Financial Update – June 2021

Background

Each month I will post an update on my finances to both give you, the reader, some insight into my situation and to give me markers of my progress on my financial journey. My updates include both spending and net worth.

Spending is divided into joint and individual spending. My husband and I each get $450 a month for our own individual spending as an “allowance.”
I don’t include charitable contributions in our numbers below, but we allocate 10% of our post-tax income to this each year.
Our net worth goal tracked using undisclosed units of money. Our goal is to hit “Financial Equilibrium”, based on Thomas J. Anderson’s book The Value of Debt in Building Wealth. This is fairly close to our FIRE number.

The Charts

The Numbers

Monthly Update

New Job

So to start with the big news: I got a new job! I will be leaving my job in a couple weeks and starting the new one in September, so I’m really excited to have a really chill summer (minus the descending-into-catastrophic-global-warming heat waves).

The new place will pay slightly more than my old employer, but the real benefit will be being able to leave the baggage of the old job behind. Overall I’ve increased my annual compensation by 60% in the last two years. A lot of that is due to a compensation explosion in tech coupled with job hopping. New college grads are getting paid what would have been considered the ceiling for individual contributors when I started working ten years ago. It’s kind of nuts.

Financials

While my net worth dropped a little in June (crypto), I’m feeling pretty relaxed about our financial situation. I still think our forward looking financial situation will be better since my husband will be switching therapists (saving $450-600/month) and I’ll be wrangling myself a bit more when I have time off to get back on the horse with cooking (saving $450-600/month).

I am, however, planning a little bit of lifestyle inflation as well to operationalize home life when I go back to work in the fall, so that’s something I need to think through and consider. Some things I am contemplating include:

Hiring cleaners ($150/month) – Get someone to clean the dust and grime in our place monthly.
Fancy gym ($200/month) – Includes small group weight training classes that will help me structure my workouts and get me back into post-pandemic shape.
Rent office space ($700/month) – This feels the most iffy, mostly because of the high expense. Since my new job will be remote I feel like I need somewhere other than my house to go to day to day or I will go bonkers. $700 seems to be the minimum to have a private office (rather than a desk in a co-working space bullpen), which I would need since I’m generally in meetings for hours a day for my role.
Meal delivery ($800/month) – I probably won’t get this, but the idea of having pre-made, healthy meals prepped for my husband and me every day would be a dream. We could technically afford it, but that price would be for dinners only and would need to be doubled to cover all meals. I mean, maybe it’s worth it? We’ve been paying stupid amounts for takeout over the pandemic. I don’t know, this feels a step too bougie for me.

Personal

I am fully vaccinated (yay!). It’s been great going back out into the world. I’ve found going in public places strangely not at all weird. Like, it doesn’t feel like coming back home after a long time away, where things are in an uncanny valley of unfamiliarity. Instead, it just feels like, “oh I was in the movie theater last week” even though I know it’s been 18 months. It’s almost like time stopped during the pandemic. On the one hand, I’m happy because I thought I would be anxious going back into the world. On the other hand, I feel like I just wasted a year of my life with… nothing.

Still not pregnant (le sigh). I have been tracking my cycle using Flo and just realized I can also track days with intercourse as well. I figure it would be good to have that all documented in case we need to go see a doctor for infertility. We made the decision that if we haven’t conceived by September that we’ll go get checked out. I’m pushing down a lot of feelings on pregnancy stuff, mostly because I know there’s not much I can do about it. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, we can adopt. Still, I feel like even after COVID-19 my life is on pause until we can expand our family with kids. More or less going through the motions.

How was your June?

Financial Update – May 2021

Background

Spending is divided into joint and individual spending. My husband and I each get $450 a month for our own individual spending as an “allowance.”
I don’t include charitable contributions in our numbers below, but we allocate 10% of our post-tax income to this each year.
Our net worth goal tracked using undisclosed units of money. Our goal is to hit “Financial Equilibrium”, based on Thomas J. Anderson’s book The Value of Debt in Building Wealth. This is fairly close to our FIRE number.

The Charts

The Numbers

Monthly Update

In terms of mental health, May was the best that I’ve been in a long while. In terms of financial health— not the best we’ve had.

