2020)
My retail job fully reopened, and I also applied for, and got a promotion, which meant both an hourly raise and more hours)
Any Other Monthly Income Here:

Christmas $ from Mom & Dad - $1000
Stimulus Checks - $1200 + $600 (Both of these went mainly to debt repayment)

Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage $980.00/month (+ $3.95 service charge when I pay online) (no change)
Retirement contribution: $115.58/month Roth IRA from work + $80.00/month into Stash Retire (no change)
Savings contribution: $0/month (Debt payments are the priority)
Investment contribution: None
Health/Dental/Vision Insurance: $76.38/month (Through work, it gets taken out biweekly)
FSA contribution: $27.78 biweekly (I set my annual contribution at $750 this year, up from $600)
Debt payments
Student Loan minimums: $55.54 is strictly the minimum for my FINAL (!!!) student loan, but as you all know by now, I have been attacking these with a vengeance and plan on this being gone no later than March.
Credit Card minimums: Avg. Monthly Payment $300. (as mentioned in the debt section, I have slipped slightly on allowing myself to use the credit card, but still have been able to lower my overall amount)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: $64.99/month
Cellphone: Still on the parental plan, but will be transitioning off. I’m shopping around and have started to budget.
Subscriptions: Apple storage - $2.99/month; Netflix- $8.99; (even though I’ve been able to be at home much much more, we still get a monthly barkbox for the toys; Spotify Premium - $9.99/month. Headspace - $14.99/month. Renaissance Periodization - $16.19/month
Laundry (if you pay per load): $40/month. I put aside $10 per paycheck.
Gym membership $75/month - I budget this much for my ROMWOD and Movement Vault monthly subscriptions. This also covers my monthly subscription for my WHOOP band. My retail side gig also provides $225/month to work out. This covers my monthly membership to my crossfit gym, as well as extra megaformer classes. $32.63/month for WHOOP; $13.95/month for ROMWOD; $9.99/month for Movement vault
Pet expenses: $150/month - includes pet insurance. This is what I put into my budget for insurance, food, grooming etc.) Barkbox 31.54/month; Pet insurance $79.24
Car payment / insurance / average gas:$100/month (as my dad plans on retiring within the next year, he will be signing over my car to me, meaning that I will be taking on my insurance. I fully acknowledge that this has been nice to not have to worry about, and that my parents have been absolutely amazing. The current annual insurance for my car looks like it will be around $450. Future money diaries will take this into account.
Renter insurance: $12.50/month
Average groceries / household supply spend; Looking at YNAB, my average spend has been just over $700/month. This seems insanely high for one person, but I do also follow a RP meal plan, meaning that I tend to eat A LOT to fuel my workouts. I also haven’t gone out basically at all ….
Regular therapy: N/A
Charitable Giving: $75/avg. August-Dec 2020 (Much of this was “rage” donating in the run up to the election)
Annual Expenses:
YNAB (You Need A Budget): $83.99/year
NB: Anytime I leave my house, I am masked, including gym visits. It’s honestly not terrible once you find a mask that works for you!
Day 1: Friday
5:45am: Alarm goes off and I get up to put the kettle on to start coffee. Today is a weigh in and weekly review for my meal/training plan, so I enter my numbers and see what my upcoming week will look like as far as my macros. I notice that my chest/shoulder are sore, and hurt when I take a deep breath, but assume that I just slept on my arm wrong. I take out the dog, feed him, and head out to my weightlifting class.
7:30am: Nope, not just sleeping on it wrong. I make it through the lifting portion, but when we start the metcon, I have to stop because it hurts too much to take a really deep breath, instead stretching and cheering everyone else on. Annoyed, but hopefully it’s nothing too crazy. I think it’s just a strain from my muscle up drills the day before. Once I get home, I make breakfast - a savory oatmeal with oats, cheese, chicken sausage, egg whites, and mushrooms, topped with a fried egg and za’atar seasoning from Trader Joe’s. YUM. I log into work and get settled in for a 2 hour (ugh) staff meeting.
11:00am: Finally done with that. Thank goodness for my camera getting to be off. I take a shower and get into “work” clothes - aka lululemon from top to bottom (align leggings, ebb to street crop tank, and a sit in lotus wrap). Back to work until it’s time for lunch, which I have just after noon (rice, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, and ground beef, topped with avocado). Work continues afterwards.
2:00pm: Time for work #2! It’s a fairly uneventful (and slow) afternoon/evening, which is ok after the craziness of the holiday season. And I only have to tell 2 people to put their masks on over their nose and they don’t give me an attitude - woohoo! Around 5 I eat my food on my 10 minute break - another taco-ish bowl, just without the avocado from earlier. I get out from work at 7:30pm.
8:00pm: Home, take the pooch out and feed him and make my casein hot chocolate (casein protein is a slower digesting type vs. whey and it’s my evening “meal” most of the time) plus a couple dark chocolate peanut butter cups. I facetime my Mom briefly and then we each put on our respective Star Wars shows - she and my Dad are watching the Mandolorian (they just got Disney+), and I’m deep into season 4 of the Clone Wars. Bedtime routine starts at 9:30 with a couple of melatonin gummies and I brush my teeth and wash my face (eye makeup remover, then Neutrogena foaming cleanser, and a nighttime moisturizer from Aldi). Snuggle up with the dog and a heating pad with a Headspace night sounds playing.
Daily Total: $0
Day 2: Saturday
5:50am: NO. It’s like 30 minutes before I want to wake up...NO.
6:10am: Uggggggh
6:20am: FINE. Dog outside, then fed. I make coffee and another savory oatmeal (AMAZING - same as yesterday, just no bell peppers). Catch up on podcasts and my YNAB budget. In happiest news, I can take a full big breath without that weird pain from yesterday! Yay!
10:00am: Home from my workout, which went amazingly - I love a good long chipper of a workout! I take the dog out for a little cold weather walk and then make my post-workout meal - Kodiak chocolate chip pancakes with blueberries! (use 1 egg and almond milk to make the pancakes and it fits my post-workout macros: 35P, 10F, 65C). I follow this with a cuddle session with the dog while watching Marple episodes and drinking coffee. I also add items to my lululemon shopping cart and exit out of it before I can spend money. While I get a great discount (especially on markdowns), I know I don’t really NEED anything, so I don’t get anything.
1:00pm: Off to the mall for work. I stop on the way to fill the gas tank ($25). It’s a busy day, but a good one - during my break I eat my taco bowl (rice, sweet potatoes, ground beef, peppers and avocado). I work until 7:30pm.
8:00pm: Home, dog out, casein hot chocolate - the usual. I’m nothing if not a creature of habit. I pull out a Trader Joe’s chocolate croissant to prove overnight in the oven. Bedtime is around 10pm.
Daily Total: $25
Day 3: Sunday
7:50am: Whoooops, I intended to wake up around 7:15, but I didn’t actually set the alarm. Luckily the dog wakes me up with a polite whine - I take him out, make coffee and a bowl of oatmeal (oats, almond milk, egg whites, topped with blueberries), and head to my workout around 9.
11:00am: 2 workout classes later, I’m home - post workout meal is the aforementioned chocolate croissant, and a little egg scramble of egg whites, mushrooms, chicken sausage and broccoli. The afternoon is spent with old Miss Marple episodes on Amazon Prime, combined with laundry and apartment cleaning.
3:00pm: I made a quick loaf of bread (2 hrs of rising, then shaping) and put it in the oven. Happily it turns out pretty damn tasty - I make Trader Joe’s Cippino (seafood soup) and have that with toasted fresh bread around 4/4:30pm. A Clone Wars marathon ensues - the Bills are playing in the AFC championship tonight, so the city is basically a giant ball of nerves. I don’t watch the games (and haven’t all season - mostly because I don’t have all the apps/cable), but I follow the score on my phone while watching many (MANY) episodes of Clone Wars. I facetime my mom and dad around 7 after they finish the Mandolorian and we can all squeal with excitement.
9:00pm: Melatonin gummies, contacts out, teeth brushed, face washed, bedtime.
Daily Total: $0
Day 4: Monday
5:45am: Awake, coffee, take the dog out, head to crossfit.
7:30am: Home, dog out again, then breakfast (homemade toast, everything but the bagel smoked salmon, scrambled egg+egg whites) and more coffee. I login to work at 8am, and get the morning podcasts going (Up First, the Daily, Post Reports, the Intelligence).
10:00am: I place a Target pickup order for the snacks for our break area at the mall (seltzer, peanut butter crackers, cookies, granola bars - all single serving packs). I will be reimbursed for this by the store. ($39.57 - I get a notice that an item isn’t available after I place the order...oh well)
11:00am: I’m traveling out of state for a couple of days - it’s a long awaited tattoo coverup (don’t get a tattoo for a significant other….I knew not to do this...and yet I still did), so I make my list of items to pack and things to remember to do (take out trash, do all my dishes, etc). I will be driving to my destination (Indiana), staying at a hotel by myself, going to the tattoo shop (masked), and back to the hotel. Not telling friends I’m there, not going out anywhere. And I’ve scheduled a test for 4 days after my return, per NYS rules. If I could make the drive nonstop, I would, but your girl isn’t giving herself a UTI lol. I’ll be masked and sanitized anytime I step out of my vehicle. Still super nervous, but getting this tattoo covered up is like….the final FINAL step. I also take a shower (finally, yes I’m gross and have been sitting in my workout clothes since I got home - god help me if I ever live with a human again lol).
2:00pm: Time for head out for work! On the way, I pick up my previously mentioned Target order, and also pick up meals for my trip from a local meal prep place - I get a bunch of great stuff (2 breakfasts, 2 dinners, 1 lunch plus energy bites for the car), plus it means that I can just hermit it up in the hotel room apart from the actual tattoo appointment. ($62.68). I get to the mall early before my shift starts - since I know I’ll have a tub in the hotel room, and I don’t have one in my apartment, I get a couple of bath bombs and lotion from Lush ($25.93) and a whole bunch of sheet masks from Sephora ($25.01). Then time for work - It’s a fairly quick shift, which is nice, not too terribly busy and we get a lot done. And people at the mall are generally not pills today - epic win!
8:15pm: Home from work - take the dog out and have a little evening meal of homemade soup from my co-worker (it’s a kale sausage soup her husband makes and it is AMAZING) and the rest of my homemade bread. I finish packing up and the poor pup definitely knows something is up. Bedtime around 10pm.
Daily Total: $153.19
Day 5: Tuesday
5:45am: Alarm, dog, coffee. Rather than dirtying dishes, I heat up one of the prepped breakfasts I brought (a breakfast sandwich with chicken, which is actually quite tasty - plus some blueberries). I get the car loaded up with my stuff and the dog - he’s staying with my parents while I’m gone - and head out by 7:15am. After I drop him off I top off my gas tank ($14.10), and also get a couple of bubly waters and a can of death wish coffee for the road ($6.25).
12:00pm: Lunch stop at panera - fuji apple chicken salad and a cup of chicken noodle soup - drive thru and eaten in the car ($10.94, but I have a gift card). Road Trip Podcasts: You’re Wrong About and Noble Blood.
3:00pm: Gas stop (there’s also a few bathroom stops, but since I didn’t spend anything, it’s not terribly relevant, right? :) ) ($27.01).
5:30pm: Arrival! Check in to the hotel - masked front desk employee, check. Bring my stuff up to my room, and jackpot - biiiiiiiiig tub. Looks like those bath bombs were a solid choice! Open up the work laptop to see if there is anything urgent - nothing crazy - and decide which meal I want for dinner. Bourbon Chicken with Broccoli and Sweet Potatoes it is. Plus a Sparkling Apple Cider vinegar beverage (ginger and lemon) from Trader Joes. Before I eat, I do a lower body focused stretching routine from ROMWOD since I spent so long in the car.
7:30pm: Bath Bomb, Face Mask, Feet Mask, and finished Night Stalker on Netflix. Since I’ll be quarantining until I get a negative COVID test after my trip, I order 10 meals through the same meal prep company that I got my travel meals from ($88.43 - includes both delivery fee and tip). They will be delivered on Sunday.
Daily Total: $146.73
Day 6: Wednesday
6:00am - I had intended to sleep longer, but my body is like - nope, you’re waking up at the same time no matter what. Coffee (keurig in the hotel room - ick) plus a prepped breakfast (a goat cheese egg white scramble with sweet potatoes - which is delicious). Morning podcasts and I open up the work laptop. Since I’m awake I guess.
7:30am: Hotel room workout - I do yesterday’s workout from my gym, with a few modifications, but it still feels great to move after sitting in the car for so long! Shower afterwards, then food (Mexican Taco Bowl!) and work.
10:30am: Squuuuueeee it’s time for my tattoo. I double mask up, drive through for a Starbucks order ($4.74 - paid for on my Starbucks app with previously loaded funds) and head to the shop! I already paid my deposit and took advantage of a gift card sale before Christmas so I don’t owe anything additional today. We do linework, shading, and partial color. It’s going to take 2 appointments to do the full thing, so we make my next appointment for May (augh, I cannot wait!). My coverup is over black text, so a cover up involves a LOT of layering of color. I’m impressed that I still have stamina after not getting a tattoo for nearly 3 years.This is going to be BEAUTIFUL.
2:30pm: After my tattoo appointment, I make a quick stop at CVS (still double masked!) to pick up aquaphor, orange dial soap, ibuprofen, and toothpaste (cause naturally that’s the one thing I forgot to pack - d’oh) ($22.00). I make a curbside pickup order for Panera - another soup and salad combo ($10.55 - again paid for with gift cards!). I head back to my hotel room, eat, put on more podcasts (Planet Money, Can He Do That, Code Switch) and log onto work. An uneventful afternoon follows.
6:00pm: Facetime call with my mom, then dinner and various true crime documentaries on Netflix and Pinterest browsing because as per usual, now I want allll the tattoos. I also put in an order for a grocery pickup on my way home (coffee, coffee creamer, fruit, etc) ($66.82). I try to make a testing appointment through NYS for my return COVID test on Monday, but the automated system keeps putting me in the first available, which is Friday….I’ll try to schedule again on Friday so that the timing works. Bedtime tattoo routine of wash, aquaphor and ibuprofen, as well as a sheet face mask. Sleep around 10:00pm.
Daily Total: $104.11
Day 7: Thursday
6:00am: Welp, up and at em! I finish packing all my stuff, check out of the hotel and warm up the car. I head out around 7:00am. Top off the gas tank ($12.80) and I also add $15 to my Starbucks card and drive thru a Starbucks (Spinach Feta Wrap + Cafe Misto with almond milk). Then it’s time for podcasts and lots of driving. My mom had suggested a podcast from Serial - S*%*Town. IT’S AMAZING and this drive has never gone so fast!
11:00am: (or sometime around this time) Stop for gas ($27.01) and another Starbucks stop ($15 reload) to get another misto, a bottle of water, and a fruit/cheese/hard boiled egg box.
3:00pm: I was going to try to make it all the way without stopping for anything else, but my stomach is about to eat itself. I stop at a Tim Hortons about 45 minutes away from my parents’ house and get timbits and a hot chocolate (which is gross) ($6.66 - eeep). I get to my parents’ house - my mom and dad stay upstairs and in the basement respectively while I use the bathroom and retrieve a very happy pup. Once I get everything out to the car, my mom and dad come outside (double masked, as am I) and we quickly wave and air hug from a distance. On the way home, I drive through the grocery pickup and get my groceries.
5:30pm: Finally home. The dog is very happy to be home too - my mom said when she would come into the bedroom where he was, he would look at her and be - “oh…..just you…”. Such a momma’s boy :) Dinner is actual food (the rest of the kale sausage soup). I also put together a batch of cranberry almond biscotti (based off the Ina Garten cherry pistachio biscotti) - the apartment smells delicious. Settling in for post-travel isolation lol.
9:30pm: Melatonin gummies, tattoo upkeep, and then bedtime with the dog!
Daily Total: $76.47
Weekly Total: $505.50
Food & Drink: $326.64
Fun & Entertainment: $0
Home & Health: $22.00
Clothes & Beauty: $50.94
Transport: $105.92
Reflections:
First, GODDAMN I AM SO EXCITED TO PAY OFF THIS STUDENT LOAN. Just paid another $200 on it this morning, so we’re under $800!! If you hear an excited scream from the Western New York area next month, don’t worry, it’s just me.
Second, this was a higher spend week than usual, but I’m really proud to have budgeted for all of it. I had basically prepaid for the tattoo (on the gift card) and there’s still leftover for my next appointment. I had also budgeted and saved for the increased amount of gas and food.
Third, hopefully this isn’t too boring. My life pre-pandemic wasn’t terribly interesting, and it certainly isn’t now lol. I’m hoping to continue my debt payoff progress by finishing paying off my credit card debt in 2021, and start saving my 3-6 month emergency fund before starting that house down payment savings! I’m even starting to allow myself to start actually looking at Zillow.
I have been isolating since I got back - just drove through and got my COVID test, so fingers crossed for a quick reply!
Lastly, the coverup tattoo is going to be beautiful. I can’t wait for it to be finished!
Thanks for reading this whole thing!

