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Fiscal year end 2019

February 28th, 2020 at 01:31 am

Our company changed its system of granting bonuses and raises for 2019. Previously we were notified about raises for the next year and received any bonus at the last paycheck of the year.

Going forward and starting with 2019, they're moving the notification to the end of February. So I'll have a decent bonus in my 2/29/2020 paycheck and a raise starting with the 3/15 pay.

Also going forward, bonuses are being granted to everyone based on the company meeting its profit margin goal--either we meet it and everybody gets a full bonus, or there's no bonus. Up until now the bonus has been on a percentage of goal reached basis, so if we reached 80% of our profit margin goal, then we got 80% of the target bonus. So that will makes bonuses harder to come by.

On the other hand, to incentivize us, they gave us a 20% raise across the board (with a note not to expect this every year!). That brings my salary to its highest yet. I figure that I can increase my 401k contribution from 17% of salary where it has been this year (and with the 3% employer match, that's 20%) to a 22% elective deferral (25% with the employer match). As I turn 60 in six months, it's nice to be able to do that increase as I enter the "home stretch" towards retirement (not anytime soon!).

Oh, one more note; I turned 59.5 this week, so if I do have to make any draws from retirement accounts (NOT that I will), they would be coded as "normal distributions" with no 10% early withdrawal penalty. Not that I'm doing that, but nice to know that I can.

The bonus is going to let me pay down debt and get under my original 2019 year-end goal of total debt being at 80k (actually about 78k) just two months late, and despite the large unexpected vet bills I had last year.

Mortgage milestone

February 16th, 2020 at 02:08 am

After my regular mortgage payment (which I always round up so that I pay $400/month and keep my balance to a round number), the balance was $50,100, so when I got my paycheck yesterday, I allocated an extra hundred to the mortgage so that it's now at an even 50k, and should be at 46k by year's end. Total debt is now about 83.5k. They moved our annual bonus and pay raise to start with the last pay in February, so if we do get a bonus, I'll pay the debt down to 80k. 80k was originally my goal for 2019 but a very sick kitty who has cost me over 10k since she was hospitalized last June put my goal achievement a bit behind. In any case, my debt is now lower than it has been in quite some time. And with the stock market run-up, assets are as high as they have ever been as well. Net worth should hit another "round number" goal in March unless there's a set-back.

Roof job. Also, cats.

October 27th, 2019 at 09:08 pm

I live in a house with a flat roof. The realtor suggested when I moved in that I should have the roof silver-coated every few years to protect it plus make it more energy-efficient. I have been faithful about having it done every 3-4 years. The warranty on the roof itself expired about 5 years ago now, but I have read that you can pretty much double the time on the warranty by taking good care of the roof, so I have.

The last time I had the roof coated was in 2015. Costs at that time were up from the amount I paid the first time I had it done, but only by a little bit more than inflation.

This time, the estimate was quite different. Every time I've had it done in the past, I was provided with one option: a fiber + aluminum coating. This time I was given three options, with different warranties depending on the product used.

The baseline fiber + aluminum coating was way more expensive than in 2015, more than doubling in price. The other two options were more expensive in total, but when adjusted on a "cost-per-year" basis, the 10-year option was cheapest. This is a new product called "Acrylabs," which is an energy-star rated "fluid-applied membrane."

It's more expensive than I had planned on, but doing this now is significantly cheaper than replacing the roof. (The last time I had the roof coated, I also had an estimate done for a roof replacement.) I am planning on moving out of this house in about 7 or 8 years, so the next owner can tackle the replacement. I'll also have to replace the side-porch roof, which is sloped and shingled, but the roofer said that he thought that roof had about 3 more years on it.

This is temporarily adding to my debt, but even after the job is done and fully paid for, I'll still have less debt than I did at year-end 2018.

This will be the biggest home maintenance project that I've done in the 14 years I've been in the house. The other big jobs were a couple of plumbing projects, replacing four windows, the gutters, and the water heater. Before I leave this house, I expect also to replace the range, refrigerator, washer and dryer, and front and rear doors, and have the stained yellow countertop in the kitchen replaced at the very least, plus I'll have the house painted and the floors done when I put it on the market, but I'll leave any major cosmetic or functional upgrades to the next owner. The furnace may also have to be replaced--but, as with the roof, I have it maintained annually in hopes that it will outlast its warranty. I like my house, but I really hate the stress of being a homeowner since I feel completely unprepared for it, and I'm not at all motivated to spend my mental energy learning what I really should know.

As a note, everyone's entries from mid-April until October were hacked. I had about half a dozen entries, but I can't recall what they were about, other than one in May documenting a day trip to meet up with "Fern" a/k/a "PatientSaver," and several in June documenting big expenses for my cat Buffy, who was hospitalized for a week and then fed at home via a feeding tube for two weeks, and who still sees the vet about once a month for testing as we try to find a medication regime that keeps her steady.

I finally got Buffy's sister Bridget to the vet on Friday. The last time I took Bridget to the vet's office, it took 3 vet techs to manage her, but with an herbal calming tablet, Feliway, and a vet tech who was fore-warned on what to expect, the visit went off surprisingly well. Bridget's kidney values and her white blood cell count are a bit off. I still have to talk to the vet about this, but hopefully I can keep both kitties going for another year or two. Bridget just turned 15 and Buffy is 14 1/2, so I suspect I'll lose them in the not-too-distant future, but I also pray I can keep them going for a while yet.

Day off

April 11th, 2019 at 11:24 pm

I have been pushing very hard non-stop for the past few weeks (other than taking last weekend off and spending much of it in bed because I felt like I was coming down with a cold; fortunately the extra rest has seemed to forestall that illness, knock on wood!). So today and tomorrow, with both of the major lead advisors that I report to out of town, I decided to take some personal time off.

I was working until 10 pm last night finishing a tax estimate that one advisor had promised to a client, and with that behind me, I was able to take off with a free conscience.

First on the docket was an annual doctor's exam. I hadn't known when I scheduled it a year ago that I would be taking the day off, but that worked out nicely.

Then I went out to breakfast and then over to the local mall to do a little bit of clothes shopping because I have been feeling the need for a bit of a wardrobe update. Picked up 3 pieces priced at over $300 for about $195 that will be good office wear.