Let’s chat money first: lots of big spending this month including a new fancy queen sized bed, including an Avocado mattress and a new platform bed with lots of built in storage which we spent almost $2,600 on. But like they say, anything between you and the ground is worth it (though I’m now realizing “they” are likely mattress salesmen).

The crypto markets were a bit of a rollercoaster in May. By mid-May we almost hit our “after-tax investments” goal from rallying gains. Then came the dip wiping out all our gains from when we started putting money in. Since it has bounced back a bit, bringing us more or less to mid-April prices. Lots of volatility, but I see it as a long-term investment so we stuck through it.

I expect the financial situation in June to look brighter. Why?:

Employer stock. I’ll have my quarterly vesting date.
Medical expenses. My husband has decided to no longer see their therapist (reached the limits of talk therapy, moving to something more “active” like CBT). They’ll be opting for something in our health insurance network, so much lower copays. In addition, we should be getting a reimbursement for much of the therapy costs from our insurance (a few thousand $), so that will help as well.
No more major furniture purchases on the horizon. Pretty self-explanatory.
Major crypto upgrades in July. Most of my friends are sick of me waxing on about Ethereum so I’ll just say there are major protocol & community upgrades scheduled for late July that are pretty exciting. Prices tend to rise in anticipation of these sorts of changes, then consolidate immediately after. “Buy the rumor, sell the news” and all that jazz.
Being able to go to the grocery store = more cooking. One of the big turn-offs for me in terms of cooking is that I don’t really feel “connected” to the whole process if I don’t get to include a trip to the grocery store as part of the routine. Since I’ll be immune soon, I think this will help kick start good habits again and help us get our food spending down.

That said we do have to pay for gutter repairs soon (it’s always something with these old houses) and my husband is still not working. Plus I plan to quit my job in July. That said, we’re in a good place and I am optimistic overall.

On the job front: I have two final round interviews in mid-June. One place I’m really excited about and a FAANG I’m “meh” about but is worth doing the interview for so I can use the offer as negotiating leverage. I have so much prep to do for both though— why are interviews so time consuming!?

Also got a promotion at work, which is kind of moot at this point since I’ve decided to leave. Still, I am waiting for the promo change to kick in before I give notice so I can use the title/comp as a baseline in job interviews. I feel like a heel waiting until I “get mine” to tell my manager I am leaving, but the cynic in me says I’ve put in the work for long enough and at-will contracts go both ways.

On the personal front: still not pregnant (sad) but I did get both doses of the Moderna vaccine! I was a bit achy and lethargic after the second one but not too bad. In another two weeks I should be ready to be back out there in the world and I’m so stoked.

How was your May?

Financial Update – April 2021

Background

Spending is divided into joint and individual spending. My husband and I each get $450 a month for our own individual spending as an “allowance.”
I don’t include charitable contributions in our numbers below, but we allocate 10% of our post-tax income to this each year.
Our net worth goal tracked using undisclosed units of money. Our goal is to hit “Financial Equilibrium”, based on Thomas J. Anderson’s book The Value of Debt in Building Wealth. This is fairly close to our FIRE number.

The Charts

The Numbers

Monthly Update

This month our net worth jumped in a big way, mostly thanks to crypto. I have quarterly vesting soon, plus my company’s ESPP stock buy. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit 100% of our cash, mortgage, and after-tax investments goals by July.

Finally started clawing my way out of the low-grade depression I’ve been in. I’m starting to cook, do more exercise, been having okay job interviews, etc. Work has been a hot mess, but I think I’m just so far gone on that front that I’m on the other side of burnout.

Things I’m looking forward to: I’m getting my first vaccine shot this weekend which is super exciting. I’m also planning a group trip in the late summer in Maine, in addition to our usual trip to the Cape with my husband’s family. Still not pregnant yet, but we’ll get there. Hopefully.

Also my husband quit their job. I guess it technically happened in March but I was too wrapped up in being angry about work to mention it here. I’m thinking it’d be nice if I leave my job in mid-June (after my vesting date), then maybe my husband and I can just enjoy a post-pandemic summer together— go about town, little road trips, and the like. Maybe given everything we don’t need more couple time, but I feel like we’ve grown a lot closer during the pandemic; not that we weren’t close before, it’s just nice to know that we still enjoy each other’s company after pretty much only seeing the other person every day for a year. I don’t know, I like the idea of us taking a lazy summer. /ramble

Slowly, things are going back to normal.

How was your April?