I'm 33 and don't understand the first thing about PF

I am 30 years old, make $135,000 a year, live outside NYC and work as a Senior Data Analyst.

Section One: Assets and Debt

Retirement Balance: $84,000 This is based on combined balances in my IRA accounts (Roth + Rollover). My current company, which I’ve been working at for 6 months, doesn't offer 401(k) matching until after the first year of work - so I’m waiting for that year mark to start contributing to one.
Equity: ~$550,000 This is the current market value estimate of my home, a small 2 BR condo just outside of Manhattan, from Zillow. I purchased my home in summer of 2015 at a closing price of $484K. I put down $284K for the down payment (from my savings and investments which I had slowly accumulated since I was 15. My dad helped me open my first brokerage account at the time and encouraged me to keep investing and diversifying my portfolio as I grew older; this proved invaluable when it came to having the funds for my down payment a decade later) and took on a 20 year mortgage for the remaining $200K. Just last summer (June of 2019), I paid off the remainder of the mortgage balance and am now debt-free. The timing of the payoff was mostly motivated by a city-wide property revaluation assessment last year which bumped up my property tax payment to almost 3X the previous amount.
Savings account balance: $139,000 I have this in cash in an online savings account with Ally. I normally would have invested some of this, but ever since March and with the ongoing uncertainty with the virus, the presidency, etc. I haven’t felt comfortable doing so. I am also considering buying a second condominium near where I am now that I could either rent out in the future, or move into myself and rent out my current place instead for rental income, so I want to keep funds liquid for the time being.
Checking account balance: $3,500 This amount is split across two banks - one with Ally and the other with Chase. I keep above the $1,500 minimum at Chase to avoid any fees to ensure I can withdraw cash at one of their ATMs if needed.
Credit card debt: $0 I place almost all of my purchases on one of two credit cards, but pay them off in full every month (and make sure to redeem the bonus points for cash back!) The total I’ll have charged across my two cards at any point in time usually ranges from $0 to $600 dollars.
Student loan debt (for what degree): $0 I have an undergraduate econ/business degree from an Ivy League that I’m so grateful my parents were able to help me achieve without having to worry about accumulating a huge student loan for. They started a 529 account for me a little later than ideal (when I was in middle school - I’ll go into more detail in the next paragraph) but saved aggressively leading up to when I graduated high school. They were able to cover the majority of my tuition + room and board this way, and I helped cover the rest through several scholarships and working on campus.
Mortgage: $0 Paid off last year! This was definitely one of my proudest recent accomplishments. I’ve always lived fairly frugally, due mostly to my childhood experiences and background. If there’s anything I could have done differently, it would have been to get a mortgage for a shorter term (versus the original 20 years) so that I could have gotten a lower rate and paid less in mortgage interest.