Then I went to one of our local banks. I had received a postcard from them promising a bonus $50 for establishing a new checking account with at least $1,000 that stays in the account for at least a week. This particular local bank has an excellent reputation for service and a commitment to stay local, so I've been meaning to establish a relationship with them for a while. Checking is free for life with no monthly maintenance fees and their rates are competitive. At the moment, all of my other banking relationships are with Wells Fargo, whose reputation I have been dissatisfied with (although personally, things have been fine). What I would like to do once my schedule calms down is to transfer my main relationships over to this bank--set up direct deposit for the paycheck, establish a savings account as well, and then move the mortgage and HELOC (balance $0) and safety deposit box over as well. They have a long-running special that does a refinance with closing costs of $525. They promise not to sell your mortgage. My current mortgage is a 20-year (in year 9) at 4% and I could refinance to a 10-year (cuts one year off) at 3.625%. I will probably do that in another month or so. The only pain will be that they don't handle the escrowing of the tax and homeowner's insurance bills, which I'll have to handle myself anyways after to mortgage is paid off. (I'm still feeling good that it will be paid off by December 2025 at the 20-year mark.) I'll probably keep at least one small checking and savings account open at Wells Fargo as well, just because Wells Fargo has a branch just down the block from where I work and they also have lots of branches in Los Angeles, where I am from and where I still visit occasionally.

Those few things were the main accomplishments of the day. I also handled a couple of emails at work and listened to an online professional educational webinar for an hour.

Tomorrow I need to make a dentist appointment because I broke a small piece off a tooth last night--it's not painful but the sharp edges are annoying. Then I need to finish my own taxes--I drafted them back in February in order to figure out my IRA contribution, but now I need to dot all the i's and cross all the t's and submit.

Then I'll work on getting a bit more organized at home--there are too many piles of paper on the dining room table, on the desk, on the coffee table, and on the dog crate, and I need to toss some and file the rest. Being able to see the tabletops will make me feel more relaxed here at home and I'll buy some flowers to put in a vase on the dining room table when it is clear again (which it has not been since Thanksgiving).

I'll also be working on my next CFP class over the weekend and I'd like to take a drive out to a coffee shop I like that sits on the banks of the Delaware. I visited there at least monthly over the summer but haven't been back since September. This is just a weekend to catch my breath and recapture some sense of spaciousness or margin in my life than a weekend where I will really "do" anything. Just getting a chance to spend some more time reading will be a pleasure.

I'm supposed to be attending an orchestra rehearsal in an hour. I should go since I have slacked off during tax season but part of me wants no more commitments today. Whether or not I go, I'll end the day by watching one or two episodes of "Boston Legal." I was delighted to find that it is once again free to wach on Amazon Prime, after having been available only with a charge previously. This was one of my favorite series so I am enjoying re-watching it. I like James Spader and it is nice to see him in his prime. He seems to have aged a lot lately. He's about my age so seeing recent pictures of him makes me feel my own age more acutely. I'd like to think I am aging better than he is! But then, so much of our first impression of faces is about the hair and he has gone semi-bald recently. This is one reason I find it worthwhile to pay to have my hair colored! I grew up believing in substance over form and that image didn't matter so much, but while I still believe strongly in substance, the real world and my education taught me that appearances matter a lot, too!


Old content is still visible in Control Panel--so just a technical glitch

January 20th, 2019 at 02:38 pm

Thanks to Patient Saver for pointing this out to me via email

Year End (late recap)

January 3rd, 2019 at 11:46 pm

12/31/2018 Net Worth: $515,242. Down about 20k from last year due to market losses.

Debt on 12/31/2018: $91,282. Of this, $55,975 was mortgage debt.

As of the new year, of course there's been another mortgage payment, getting the balance to $55,600 (I always throw a little extra at it to get the balance to an even number). I'm going to throw another $600 at it from savings this week to get to $55k. I'm still confident that I can pay this off by the beginning of 2026, when I'll be 65, paying it off in just about 20 years.

I also took some savings to pay down my HELOC balance, and I'll make some more payments over the next couple of days to get the debt to 85k (55k mortgage and 30 non-mortgage), which will be the lowest debt total since I bought my house in 2005. I hate having the non-mortgage debt, but with the HELOC paid off, the highest interest rate on any of it is a bit over 4%, so the interest is not horrendous, and the large majority of it is on 0% credit card balance transfers. Much of this stems from the 7 months I was unemployed during 2014. That's when I racked up the additional debt (as well as accruing some in 2010-2012 when I was changing careers and working very low-wage jobs while my mother was dying on the opposite coast, so I had lots of cross-country travel.)

I'll update my goals for 2019 this weekend.

Brief recap on goal progress for 2018:
1. I completed two more of the CFP courses; 3 more still to go. 2019 will be the year, I pray!
2. Health: ate pretty well except too much eating out at restaurants; did not exercise consistently, meditated consistently for the first 2/3s of the year, then fell off the bandwagon.
3. Home: had one session with an organizer and organized part of my kitchen; other than that, no progress.
4. Debt progress--once I get it to 85k, I'll be just shy of my 10k goal.
5. Social life: maintained plus joined a community orchestra so expanded as well.
6. Vacations: Two overnight trips away from home, and I only have two PTO days from last year to use up this month (before they are lost, although I may lose them to medical issues rather than vacation--thyroid saga is outstanding and I have a surgical consult tomorrow, though I am wavering--will write about this separately and later).

2018 Financial Wins & Falls

December 31st, 2018 at 12:38 am

Wins: 1. Decrease in debt (I’ll calculate the total on Jan 1), but good progress. 2. Good retirement savings contributions (13% withholding + 3% company annual contribution plus a nice annual profit-sharing-plan contribution from the company totaling close to 15k. Also, contributing nearly 8% to HSA & LPFSA for additional tax-deferral. 3. Made some progress on reducing a few recurring expenses—changed trash hauling services, changed individual disability policy, cut a few recurring unused services and contributions. Will do a bit more of this tomorrow and Wed on my time off. 4. Did some reallocating of my portfolio to be a little more conservative over the summer, moving from a 40%/60% allocation closer to 45/55. 5. Maxed out my HSA contribution for 2019 and also added $300 to a limited purpose FSA to cover purchase of new glasses. 6. A big engine repair in my car came in under warranty, saving me a lot of money compared to if the problem had shown itself after the warranty expired and upgrading the “short block” to a newer one, hopefully adding to the car’s longevity.

Falls: 1. The market fell in Q4, wiping out all gains for the year; I’ll recalculate at year end but looks like net worth will be down by about 5%. 2. I still haven’t gotten my tracking of spending on track; I do retrospective analyses and only the roughest of budgeting, and I still spend too much money eating out. 3. Kitty vet expenses were exceptionally pricey this year. Both girls are now teenagers so I hope this is not the "new normal." Both girls were sick last month, which involved a lot of testing (on the other hand, I now have confirmation that everything looks good), plus one cat had 8 teeth extracted.

