The Single Dollar

I’m having a pretty minimal Thanksgiving this year due to work craziness, but I am going to the place where I volunteer for their big dinner, and I promised to make two giant pans of stuffing to bring, so I’ve got to get to that in a minute.

But I was just thinking how grateful I am for the financial stability I’ve achieved over the last few years. Starting at 35 wasn’t ideal, but hey, better than never, and it feels amazing to pretty much never worry about money, even though the larger political and economic situation is so uncertain. So I’m thankful for that, and for the blog community that’s motivated and cheered me on.

I hope you’re all having a lovely day, especially if you celebrate American Thanksgiving!

Hi all,

Thanks for your comments on my last post! I thought about it and realized that I still had my old site, http://thesingledollar.blogspot.com/ — where I posted for six months or so before moving here.

I’ll probably keep posting there, once a month or so. The only issue is that I’m not sure whether I can import the archives from this site or not. I’ve exported them to an xml file so I have that backup, but it seems like you can’t import that kind of file into blogger. Googling indicates that there used to be a conversion tool but it’s not around anymore.

However, even if I can’t import the last few years of content, at least I’ll have a place to be (that is free!) going forward. It’ll be good not to let the blogging go entirely, even if at my current rate of posting I couldn’t justify continuing to pay for the site.

Hi 🙂 Checking back in.

Continue reading “Beginning of November net worth update”

Hi! I’m checking back in now that things have settled down a little. It’s nice to see my net worth chart going back UP again after several flatline months and a couple of decline while I was unemployed:

Continue reading “September 2017 Net Worth Update”

Okayyyyyyyyy. Obviously I’m not really updating anymore — for a combination of reasons. Partly, as my finances stabilized I had less to say about them; partly, I’ve been distracted by politics; and partly, I wasn’t really sure what was going on. For a while I thought I might be volunteering, but then I ended up taking a job after all. My old contract was up on June 30 and my one didn’t start til August 15 — meaning six weeks without my regular income. That hasn’t been a problem, since I had plenty of savings to work with, but I definitely didn’t keep as much of an eye on my spending as I might have over the summer. That was a little intentional, since I wanted to make it a really great summer with friends (I had to move for the new job). But I did also end up spending some money I didn’t need to at all. I don’t even know how much, since among other things I stopped keeping track for a while. I figure I’m going to reset YNAB for September when I get my first paycheck and start over again with the tracking.

Anyway, I just haven’t been that inspired to write, clearly. But today something happened that is relevant to this blog, namely, I pulled a little trick with my new housing situation and saved myself $1000.

Continue reading “How I Just Saved $1000 (also, hi!)”

Hi all. I don’t have a net worth update today, partly because Mint is misbehaving — its connection with Vanguard seems to be off, and it’s showing me with an extra account there, which in turn is increasing my net worth by $17K. Not that this wouldn’t be nice, but it’s definitely not accurate 🙂

Speaking of net worth! Double Debt Single Woman is in positive net worth territory this month! It has been a long haul for her — she’s increased her net worth by over $140K in five years, through a job loss and surgery, to get to this point. Amazing work, DDSW.

I myself am thinking about a period of unemployment next year, not exactly on purpose but also not exactly NOT on purpose. My current contract runs out at the end of June and so far I don’t have a job lined up yet, though I do have a phone interview in a couple of hours and also some other things ‘cooking.’ However, I’m also considering volunteering full time for a while, at least six months or so.

Continue reading “Savings rates and net worths”

Things are doing fine on the net worth front. I got paid this morning and according to Mint I’m at:

$20,111.61 in cash (savings and checking)

$41674.17 in retirement investments

for a total of $61785.78, representing an increase of $1269 in March. This is a little low as an increase, because of the car repair I paid for this month, but it’s fine. Who can argue, really??? My emergency fund has been partially replenished once I got paid and is now back up to $3840, and I made a substantial contribution to the life fund too, which is at $14,522. Ticking along.

 

 

…of $22, state and federal combined 🙂 Actually, this is great news, since I made several thousand dollars in fellowship last year that didn’t have anything deducted from it, so I was worried I’d have to pay this year. On the other hand, my job deductions were very strange due to the lump-sum payment I got in the fall, so I was pretty sure that enough “extra” had come out of that one to compensate. And it did, obviously, working out almost exactly equally. I spent about $20 on brunch today, which I don’t do often these days, so that’s that.

Anyone have a more exciting tax return story to tell?

Another one of those funny pieces of financial behavior that I’ve been doing for a while but is maybe weird?

Continue reading “Is this taking “treat your credit card like a debit card” too far?”

My freelance check showed up! $1250. Not life-changing but also not bad. I immediately transferred it into the “life fund” which is now over $13,000 again. (It was up to $15,000 or so last year before I moved some of it into my IRA.) Even with that, I am still under $60,000 though! Between the car repair bill, paying rent, and taking my cash draw out…. Close, though, and when I get paid next week I’ll be back over $60K, and also be able to transfer $650 into the life fund and $190 into the emergency fund.

Continue reading “That does brighten the day (slash car musings)”