tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on May 3, 2020 14:40:29 GMT -5
Thanks for all the kind words. I'm dealing with life better today. I was just ready for a breakdown I guess. I found out this morning that we were "reported" for having a (gasp) gathering. Three people came over. It was all over the local mom's Facebook/Bitchfest board! A group I have never participated in but my neighbors keep me updated on the latest drama. Did whomever "reported" this acknowledge that we were outside the whole time and maintained social distancing? That the people who stopped by brought their own lawn chairs and beverages. Nope. It's going to be a long summer if we can't even see people in the yard without someone complaining! This stuff always boggles my mind. I seriously have enough to do without blasting other people all over social media. And I’m definitely not perfect. Plus, karma and all that - so thanks but no thanks. At most, I may make a comment to DH if we see something and we’re out walking, but I’ve got better things to do than be the social distance police. And DS broke social distancing yesterday if someone wanted to report us because he wanted to pet the neighbor’s dogs and give them treats. He usually won’t pet them unless they’re being held (these neighbors share a back wrought iron fence with us), so he was decidedly closer than 6 feet. |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on May 1, 2020 22:34:07 GMT -5
If anyone wants a mental health challenge to do this month, here is the one I’m doing that work sent out.  |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on May 1, 2020 22:33:15 GMT -5
I walked at least a mile outside every day in April, and started May off the same way. That said, not eating the best as there are sweets around my house with the kids and my mom baking something each week.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on May 1, 2020 22:15:11 GMT -5
For those of you doing the lunches, do you go daily or is it only a couple of days a week? Ours is only Monday and Wednesday, and you get lunch/breakfast for multiple days. I’m assuming they are doing sandwiches, and C hates sandwiches, so I haven’t tried it. If I knew they were doing something else,
I’d totally take him for a change of pace. Our elementary school isn’t one of the pick up spots, but it isn’t that far to the closest site.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on May 1, 2020 8:31:41 GMT -5
April Update:
Checking/Savings: $135k
House: $428k
Retirement: $1.178M
Brokerage: $3.9k
529s: $34k
Total NW: $1,780,399
Up 9% since last month - yay!
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on May 1, 2020 8:27:07 GMT -5
We are retired, in our early 60's, and pay base expenses with our pensions and DH's SS. We had part-time and side gigs to pay for special projects and extras. All the extra income has ceased for now. EF is fully funded at $20K, only debt is the mortgage we are "racing" and now at $19K. (ETA: there is a rental mortgage, but it is self-sustaining, very likely we will cash this out in 2 years when current renter's tenancy ends.) I really want to continue to grow our NW. My TSP account is divided two thirds G Fund (government, "no risk", minimal growth), and one third L Income Fund (a target fund based on retirement timeline and a conservative mix of the 5 basic Funds: G, C, F, S, I). Since we do not need to use my TSP in the foreseeable future, maybe I should shift some to a target fund with a timeline of 2030? Thoughts on this? Or other suggestions/perspectives?? Thank you very much for your help. I don’t know the different government funds, but doesn’t one of them somewhat mirror the S&P 500? If so, I’d probably just move it to that instead the G fund. Or move part of what’s in the G fund and keep the rest there if it makes you sleep better at night. ;-) |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 29, 2020 13:08:27 GMT -5
Congrats, flutterby!!
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 27, 2020 21:15:55 GMT -5
I’m sorry about your SIL, BG. Thinking about your brother.
Sending healing thoughts for your DIL, debt, that she turns the corner toward getting well soon.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 27, 2020 21:14:48 GMT -5
Checking in - I’m mostly barely plugging away with DH and I both WFH and the kids here (plus my mom to help with the kids / she lives some in a town with no hospital so we convinced her to come stay for a while). I did make some progress yesterday and gave away (no contact porch pickup) about 275 baby clothing/bibs/blankets type items so that was awesome to see go out my door. I’ve also sold a few other things - again no contact porch pickup, so I’ve made a little progress.