Bonus & Raise

December 27th, 2018 at 12:26 am

Today (my last day of work for the year) was the annual compensation adjustment announcement--a 3% raise and a 10% bonus. This bonus is the firm-wide one based on the firm's, not individual performance. Last year we got 20%, but there had been rumors that we wouldn't get anything this year, so 10% is good. It will help towards the debt payoff goal. The bonus comes on 12/31, and then on 1/1, I'll take my RMDs from my inherited IRAs (already set aside in cash back over the summer, so fortunately I don't have to sell in a down market to get the cash). I'll use the bonus and RMDs to pay down some debt and am pretty sure I'll have the debt total (including the mortgage) under 80k by the beginning of January. (This would be a 14K decrease from last year, and my goal for the year had been to decrease it by 10.5K, so 33.3% over goal.) My assets have currently taken an 8% downturn from the beginning of the year with the current stock slump, but my debts should be down 15% as of 1/1, so my net worth will be down but only by about 6%.

I'll do a final tally on 1/1.

Only 1.5 working days left this year!

December 19th, 2018 at 08:52 pm

I had my last client meeting of the year this morning, and my next is not until January 8th. I'm taking Thursday & Friday off this week, then Monday (Christmas Eve) is a half day, and I'm taking off a full week from 12/27 thru 1/2, so Monday the 24th and Wed. the 26th will be my last working days of the year.

It will be nice to have a chance to rest and regroup, do some research on my health issue, and possibly get a little reorganization done at home. Then it will also be nice to have a week at work to catch up on all the follow-up tasks that sometimes just end up getting punted to the following meeting. I really love my job but also sometimes I feel a little drained from the pace of it, especially since that is out of my control.

Tomorrow I have organized a get-together of a few friends to go see the local Chriskindlemarket (like the German ones) and to have dinner at a Maylasian restaurant nearby; then I've organized another dinner on Friday the 28th at a Ghanaian restaurant that just opened across the street from work. And last week my boss took us to the local city hotel with its fancy Christmas decorations to a nice dinner sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. And then there's a CoC breakfast on Friday, and an in-house holiday lunch on Friday, so I'm getting plenty of celebrating in and will look forward to some time to myself!

Last weekend, I went to see "The Green Book." I highly recommend that movie if it is showing in your area.

I have just one more holiday gift to buy and then I am done with shopping--not that I do much--just my sister, two gifts for the office (one a gag gift for a white elephant exchange and another $25 gift that we draw names for) plus a gift for the neighbor who insists on giving me $100 cash for Hanukkah every year.

I'm sure I'll be back to post another blog before the new year as I review my goal performance this year and set next year's goals.

But for now, happy holidays!

long overdue mini-victory

July 2nd, 2018 at 08:05 pm

My city does not provide trash hauling service, although they do recycle--something that's different from every other place I've ever lived. Every other place it was either a city that provided both trash and recycling, or rural, where you paid for an annual tag at the local "transfer station" and hauled your trash and recycling there yourself. I've been thinking about changing my trash hauling service for over a year, ever since they added a $5/quarter "administrative fee" for the cost of billing us (and the bills aren't even mailed; they're sent online). But it was a low-level, out-of-sight irritation so I didn't act until now, spurred by a $45 charge for an unpaid bill that led them to temporarily cancel my service.

I've seen some discussions during the past six months on the "Next Door" app when new city residents would ask advice about who to use for hauling. Although there were a few services recommended, one in particular seemed to get more kudos than anyone else.

That service also offers a month of free service if you pay your bill annually rather than quarterly, so I just signed up for a year of trash hauling for $253 ($23/month), and canceled the other service that was charging me at last invoice over $144 a quarter--$33 a month PLUS that administrative fee PLUS a fuel and environment fee PLUS a regulatory cost recovery fee. That's 44% of the cost, and now I don't have to think about that bill again until NEXT July. And in addition, the new service is locally owned and operated while the service I canceled is a national company that operates in the lower 48 states, so I feel good about supporting local business as well. Woo-hoo!

June: Social events, big car repair, organizing, health scare

June 30th, 2018 at 12:50 am

June was one of my most social months of the year, with a visit to Patient Saver and my annual visit from a friend who is now a snowbird. It was lovely to socialize, and I also look forward to some time to myself during July and August to catch up on other projects.

I also took my annual summer arts & culture class offered as a fundraiser for the local charter arts high school. This summer’s series was on outsider art and was a lot of fun, concluding with a tour of the local “secret art park” designed by our course instructor along with artist Mr. Imagination and a reception and showing of a private collection at the instructor’s home. There still may be a field trip to NYC later this summer.

I went finally to hear a concert by a community orchestra which three friends of mine participate in. I am planning on joining them next Thursday for the rest of the summer at least. I also went to the theatre twice and will go one or possibly two more times during July.

One surprise event during the month was that my car failed an oil consumption test and Subaru replaced the “short block,” a major component of the engine, for free since the car is (just barely!) still under warranty. The part itself costs nearly 6K not to speak of labor, so thank god for the warranty or I’d be car hunting right now. As it is, I will look into renewing the warranty this month. I really enjoyed driving the Forester they gave me as a loaner (my previous car was a Forester and when I bought the current car, I bought an Impreza). If I had any sort of real commute, I would seriously consider trading in my car, but I have lived a mile from where I work for 3 years so upgrading the car is kind of ridiculous. That drive from PA to CT to visit PS is the furthest I’ve driven in a few years. In any case, they said to treat the car as if it had a new engine in terms of the oil change, because in essence, it does--and a new engine for free on a 6-year old car is certainly a good thing!

Right now in terms of work goals, I am working on catch up. I still have a lot to do and hopefully will make more progress in July than I did in June. I also need to work more on studying for the CFP, although I am proud to note that I *finally* understand the basics of A-B trust planning, something which I’ve struggled over for years.

I’m doing very well this year in terms of debt reduction—down about 8.2K for the year and my mortgage will be at 58K even after the July payment hits, something which I should easily pay off in 7-8 years as long as I keep my current job. 7.5 years would make the total payoff an even 20 years.

I actually finally! even made some progress on the “peaceful home environment” goal. I have an acquaintance/friend who is a personal organizer, and I have referred clients to her who have benefitted from her services. Last month as thanks for the business, she gave me a gift certificate for a free 3-hour consultation, which I had today. My work doesn’t allow me to accept the gift, so I paid her her normal fee at the end of our time together, but we organized all my food storage and developed a plan for much of the rest of the organizing work, to be done in bits and pieces this year and next.

