Kay Iscah's Blog

Ebay vs. Craigslist vs. Yardsale

I started to give a full backstory on this, but let's just say I've run a lot of yardsales, sold over craigslist, and sold a lot of ebay during and after the pandemic.  I did another post specifically for Yardsale Tips.

Generally I've found everyday items do best at yardsales.  The more specialized and niche the collectible, the less likely you are to find someone who wants it, much less appreciates it's value.  (And I understand not everyone has a good location for a yardsale.  I try to open up for friends who don't have their own sales to sell in ours.)

eBay is better for collectibles, particularly light weight ones that are easier to ship.  Dollar Tree was a great source for boxes, because more of what I was selling was salt and pepper shaker sets and Dollar Tree always had small boxes they were going to recycle anyway.  (Retail stores in general are often a great source for boxes.)

I generally use Craigslist to sell large, heavy items that are more difficult to ship like furniture, and to promote yardsales.

I tend to sell clothes at yardsale and then give away what doesn't sell.  But I have bought items through Poshmark and Mercari.  What's been your experience with second hand markets?  Do you have your own advice to share?

As to turning ebay into a true side business... people certainly can do it, but my main focus has been getting items to people who can use and appreciate them, and in some cases recouping some of my own costs.  But most items I've bought and later sold, I've lost money on due to fees and shipping.  The one exception was pretty dramatic.  I had bought some Sonic the Hedgehog action figures at Dollar Tree many years ago... and for some reason these particular figures were in very high demand, so I did make nearly $700 selling those.  But I don't think you should buy toys, hoping they'll suddenly be valuable.  The majority of toys/collectibles from my youth are worth less than they were or are worth about the same amount adjusted for inflation.  So buy collectible because you enjoy them.  Don't bank on them gaining value.  At the same time, if you have hit a point in life where you're ready to let of some things, it may be worth spending the time see what they're selling for.  It can be a long wait.  Lot of items I put on ebay sit for months or even years before they sell.

And you have to pay attention, because it can cause problems if you miss your window to ship an item.  E-mail alerts can help with this, but I have gotten busy and missed one or two which at minimum is a lost sale.

Darn Your Socks

One of the failings of public education has been the removal of home economics classes that taught basic skills like cooking, sewing, and making practical applications of math like a household budget, but the beauty of the internet age is that you can find a lot of freely available information on these topics.

My big skill achievement this year was figuring out how to darn (repair) socks.  I was able to buy several new pairs after the pandemic, but my socks and leggings and some jeans had developed holes.  While socks aren't a major expense compared to other clothing items, I like my socks, and the cost does added up when it's several pairs.  And it seem like a waste to throw away a pair when only one sock has a problem.

There's several tutorials on this topic, and it doesn't hurt to watch or read more than one of them.  I bought a darning egg and used rubber bands to hold the fabric in place, but some people use a smooth rock or a tennis ball.

I tried this a few years ago and got frustrated because essentially you're weaving, and my perfectionism would get very annoyed when I missed a stitch.  This year I pushed through and realized it still works even if you miss a stitch here and there.

I will say darning is very time consuming, particularly with a large hole.  The rubber bands were essential for me, so I didn't have to hold the fabric tight for hours and could take breaks.  If you're hustling and working 100 hour weeks, don't take off from work to darn your socks.  It won't save you that much money.  But if you have some time in the evening, play some music or listen to an audiobook or pod cast, relax and settle in for a simple task.  Once I figured out the basic theory, I also used darning to reinforce areas where my socks were getting thread bare.  I later used the same technique for some leggings and jeans that developed holes, and it worked.  With the jeans, I add extra reinforcement doing diagonal threads, since denim is a thicker material.

I'm sure anyone looking closely would spot these patches, but using a similar thread color definitely helps reduce how visible they are... and most of the place where I needed a patch were not the most visible parts, bottom of the foot and underside of the crotch.

I don't buy the most expensive socks.  $300 socks exist, but mine probably all fall in the $1 to $10 per pair category.  I think I've saved about 10 pairs of socks and two pairs of leggings and 1 pair of jeans so far, which does add up to probably $50-$60 worth of clothing.  You do need thread.  Most of my thread and needles (a thimble is also a good idea) has been from Dollar Tree kits or those little free sewing kits they give away some times.

I also save a work T-shirt that had ripped at the collar.  The seem is obvious when you look at it, but since it's inside the neck, the exterior looks fine.

Not everything is repairable, but learning to make little fixes does add up.  And fixing rather than tossing and replacing is better for the environment.

We Are Aunts and Uncles

Our blog focus is single adults, but since you may have kids in your life, I wanted to point you to some kids friendly financial education.

Sesame Street now has a "Financial Education" area on their website with some related videos: https://sesameworkshop.org/topics/financial-education/

It's not a lot of material, but repeating basic concepts over time is how we learn.