It feels like I should be able to make more progress, but I’ll take what I can get and remind myself I have no script for what I should or shouldn’t be doing.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 27, 2020 0:24:47 GMT -5
Thinking about you and your SO, crone.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 25, 2020 21:59:26 GMT -5
Venting ahead... Ugh, I’m struggling with my mom and sister today. My mom is staying with us and has been since our social isolation order went into affect for our county last month so she could help with the kids while DH and I are both trying to WFH (and also because she lived alone in a town 2.5 hours away with no hospital so we wanted her close in case something happened). I know she’s not loving that she feels “stuck” here because we’re following social distancing and she can’t just galavant around like she’s used to. But seriously - she doesn’t get that she’s in the group that is high risk and we’re trying to keep safe. 😠 She has apparently been complaining to my sister (who is local to us - next town over and in regular times, we see fairly frequently, especially as her daughters do after school care at the daycare that M attends) that she’s miserable. And now I’ve gotten angry texts from my sister that she never kept mom from seeing us when mom stayed with her after knee surgery. I’m this close to telling my mom to just leave and go to my sister’s house if that’s where she wants to be - and have fun, because she doesn’t have a bedroom for you and you’ll have fun sleeping on the couch. If she wants to go there, then go - but seriously, be a damn grownup and have a conversation with me instead of complaining to your other daughter. I called her out on it tonight and told her if she wanted to go there, I’d drop her off tomorrow, and of course she immediately says she doesn’t want to stay with her and never said that. Whatever. Her modus operandi for a while now has been to tell people whatever she thinks they want to hear, and the truth is somewhere in the middle. Never mind that she *says* she wants to sell her house and move up here (and in with us) so she can be closer to her kids and grandkids. As far as trial runs go, this isn’t making me want to move forward with that plan. Vent over. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I'd be super frustrated. On one hand, these are unprecedented and trying times and no one is at their best. But on the other, that's what aging in place is going to be as well. Most frustrating is your sister imo. Does she really think your mom should be increasing her risk of exposure? Who knows...my sister is generally pretty self-centered, and I’m sure her daughters are missing grandma, so that’s part of it. She also walks both sides of the line on how seriously she’s taking this - like, they still went to Florida over spring break but it was the week after Disney and Universal shut down, so they were safe (but they still did other things), but now she’s all over FB proclaiming how they’ll be staying home even after our state’s shelter in place order ends. Her boyfriend (who lives with them) still has to go in to work (he works at a place that makes rail car wheels, so can’t WFH), and my nieces go to their dad’s at least once/week overnight (sometimes twice/week), and he’s a car salesman, so also still going in to work. No one seems to get that while I understand they’re all practicing hand-washing and other things to be as safe as they can, it’s still a lot more exposure over there. At this point I’m tempted to just drop her off for the day tomorrow, but I also know if she caught COVID19 because of that, I’d likely not forgive myself. |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 24, 2020 21:59:14 GMT -5
Hugs, Rae. I’m so glad he’s okay. And also - you are an amazing mom. We’re all human, so I hope you’re able to give yourself some grace. You may have initially input a number wrong but you realized something wasn’t right and kept looking at it until you figured what it was - which is just one of the reasons you’re amazing.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 24, 2020 21:31:44 GMT -5
Venting ahead...