The last big issue that will continue on during the month has to do with my thyroid. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis 4 years ago by a chiropractor. Most MD endocrinologists, unfortunately, don’t believe in “treating” the thyroid: their presumption is that diet and lifestyle have no effect and they will just monitor your thyroid levels until they fall and then put you on Synthroid (and I have heard this from at least six MDs). But I figured I should at some point get an assessment from an MD and I did see an endocrinologist this month, who sent me for an ultrasound which reveals that in addition to the Hashimoto's, I have a large nodule on the right half of my thyroid (5.7 cm). I asked about the “watch or wait” approach and my doctor said that, if the nodule were under 2 cm he would be ok with that, but since mine is nearly 3x that size, he very strongly encouraged a biopsy, which I will go in for on the 16th. There’s an 85-90% chance that it will be non-cancerous and we’ll just watch and wait and track it, but there’s also a 10-15% that it could be cancerous and I’d need to have the gland removed, which I am praying doesn’t happen. My followup appointment to get the biopsy results is on July 30th, so if you have some spare prayers between now and then, I’d appreciate them!

Goal review and mini-milestone

June 3rd, 2018 at 09:54 pm

Looking back at my goals for 2018 (in the side bar):

1. I'm falling behind on the CFP coursework--started out strong but the heavy workload at my job from the beginning of the year until now overwhelmed me. Still a work in progress and hoping to catch back up with the CFP over the summer.

2. With the heavy workload came a lack of focus on health. As things have now calmed down, I am turning my attention here as my weight has crept up to the highest in over a decade--ugh. I'm back to intermittent fasting, which worked for me well in 2016 and have lost about 5 pounds in the first 10 days. Water weight, I know, but always nice to get a good start. I am also experimenting with something else that I will blog about eventually if it is successful.

3. The home environment, as ever, ends up on the back burner. I'll really work on it after I'm done with the CFP. But for now, I had the yard cleared out and I'm getting a few big items out of the basement, and my annual visitor comes on the 23rd so the house will get back to its status quo by then, but I'm not sure if I'll make progress on the big decluttering I need to do.

4. Debt reduction is going well so far, although I always make the most progress at the beginning of the year. The mini-milestone is that I'm now back under 88K which was about the level my debt was when I left my teaching career and started the difficult decade of changing careers along with loss of my mom and three pets. So in a way it feels like beginning again, and hopefully it's just downward from here on out. I am making good progress on the mortgage, paying extra each month to get the total down to an even multiple of 100, which amounts to about 1.5 full extra mortgage payments over the course of the year, and I'm feeling relatively certain that I'll pay it off by 2026 and hopeful that I'll meet my goal of paying it off in 2025 (a total of 20 years).

5. I've maintained although not expanded my social life. June is a relatively social month. I'm going to visit Patient Saver next weekend and I have my annual Shakespeare Fest visitor coming on the 23rd.

6. I took a full week off ending with Memorial Day. Just sat by the river and read!

Whew! Exhausted!

May 19th, 2018 at 03:50 pm

It's been crazy at work the past two months, but after Monday, I'll be over the hump and life should calm down considerably until September (when it will pick up and be busy until the following May).

After working in the tax world for a few years, I got used to a little bit of a break after April 15 (or 17, as was the case this year), but since I'm now working at a wealth management firm, there isn't the usual decrease in work after tax day. In fact, it's been busier than ever since then. A confluence of things have led to an exceptionally busy time (about 3x my normal workload this week, which was the worst of it), but I am pleased that my supervisors noticed and have taken some measures that should help in the future. No promises, because there are always unusual situations and unexpected confluences of events, but at least some steps for better communication.

I'll be working most of this weekend to meet a Monday deadline, but then I am taking most of next week off!!! Tuesday afternoon thru Memorial Day gives me 6.5 consecutive days!!! I'll be spending them at home, trying to make some progress on decluttering.

In other news: I replaced my two window ACs this week--the ones I'd been using were about 15+ years old. The new ones are Energy Star, so hopefully my summer electricity bill will go down. I bought them from a local store 5 blocks away that has an excellent reputation. They took away the old ACs, and, for an additional $50, also took the two left in the basement by the previous home owner. For a reasonable service fee, they'll also come and take them out and put them back in again each fall and spring. My neighbor has been doing that the entire time I've lived here. He was 62 when I moved in, so 74 now, and I don't want him injuring himself doing favors for me.

I also got started experimenting with the ThriveLife foods that Lucky Robin has posted about on her blog. I ended up doing 3 orders in a month, for over $400, but the food will last (one year after opening, 25 years in the #10 cans unopened), and it does save some time grocery shopping and considerably on food wastage--which happens a lot as a single person. No more hairy carrots, limp celery, or sprouted tear-inducing onions. Right now on this rainy morning I am cooking up a pot of cream of chicken and mushroom soup using mostly freeze dried ingredients. Hopefully eventually this will cut down on my eating out, which gets out of hand when I am superbusy as I have been.

Kitty Buffy had her thousand dollar dental work and recovered nicely; kitty Bridget still pulls the hair on her sides and belly out, but her bloodwork is good and she seems happy enough, so I'm not going to stress myself out too much over the behavior, which apparently is neurotic.

Finally, it is looking like I'll take a short trip in June to visit Patient Saver, whom I've met F2F twice before. I'm looking forward to the trip!

I'm working most of today, but will go see the new film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg this evening.

Sick Kitty; Credit Sesame

March 19th, 2018 at 12:10 am

I have the vet coming to pay a house call tomorrow morning. It's $90 for the vet + a vet tech, plus the usual exam and lab fees. But the kitty for whom I scheduled the appointment completely freaks out at the vet. I've only taken her once since I adopted her, and that time, it took 3 vet techs + the vet and me and a sedative to get her examined. It stressed her out so much I decided just to let her be until something was clearly wrong.

That time has come. She's been dropping weight and a couple of weeks ago I noticed that her fur was looking patchy too. Plus her digestion--which has never been as good as her sister kitty's--has been worse. The *best* outcome would be a diagnosis that she is hyperthyroid, but chances are it is something worse than that. She is 13.5, her "sister" (from the same home but not biologically related) turns 13 on the 30th...and the only other two cats I had lived to be 13 and 14, which makes me anxious. The first two kitties were fed on dry food and both developed kidney disease--one had to be put down immediately after diagnosis and the other I kept going with sub-q fluids for 2.5 years. I learned a lot about feline chronic renal disease over that time and these two kitties have been fed mostly with canned food to try to prevent it.

