serene: serene (mustard field)
1) I am facing my finances without flinching, at long last, and it's less painful every day. My net worth is in the red right now by approximately $10k ($4k in student loans; a few thousand in medical bills from when I was uninsured; a few thousand in loans from family members -- I'll know more accurately when I've gathered up all those long-ignored medical bills and start answering the phone when creditors call -- but thankfully, no high-interest debt like credit cards or car payments); I hope to go into the black by this time next year. More later if I feel up for it, but that's my basic goal, and we'll see how it goes. It won't be easy, seeing as how I made around $16K this year (and mom sent me another $5K or so to help with child-rearing expenses), but I think it could be doable, especially if I pursue freelance work more diligently and/or get a raise, which is a possibility.

2) The kid has been playing the piano on and off for a couple hours. I love it.

3) Summer hit Berkeley yesterday. It's actually been hot here. I wish I could ship some of this to my friends who are still in winter.

4) Is it silly that the thing I'm most excited about re: the tax refund is that [livejournal.com profile] someotherguy and I can get our dental work done?

5) Today is the birthday of both [livejournal.com profile] sogwife and my baby brother. They're a year apart, and as different as two people can be, but I love them both. Tomorrow night is the traditional birthday corned-beef-and-cabbage dinner. :-)

6) My dad friended me on Facebook, and minutes later someone posted this, which I had to share, but I will confess to having paused for a minute before hitting send. :-)

7) The magazine lost $632 in 2009. That feels like a respectable first year to me. It puts the thing squarely where I said it was, which was "moderately expensive hobby". I know people who spend more than that on yarn and beads in a year, so I don't feel too bad about it. If I revive the magazine, and I hope I will be able to, I will have to be a LOT better about keeping records, though, and not just dumping receipts into a file drawer. Taxes took way too long this year. Normally, I've got them done by the first week of February.

8) And speaking of recordkeeping, I found an excellent piece of money-tracking software for linux called GnuCash, and I love it! I actually had to brush up on double-entry bookkeeping before using the software, but the documentation is so good that I was able to do that in an afternoon, and the software is very robust and does everything I need it to. Suck that, mint.com.

9) Tomorrow is medical-stuff day: EKG, echocardiogram, and thyroid blood tests. I tell you, if I keel over, it won't be because doctors weren't trying to figure out how to keep me alive.

10) I really love our Farm Fresh To You CSA. I had to scale back on the size of the box (back to regular from one size bigger), but that's because I've been busy and not cooking as much. That'll probably change now that Disability Awareness Week and the taxes are over.
serene: mailbox (Default)
All in all, a good weekend, even though I had a financial... umm... screwup? glitch? that will serve as a huge wake-up call to me. I'm still deciding what my response to the wake-up call will be, but it will certainly involve some musing here (behind filters and/or cut-tags) for a while. Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] someotherguy and [livejournal.com profile] wild_irises for being my safety net.

But the glitch notwithstanding, my taxes are done (I don't care what Suze Orman says, I *like* getting a refund!), my FAFSA is filed, and I got a lot of rest and relaxation over the weekend, which I needed. [personal profile] stonebender and I haven't seen each other in a week, but we'll fix that tomorrow. Oh, and the kid has decided to look for a part-time job, which I think is a great idea.

Lastly, this is great:

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serene

March 2022

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