Week In The Wallet: Summer is Finally Here Edition

Monday

I was feeling lazy this weekend and didn’t exercise. So I decide to do a one hour core workout to hopefully release some of the tension I’ve been keeping.

I find my husband doing his PT exercises in the living room. His knees have been hurting him, especially as he’s started running to get into shape. I’ve long been concerned for his health– we’re in kid-nesting mode and I want him to have energy to spend time with our babies– so I’m really happy he’s been making it a priority lately.

After my workout I take a quick shower and pack my lunch for the day: salmon, broccolini, and roasted sweet corn. I walk to the subway. It’s sunny and beautiful. Can’t I just lay out on the lawn in front of the library and read all day? Still, I’m glad for the nice weather.

Work work work.

I decide to go for some cold uni soba for dinner, with a side of gyoza and some hot green tea. ($35) The weather is just perfect so I take a nice leisurely walk home to digest my meal.

Daily total: $35

Tuesday

Working from home so I can take my morning 9 AM call from the comfort of my own bed. Everything I’m working on is on auto-pilot so there’s not much for me to do this morning. I lazily double-check sprint planning while checking out the real estate listings for our area. The market dipped last year, same as the rest of the US due to rising interest rates and the changes in the tax code, so there’s a triple-decker near where we are that is a really good deal as an owner-occupied investment. Not great timing, seeing as I’ll be leaving my job, etc. Still, one can dream…

I take a recruiter call during lunchtime for a job that I would be competent at and would get me in the door at FAANG. We set up a time for me to meet with the hiring manager on Friday. Job searching, wheee.

I meet my friend for lunch in a bougie strip mall nearby. I get a tuna poke bowl from the fish monger for lunch and a pound of fresh salmon for later. ($36.38) The brown rice in the poke bowl is undercooked, which is disappointing for the cost.

Finish up work in the afternoon and head to the gym for my usual, weekly one-hour core class. I’m still a little sore from Monday, so this week feels intense.

After the gym, I’m not feeling terribly hungry, so I make myself a smoothie from blueberry, spinach, avocado, frozen banana, cashew milk, and flax seeds. I also slice up some of the fresh salmon and eat it sashimi style with some sesame oil, rice vinegar, and soy sauce dip. That plus sparkling lemon water (yay SodaStream) fills me up, weirdly.

My husband and I watch The Perfection. I’m expecting something like Get Out but with cellos. It is… not that. Not really. I feel like Netflix original content can be so hit or miss. This one, for me, was definitely the latter.

Very tired, sleep early. ZZzzzzz.

Daily total: $36.38

Wednesday

I mix a salad for lunch of sweet corn, avocado, tomato, and raw salmon.

Meetings meetings meetings.

I am planning to hang out with some friends in the evening, but they’re not home from work yet so I hang out in the square near their house. I am super hungry, so I stop by the crepe shop and get a a dessert crepe with Belgian chocolate and bananas. Nom. The cashier offers me free rooibos tea. ($5.27)

I meet my friends at their house, where we eat some Thai takeout. I get the pork belly grapow with fried egg on top. ($12.50) After dinner we take a long stroll with their dog, stopping for soy chocolate ice cream. ($8.56) The cool night breeze is perfect.

Daily total: $26.33

Thursday

Bad sleep last night. Feel like I’ve just been hit by a truck.

Light enough day at the office. For lunch I get a carnitas burrito. ($10)

Dinner is some frozen gnocchi with pesto sauce. I eat it while losing myself in internet videos on real estate investing. I am annoyingly fixated on the idea of buying a triple decker out here and house hacking it, but when I bring it up with my husband a look of sheer terror creeps unto his face.

I know why: we want children now, that’s the priority. I need to find a job that I can stick with so that we can do that. Why am I bringing up this whole other enterprise when babies should be my focus. Do I not want to have kids? (I do.) Is it because of concerns around pregnancy because we could adopt? (No it’s around work because I need to make enough to support us both in this HCOL area while also not keeling over from stress and I want to try to have biological kids first, thank you. Please stop saying those things it makes me feel terrible and I’m already really stressed as it is.) We don’t have this whole conversation out loud now (just the “well we could adopt” part), but we’ve had bits and pieces of it all a few times over the past year, so it’s easy for me to fill in the parts we skipped.

I feel awful and go to sleep.

Daily total: $10

Friday

Friday. Finally. Thank God.

Lunch is ox tail rice and beans and plantains from the nearby Jamaican place. ($13) I contemplate: when was it I began to think $13 was reasonable for a lunch? Everything feels so expensive nowadays. Or maybe my lifestyle has inflated. I don’t know.

In the afternoon I pop over to the FAANG company’s office nearby for an informational interview. After talking with the hiring manager for a bit, I realize that while I could probably do this job, I would absolutely hate it. So, that’s that then. I reach out to a recruiter at a mid-size private business that’s hiring. One day, one application at a time.