Anyways, I am quite nervous about what news tomorrow morning will bring.

The other cat gets taken to the vet regularly, and I'll be able to have the vet examine her as well as long as he is out here. I know she needs dental work, which will cost about a thousand. She's been eating well and there is no sign that the bad tooth bothers her, so I've let it go for six months since I was told she needed the work done, but spring is time.

So I transferred about $1,500 from my sinking fund account at Schwab to the bank so that costs will be covered.

Prayers for Miss Bridget are appreciated! I hope hyperthyroid is all that it is. If it is anything that needs regular intervention by me, she is too scared of a cat to adapt easily. When Teddy needed subcutaneous fluids for all that time, he fought the first few weeks, but then realized that he felt better after the fluids and stopped fighting. When Buffy was diagnosed diabetic, she hated getting the ear prick tests but there was a while there where it became easier to do. (Now that her diabetes is well controlled with diet and she needs the test only occasionally, it is much harder to do.) But Bridget was the cat who hid in a box for two months when I first adopted her, whom I've never even dared to pick up until the past month (and only extremely briefly), who spends an entire day hissing at me and at Buffy whenever I take Buffy to the vet, so I don't feel as tho anything that requires daily administrations from me is going to go over well with her.

On another front, I got an email from Credit Sesame today that I found informative, on suggested credit usage. The one thing that always dings my credit score a bit is having high balances relative to the limit. Mostly that's due to the one 0% balance transfer cardI maintain. But this time I got a link to actual balance limits and percent utilized, and discovered that the maximum you should use of any card is 10% of the your limit. After finding that out, I went and requested a credit limit increase on my Discover card, and I was granted an immediate $6,300 increase. The 0% balance transfer card is still going to knock things off, but I'm going to have to do another transfer by May, and I'll check out the limits before I do so this time. I didn't know before that 10% of your limit is the most you should use before they start counting your usage against you.

(On the other hand, they *also* ding me for not having enough TYPES of credit open--just a mortgage and the credit cards, no auto loan, student loan, or personal loan, so *that* brings my score down a bit too.

Mortgage Milestone

March 3rd, 2018 at 01:46 am

When I took out my mortgage at the end of 2005, I started by owing $92,800 (at 5.875%). I refinanced in 2012 for a lower rate and changed the term from a 30 year to a 20 year. And whenever possible, I've paid some extra principal in, usually down to the next "round" number.

At the beginning of the year, I started by owing $60,700. Now that the March payment is made, I'm down to $59,900--I threw an extra $65 in this month to get down to a multiple of $100. Feels good having broken the $60K barrier. I'm 57.5, so it feels doable to have the mortgage paid off by the time I am 65.

I am not planning to retire at that age at this point, but having the freedom to be able to afford to would be nice. Once the mortgage and other debt are gone, I'll be accelerating my savings into a brokerage account, building a bucket of "safe" money I can live off of during any market downturns in my early retirement years.

Moves, movies, movies--and Single Payer healthcare

February 28th, 2018 at 09:26 pm

I've spent the past three evenings at the movies. On Sunday, I saw "I, Tonya." On Monday, I saw "Citizen Jane," about Jane Jacobs and her activism with housing projects. That one was followed by a panel with a couple of local college professors and the head of the local council on economic development.

Then last night, I saw another documentary: Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point. It provides an argument for "Medicare for All." You can actually watch this one online (https://fixithealthcare.com/). But what was extra special was that the producer and director of the film were both there and spoke after. It was also kind of neat that, even though the film speaks to national and international issues, it was made locally and you can see some nice footage of our city, the downtown (where I work), and the former mayor, who is interviewed and who works in the building next door and is still quite active locally.

The big roadblock to single payer isn't so much it being a conservative vs liberal ideological issue, but the lobbying money that the insurance industry and big pharma throw at the issue.

The producer and director also made two other films, one on Big Pharma, which they'll be showing locally next month (and which you can see online at https://fixithealthcare.com/big-pharma-movie/) and a third documentary, which they'll be releasing in about a month--no local screening or online access yet, but I expect there to be.

I feel so fortunate to currently have employer insurance, but I paid my own, first under COBRA and then outright (individually and then on healthcare.gov) from 2009 thru 2014. I don't really look forward to getting older but I can see the benefit of getting to Medicare age with my friends and clients.

Price Rewind Credit Cards

February 13th, 2018 at 03:34 pm

A client of mine who works outside the home only one day a week told me about a credit card feature that I have never heard about before: Price rewind. She has it on a Mastercard through Citibank, where she gets a 1% reward on purchase, another 1% on payment, and, if she can find an item she purchased for a lower price and uploads a picture of the lower priced item to the site, they refund her the difference between what she paid and what she COULD have paid elsewhere. It has been quite lucrative for her, although it does take time. I don't have the time to do anything like this, but I thought I would mention it for any of you who do have the time and haven't heard of this feature. If you google, you will find articles about this idea by NerdWallet and other frugal living bloggers.

Painless Savings Idea to Share

January 20th, 2018 at 11:15 pm

I had this brainstorm, which I am going to implement for myself and wanted to suggest this to others as well: If you are not already maxing out your pre-tax retirement contributions, ask your HR/employer to increase your 401k/403b contribution by an additional percentage point when they change over to the new withholding tables, which should be sometime in February. Without taking any action, the change in withholding should make your take-home pay go up by a bit--a small amount, maybe easing the pressure a tiny bit if you are living paycheck to paycheck, but not enough overall to really make you feel wealthier. If you are not living paycheck to paycheck and you have gotten used to living on your current take-home pay, take advantage of the change in withholding tables to divert that extra amount into long-term savings rather than spending it on extra consumables. Your take-home pay should remain similar to what it was and your savings will increase. You could wait until after the change takes place and compare your January and February paystubs, or you could try to figure out the change from IRS Notice 1036 with the new withholding tables vs Pub 15 2017 if you are an accounting geek, or if you have a bit of wiggle room in your budget you could just take it on faith that one change will offset the other by an amount that you won't really notice. I'm not a master of payroll but I did calculate for myself that the decreased withholding will be about 1% of my takehome pay and thus a good opportunity to increase my 401k contribution from 11% to 12% (I also have a set dollar amount taken each pay and put into my HSA account, some of which I spend during the year and some of which ideally gets saved; between the two set-asides I will be putting away over 16%, although last year I did end up spending about 2/3s of what I put into the HSA for out of pocket medical expenses. In a healthier year I'd be able to save more of that, and at least the healthcare expenses were paid for with pre-tax dollars.)