Section Two: Income

Income Progression: My first job was at McDonald’s when I was 15, and I started with the minimum wage rate of $5.25/hour. In high school, I switched to working retail at Kmart and then every summer of college, worked at various paid internships for the full summer in addition to working on campus at various jobs (from cashier to research assistant). My junior year summer internship was at a firm that I would eventually return to full time after I graduated. I've been working full time for 8 years now, and my starting salary was ~$60,000. I started off working in analytics for a financial service firm in NYC and have changed jobs every 2-3 years since then. I primarily stayed in finance up until last year, working my way through steady salary increases each year and with each job change. I had begun looking for a new job and industry right before the pandemic hit in March as I was getting bored and frustrated with my role at the time; I had actually interviewed for my current role right when interviews were all being changed to virtual and didn’t hear back until May as the company was dealing with the big shift to work from home and figuring out headcount for the future. Thankfully my role was kept and I officially started working at my current company in the media/tech space in mid-May. My current annual base salary is $110,000 with a 10% annual bonus ($121,000 all-in).
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $5,800 This is my final take home, which is paid out bi-weekly (my average paycheck amount is around $2,900). This is after deductions for health insurance (dental+vision), a healthcare HSA ($100 a month), and a pre-tax transit account ($100 a month). Retirement contributions are currently on pause until I hit my one year mark next May and qualify for matching contributions to a 401(k).
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: ~$890 I have a couple sources of income from Instagram, one of which is my dedicated food account (75K+ followers). For this account, I don’t have a steady stream of income but reap the benefits in various invitations to restaurants in NYC - I’m invited in for a meal (usually with a guest), and for posting photos and stories featuring the restaurants and dishes, have the cost of the meal covered. For sit down meals, however, my guest and I make sure to cover the tip for the service. I’m occasionally shipped food/drink items to share as well. If I do make any income, this is from infrequent brand or restaurant campaigns that I’m contacted for; depending on what’s required in deliverables, these can range anywhere from $300-$3,000. The pandemic definitely impacted this year, but for 2020, I’m on track to have earned ~$6,500 from these. I am also helping 2 friends of mine who started a small business in July with some photography and social media. I post on their social channels and do larger product shoots 1-2x a month, and get $350 a month for this work.
Any Other Monthly Income: $300 My property also has a gated parking spot included with the deed; so even though I don’t have a car, I’ve found a “tenant” for the spot since I bought my place five years ago. We sign an annual lease every October for $3,600 for the upcoming year, which comes to $300/month.

Section Three: Expenses

Property Tax: $767 (paid quarterly at ~$2,300, this amount changes quarter to quarter, so I’m using an average for the past year)
Homeowners Association (HOA) Fees: $434 (this covers water, garbage, and some building insurance)
Condominium Insurance: $54 (paid annually at $650, my HOA fees cover some initial property insurance, so this is specific to my unit).
Retirement Contribution: On pause for now as I wait to hit the year mark at my current job to get matching 401(k) contributions. I also want to keep some earnings liquid for a potential future real estate investment.
Debt payments: $0, aside from paying off my monthly CC balance
Electricity/Gas: ~$70 (depends on the season, spring and fall are in the low $40s while summer and winter can be in the high $90s)
WiFi: $40 (recently signed up for the introductory offer at Comcast)
Cellphone: $50 (I’m on the family plan still, but transfer this amount to my dad each month)
Credit Card Fee: $8.33 ($200 annual fees across the 2 cards I currently have. Next year I will cancel/downgrade from the Chase Sapphire Preferred as the benefits for Travel and Dining are pretty much moot.)
Subscriptions: Amazon Prime: $10 (annual subscription, I share with my family) Netflix: $0 (my parents cover this one) Hulu/Spotify: $11 Adobe Creative Cloud: $11 Apple Cloud: $1 OneDrive: $2 Causebox: $17 (quarterly subscription box that I pay the $200 annual cost for)
Donations: I don’t have a recurring donation organization or amount, but will donate where and when I see the need. So far this year, I’ve donated $500 to my local hospital, the NAACP, and City Harvest.
Savings Contribution: I will pretty much just transfer over money from my checking account to my savings account whenever it gets above the $1k or $1.5k threshold (I’ll keep more if it’s around the end of the month and monthly payments are coming up). I’m typically able to transfer over $2.5-3K each month, unless it happens to be one where quarterly property taxes are due.

