Social fiscal responsibility in a pandemic

It feels really gross to talk about money right now. My husband is salaried, I am salaried. We both have side hustles that are continuing as normal, if not more than normal. Meanwhile, my friend who is a bartender doesn’t know how she’s going to buy food once her savings run out in two weeks.…

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March mid-month freelance check-in: $2876.05

What day is it? Month? We are three days into social isolation and I already feel disoriented. I made a schedule for my kids that is shockingly similar to one I saw being mocked mercilessly online, and I’m staring at an almost completely empty calendar for at least the next two weeks. I’m writing this…

Everyday I’m scrambling

Well, we’re in it - social isolation. My college is going online, for at least a few weeks, and I’ve heard through the grapevine that K-12 schools are shutting down for two weeks starting Monday. I’m not somebody who panics (except I suspect that everybody thinks that about themselves, especially panickers), but the main feeling…

Preparing for Corona

I just read an article about how everything should shut down in the hopes of containing coronavirus. Travel, sporting events, conferences, schools. Harvard students aren’t coming back to campus, and while we don’t have any local cases of the virus here, do we think we're better than Harvard? I’m guessing both my husband’s job (at…

The end of the blog as we know it. Maybe.

My hosting fees are coming due. I enjoy writing this blog, but with all the juggling, I have to decide if it’s worth it. I’m not sure what either “it” refers to in that sentence. Is the output worth the income? Well duh. I expend a lot of energy here, and my input is $0.00.…

Pay yourself last

I know, the good, sound advice is to pay yourself first. Take the money out of your check before you see it! Short-term savings! Day one of the month! This month’s test of You Need a Budget has me realizing that I need to be doing something else, though, too: paying myself last. For years…

Freelance totals, February 2020: $5,189.62

I was a bit worried about February, because it's so short, but guess what, mothersuckers? Leap year! I mean, it's still shorter, but less so. Anyway, I needn't have worried, because I hit all my goals and then some. My minimum goal for each month is $4000 total in freelancing, although I vacillate between wanting…

ENW March 2020 – $39,078

Hoo boy this is going to be a doozie. ENW at the start of February was $50,900. It was inflated, and I knew it was inflated, but couldn’t figure out why - I realized later that we had $4,000 pre-imbursement cash waiting for my husband to make his work travel plans. We still have about…

Keeping up with the Joneses’ kids…(part 3): the lesson

I walk a fine line (okay, it's more like drunkenly stagger down a hallway) between meeting reasonable wants and needs in our family and gripping so tightly on my purse strings that my knuckles bleed. Anywho, when it comes to "keeping up with the Joneses," I have totally different standards for myself than for my…

Keeping up with the Joneses’…kids (part 2: the reality)

Okay, so I think forcing your kids to fight your internal battles between self-assurance and external pressures is misguided at best. But what does that mean in reality? I'm not saying that I think kids should have the newest, most expensive, diamond-laden shoes. First of all, those diamond-laden shoes would scratch the crap out of…