One year at the "new" job

November 5th, 2017 at 06:36 pm

I celebrated my one year anniversary at the (no-longer) new job on Halloween. Halloween was also my 12th anniversary of purchasing my house, so it's a day with positive associations for me.

I still have to get my formal year-end review, coming up sometime this month, but I am cautiously optimistic (knock on wood, of course!). And hopefully there will be a wage increase that goes along with it. My understanding from the others who hold my position is that there usually is, which is nice to hear. If I get a 3% raise, I'll increase my retirement contribution to 11%. With the company match of 3%, that's 14%, almost to my target savings of 15%.

I also contribute $2,400 per year to my HSA, and the company gives me enough (partly through an outright contribution and partly through matching) to cover the deductible on the high-deductible health insurance. Last year that amount was $2,000 and for 2018, we're changing insurance and the new policy's deductible is $1,500. If I were able to save the money I put in the HSA that would be another 6% of income to savings (for a total of 20%), but this past year, my medical expenses were high (partly my long-term care insurance premiums, partly the chiropractor whom I saw weekly from April through September), so I only have about $500 left in the HSA account.

The big unknown at work (other than the details of the yearly performance review and salary adjustment) is the year-end bonus. This is not an individual thing but is based on the company as a whole meeting its profit goals, and employees don't hear about whether or not there will be a bonus until the very end of the year, so it's hard to plan. More often than not, there is one, but not always. If there is, it can be as much as 20% of wages, which would do a great amount of good for me in terms of paying down my debt. I had paid down a chunk at the beginning of the year, but it's now crept back up what with the traveling I did to Las Vegas and Los Angeles over the summer, as well as a couple of weekends away here in PA. While my debt has thus only gone down a couple of thousand since the beginning of the year, my assets are up over 40K, so it has been a good year for my net worth.

If we do get the full bonus, I'll put all but a couple of hundred of the after-tax amount towards paying off the debt, which will finally bump the amount down signficantly lower than it has ever been since I bought my house and took out a mortgage.

It's been a good year at work, and while I think that my job performance has been satisfactory, there have been some parts of the job that have taken longer to master than I had anticipated, and I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked at studying for the CFP. But that is something that I will double down on in 2018. This year really had to be about mastering all the details of the job itself, and pretty much, I have.

Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

June 17th, 2017 at 09:16 pm

I just returned from a week in Las Vegas at a conference. I've driven through the city once before on a road trip, at night, but we didn't stop then. This time I saw a tiny bit more, but not the full tourist experience.

The conference was at the MGM Grand, and I stayed at the Signature Towers at the MGM right next door. The Signature is newer, less flashy, cheaper, and quieter, so I'd recommend it if you go. It's not a budget hotel--there are plenty cheaper, but it does have kitchenettes so you can economize on meals.

I had all good intentions of doing so, but I was so wiped out after the first couple of days that I ate out as the quickest way to a meal and bed. And then after that, I connected with a Chicago-based financial planner and her friends, so I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to network and ask questions of other planners more experienced than me, so I ended up going out to dinner every night after all. The conference provided breakfast and lunch at least.

I'm still trying to absorb the information I learned, but it was a great conference with many of the top names in the field whose writings I follow in the literature presenting.

I'm really glad I opted to do the pre-conference workshop. The workshop was only 30 people, while there were probably 8,000 or so at the conference, so going early to a more specialized workshop meant that I usually saw a few people I already had some acquaintance with at the sessions I went to.

Most of the dinners were at the MGM Grand itself, but one night we left and went to Mon Ami Gabi at Paris (with the fake Eiffel tower) and watched the water show across the street at the Bellagio. One of the members of the group I was with does planning for malpractice attorneys, who are big spenders, and he has picked up some of the practices of his clients, so he bribed the waitstaff at the restaurant to make sure that we got a really good table and also paid for a stretch limo to ride back to our hotel in.

I didn't spend a dime at the casinos (no regrets there), and I didn't get a chance to see any shows (I would have liked to catch a Cirque de Soleil show).

It was good to get away but not in the least restful. This week is busy, but so far July is looking really slow for me. I'm happy to see that because May was overly busy, with almost twice the number of client meetings to prepare for as is typical. I'm behind on my meeting follow-ups, so a slow month will give me a chance to catch up, and possibly take a few days off to just rest. I had written a blog entry or two about wanting to get away in the spring but I never did, so maybe next month I will.

In other news, I found myself behind in my CFP exam preparation because I underestimated all the adjustments I'd have to make for the new job, so I met with my supervisor and got his ok to push that off until 2018, just trying to get at least 3 courses done by the end of the year.

And I see on here that my "Blogoversary" will be in 5 days. Since I post on here relatively rarely, I'll make note of that now.

So who here has used Air B&B?

April 2nd, 2017 at 09:09 pm

One of my new year's resolutions was to try to do a couple of weekend getaways this year--one in the spring and one in the fall (plus work will pay for my going to a conference in Las Vegas in June, and I need to take some time to visit my sister in Los Angeles, possibly in July since work is slowest then).

In beginning to think about a spring getaway, I looked at the website for the bed and breakfast that I have gone to a couple of times before--once on my own in the fall, and then I met Patient Saver there last May (the second time we had met F2F). I love that b&b because it is right on the Delaware River, but in northern PA so less pricey than the New Hope area B&Bs, and there were a couple of restaurants within walking distance.

But when I looked at their schedule for this year, I see that they aren't taking reservations, citing health reasons. I'm sorry to hear that one of the owners is ill, and sorry that my nice little weekend getaway is now most likely out of business.

So I began looking at Air B&B places and thought I'd ask about people's experiences with them. Of course, it's going to vary a lot based on the particular place you stay. I only have ever had conversations with two people about their Air B&B experience.

NYTimes article, Basing Life on What you Can Afford

March 21st, 2017 at 02:07 am

Text is https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/your-money/budget-what-you-can-afford.html?ribbon-ad-idx=8&src=trending&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Trending&pgtype=article and Link is
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/your-money/budget-what-yo...

Interesting series of stories.

So what's the big deal about CostCo?

February 12th, 2017 at 08:49 pm

We just had the first CostCo open up locally back a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. Since November was when I started my new job, this weekend was my first chance to go and check it out. It's over the other side of the valley, further than I usually drive on my weekly errands--a little bit of a distance but not too far--about 20 minutes, while most of my weekly errands are done within a 15-minute radius of home. (The nearest CostCo otherwise is about 50 minutes away.)

I arrived around 9, hoping to beat the crowd, and to my surprise, they were not yet open. Fortunately, a Whole Foods had also opened in the same mall, so I went and checked them out, seeing how the store was laid out and looking for interesting items to buy (but not yet purchasing anything at that point).