Ugh, I’m struggling with my mom and sister today. My mom is staying with us and has been since our social isolation order went into affect for our county last month so she could help with the kids while DH and I are both trying to WFH (and also because she lived alone in a town 2.5 hours away with no hospital so we wanted her close in case something happened). I know she’s not loving that she feels “stuck” here because we’re following social distancing and she can’t just galavant around like she’s used to. But seriously - she doesn’t get that she’s in the group that is high risk and we’re trying to keep safe. 😠
She has apparently been complaining to my sister (who is local to us - next town over and in regular times, we see fairly frequently, especially as her daughters do after school care at the daycare that M attends) that she’s miserable. And now I’ve gotten angry texts from my sister that she never kept mom from seeing us when mom stayed with her after knee surgery. I’m this close to telling my mom to just leave and go to my sister’s house if that’s where she wants to be - and have fun, because she doesn’t have a bedroom for you and you’ll have fun sleeping on the couch. If she wants to go there, then go - but seriously, be a damn grownup and have a conversation with me instead of complaining to your other daughter. I called her out on it tonight and told her if she wanted to go there, I’d drop her off tomorrow, and of course she immediately says she doesn’t want to stay with her and never said that. Whatever. Her modus operandi for a while now has been to tell people whatever she thinks they want to hear, and the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Never mind that she *says* she wants to sell her house and move up here (and in with us) so she can be closer to her kids and grandkids. As far as trial runs go, this isn’t making me want to move forward with that plan.
Vent over. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 24, 2020 11:55:53 GMT -5
Drama, are you connected within Facebook or have phone numbers of any of the parents of Abby’s school friends? We’ve FaceTime’d a couple of times with M’s BFF from daycare and both girls love seeing each other. They’re not old enough to do anything on their own, so the friend’s mom and I hold the phones and the girls run around and show off things to each other. We also send mail to her friend - something she colored and maybe a few stickers or whatever. Both kids love getting mail.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 17, 2020 13:35:45 GMT -5
How did I not know this store existed? Looks like there is one not too far from us that is doing curbside pickup. I will have to try it when we run low on birdseed. We can see our bird feeder from our table, so everyone loves watching birds while we ate. I usually buy birdseed at Home Depot or a big box store, but looks like this place has more options. Be careful, it is easy to get addicted to what they have in the store. In January We had one feeder and pole that we were getting frustrated keeping the squirrels out of. We now have 10 feeders with various offerings, 4 pole setups, squirrel baffles, and a couple of bird baths with solar sprayers.  Somehow we don’t have a squirrel issue at our current house. We did at our last house, so we had to get the cone thing for our bird feeder to keep the squirrels out. |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 17, 2020 13:34:19 GMT -5
Today was the worst stock I've seen in several weeks. Things that were in stock for the last several weeks are wiped out again. Maybe because people started to receive stimulus checks? |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 17, 2020 13:33:19 GMT -5
People seem to have gotten their wits about them again around here when it comes to toilet paper. There was a few bad weeks when there was none to be found, but the last couple times I was in the grocery store or Target there was plenty. However, baking supplies...WTH? Are people really baking constantly now? Yes, or at least at my house. Homemade bread, cookies, cookies, bar cookies, pie crust, and more cookies. Grandma is here and she’s baking with the kiddos 2-3 times a week. |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 17, 2020 13:17:12 GMT -5
Our wild bird store is open at reduced hours and I am making a run to pick up a couple blocks of suet and some safflower. I'll do my weekly grocery run and pick up my mail today too. Thanks- mine is pretty close to the grocery store so I'll drive by there first. I feel terrible for the owners- they bought it from the previous owners early this year and they could not possibly have been prepared for this. How did I not know this store existed? Looks like there is one not too far from us that is doing curbside pickup. I will have to try it when we run low on birdseed. We can see our bird feeder from our table, so everyone loves watching birds while we ate. I usually buy birdseed at Home Depot or a big box store, but looks like this place has more options. |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 16, 2020 22:53:41 GMT -5
I just finished Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, and really enjoyed it. Spoiler - Steve Jobs was a class A jerk and father, but as that’s public knowledge, it shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 11, 2020 12:25:25 GMT -5
I went to my local grocery store this morning. They did have TP - limit of 2 packages. We don’t need any, so I didn’t buy some. They’re still out of hand sanitizer. I think I saw paper towels, but we rarely use those and have an unopened roll, so I wasn’t looking. Plenty of eggs, meat, cheese, yogurt, fruits/veggies and bread. I could only find yeast for bread machines, but otherwise the baking aisle looked fairly well stocked.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 11, 2020 12:23:06 GMT -5
It is nuts but I have been craving potato chips for a week. When I took the masks to town I went in a convenience store, I was the only customer and their clerk. Mask in plastic, plastic shield in front of clerk, sanitizer on both sides. I took the 2 bags to the car, wiped them down with sanitizer and cleaned off the bags, did the hands. Would not let DD touch them till I did. Hubs said you mean you put your life on the line for chips. Sadly, I guess I did. I am sitting here eating out of one. He and DD had been eating on the Kool Ranch chips. Add them to your Sam’s club order, and then you’ll have them for next time! |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 5, 2020 23:39:39 GMT -5
Instead of a consolation prize, per se, Rae, is there something you could do to focus extra attention on your daughter (once you can venture out again)? Maybe a parent-daughter day - depending on her interests, spa, amusement park, zoo, whatever?