Weekly Expenses:
Food + Drink: $78.70 (including tip)
Fun / Entertainment: $0
Home + Health: $72.33
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $0
Other: $189.24
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Day One (Monday)
8:45am: My alarm goes off and I hit snooze. One of the worst parts about the whole WFH situation has been how bad I’ve become with getting up on time, knowing that I can be at “work” in less than 15 steps. I scroll through social media a bit and catch up on some posts before getting out of bed.
9:15am: I’ve brushed my teeth, washed my face, and put on my skincare (toner, serums, and moisturizer) and am booting up my laptop. I changed jobs 6 months ago in the midst of the pandemic, leaving my previous role in financial services for a position in a large media/tech company, which has been a little crazy. It’s been tough doing everything remotely, and learning the new industry and programming/software has been especially difficult, but I feel like I’m getting my bearings. I start brewing some coffee.
9:30am: I hop on a Zoom for our weekly department huddle and listen as the different teams give updates on various initiatives as well as some background on company-wide kick offs and projects. Some of the projects I’m working on get brought up and it feels good to be doing what feels like actual work. After the call, I get to work on tackling work for some of the larger projects I have, which include scoping out source/logic details on a production report that we want to integrate in a new platform and QAing a table that I’m working on with data science.
12pm: I take a break to refill my coffee mug and make IG posts for my friends’ small business account and my own account (a food IG with 75K+ followers). I took on the first gig a few months ago when my friends, a couple in Brooklyn, launched their hand-crafted drinks business. I started the second, my personal account, over 3 years ago with a focus on restaurants in NYC. It stalled quite a bit over the last few months with the pandemic, but I’ve been dining out infrequently these days, and have limited myself to dining with only one friend at a time (out of a total of 3 friends since June, all of whom I know have tested negative and have been taking precautions since March).
3pm: I’ve wrapped up a touch base with a manager and a semi-stressful meeting where I had to present to some senior executives a dashboard we've been working on over the last few months. They have a few (mostly minor) tweaks that I note in a JIRA ticket before I grab my mask and take a quick break to stop by a local ice cream shop that’s invited me in to try their latest dessert special. There’s thankfully no one else there aside from one of the co-owners who recognizes me and gets my treats ready. I photograph them, thank her, and leave a $3 tip. $3
3:30pm: Back home, I get back to some Slack messages and try to prepare for another stressful call at 4:30pm that I have to lead. I finish eating the ice cream and call it lunch - but hey, that’s #adulting for you.
6pm: Wrap up some notes from the call and text my dad the address that I’m heading out to. I saw a 1BR condo listing pop up on Zillow over the weekend that looked promising, so I’m getting an in-person tour of it this evening. I get my mask on again and make the 5 minute walk to the building where the realtor is outside to meet me. We go inside to look at the condo for sale - the space definitely looks smaller in person than in the photos, and I note that a number of things need to be replaced or upgraded. I thank the realtor after the tour and give a call to my dad to let him know I’m okay and to give him my initial impressions of the space.
7pm: Back home! I wash my hands and change my clothes and get started on dinner; I’ve been craving soup these days so make a quick hot and sour soup on the stove with mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tofu, and some corn I have in the fridge. While I eat, I edit the photos from my DSLR from this afternoon, and check my IG account email to reply to about 7 emails that came in today about campaigns and invitations to restaurants; one of these includes signing a contract with a new app that’s offering a generous sign on payment and potential future income. I catch up on IG posts and comments and text a few friends.
11pm: I spend the rest of the evening catching up on some news, watching the latest episode of the Korean drama Start Up, and finally take a shower. While my hair is still drying in a hair tower, I do a quick Chloe Ting workout; I started doing some of her workouts a few months ago and while I’m not doing them super seriously, I’ve definitely noticed a difference in my abs and feel stronger overall. My Google Home plays some news snippets for me afterwards, and I roll my eyes at the continued attempts of our current president to try and derail the election results. On the plus side - the initial vaccine results from 2 firms have been super promising!
1am: I remember to take my daily multivitamins and then read a bit on my Kindle (I just finished Sex and Vanity, and start on Me Before You - another thing I picked up during quarantine, and I’ve already read over 30 books since March!). I then proceed to spend too much time on Instagram and reddit before turning out the lights.
Day One Total: $3
Day Two (Tuesday)
8:45am: Alarm goes off on the dot and I, the perpetual sleep procrastinator, snooze one too many times. I barely manage to make it out of bed in time to brush my teeth, wash my face, and chug some water before a 9:15am call. It’s a quick check in on projects within my business area so I summarize the work that’s been done and am grateful I don’t have to have my webcam on for this.
12pm: Unfortunately I need my webcam on for the next two meetings, so try to make myself look semi-presentable by combing through my hair and putting on a sweater, instead of my default hoodie. I get a little more clarification on some metrics and data sources in this upcoming platform integration and discussing my upcoming sprint priorities with my manager. At noon, I make a new post on my food IG and go through my feed. I pour my second mug of coffee and drink more water in preparation for the next batch of afternoon meetings.
3pm: Talk through more Zoom calls to the point that my throat is starting to hurt. I’m especially frustrated after the team huddle that just ended where one of the managers tells me my approach to building out the proposed data architecture is too limited in scope, and I should be more imaginative and proactive. The entire work from home situation has made it difficult to understand how to work with and collaborate with different people, so I try not to get too frustrated. I spend the rest of the afternoon making some minor adjustments to existing production reports and updating JIRA tickets.
5pm: I email over my dad a few of the more promising Zillow listings that landed in my inbox this morning. He jokingly complains that there’s too much to read and the words are too small before I realize that he’s been doing a lot of work on his laptop lately as he’s been WFH more. I take a look at a few computer monitors and opt for a larger (24”) version of what I currently have as it’s been working well for me for the last 6 months. I make sure it includes a HDMI cable and have it shipped my dad. $179.24
5:50pm: I grab my mask, bag, and camera and text my friend to let her know I’m en route to dinner; she’s one of the few friends I’ve seen in person since March and is also a food blogger with a separate full time job. She’s been quarantining in Long Island since the start of everything, and texts me that she’s driving in from her home, I head out to the PATH station, swipe in using my prepaid Smartlink card, and hop onto the next train.
6:35pm: I’m a few minutes late but make sure my friend knows I’m walking over, and meet her outside the restaurant. We get checked in, fill out our contact information on our phones, and get our temperatures taken; thankfully there’s only 2 other groups seated and the windows are open. Tonight’s dinner was an invitation that I already confirmed with the PR team, so the staff are expecting us and understand we’ll both be taking photos. We order a few apps and two mains, and spend the rest of the evening doing some quick photos and catching up on our lives, her plans to move into Manhattan or JC, and complaining about the ongoing election drama.
8:30pm: Dinner is done, and I realize I forgot to stop at an ATM and only have a dollar bill on me so ask if I can Venmo my friend my part of the gratuity. Thankfully she has $20 on her so I quickly Venmo her $10, making sure to use the adorable fries sticker to represent the copious amount that we ate tonight. $10
8:45pm: My friend and I walk out with our masks on, and I bid her goodbye and a happy Thanksgiving before stopping at the ATM to take out some cash, making sure to sanitize my hands after, and then head to my train. As I wait, I make some quick edits to the photos I took on my iPhone and add them with a few captions and tags to my IG stories; I manage to get through them all by the time the next train pulls up and leaves.
9:20pm: It’s always so nice to get back home! I wash my hands, change my clothes, and get started with transferring over the photos from my DSLR to my computer. I spend the next 20 or so minutes editing and saving the final versions in Adobe Lightroom and make sure to chug a glass of water to help balance out all the sodium I had. I check my messages and see that a restaurant in NJ confirmed a lunch delivery for tomorrow and see another contract in my inbox; I read the deliverables and ask the account manager if she can take out the clause requiring a Tiktok post because I don’t have an account.
11:30pm: I shower and put on my evening skincare, take my multivitamins, and do a quick ab workout with Chloe Ting (it still hurts lol). I take a look at my work calendar tomorrow and see that my first meeting starts at 9am, so I update my alarm to 15 minutes earlier. I take my vitamins and spend the rest of the evening catching up on some news, reddit, and IG.
1:30am: I blame Youtube vlogs for this one. Finally turn out the lights.
Day Two Total: $189.24
Day Three (Wednesday)
8:30am: Alarm goes off and I manage to get myself out of bed in a semi-reasonable fashion. Do my typical routine (brushing teeth, washing face, getting water and coffee ready) and log into my work laptop so I’m on the Zoom right at 9am. This is a belated overview session for one of the larger projects that I started working on quite late in the process, so it’s a useful business and data update that gives me a better understanding of the end goals.
12pm: Sit through one other department meeting where I don’t fully pay attention because I look into some minor report and code checks (oops). Once those wrap up, I’m able to take a break to do a post and stories for my friends’ business account and then make a post on my food account. I notice an email come in from a PR company about a new location opening for one of my favorite restaurants, so I check with one of my friends if he’s able to make the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and reply back to the email requesting it.
1:30pm: While I listen in on a company-wide speaker event on the topic of gender sensitivity and awareness, I also click through a recently assigned digital training course on sexual harassment and discrimination. I understand that the latter is a legally mandated item, but find it a bit sad (especially in the current day and age) that these are things that have to be spelled out for people. After I finish, I get a call for my lunch delivery; I grab my mask, keys, and wallet and meet the deliveryperson downstairs. I give him a $6 tip and take some photos of the items, which include chicken wings and a chicken sandwich. After I’m done with photos, I scarf down the food so I can make my next call which requires me to talk and have my webcam on. $6
4:30pm: I have a 1 on 1 with my manager and then a call with a business partner to scope out requirements for a new report. So glad to be done with calls! I get started putting together a project plan/roadmap for one of my projects and Slack one of the recently hired data engineers, who I found out grew up near me in suburban Philadelphia!
6pm: Get the shipping notification email that my dad’s monitor has shipped! I call it a day and close my work laptop and get started on my weekly apartment clean. I call my dad while I do so and let him know that his monitor should arrive on Friday; he thanks me and we catch up on work, COVID, and my potential future real estate investment. While I talk, I notice an alert from Mint that a large charge from Amazon hit my credit card; I’m a little worried until I log into my account and see that the annual prime membership has been renewed. Also tell my dad this as he heard me flip out thinking that someone had been making fraudulent charges on my card, as he and my mom are part of my “Prime household”. ($127, noted in my monthly expenses)
7pm: I’m done vacuuming and taking out the trash and am officially hungry. I make a quick tomato and egg soup with orzo and eat an apple while I wait for the orzo to cook. I wrap up some IG emails while I eat, including signing the updated contract with the Tiktok clause removed and politely declining some invitations to places that I’m not able to physically go to.
10pm: Wash the dishes, take a shower, brush my teeth and put on a clay face mask; while it dries, I do a quick 15 min workout on the mat and then wash off the clay mask before doing my skincare. I make sure to drink some more water and take my vitamins, and spend the rest of the evening in bed on my phone and working my way through Me Before You - it’s a slow start, but I’m starting to warm up to the protagonist.
1am: Lights out!
Day Three Total: $6
Day Four (Thursday)
8:30am: Forgot to change my weekday alarm back; oh well, I’ll survive. Crawl out of bed, and get ready for the day (you know the drill), and make sure I have plenty of coffee on hand. My period also just started, which is never a good sign.
12pm: The morning has just felt like an onslaught of meetings; followed by some impromptu Zoom calls. I’m starting to feel frazzled as various timelines and deliverables seem to have been shifted up and try to work with one of the other data engineers to specify possible business user requirements. This unintentionally gets shared with one of the project managers who sends an email en masse to the business users asking for sign off on this initial list. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but...
12:30pm: Make the post and stories on the small business account and my own account, finish the remainder of today’s coffee while I go through emails and minor JIRA tasks. I hop onto a share screen with one of my coworkers to transition over a project I’d been working on; I had built out a new dashboard and now that it’s “QA” state has been approved, he will now take over the more formal production process and maintenance.
3:30pm: During our second team stand up, I give my manager project updates and he immediately tells me I shouldn’t have let my list be shared with business users and other involved teams. I don’t fully get why; but after our team call he asks me to hop onto an impromptu Zoom with him where he tries to explain some of the complexities of company and team politics and how I should be very careful to give my stamp of approval, however formal or informal, unless I fully stand behind it. The conversation is a bit long, but I get a better sense of what's going on between teams and managers, and try not to cry as my manager tries to tell me it's not anything I did, but I need to be careful of my actions.
6pm: I manage to collect myself in time to meet a friend for the first time in months at an outdoor dine a few blocks away. He (and his girlfriend) was just recently re-tested as negative, which is always reassuring. While I get my belongings and my mask, my coworker Slacks me asking if I’m okay, apologizing for not messing earlier as she was on an afternoon call. She reassures me the same thing has happened to everyone else on the team, that a lot of these nuances I’m not aware of because I’ve never been in the office, and suggests putting on a one hour venting session with the other engineers in the team next week. I happily do so, and tell her I’ll catch up with her next week as I have off tomorrow.
6:30pm: My friend and I are seated near one of the heat lamps, and it’s so good to catch up with him after so long! He gives me some life updates, including the fact that he and his girlfriend are moving into a house they are waiting to close on, and the fact that he just put down a deposit for an engagement ring!! I’m so excited and barrage him with questions on timing, his plans, etc. and almost forget that we need to order food.
8pm: We have a delicious meal that includes burgers and a lobster roll (all of which I photograph) and he gets a few cocktails (I don’t drink). I leave a $10 tip, and my friend puts down $15 for his share, factoring in the alcohol. We mask up before heading out, and I tell him I want updates on everything for the next month as he goes through all those major life events! $10
8:30pm: After my short trip home, I wash my hands, change, and get started on editing photos from tonight. I definitely feel much better after the work “event” and take a longer shower tonight to decompress.
11pm: Decide to skip the workout tonight because I feel like it, and sit in bed doing some more administrative/scheduling tasks on my iPad in bed. I see a few updates from some of the team in India (yay international time zones - not) and debate if I should handle these tonight. Since I’m out tomorrow, I know it’ll be better if I do, so hop back onto the work laptop to wrap up some last minute code edits and JIRA updates. Once I’m done, I make sure my OOO notice and status in Slack are updated and eat a yogurt cup with some grapes because, yes, I’m hungry-ish again.
1am: Hair is dry, vitamins are taken, and it’s time for bed... or not? I’m already past the halfway point of Me Before You and cannot stop reading - it’s at the point where I’m now seriously invested in the relationship between the female and male protagonist and have to know how it ends (even though I already have my guesses). I speed through the rest of the book and shed a couple tears when I finish, which is past 3am. Thankfully I’m not working the next day! I make sure to set my alarm for later and finally go to bed.
Day Four Total: $10
Day Five (Friday)
11am: My alarm goes off and I actually feel semi-decent upon waking up - I don’t think I will ever not be a night owl! I get dressed and get ready to head out to try and get a COVID test; I last took one in June so want to have a more up-to-date status, especially as I’m potentially going home the next week for Thanksgiving. I haven’t seen my parents for over a year at this point and my dad has offered to drive down from Boston to pick me and my sister (in college, who is tested every week) up, but I’m still not feeling great about it given the fact that my parents are in their 60s. At the very least, I want to get a test to have more information before making any final decisions. I drink some water so I’m at least hydrated.
11:30am: I grab my Kindle, mask, and sanitizer and head out to the nearby mobile testing center that was set up. The line is about 15 people long - not terrible, especially as everyone is spacing out 6+ feet between each other - so I head to the end and spend the 2 hours or so in between my phone (making my daily IG post) and my Kindle (next up: Olive, Again) While I wait, I get an email about one of the campaigns I’ve been ironing out, and confirm I’m planning on visiting this weekend to get photos so I can send the content draft over for approval afterwards.
1:30pm: The process is pretty seamless; I fill out my information through my phone, upload a photo of my insurance card, and get my temperature and blood pressure taken before the nasal swab. It’s not that bad, I guess, but having anything put uncomfortably deep into your nasal passages is not fun. The doctor tells me I should get my results by the following Tuesday through the online patient portal; I thank him and head back out with my mask on.
2pm: Home and officially hungry, so after washing my hands and changing, I bowl a pot of water and put in a block of Shin Ramyun. I make it a little less like what I ate back in college by adding in some frozen corn, spinach, and an egg. I also eat an apple and catch up on some emails and go through IG before taking a fat nap.
6pm: I’m woken up by a text from my dad; it’s a picture of his new computer set up at home, and I’m glad to see everything’s working and should hopefully help his eyes. I take a second look at the photo and see that he’s using a tiny USB wire mouse - which he probably got as a work freebie. I sigh and find a wireless mouse on Amazon to have delivered to him the next day; I send him a text to watch out for that delivery as well tomorrow. $10
7pm: Time to head to the grocery store! I have a few options within walking distance of me, but like going to the Asian grocery store just given how unique and sometimes hard-to-find their selection is. I’m doing a virtual dinner swap with a friend tomorrow so I need to get ingredients for that, as well as my weekly grocery shop. I make sure I have my mask and reusable bag, and stock up on tofu, zucchini, mushrooms, bok choy, more apples (Fuji, but Honeycrisp is also a fav, ground pork, and some snacks, noodles, and yogurt. I struggle a bit to carry it home. #smallpeopleproblems $33.31
8pm: Once home, I unpack everything and get started on a (very butchered) version of soondubu with Napa cabbage, zucchini, and mushrooms with a spicy soup base (dwenjaeng paste, gochujang, soy sauce, gochugaru). I cook some rice on the side. While I eat, I load up Netflix and decide to start on The Queen’s Gambit.
11pm: Shower, skincare, and vitamins - and I end the evening with another quick mat workout. After I blow dry by hair, I climb into bed and spend far too much time on the phone as my brain wanders and gets in knots about Thanksgiving next week; my parents and I agreed not to make any decisions until I got my results back, but even if it’s negative, I know there’s still a risk if I were to let my dad pick me up and take me home. I know he and my mom really want to see me though, which makes me feel even more conflicted. I tell myself to stop thinking about it until next week and double check my schedule for tomorrow before opening up my Kindle to read.
2am: Finally decide to sleep after getting distracted by Youtube, again. Oops.
Day Five Total: $43.31
Day Six (Saturday)
10:40am: My weekly Saturday alarm goes off; my friends behind the small business and I have our recurring call every Saturday morning and while I would like to sleep in, I force myself to get up, brush my teeth, and do a quick face wash.
11am: I drink some water as we catch up on today’s agendas and tasks; we’re finalizing a seasonal holiday drink to be rolled out after Thanksgiving, so we go over the ingredients and timing, and figure out when I’ll be able to visit them in Brooklyn next month to get the photos for future posts and website updates. They also tell me they’d like to grab some photos of their new house (that they’ll be closing on soon) while I’m there, and I’m happy to do so. My friend tries to tell me that they’ll pay me extra for this, but I laugh and tell her she can just feed me.
12pm: Grab my mask, keys, and camera - Time to head out today! I have two stops near me to get photos for upcoming posts; one is for a bakery chain releasing a seasonal cake flavor and the other is for a newly opened location of a pizza franchise. My pick up order for the bakery was made in advance, so I stop inside, give them my name for the order, and after a little confusion that leads to them calling a manager, I have my cake ready to go. I take it outside to photograph; this campaign is offering a small payment but thankfully doesn’t need to review the content before I post.
12:30pm: I load up the app for the pizza place on my phone and use the pre-loaded credits to place my order in advance so it’ll be ready for pick up once I arrive. It’s a 15 minute walk or so over, but the pies are ready for me when I get there. The staff is nice enough to put them in a bag for me (they’re personal pies, so thankfully small enough) and I walk over to the waterfront to take some photos out there. I add some photos to my stories and walk home with my goodies; I’ll need to write up and submit the content for approval before posting, but this campaign is also offering a small payment.
1:30pm: Finally home! I wash up, transfer my photos to my laptop, and get started editing. In between, I make a post to my food account and the small business account, catch up on comments and friends’ posts, and try not to make a mess while eating some pizza and a slice of cake.
3:00pm: After putting the leftovers in the fridge, I’m ready for a nap. I set an alarm for 5pm just in case I oversleep since I need to make dinner late for my dinner swap!
5:00pm: Alarm goes off, and I struggle to get out of bed. I know I want as much time as possible to cook though, especially as bad things happen when I rush. I prep the food in advance by washing the bok choy, slicing the mushrooms, and mincing garlic and ginger. I do a bok choy and mushroom stir fry, and make mapo tofu and rice. I barely finish in time to package half of the meal into to-go containers for my friend, and text him; he tells me not to rush and that it’s cold enough so that the dessert won’t melt (lol).
6:40pm: I meet my friend outside halfway between our apartments outside of City Hall; of course we’re both masked. We do our meal swap; I give him the savory items I made while he hands over 2 small containers - and we both head to our separate homes. When I get back, I find out one has tiramisu and the other has a matcha oreo ice cream! I log onto Zoom for our virtual dinner hangout. Even though my friend is so close, he sees his parents regularly as well, so has been doing his best to be extra cautious. We’ve come up with this set up where we’ll each swap items for dinner (usually I’ll cook the savory and he’ll order dessert) and exchange them before enjoying dinner over Zoom later.
8:30pm: Call is over, so now it’s time to clean the kitchen - and it’s definitely a mess, especially as I was a bit frazzled. I wash the many utensils and pans I went through and do my best to dry them; washing up is definitely the least fun part of cooking.
11pm: Spend the rest of the night killing time between my phone, Netflix, and emails. I ask one of my friends (whom I saw earlier in the week) about some potential dates and places over the next few weeks, and send over calendar blocks while I wait to get reservations confirmed.
1am: By this point, I’ve showered, taken my vitamins, and am ready for bed. Read a little, watch some more videos, and eventually fall asleep sometime later.
Day Six Total: $0
Day Seven (Sunday)
12:30pm: It’s the one day this week that I don’t have an alarm, so I let myself sleep in for as long as I want to - which means that yes, I will sleep through the morning and into the afternoon. I dawdle in bed, posting on my food account and catching up on my feed, and just scrolling through various news articles and reddit threads.
1:30pm: After finally washing up and drinking some coffee, I grab my mask and bag to round out a few more groceries for the week; even though the Asian grocery store is great, they don’t have some staples so I’m heading to one of the more traditional stores near me today. I pick up some pasta, tomato sauce, oatmeal, peanut butter, and some more produce. $16.39
2:30pm: Once I’m back home and put everything away, I make a late lunch of oatmeal and apples with some Annie’s Mac & Cheese. While I eat, I start putting together the post and story captions, tags, and links for the pizza campaign, and submit them to the account managers for approval.
5:00pm: After some more dawdling on my phone and getting through more of The Queen’s Gambit (so good!), I hop onto a weekly Zoom with two of my good friends. We’ve known each other for over 8 years and while I do see one of them semi-regularly, the other has some health complications. We’ve kept this weekly Zoom call since mid-March and it helped me get through the rougher months.
7pm: After the call is over, I check my Amazon cart and take a look at anything that’s accumulated over the prior week. For non-essentials, I’ll add them to my cart and take a few days to think through if it’s something I really want/need and I’m usually able to pare down that list when I get back to it later. I decide to keep a saucepan and bath towels and order them for next week. $72.33
8pm: For dinner, I default to my tomato & egg soup with rice, and add in some zucchini for some more vegetables. I eat an apple and finish off the ice cream from yesterday as well.
11pm: Shower, do my skincare, and plop myself into bed. I continue binge-watching The Queen’s Gambit until the end - such a satisfying ending!
1am: Make sure my alarm is set for work before turning out the light.
Day Seven Total: $88.72