I went over to CostCo when they opened, but I was out 20 minutes later. I just didn't see the big deal. It looked just like the Sam's Club and BJ's that are a lot closer to me, with perhaps slightly higher quality merchandise in some areas. Certainly nothing that on the face of it would entice me to buy a membership or shop there regularly.

But before ruling them out entirely, I thought I would ask people what their favorite CostCo buys are. Maybe if I knew what to look for when shopping there I could see the value in sharing a membership with a friend (we currently share a Sam's Club membership, but let the BJ's membership drop).

The trip wasn't a waste--there's also a Nordstrom Rack and I picked up a dress and a sweater for work for less than $50, and I went back to Whole Foods and did my weekly shop there instead of the usual Wegman's run. (Whole Paycheck, indeed!)

So right at the moment, I can't see myself driving out there to go to CostCo again, but I can see myself going and checking out Nordstrom Rack and buying a few novelty groceries at Whole Foods maybe 2 or 3 times a year.

Other than that, mostly it's been a quiet weekend--potluck at my congregation Friday night, then went to see two movies at the local independent cinema yesterday plus will go to another one tonight. Yesterday both movies I went to with a friend. We met to see "Lion" in the late afternoon (worth seeing). While we were there, they announced that they were giving away passes for a free showing of "1984" for a later night showing, so we went back later. Today's film is a one-night showing of "A Better Life: An Exploration of a LIfe of Happiness & Joy in a World without God" about atheist philosophy (with the director in attendance for an after-movie discussion).

Tomorrow night I might go back yet again to see the Oscar-nominated Live Action Shorts--and next weekend are the Oscar-nominated Documentaries. I'll probably skip the showing of the Oscar-nominated animated films, but I very well go back on the 26th for the Oscar party and screening.

Good thing I renewed my annual membership at the arts center where the cinema is located yesterday--I go enough during the year that the annual membership pretty much ends up paying for itself in accumulated discounts.

Hallelujah!

January 13th, 2017 at 01:53 am

I still have to update my sidebar column (I'll incorporate it into the Feb 1 rating), but I took my required minimum distribution from my inherited IRA and used it to pay down a big chunk on my HELOC. This brings the current debt total to $88,360--which is close to what it was when I started tracking on networthiq.com back in 2009 before leaving teaching. In 2009, I left my career of 20 years, followed by a 5 year transitional period during which I at first could only find temporary or part-time work and during which I was traveling back and forth across the country a lot because my mother was terminally ill (2010-2011) and I also lost/was dealing with serious ill pets (Henry, ill August 2009- May 2010, Phoebe, died March 2011, Teddy, diagnosed with the illness that he died of in January 2014 in November 2011). That period of high expenses during a period of low and uncertain income did a number on my debt which I am still struggling to deal with. Back in July 2009, right at the time I left teaching, my debt was at 87,342, its all time low since buying my house. At that 87,342 was almost all mortgage debt and a smallish credit card bill. One month later, Henry was diagnosed with cancer and the descent into debt began. Now I'm down to 88,360, of which 64,400 is the mortgage and the rest is still paying down the accumulated medical and extra living expenses from those tenuous years. 11K is on the HELOC and 11,400 is on a loan against my 403b. So the non-mortgage piece is finally significantly below 30K. It will probably take me another couple of years to pay off the non-mortgage piece, by which time the mortgage should be down to 55K, which I can easily pay off before I turn 65.

Knock on wood that no major home repair expenses are required and that I'm finally to a period of job stability after some rocky years.

Happy Holidays!

December 25th, 2016 at 09:10 pm

Stopping in to wish everyone on SA the best of whatever holidays you celebrate! May your days be happy, healthy, merry, and bright, and may light come in to the new year after a fariy dark 2016.

Quiet here, as usual. My congregation's Hanukkah party was last night but they moved it from its usual place (at the synogogue) to the house of the person who does most of the cooking, which is a ways out, so I didn't go. I can do either dark or wet or unfamiliar but I get scared if I have to drive any combination of those, and last night was a bit of all three, so I stayed home. But I heard they had a good turnout, so that's good--and the family that hosted had a couple of members in the hospital for various things around Thanksgiving, so I don't mind that they changed the location to make it easier on themselves.

My Christmas tradition the past few years has been to have brunch with my closest local friend. She then goes to visit her daughter's family in NJ and sometimes I visit other people or go to the movies in the afternoon, and I always talk to my sister in Los Angeles sometime during the day.

Brunch was nice, although there was a bit of a pall over it because her dog Sammy has cancer and we don't know how much longer it will be. He seemed perky when I arrived and then again when we went for a walk before I left, but otherwise he just slept, more so than he used to. My friend lost her 6 year old grandson to cancer about 5 years ago, so this has triggered a lot of the same emotions in her again and she has been quite down. But the morning was pleasant enough.

Other than that, it was sunny and fairly pleasant (about 47 degrees) this afternoon, so I took a long walk around the neighborhood for the first time since we turned the clocks back the beginning of November. And I have yet to talk to my sister and open my gift from her, which arrived in 5 separate packages (actually, I have 4 so far and the final one arrives tomorrow)...very mysterious and my sister has been having fun keeping tabs on how many packages have arrived, so that is something still to look forward to.

And other than that, I have been beginning to do some journaling to review last year and plan for next--my favorite way to end the year.

Quiet and lowkey, but I prefer that to harry and hassle and stress of looking for just the right gift for everyone. My friend was pleased with her gift, and I still have to send out my sister's (we had an ice storm last Saturday, when I was planning to go)...but Hanukkah is 8 days so I just need to get it to her by the end of the week.

Anyways, best wishes for a mellow holiday, everyone!

Supplemental Unemployment Insurance

May 29th, 2016 at 12:26 am

I had never heard of such a thing before, but came across the term in my reading and discovered there is in fact such a thing. One company that offers it (not sure how many do) is called Income Assure. This is something I would be tempted to do, or at least research more intensively, but alas, I don't and won't qualify. You cannot have been unemployed within the past two years ( which won't be true of me until December) and the company you work for has to have at least 20 employees (which won't ever be true of my company). Also it only applies to W-2 employees, which is currently true of me. But with luck and some growth in the company, I could eventually be offered a small ownership stake and would get my earnings reported on a K-1. That's still a couple of years down the road, though. Still, supplemental unemployment insurance would be something I would check into if my circumstances were different. At least I finally got a good *disability* policy by joining a professional association. None is offered thru work. Lower quality benefits is a downside of working for a smaller employer. But on the positive side, we also don't have bureaucracy ourselves, only with the institutions we deal with.

