Well, with Trump's announcement of the Strait of Hormuz being open and the war effectively over (true or not), the markets surged and my total financial assets hit over a million for the first time.  My total assets first hit 1MM in May 2024, my net worth (assets minus liabilities) hit that checkpoint in September 2024, and this is the first time that just the financial assets (disregarding the house and other property) minus liabilities totals that much.

As for going back to school--not currently in the sense of taking classes, although I am very excited to be able to have a college library card again.  I just joined the "Board of Advisors" for one of the colleges in my area, one where I taught from 2001-2009 and one which I am an alumni of, since my post-BA certificate of accounting came from there.

The BOA is mostly a networking and promotion group meant to spur ties of the college to the community.  You actually pay a small annual fee ($60).  That fee is used to fund community projects designed by student groups, for example, designing a "sensory friendly loop" for a field at an early childhood development center, providing materials for the local America Reads program.  There are three meetings a year--a Spring dinner, a Fall breakfast, and a Winter lunch.  The fall and winter programs feature a faculty speaker while the spring dinner honors the student volunteers.  Some of the community members of the BOA have a prior affiliation with the college like I do while others are heads of local nonprofits, local politicians, attorneys, CEOs of local businesses, or financial advisors.

Now that I'm on the BOA, I'm getting invited to a lot more events at the college.  After the BOA Spring dinner on Thursday, I went back again on Friday for a reception honoring the 25th anniversary of the opinion research polling center on campus.  I caught up with some former colleagues from the political science and psychology departments and viewed a posterboard display of some of their survey findings.  I was surprised how many dealt with environmental beliefs, which are a research interest of the survey director. Usually we hear about the institute in the context of political opinion surveys--the director noted that he did over 700 interviews with media outlets in 2024. Based on this group's research, the nadir of climate change denialism was in 2010, and since then, more and more people believe in global warming and that global warming is caused by humans.

I've been invited to yet a third event at the college (the end of the semester is drawing near, so many events in a short time frame).  I have a very busy work week, so I don't think I'll be up for it.  But I'm glad to be able to get a college library card again.

Feeling both annoyed and triumphant this morning after calling my local paper to cancel.

I really want to support local journalism, so I have stayed subscribed to my local paper (digitally) while also having digital subscriptions to the NY Times ($29/month, family edition = 4 log-ins), Wall Street Journal ($12.27/month), Washington Post (included with Amazon Prime), as well as supporting a handful of independent journalists writing through Substack.

But the local subscription crept up from at one point being cheaper than the NYT, to being equal in cost, to far exceeding it.  For the past several months, I've been paying $48/month, which was already outrageous, and I kept meaning to call them--and then they increased the cost to just under $68/month!  That charge broke through and I finally called this morning--calling them rather than canceling online in hopes that they would offer me a better deal.

And they did:  my rate going forward (for however long it may be) is just $14 a month.  I am happy to be able to continue to support local journalism, while also feeling angry that they are willing to charge such outrageous fees to those who are, as I was, held back by the force of inertia from making the call to cancel.

My favorite local public radio station (which is a nonprofit, not a for-profit entity) recently cut back on many of its staff and reduced local features to be able to maintain its service.

I do worry about the fate of our independent journalism in this day and age when anyone can have a blog, Instagram, or TikTok that goes out to thousands of followers while just 6 companies now own 90% of media outlets, reducing local coverage and standardized content, which can be influenced by the political opinions of billionnaire owners like Bezos.

Almost to tax day, which (working in financial services as I do) is somewhat of a marker for busy-ness, but not as much as it was when I worked for an accounting firm or tax department.  At least most of the "administratrivia," as I call it, is over for the year.  That's all the tax forms (1099s and K-1s) that I need to send to clients and their CPAs early in the year.  The 1099s are out in January or February, but the K-1s continue to trickle in, with several coming in this past week (and some may yet come in on Monday or Tuesday), and some which will not be issued until the summer.  In that case, the client needs to have their return put on extension, but still needs to pay the expected amount of tax due by the 4/15 deadline.  All of that extra paperwork comes on TOP of the regular workload of preparation for client meetings, so (with that largely over for the year) I get to breathe a bit more easily until next January.

I still haven't made much progress on my decluttering goals, but hopefully will now that I have that additional bit of breathing room.  I took yesterday off with the goal of working on my kitchen, but I did have my work computer with me, and (it still being before 4/15) I ended up doing a couple of hours of work from home as well as taking myself out to a leisurely breakfast  By the time I was done with that and also tackling my yard for the first time this spring and running two errands, it was well into the afternoon and I ended up taking a nap.  

I'm at work again today--I usually do spend a few hours at work over the weekend since it is quiet and I won't get interrupted by client phone calls or drop-ins and can be more productive.  I'm hoping to get the work I want done today and then tackle the kitchen tomorrow.

On the financial front, my portfolio at the moment is largely back to where it was before this unnecessary war, both due to recovery and the fact that I contribute to both my 401(k) and my sinking funds every paycheck.  It's only down about 2k from where it was before 2/28.

I haven't been doing a good job of tracking my spending with a spreadsheet as I'd intended, so I may give Monarch Money a try--I'll decide that after tax day.

Also, as per my last blog post, our Office Manager did retire two weeks ago.  It does look like we will get somewhat of a replacement, with a different title and somewhat different responsibilities.  In the meanwhile, the four of us left at the office have to take on extra work (for no extra pay).  I'm responsible for the mail, which includes collecting it and scanning any client documents and filing them in our electronic filing cabinet, as well as doing a bunch of checks before leaving the office for the day since I am almost always the last person out the door (but also the last one in most mornings).  We had 7 people in this office for the first few years I worked here and had 6 people for the several years after that.  With two retirements now in about a year and a quarter, we are down to four and it feels kind of empty.