I'm kinda ok with MCO -> CRO Swap; a indepth personal view

EDIT: this post https://www.reddit.com/Crypto_com/comments/i2yhuz/open_letter_to_kris_from_one_of_cdcs_biggest/ from u/CryptoMines expresses my sentiments and concerns better than I could ever put into words myself. I'd say read his/her post instead.
Very long post ahead, but TL;DR, I actually see this swap as a positive change, despite fearing for what it may do to my portofolio, and having mixed feelings about its consequences on CDC reputation.Before I start, for the sake of context and bias, here's my personal situation as a CDC user:

I'm just a average Joe, with a 500 MCO Jade card. I bough 50 MCO at 5,22€ in September 2019 and staked for Ruby, then bough 440 MCO at 2.47€ in March 2020 and upgraded to Jade. The total amount of MCO I own is currently 515, and everything above the 500 stake is cashback rewards.
I bought MCO exclusively for the card and bonus Earn interest benefits, and had no plans to unstake my MCO. Now with the swap, definetly won't unstake.
The MCO -> CRO conversion rates increased the fiat value of my MCO in about 1000€.
I own a decent amount of CRO, wich I bought at ~0,031€ in March 2020.
The country where I live is crypto friendly and completely crypto-tax free; I only have to pay income tax if I deposit a certain threshold of fiat in my bank.