Bed & Breakfast Trip

May 24th, 2016 at 12:31 am

Just home from an overnight B&B trip in which I met up with fellow SA blogger Patient Saver.

This is the second time that PS and I have met in person. The first time was five years ago, when I was driving home from a cousin's Massachusetts wedding. We've known each other through this site for about ten years, though, and we are of similar age and demographic, and we've had career and personal ups and downs that are similar to each other, so this was a nice chance to chat more personally than one does on a public website.

We met up yesterday around noon at the B&B, an old house sitting along the Delaware River at the PA/NY border. Unfortunately yesterday's weather was gray and gloomy, which constrained our activities, but left plenty of time for conversation. After spending an hour drinking tea while sitting out on the front porch, we asked the Innkeeper for a lunch restaurant recommendation in the artsy town of Narrowsburg NY. The restaurant was very nice and the town was interesting, but because it was still the weekend BEFORE Memorial Day, at least half of the stores, including the relatively "big" arts center in the town, were closed--as was the riverside restaurant we had originally planned on for dinner. We ended up at an adequate Italian place (more pizzeria than restaurant) which we felt we could easily find our way home from in the dark along the narrow, not particularly well-marked roads in this sleepy part of New York state.

This morning, we were running at different speeds--something that could be predicted by looking at our typical weekend blog entries on this site. PS's are full of things that she's done during the day, while mine are, admittedly, boring, since I am all about sitting, reading, and reflecting and not so much about acting, when I have some time to myself. After a lovely breakfast at the Inn, we decided to check out and tag-team drive to a town 20 miles away and tour Gray Towers, the home of US Forest Service founder, conservationist, and two-time PA Governor Gifford Pinochet. We wandered around there for about an hour or so before going our separate ways.

Our conversation during the day we spent together was more personal than our blogs here, focusing more on details of our personal and relationship histories and less on the financial. No surprises--I think we both tend towards the reserved-yet-open. Just a chance to get to know each other a bit better than is possible online in a public forum. If we do such a trip again, we should schedule it for a more likely to be sunny time, when we might be more likely to be able to do something like kayak (something which I won't do on my own, but enjoy doing with friends). And while it was lovely that nothing was crowded, also going before Memorial Day meant that many things were closed.

One million in sight

March 21st, 2016 at 12:54 am

In total lifetime earnings, that is. Not savings, not by a long shot! I just went on Social Security.gov and downloaded my lifetime earnings. Adding to that this year's salary and I finally will reach one million earned so far in this lifetime in 2016. That's what comes of delaying my earning years pretty much until age 30 (29, actually), by virtue of the better part of a decade of grad school and post-doc work.

It will still take me another 2 years or so to get to half a million net worth, and if I want to have a million in the kitty when I retire, I'll have to work until 70 and have reasonable luck with the markets. Hoping I can maintain the good health to keep working another 15 years!

One Year at the New Job

November 19th, 2015 at 01:35 am

Yesterday was my one year anniversary at my new job. So far, so good! Absolutely loving what I do--which is not to say that it is a low-stress job. In fact, we are coming up on the highest-stress time of year for me. I am now the tax planner at a financial advisory firm and year-end is when you can do the most (and most good, hopefully), so it will be a busy few weeks for me. Then things continue busy until after April 15, but not nearly as busy as in a CPA firm!

Since I knew year end would be stressful, I took a weekend in October and went to a bed and breakfast again. Very enjoyable. (Patientsaver, if you read this, this is the one that I had mentioned to you via email.) I was really in the mood to mostly sit and read and write (and take a few walks), but I did force myself out on one sight-seeing expedition: to the Museum at Bethel Woods, which commemorates the Woodstock Festival (which was actually held in Bethel, NY, not Woodstock). I bought a mood ring as a memento--had one back in the 60s, too.

In other happenings: I've now been going to the gym regularly for 5 months. I definitely feel better and look a *little* better, but weight loss progress is slow--about a pound a month. And it's not something I'm going to stress myself out going into busy season. The gym has a holiday deal, which I will go in on: give them an extra $25 next week and weigh in, then weigh in again the first week of January. Maintain your weight or lose over the holidays and you get your $25 back. But gain and your money goes into the pot to be split between the top male and the top female loser (in terms of body fat percent). Who couldn't use a little extra incentive to keep on track over the holidays?

And I took out a HELOC (home equity line of credit) last month on my 10 month anniversary of buying my home. I had some work done on my roof, and in the spring, I need some professional landscaping to restore the area damaged by digging to repair a broken sewer pipe a couple of years ago and to repaint my house, but mostly I am using it to pay down the personal loan I took out earlier this year, since the HELOC is at a better rate. I still will have about 23K in debt to get rid of in the next year & a half before I do any interior cosmetic changes (the kitchen and bath both really could use a refresh), but it's nice to have a bit more liquidity there should I need it.

I'm hoping to feel enough ahead of the game next week to be able to take off the day before and after Thanksgiving (as well as Thanksgiving itself, of course) to give myself some uninterupted time at home to work on decluttering and home organization. That is the goal for the year that I have made the least progress on, and I'd like to keep the needle moving on all five fronts. After that, I'll be working through to year end, with Christmas and New Year's Days off, and half-days on the eves of those two holidays.

In 2015, virtually all my time off was in the second half of the year--I had one sick day in February, and I took off the day after Memorial Day, but all the rest of my time off was July or after. Next year, I'll try to balance it a bit more evenly throughout the year, leaving time again for a one-week vacation in the summer. Next year will probably be to Los Angeles, my hometown, as it is four years ago on Thanksgiving since I saw my sister, who has been having a bit of a rough time herself, so she has not been traveling either.

First review

July 25th, 2015 at 05:45 pm

I've only been at the job eight months, but the boss likes to keep everything on the same schedule for everyone, and July/August is a slow time for the business and most vacations are in August, so July for salary review it was. The boss said that they made the "right choice" in hiring me, that my strong points and my weak points are just as he anticipated when hiring me, with the weak point being getting me integrated into the Team, who have worked together for several years...I am the only new person in a group of 5, the last of whom joined about a decade ago. And I tend to be self-sufficient and reluctant to ask for help, and the rest of the Team hasn't really gone out of their way to get me up to speed, so it's something to work on on both sides. But generally, he is pleased with my progress, said that he hopes I finish my career with the company, and that he regards me as the firm's greatest "untapped asset," so all that is good. And I have a $2,500/year salary increase as of August 1. All in all, a good result.


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