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 3, 2020 8:15:45 GMT -5
We had a FaceTime chat with M’s favorite daycare teacher, and I found out the daycare actually closed last week. 😕😢 I knew numbers were down, but they have enough hospital workers’ kids I assumed they’d be able to stay open. It’s part of a national chain, and she said all but 2 of them in this area shut down, at least temporarily. All of the staff except the manager was laid off, and the manager is helping at one of the centers still open. I am heartbroken for them - the staff is incredible, and many of them have been there 10+ years or longer.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Apr 1, 2020 11:29:04 GMT -5
I’ve been contributing all year, and my employer match + profit sharing from 2019 was added in early March, which helped my numbers.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Mar 31, 2020 22:04:57 GMT -5
Anyone else check today? Definitely not pretty - we're down over 8% just since February, and over 12% for the year.
Here's our 2020 Q1 numbers:
me - 38
DH - 43
(only for a few more days!)
Income: I initially thought it'd be around $200k, but we got confirmation today no mid-year bonuses (which is small compared to year-end), and we'll see what happens between now and year-end for where we actually end up...so maybe less
No debt
Savings/Checking: ~$136k
House: ~428k
Retirement Accounts (401ks, Roths, old 401k): ~$1.029M
Brokerage Account: $3.6k
529 Accounts: $29k
TOTAL: ~$1.63M
We have 2 vehicles, but I choose not to include those as we're not likely to liquidate them, and if we did, we'd need to replace them with something else.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Mar 25, 2020 13:46:35 GMT -5
Many of the stores in my area are out of flour and yeast as well. Thankfully DH and I buy the 25 lb bag at Sam’s Club as we have space to store it, and we’d had to get another one right before Christmas, so we have plenty of flour.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Mar 24, 2020 23:13:10 GMT -5
Stay safe, cawaiu! Thanks for all you’re doing to keep people stocked with groceries and necessities!
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Mar 22, 2020 22:47:08 GMT -5
The kids have their 2 and 4 year appointments this Wednesday, can't decide if it would be better to get them out of the way or postpone. I know DS is getting 4 shots but I think DD is all caught up. We're leaning towards just taking DS. What is your ped’s office doing to prevent exposure? Ours is doing well visits in the mornings and sick visits in the afternoon. Anyone with a fever uses a separate entrance and they’re limiting which exam rooms have sick kid checks in them. While I’m still not sure I’d take my kids in for a week visit now (but to be fair, we have community exposure going on with covid19), I’d feel better about it if I did specifically because of some of the things our ped’s office is doing. |
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Mar 22, 2020 20:02:00 GMT -5
Shelter in place starts for us at 12am on Tuesday for 30 days. My mom made it here, so she’s going to stay with us for that duration (or longer, if needed). Tomorrow is my first WFH day since this started, DH will be working from home, and my mom and both kids will be here. This is going to be interesting.
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tcu2003
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Post by tcu2003 on Mar 21, 2020 13:38:44 GMT -5
For sure, negotiate salary.
As someone else suggested, negotiate a later start date. And ask for the other stuff - the answer is always no if you don’t ask.
My company has put all hiring on hold right now, so if they do something similar, that works in your favor as you can extend making a decision if you get an offer.
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