Take all these factors into account as possible (if not major) influencers or bias on my opinions; both the emotional and economical ones. Call me a fool or a devil's advocate if you want, but keep your torches and pitchforks down. As we say here on Reddit: "Remember the human".-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like all of you, I woke up to find this anouncement, wich came right the #&@ out of nowere, and gives you little to no options. Good or bad, this announcement arrived as basicly a "comply or die" choice. Emotionally, this came as both terrifying and disgusting; but rationally, I cannot blame CDC for it.
Because wether we like it or not, CDC is a centralized company, and the MCO tokens were never a stock or legally binding contract; something wich pretty much every crypto company or ICO warns in their T&C and risk warnings. Not to mention the mostly unregulated status of the cryptocurrency and. I'll call this "dishonest" any day, but I cannot see it as a "scammy" since I can't see how they broke any rules or terms.
A scammer would take your money/assets away, but CDC is offering you to swap it for another asset wich you can sell right away if you want. And at current price, it is still worth more or less as much fiat as MCO cost at the 5 $/€ wich was more or less the comunity standard used for calculating the card prices. And by that, I mean that the fiat value of 50/500/5000 MCO (as CRO) is actually not far from the 250/2500/25'000 $/€ that the comunity commonly used as standard when calculating the ROI and (under)valuation of MCO.
So CDC is at least trying to give us the option to get (some) our money back, and not at a unfair rate. If you happened to buy MCO at a price higher than this, I can't see how that's CDC's fault, just as I don't see anyone blaming Bitcoin or Altcoins for getting them stuck at the top of the 2017 bubble burst.
I read many posts in this reddit calling this a "backstab" and "betrayal" of early investors and for the people who "believed in MCO". Emotionally, I share your sentiment.But after thinking it for a while, I'd say this was actually very rewarding for early investors and long term MCO supporters. As CDC clearly sates in the swap rules; nobody is going to lose their card tier or MCO stake benefits (at least not yet), and your stake DOES NOT unstake automatically after 180 days. Actually, so far they never did unstake automatically, you had to manually unstake yourself.
With this in mind, everyone who already got their cards, or at least staked MCO to reserve one, basicly got them 3-5 times cheaper than future users; and IMHO, now the $/€ price of cards feels more fair and sustainable compared to their benefits.So in a sense, everyone who supported and believed on the MCO for its utility (i.e. the card and app benefits) has been greatly rewarded with perks that they get to keep, but are now out of reach for a lot of people.Likewise, the people who believed and invested in CRO (for whatever reason), have also been rewarded, as their CRO tokens now have more utility.
So either the price of CRO crashes down to around 0.05 $/€, or the people who bought MCO/CRO early or cheap are now massively benefited. But then again, so is everyone who bought or mined Bitcoin in its early days, or invested in Bitcoin at crucial points of its history... how is that unfair? Some people bought Ethereum at 1'400 $ on a mix of hopes/promises that it would continue to rise; it didn't. And even today with DeFi and ETH 2.0 ever closer, it is still far from that price.
And I know what some of you are thinking: "The cards aren't avaiable in my country yet, that's why I didn't buy/stake."Well, they weren't avaiable in my country either when I staked 50 MCO. Heck, the cards weren't avaiable in anyones country when MCO started, but many people still bought it and staked it. That's exacly what "early adopter", "long supporter" and "believing in MCO" means.
On the other hand, the people who invested on MCO as a speculative asset and decided to HODL and hoard MCO, hoping for its price to moon and then sell MCO at big profit, had their dreams mercilessly crushed by this swap... and good lord, I feel their pain.But this is also where I'll commit the sin of being judgemental, because IMHO, speculating on MCO never made any sense to me; MCO was a utility token, not a value token, so it should not (and could not) ever be worth more than the value of its utility. That's basicly how stablecoins and PAXG are able to stay stable; because nobody will pay more/less than the value of the asset/service they represent.
Tough now that I'm looking at the new card stake tiers in CRO, I have to give credit to the MCO hodlers I just now criticised; maybe you were right all along. Unless the price of CRO crashes or corrects, I wich case, I un-rest my case.
One thing I'll agree with everyone tough, is that I fell that CDC just suckerpunched it's comunity. Because even if we have no vote on its decisions (wich again, we aren't necessarily entitled to, since they are a privante and centralized business) they should/could have warned that this was in their plans well in advance; if anything to allow those who wouldn't like it to exit this train calmly.
Also the CRO stake duration reset. The mandatory reset of your CRO stake for taking advantage of the early swap bonus feels like another gut-punch.
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Now that we got emotional feelings out of the way, here's my sentiment about how this will affect the overall CDC ecossystem.
One common criticism of the sustainability of MCO was that its supply cap could never allow a large number of cards to be issued, and how could CDC keep paying the cashbacks and rebates. On the oposite corner, one of the major criticisms of the sustainability of CRO, was it's ridiculously huge supply cap and inflation caused by the gradual un-freezing and release of more CRO into the system.
But now that MCO and CRO became one, it might just have made both issues more sustainable. Now the huge supply cap of CRO makes more sense, as it allows a much larger number of future users to stake for cards (at higher costs, but still). And because most card cashback is small parcels, this large supply also ensures that CDC can keep paying said cashbacks for a long time; especially since it can be semi-renewable trough the trading fees we pay in CRO.
Before this, the MCO you got as cashback had no use, other than selling it for fiat or speculate on its price. But CRO can be used, at the very least, to receive a discount on trading fees. And everytime you pay trading fees in CRO or spend CRO on a Syndicate event, some of that CRO goes back to CDC, wich they can use to keep paying the cahsback/rebates.
And keep in mind, the technicalities of CRO can be changed, as well as the perks and utilities it can be used for. So even if this current model doesn't fix everything (wich it probably doesn't) it can still be changed to patch problems or expand its use.
Another obvious potentially positive outcome of this, is that now CDC only has to focus on 1 token, so it makes it easier to manage and drive its value. People complained that CDC was neglecting MCO over promoting CRO, but now they can focus on both services (cards/exchange) at the same time. Sure, this might not bring much advantage to the common customer, but its probably a major resource saver and optimizer at corporate levels; wich in the long term ultimately benefits its customers.
Much like Ethereum is undergoing major changes to ensure its scalability, the crypto companies themselves also have to change to acommodate the growing number of users, especially as the cryptomarket and DeFi are growing and becoming more competitive. Business strategies that were once successfull became obsolete, and exchanges that once held near-monopolies had to adjust to rising competitors. There is no reason why CDC shouldn't keep up with this, or at least try to.
Point is, the financial markets, crypto or otherwise, are not a status quo haven. And when something is wrong, something has to be changed, even if it costs. The very rise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, wich is why we are here in the first place, is a perfect example of this, as it experiments and provides alternatives to legacy/traditional products and technologies.
Was this the best solution to its current problems? Is this what will protect us as customers from a potentially unsustainable business model? I have no idea.
This change ripped me too from my previous more or less relaxed status quo (the safety of the value of the CRO I bough for cheap), along with CRO late investors wich now probably fear for the devaluation of their CRO. To say nothing of the blow this represents for my trust (and I believe everyone elses trust) on CDC and its public relations. It's not what CDC did, it's how they did it.
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Wether you actually bothered to read all I wrote or just skip everything (can't blame you), I'm eager to hear your opinions and whatever criticisms on my opinions you may have.
If you just want to vent at me, you are welcome too; now you can raise your pitchforks and torches.

I’m 30 years old, live in Brooklyn, and make $135k as the Head of Investor Relations

Section One: Assets and Debt

Basic Info: I’m 30 years old, live in Brooklyn, and make $135k as the Head of Investor Relations. Not too much has changed since my diary in October, but I’m in the beginning phases of buying a condo! I’m keeping meticulous track of my experience and purchasing expenses, and I’ll share those once the whole process is over.
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): $173,871.44
This has changed a fair bit since my diary in October. First, I’m in the process of rolling my former company’s 401k into an IRA then to my current company’s 401k. (It’s frustrating and complicated). Also, the COVID-19 virus hit the markets, so I've had some losses. Woohoo!

Betterment Traditional IRA: $119,293.69 (this was the balance from my former firm’s 401k; ~$100k of this will be moved to my current Firm’s 401k)
Betterment Roth IRA: $4,981.25 (This is all of the Roth money from my former company’s 401k; this stays put)
Current Firm’s 401k: $5,063.17
Current Firm’s 401k Match: $37,200 as of December 31, 2019. Turns out the “match” my company provides to my 401k is actually money invested in the Firm’s master fund. I’m okay with this for now, but I want more details as to how I access this money. I don’t receive regular statements for this account.
Current Firm’s Pension: $22,000 as of December 31, 2019, of which $7,333.33 is vested. I don’t receive regular statements and we have a 3-year vesting schedule.

Equity: I was so pessimistic in October! I’m in the process of buying a condo right now. Soon!
Here’s the down payment plan, and I’m 100% sure I’ll get some serious criticism for this:

Initially, my plan was to take a $50,000 loan against my current company’s 401k + $5k from savings; however, the money movements between accounts have been too slow, as my contract is moving relatively quickly in spite of the scary markets. SO!
Now, I’m using the majority of my savings below (~$35k) + an $18k cash advance (0% APR until June 2021) against my Bank of America card. The remaining $2k is a cash advance from my Chase Freedom card (similarly 0% APR for 6 months).
Both credit cards will be paid back as soon as I get the loan out from my 401k
- I decided on the 401k loan for a few reasons:
  - 1) the majority of this money was in my old firm’s 401k account, which was preventing me from transferring the money into my current company’s 401k - as I was no longer an employee, there were extremely limited options for that pool of money;
  - 2) the market swings are not my favorite thing and I wanted to diversify my exposure; and,
  - 3) I’m confident that I’ll continue making money at a steady rate and my current firm’s contribution rate is extremely generous
I’m setting aside $20k of the $50k for closing costs
The balance of the $50k (~$10k) will be used to top off the funds that I withdrew from

Ultimately, the property is just too good to pass up. It’s in the exact same neighborhood, the price is a steal, I could make a 10% down payment and get very favorable mortgage terms. I never thought I’d be able to own property in NYC but I'm on my way!
Savings/investment account balance:

Back Up Savings: $5,100.03 ($100/week automatic deposit)
Emergency Savings: $20,002.63 (top up with extra funds when available) - This is turning into the account I’m keeping all of down payment money.
Betterment High Yield Savings: $3,239.06 ($100/bi weekly automatic deposit) - But pending a withdrawal of $2,139.06 for down payment money.
Betterment SRI Investment Account: $1,612.89 ($100/month automatic deposit) - I just made a withdrawal for more down payment money.

Checking account balance: Currently $2,885.41, and I still try to maintain a balance above $2k for no reason other than I’m paranoid. Since I only get paid once a month, I deposit my full paycheck into my back up fund and transfer to my checking account as needed.
Credit card debt: I (now, lol) pay off my credit cards monthly. I currently have four: Chase Freedom, BofA Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, and Nordstrom. I really only use Chase and BofA regularly.
Student loan debt (for what degree): I have $39,349.83 left. I just refinanced this from a 7.65% interest rate to a 3.92% interest rate with Earnest and now pay $450/mo. I’m pretty happy with this so far! I don’t have any pre-pay penalties, so I’ll continue to throw all my spare cash at this.
Car: N/A - I never learned to drive and I live in the city. Public transportation is awesome.

Section Two: Income

Total Income: $135k base salary, plus a discretionary annual cash bonus + company pension contribution + 401k “matching.” I don’t know what the payout will look like this year - it really depends on how the rest of the year looks.
Main Job Take Home Pay: ~$6200 1x/mo
Additional income/side hustle: I had a pretty serious depressive episode over the winter, so I’m just now getting back into ceramics again. I’ve also closed my Patreon until I build up stock.

Section Three: Expenses

Pre-tax Deductions:

Health Insurance: $160 (I opted for the “better” plan because of some scary health issues last year)
Vision Insurance: $8.45
401(k): $758
Healthcare FSA: $13
Transit Card: $128 (this is my favorite thing; it covers a monthly unlimited metrocard!)

Home: ~$1,700 per month (This is going to change pretty dramatically once I move into my new condo!)