In the evening I go climbing with my friends. I have a membership, so it’s no no cost for me to go, plus it covers gear which is lucky because I forgot my shoes today. My friend who doesn’t have a membership misses my text that they can use one of my free guest passes and instead shells out $36 for a day pass. Yowza!

When I get home, I pop down to the basement. There was a storm last night, so I want to check the level of water seepage. We have a fieldstone foundation and are on a hill, so some water coming in is normal. I notice some rot around our main wooden beam that holds up the house. It’s not a lot, and some of it was definitely historical before we bought the property, but we thought we’d gotten rid of the source of damage before moving in, but it’s pretty clear some of the rot is new. It’s not a lot, and the structure is still fine, but it’s gotta be taken care of. Not tonight though, tonight is for rest.

Apparently my brain rebels by not wanting any of the perfectly good food I have in my fridge, so I order a Moroccan lamb burger for dinner. It’s a lot more cilantro than I anticipated, and I immediately regret not just eating down the fridge. ($22.52)

Daily total: $35.52

Saturday

My husband asks me if I want to go for a jog with him. It’s early, and I haven’t eaten anything yet, but I’m willing if it helps motivate him to exercise. We take one of my usual routes, which starts with a couple of steep hills. By the time we’ve gone a half mile, he’s feeling tuckered out, so we make our way back, my head a little woozy from the lack of energy.

I tell my husband about the issue in the basement and he agrees to take on the job of getting contractors out and scheduling the work. After all the renovations we did before moving into this place (99% of which fell onto me since we weren’t married at the time), I’ve felt pretty comfortable giving him house tasks since to balance the load. Plus, then I don’t have to deal with the sexist contractors who don’t even listen to me anyway. Because, frankly, I don’t have the patience for that right now. Not one bit.

I eat a piece of baklava which came with the lamb burger from last night and set out for a long walk. The weather is tragically beautiful and I want to be outside in the sun for as long as I can. I walk a mile to my preferred hole-in-the-wall Chinese place and order a plate of steamed fish with ginger and scallions with white rice. ($20) Mmm, tastes like childhood.

I make my way to the library. On its vast lawn, I read under an old, mature tree Open Secrets by Alice Munro. This is idyllic.

On my way home I stop by the local butcher for some pork belly, spinach, apple, and Brussel sprouts. ($22.23) I also swing by Whole Foods for avocado, bananas, mozzarella, frozen blueberries, biodegradable scouring pads and brushes, hand soap, and a toffee bread pudding.($48.68)

I make myself a blueberry banana smoothie, which is more than enough to tide my over for the evening.

I’m in need for some summer clothes, so I browse linen items on Poshmark. I end up buying a Vince tee with a striped abstract print and another heathered emerald top by Eileen Fisher.($47.78) I also reach out to an Etsy shop about whether they could customize the length for their linen pants. This will be a very wrinkly summer.

Daily total: $138.69

Sunday

After putzing around the house, I realize I’m twenty minutes late for a mentoring call. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Ever since taking my current role, I’ve gotten a steady trickle of folks– usually young women– reaching out to me about my career path, how they could do the same, etc. I manage to connect with today’s– a woman who graduated five years after me at my alma mater– apologizing profusely for my lateness. I give her some advice on how to make the career switch: some books she should read, the job coach I use, how to sell herself in her resume, etc.

She thanks me and I feel like I have given her useful information, but I still feel terrible about being late to our call. Ughhhhh. I lay in bed, disproportionately angry at myself, for hours before I drag myself out to do some meal prep.

I cook some roasted carrots a la Smitten Kitchen, paprika and garlic Brussel spouts. and rest of my salmon. While cooking, I make myself some caprese using leftover tomato in the fridge and some basil sitting in my living room window. That plus the bits and pieces of food while cooking, as well as some more salmon, corn, and a blueberry banana smoothie fill me up for most of the day. I decide not to make the pork belly yet. That can wait for midweek. I still have some Taiwanese buns in the freezer, so I can make bao when I’m feeling up to it.

Evening is more chores (hellooooo laundry) and reading lazily in bed. I heat up my toffee bread pudding and serve it with a few dollops of unsweetened greek yogurt. That hits the spot.

Daily total: $0

Summary

Weekly total: $281.90

The ups and downs this week led to a lot more emotional spending than I would have liked. But still, I’m well within acceptable limits and hopefully when I leave my current employer in a month, I will feel a little more control over things.

Having it be summer has been really nice though. I’m definitely better mentally when the sun is out than in the dreary winters. I was able to read and focus. I was able to take long walks. I spent a lot of time with friends. It’s not all good, but it’s not all bad either.

How was your week? Any tips for keeping the motivation up while job searching? Any meal prep recommendations? Summer’s out and I’m looking for some bright, fresh recipes to go with it.

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