Rent: ~$1,000; I share a 2b2 bath apartment in Brooklyn with my friend B and his girlfriend A (they have the master) and the total rent is $3350, which includes gas and water.
Renter’s Insurance: $200 annually. I pay in a lump sum at the beginning of the year.
Electric: Varies; usually between $200-300, depending on the month. This month was $225. I take care of this bill, B takes care of the internet bill.
Groceries: Varies; I feed only myself (A and B are vegetarian), so I spend maybe $200-300/mo on groceries? I spent $262 in February.
Pet food: $45 once a month for wet food with an additional $55 every other month for dry + a pallet of additional smaller cans (why do cans come in pallets of 24??). B takes care of cat litter.
Pet Insurance: $254 for orange cat (D) per year, $316 for loud baby cat (C) per year; I pay quarterly for both cats, even though D is more of B’s cat. He takes care of D’s vet bills, and I take care of C’s.
AT&T: $66; I apparently get some sort of reimbursement from work for this, but it happens kind of randomly.

Subscriptions & Memberships: ~$290 per month

Amazon Prime: $119 per year; I pay annually
Netflix: $12.99 (my streaming accounts are all linked to the PS4 in the living room, so I share with my roommates but don’t ask them to contribute anything. It all works out)
Hulu Live: $60.99 (now on PS4, y’all!)
HBO on Prime: $14.99 (I dropped Starz)
iCloud: $2.99
NYT Digital: $25.77
Ceramic Studio Membership: $225 per month, plus additional firing fees at $0.03 per cubic inch (for example, a mug usually costs about $1.50-$2 to fire twice; once for bisque, once for glaze, so ~$4 for a finished mug)

Health: $1,090 per month

Fitness: $13 for Peloton digital
Therapy: $250 per session, I usually go every week so the monthly bill is ~$1k; 70% of this gets reimbursed from my health insurance, but I have to pay up front.
Medicine: $70/mo for a cocktail of antidepressants
Headspace: $99 for the year

Misc. Expenses: $208 per month

Charity: $50 to ASPCA (adopt!!), $50 to Planned Parenthood, $25 to the SPLC, $25 to to the National Network of Abortion Funds, $25 to the Organization of Transformative Works; I also like to make larger donations at the end of the year to these organizations and a few others (Doctors without Borders, ACLU, etc.)
Patreon: $28 (I support 6 creators here)
Ko-Fi: $5 (I support 1 creator here)

Day 1 - Monday March 16, 2020
6:15AM - Good morning! Just kidding, why am I awake? I woke up around 3AM again, too. I roll over and try to go back to sleep.
7:15AM - I give up, dig my Kindle out from under my pillow and read Chuck Wendig’s The Wanderers until my actual alarm.
8:20AM - My alarm goes off. This is my third day of working from home thanks to COVID-19. I take my meds and put my contacts in for the 8:30AM (virtual!) team meeting.
My firm spent a lot of time developing and testing a remote desktop, and they’ve added in video capabilities. Unfortunately, this means I have to have my webcam on all day (!), to be seen on the “virtual trading floor.” Super invasive!
9:02AM - Morning meeting finally over. I order a sausage egg and cheese bagel sandwich, dry bagels, and some scallion cream cheese for breakfast today and the rest of the week ($25.64, including $5 delivery tip). I’m still trying to get into a routine for working from home and breakfast is, I’m learning, essential. I’ll make my own coffee though. I ran out of turbinado so I’m using agave syrup and I don’t hate it?
9:34AM - Bagel sandwich time mmmmmmmm
9:36AM - Bagel sandwich is missing cheese :(
10:28AM - Finished a draft of our monthly commentary and shoot it off to our trader, who usually drafts these things. We had our quarterly client call last week, so I cobbled together something from my notes. I hope that I didn’t get anything too inaccurate! I have zero background in finance, so I feel like a big ol’ faker when I talk markets.
10:30AM - My loan officer calls! I got a letter at the end of last week saying that the bank didn’t have any loan options for me - YIKES! My loan officer cleared that up (a mistake on his end), and let me know he was going to provide new rates given that the Fed dropped rates again (we’re essentially at zero, people!). I’m curious to see what he comes back with and proceed to refresh my email incessantly.
11:13AM - Love watching my coworkers eat on the spy cam.
11:44AM - After a flurry of emails this morning, work has slowed down. I think I’m going to nap on my lunch break.
11:58AM - C (loud baby cat) rouses from her nap on the sofa to make an appearance on the virtual trading floor (she stands in front of my webcam). I move her to my lap so I can actually see my screen. Nobody seems to have noticed I temporarily turned into a cat.
12:20PM - Turn off my spy cam to lie down for a nap. The morning bagel sandwich hasn’t sat well with me. C comes to join me, but since she doesn’t normally sleep in bed with me, she doesn’t know where to settle. First, she gets under the covers and spoons my butt with her cold, wet nose pressed against my lower back. Eventually, she makes it up to my chest as a little spoon, under one of my arms. So cute!!
1:30PM - Wake up and back to work.
2:19PM - BORED. I try to do some pecking at my novel project that I’m preparing for Camp NaNoWriMo. Every time I do this, I lose confidence in my story…
2:30PM - Still feeling queasy, so I have a small bowl of cereal in an attempt to soothe my stomach. The latest switch up in my antidepressant regime has resulted in poor sleep and lots of nausea. On the other hand, I feel LOADS better mentally. I’m hoping the nausea will get better with time…
3:00PM - I buy a $40 unlimited monthly pass for digital classes at my yoga studio. I’ve been meaning to pick this up again, so I’ll start virtually! I book a Tuesday class.
4:16PM - The real trap of social distancing is that I’m more and more tempted to shop online. I close some open tabs.
6:28PM - Of course the last hour of my day gets stupidly busy. I finally get to sign off the spy cam!
7:00PM - I make a farro bowl for dinner. It includes: sauteed kale, half an avocado, and a softish boiled egg (I left it in too long…). I top it with this really awesome tahini dressing I whipped up based on a NYT recipe. I am suddenly RAVENOUS and I scarf it down while watching the second half of Westworld season 2, episode 1. I know, I’m late. But I was depressed, ok?
7:30PM - My loan officer sends me a homebuyer course to get $500 of credits from the bank. Sure! I zip through it (I already know basically all of these things), and email my loan officer the certificate of completion a little before 8PM.
8:00PM - I play a couple of rounds of Overwatch.
8:55PM - I make my usual cup of sleepy tea and watch another episode of Westworld.
10:30PM - Bed time. I put on a soundscape from Headspace and drift off to sleep.
Day 1 Spend: $65.64
DAY 2 - Tuesday March 17, 2020
2:00AM - Why?
4:30AM - Please.
8:20AM - Last alarm goes off. I roll out of bed for the morning team meeting. My butt feels bruised from sitting all day yesterday.
10:46AM - Off of my morning client call. I make some coffee and toast a bagel from yesterday. I realize they sent me plain bagels :( At least I have scallion cream cheese. C joins me for breakfast, trying very hard to be as on top of me as possible.
12:00PM - Weirdly busy morning. Lots of client calls and requests - everyone’s freaked out about the market! I take some time to check the money movements I have in process. It looks like my 401k transfer from my old firm’s platform has made it over to Betterment. Neat! Now I have to figure out how to get the Traditional IRA from Betterment over to my new firm’s 401k.
12:30PM - I decide to do a 30 minute low impact ride with Peloton digital. I like the low impact rides - my lungs can barely handle cardio, but I’m working on it. However, 10 minutes into my ride, the building’s super comes in to let me know they’re going to clean the gym in 10-15 minutes. I eke out another 10 minutes before I’m kicked out. Also, I realized my butt is just saddle sore from Sunday’s ride lmao.
On my way back up to my apartment, I grab my new monitors from the package room. My company offered reimbursements for certain home office equipment, and I’ve been meaning to upgrade my set up.
1:43PM - After a quick body shower, half a liter of water, and an apple, I’m back at my desk with my spy cam on.
3:33PM - Get off yet another client call and pour myself a bowl of cereal. There’s rumors of a full shut down of NYC in 48 hours, so I’m making a last minute grocery list to round out my fridge/pantry. I really didn’t want to spend money today!
4:40PM - Finished typing and circulating my notes. It looks like it might be a shelter-in-place thing and not a full shut down thing. I’ll hold off on panic buying; I have enough food at home.
5:10PM - Oh, my yoga got cancelled :(
6:05PM - Finally log off!
6:30PM - Since yoga was cancelled, I’m making a really healthy dinner of pan seared brussels, spinach tortellini in my quickie alfredo sauce (basically a splash of cream and a lot of cheese), and a very large glass of red wine. I eat while watching Below Deck: Sailing Yacht.
7:45PM - I hop onto Overwatch for a couple of rounds. I bring a pint of Half Baked with me too.
8:30PM - After six PotGs in a row, I feel like I should let other people play the game. I put away the ice cream (I ate maybe a third?), and make a cup of sleepy tea. I turn on Before the 90 Days. On one hand, these people make me feel better about my life. On the other hand, I’m jealous that they’ve (sometimes) found people who love them?? How do romance?
9:43PM - Omg!!! I finally grew a 5-star plant in Plant Daddy!!! I love him!!!
10:30PM - Brush teeth, night time routine, in bed and reading The Wanderers.
Day 2 Spend: $0!
Day 3 - Wednesday March 18, 2020
6:00AM - Nope. Although, this is better than usual.
7:00AM - Still nope.
8:00AM - I give up. Lie and bed and scroll Instagram for a bit. I manage to get up and make coffee before the 8:30AM meeting!
9:45AM - After the morning meeting and formatting our monthly report (including nudging those who have ignored my commentary draft), I get up to toast a bagel. C and D are sleeping on the job (aka napping in the morning sunlight).
10:57AM - Come up for air again. Looks like the last bits of down payment monies have hit my account. Not that my contract is anywhere in sight, but I can breathe easy.
11:43AM - I spent half an hour reorganizing my bookmarks.
12:26PM - My 12:00 call got pushed to 3PM so I spend some time getting paperwork together for my IRA transfer. I want to overnight these docs, but I don’t know if the post office or UPS is open at the moment… I want a nap.
12:31PM - Okay, yeah, lunch break nap.
1:45PM - I’m awake. I think I sort of slept? I wander into the kitchen to find something to eat but nothing sounds appetizing. My new antidepressants are really messing with my appetite. I settle on a lemon flavored Noosa yogurt, which I eat half of.
2:26PM - I make a cup of green tea. The last part of my day is back to back calls. I am not ready.
3:26PM - Got through my first call but oh man, I am super nauseous from the green tea. I need to lie down. But more calls await.
5:53PM - Nearly threw up during my last call… One more call and then I can lie down again. Ugh!
6:17PM - My 6PM call is running late. Please let me sign off work.
6:50PM - I get off my call and log off work finally. I go to the kitchen for something to eat, but instead I end up having a very tough conversation with my roommate B. He’s really hurt by my decision to buy a condo and we talk about it. He leaves with A for a walk and I go cry in my room.
8:00PM - I eat dinner at some point (farro, soft boiled egg, half an avocado, and that tahini sauce again). My best friend E convinces me to play some Overwatch. It’s our favorite event, with our favorite game mode, so I agree, even though I’m still feeling pretty shitty.
9:00PM - Stop playing Overwatch. Go back to crying.
10:00PM - Well, I lost an hour. Guess it’s time for bed.
Day 3 Spend: $0!
Day 4 - Thursday, March 19, 2020
4:25AM - Why.
8:26AM - Drag myself out of bed for the morning meeting.
9:17AM - I get a note from Amazon that my copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is going to be delayed. I cancel the physical copy and buy the digital copy ($64.54, though the original one will be reimbursed). I make a cup of coffee and a bagel and sit down in front of my computer. C follows me around while I putz in the kitchen.
9:30AM - I throw $20 to the Plant Daddy developer.
10:30AM - Virtual therapy appointment time. This will be $250 (noted in the Health section in my expenses above).
11:15AM - Therapy over. I wash my face before getting back on the spy cam. We talked about my conversation with my roommate last night, and I feel a bit better. Back to work.
11:45AM - Go down to the package room to grab my Girl Scout cookies (1 box of Thin Mints, 2 boxes of shortbread, 1 box of Lemonades and 1 box of S’mores). More work, even though my day is much less busy than yesterday.
12:30PM - I’m going to venture out, mostly for sanity reasons, but also because I need groceries. I drop off packages at the post office, which include two donation boxes to thredUP, two mugs I threw for my uncle, and some papers to get my IRA transferred ($34.95). Everyone is standing 6ft apart and I appreciate that. Next, I head to the corner grocery store. It’s pretty ravaged. I pick up a variety of fresh vegetables, eggs, cereal, Cheez-its (an essential), chicken cutlets, and two different kinds of cider ($84.32). Oof.
1:48PM - Back at home, back on my spy cam.
3:30PM - Realized I haven’t eaten lunch so I wander into the kitchen to find something to eat. I end up with a bowl of cereal, which I now realize is actually granola. I chat with A for a bit, which is nice. Then I’m back in front of my spy cam with a bowl of Cheez-its.
6:00PM - The rest of the day was just working - people finally started paying attention to my requests to review the reporting I’ve been working on all week. I sign off a quarter after six, annoyed.
6:30PM - I feed the cats and start making dinner. I bread two of the chicken cutlets in a mix of panko and romano before I pan fry them. I scoop some of the farro into a bowl and dress it with the tahini sauce. I take both back to my room with a rose cider I bought earlier. I take a bite of chicken and can tell immediately I undercooked it. I have such a Thing with chicken - I don’t know why I even bothered trying to cook it. I take it back into the kitchen to cook it through, but I’m pretty squicked out. The farro is also really bad plain like this. I watch 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days while I eat.
7:20PM - After I eat, I start assembling the ingredients for Hokkaido milk bread. I think I ruin the tangzhong! My dough is definitely too dry. I add a little more milk and cream and hope for the best. Stash the dough in the fridge for a slow overnight rise.
8:00PM - I grab another rose cider and hop onto Overwatch for a few rounds. I get an amazing PotG as Ana and I’m pleased as punch.
9:00PM - Go down to the package room to pick up an order from Ann Taylor - a bunch of work shirts. I love them all (polka dots, leopard print, poppies, and a striped shirt) and immediately hang them in my closet. Maybe I’ll wear one tomorrow to feel more like I’m actually Working?
9:15PM - Shit! I forgot about yoga at 7!!
9:45PM - I eat two Lemonades out of my Girl Scout delivery. Make a cup of sleepy tea and finish watching the College Behind Bars documentary series on Netflix.
10:30PM - Ugh, it’s late. I dawdle through my nighttime routine even though I’m bone tired. I should’ve washed my hair earlier. The fact that I have to work tomorrow feels cruel.
Day 4 Spend: $203.81 (yikes)
Day 5 - Friday, March 20, 2020
1:25AM - Hm.
8:00AM - This is better! I actually slept okay last night. I wake up in the middle of a dream that somehow combines my ceramic studio, one of my clients, and historical cosplay (?). I doze until my 8:20AM alarm and then get up for the morning meeting.
10:45AM - Um. I might have been playing the new Animal Crossing all morning. I did do some actual work before I started playing, though, honest! I’m hungry so I get up to make some coffee and pour a bowl of granola. I check on the dough in the fridge and it’s not looking great. At least I got paid today!
12:30PM - I lie down for a nap, but I forgot to mute the “trade floor,” so my boss's dulcet tones wake me up about 20 minutes later. I give up, scroll instagram for a bit, then decide to get up and make lunch. I have a pie shell in the freezer so I decide to make a quiche! It’s so simple: four eggs, one cup of milk/cream/half and half, your choice of cheese, then whatever veg you want to throw into it. I make a broccoli, prosciutto and cheese (romano/parm/mild cheddagruyere) quiche. While it’s cooking, I check on my dough again. I think I have to trash it.
2:00PM - I have a call with my attorney for the condo. Still no closing date; in fact, because of the total shut down of NYC, construction is probably halted for the time being. My lawyer thinks we might close at the end of summer, but warned that it could go longer, depending on how long the COVID-19 impact lasts. I’m actually okay with this since it’ll give me time to save up more and pay down more.
2:30PM - Back in front of my desk, playing Animal Crossing and answering emails as they come up.
3:00PM - Another client call.
7:40PM - The rest of the afternoon (and much of the evening!) was waiting for people to provide commentary on the markets for the week and reporting for one of our big clients. I got the commentary out a little after 6:30PM but I wait nearly another hour for the reports for this client. I get up and make dinner while I’m waiting - I make fried rice but with farro instead. It’s really good! I trash the bread dough :( I also crack open a rose cider. I need it.
11:30PM - ...I spent the rest of the night playing Animal Crossing. Good night!
Day 5 Spend: $0!
Day 6 - Saturday March 21, 2020
2:00AM - Okay, cool.
6:00AM - No.
8:30AM - I’ve been tossing and turning for two hours. I get up to get my Switch and turn on Animal Crossing.
12:30PM - I am limited by my console’s battery. I make some coffee and head back into my room.
1:00PM - Thinking of taking up knitting? I end up placing an order from We Are Knitters for a beginner kit ($63). Maybe it’ll get here before the quarantine is over… I also buy myself a gift card for my ceramics studio, which has been forced to close ($108.15). I want them to stay in business!!
2:30PM - I’ve been playing Animal Crossing, but pause to make some noodles with that cheesy sauce again. I let my Switch charge while I eat.
4:30PM - I’m sleepy. I lie down for a nap, but my abuela calls. I have to answer because I’ve… been avoiding talking to her. Fortunately I can distract her with the news about my condo purchase endeavor.
6:10PM - My mom calls me. I don’t think I mentioned that my parents flew across the country in the middle of the week to see my sister? Yeah, worst idea ever. Now my mom is concerned about COVID-19 and is planning on flying back to California early, just in time for a full shelter-in-place order. I assure her I’m fine and don’t know anybody who’s gotten the virus. She sounds stressed, but I think that has more to do with dealing with my dad and my sister than anything. I tell her to travel safe and call if she needs anything.
6:20PM - While eating Cheez-its, I realize I should probably eat real dinner. I place an order with my favorite neighborhood Thai place ($23.14), because not only do I want them to stay in business, but apparently I need to spend more money today.
6:40 - Thai food is here! I eat the spring rolls with a cider, but I sort of ruined my appetite with the Cheez-its. Whoops. At least I’ll have leftovers!
7:11PM - My dad calls. I guess I’ll talk to every family member today! He tells me about how he finally got his insulin - but had to go to Mexico to get it. I think he’s said before that a week’s supply of one of the types of insulin he takes was something like $450, or $3000 for a three month supply - and, yeah, he has insurance. He managed to get a month of all his medications for $350 in Tijuana. Oy!! We also gush about Animal Crossing. My dad’s delighted. He wants to visit my island when he’s back in California. I tell him to travel safe and to not touch anything.
10:54PM - Uhh, yeah, I’ve been playing more Animal Crossing. I paid off my home loan! Love a game where I can accomplish what I can’t in real life. I remember that I’m out of coffee. I place an order from Blue Bottle ($39) in hopes that this will get to me early next week. I put away my Switch and make some sleepy tea.
Day 6 Spend: $233.29
Day 7 - March 22, 2020
4:00AM - Please!
5:00AM - No!!
9:30AM - 30 more minutes…
1:03PM - Um. Oops. Time to get out of bed?
5:02PM - I basically played Animal Crossing all afternoon. Seriously, this game couldn’t have come at a better time. But I should also, like, do something. I go downstairs for a 30 minute ride with Peloton. I’m seriously contemplating a Peloton bike when I move into my own place, but we’ll see about that.
5:45PM - After a body shower, I change my sheets and… go back to playing Animal Crossing. I’m so sorry. That’s what I do for the rest of the night too.
Day 7 Spend: $0!
Weekly Total: $502.74
Reflection
Um, oof?? Despite a few zero spend days, I managed to spend more than I usually do in a week. To be fair, usually I wouldn’t be buying a gift card to my ceramics studio or spend this much on video games (I’m normally slow to adopt a new game), but I think I definitely over spent on food this week. What I have in the fridge should last me through the next week as well, so hopefully I’ll spend less in the coming days. (update: I've so far only spent $20 since Sunday! Go me!)
Honestly, I thought I’d have some more condo expenses this week, but COVID-19 really slowed the process down (understandably!). Since my close date has been pushed out to the end of summer, I’ve got more time to save my pennies and pay myself back from all my money manipulations.
The hardest thing about this week was not really having the option to go out and about. I kind of miss my commute?! My venture to the post office and grocery story felt illegal. I’m definitely feeling increasingly restless/anxious/isolated, so any tips you might have to cope would be appreciated! Stay safe and healthy out there!

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