For older kids there's The Secret Millionaire's Club: https://www.youtube.com/@SecretMillionairesClub

And Biz Kids: https://www.pbs.org/show/biz-kids/

Varying Paychecks

We make out budgets using the income we can regularly expect from month to month.  This helps with annual planning.  (Like if you have a annual bill divide it by the number of months you have left to know how much you should be saving for that bill each month).  But just like you can't predict every little expense you'll have pop up, it can be hard to know accurately what your income will always be, particularly if your hours vary.  We call this "unexpected income", but if term "irregular income" makes more sense to you, that's fine too.  For unexpected/irregular income we use priorities:

Priority 1: Needs
Priority 2: Small Debts
Priority 3: Emergency Fund
Priority 4: Large Debts
Priority 5: Big Dreams and Entertainment


Priority 1: Needs

A few weeks ago I got a larger than average check from my biweekly job.  I have a pair of work boots that I use for yardwork.  It was not urgent to replace them, but they were looking pretty rough.  The soles were starting to come loose, so I bought new work boots.

Priority 2: Small Debts

These are debts that can be take care of with a single payment.  Like sometime I drink my sister's coke cans, so after I drink several, I buy her a new 12-pack to replace what I drank.  (Sometime I just leave her cash as I go.)  But this can also be for more important items, like if you forgot your wallet and your friend paid for gas, you want to reimburse your understanding friend ASAP.

Priority 3: Emergency Fund

Six months living expense in an account you can access in less than 24 hours.  The first mattress I bought was not good, and I developed very painful back problem last year.  Now, part of this was me not stretching enough, but I did urgently need a new mattress.  So I spent $1500 last year on a new, better quality mattress.  So most of my varying income since then has gone to refilling the emergency fund.  I was able to hit my goal again with this year's tax refund.

Priority 4: Large Debts

This is any debt you make regular payments on like a bill, and your regular payment should be budgeted for like other bills.  We put small debts first to reduce the number of bad credit marks and hurt feelings.  But it's often beneficial to pay large debts off early, just know your agreement and be aware of potential penalties.

Priority 5: Big Dreams and Entertainment

I have a lot of big dreams, but I also have a teenage nephew who's obsessed with fast food (and skinny enough I want to fatten him up a bit).  So I've been spending more money on fastfood than I normally would to keep him happy.  (His mother does feed him, and we stay stocked with healthy food.  But teenage boys eat a lot.) .. and yes, we've been talking about him getting a job and a learner's permit.  Part of why I took the second job is so I could have a little fun with him before he grows up and leaves.

We categorize gifts for others under entertainment.  I was very tight around Christmas this year, so another thing I did with my  larger paycheck this time was get some little gifts for people to make up for having to be a tightwad at Christmas.

But also for a mix of personal and professional reasons, I want to go to Worldcon in Seattle in August.  With my emergency fund having reached it's goal, my new goal is saving for the trip.  Now unless I increase my income it's unlikely I'll make it this year.  But I'm at least going to try, (may pick up a temp job when we finish our homeschool year).  If I fall short, then I'll put what I have saved towards another convention/trip.

The other issue looming is the car I'm driving is getting older and less reliable.  There's a small chance my parents will get a new car, and I'll get their old van.  But I do need to prepare for the possibility that I'll have to pay for a repair or get a replacement.  So I am looking at ways to increase my income.  The emergency fund does give me a little breathing room, but I prefer to get ahead of expense like that.

The Rest of the Budget

Our last post spent far more time than I normally would on step 1.

Step 1: How much money do I have, and where is it?

Moving on to the rest now.  Again this is an example, you would plug your own numbers in for your own budget.

Step 2: What is my regular income?

I'm sort of self-employed with extra steps.  Amoeba Ink is a C-corp, but I'm the owner and only employee (I do pay some other people as freelancers for the publishing side of the business).  I set the company up this way with intention of growing and hiring more people.  It's probably not the best structure for most single person companies, but I do like having my business and personal money neatly separated.

There was a time where I was getting a full time salary, but these days I'm a part time.  My insurance and HSA deposit come out of my check as pre-tax items (this helps lower my tax withholdings), after taxes/insurance, I get $302.26 per month from Amoeba Ink.  I also have a part time job doing Wednesday night and odd time childcare at a church.  The biweekly check can range considerably ($41.97 to 157.22), but since we round down income, we'll use the lowest check.

$302.26 - Job One
+$83.94 - (41.97x2)
$386.20 - Regular Income

We're going to round it down to $386 for simplicity.


Step 3: What are my regular bills?

I can surive on this amount because I live with my parents, and I do try to earn my keep.  This step is where you would normally put things like rent, insurance, electric, water, internet, etc.  (This situation won't last forever, but it works for now.)

My only regular bill right now is my phone bill.  I'm on a family plan with my siblings, and contribute $42.50/mo to the phone bill.

$42.50 - phone
$42.50 - regular expense

If you round expenses, always round up.  So $43 in this case.


Step 4: What other expenses do I have?

This one is again lower for me that it might normally be because of insurance replacements.  Because of the way the insurance worked, we'd lose money on a lot of older items if we didn't replace them, so 2021-2023 I bought a LOT of new things or new to me things to replace all the stuff I lost.  I did just cash in a lot of things (didn't replace all my clothes or collectibles), so I have less stuff than before.  But it's all new stuff and won't need replacing for a while... for example I hate shoe shopping, so I just bought 3 pairs of the same sneakers that fit well and I'm still on pair #2.  New clothes (which I don't like as much as my old clothes, but they are new).  And I enough books to keep me busy for the next decade.

So for now...Gas and car maintainance, some toiletry items, and I tithe.  I fill up about once a month and my highest charge this year was $37.63 (rounded up to $38), I probably don't maintain the car I use as well as I should so I'll estimate $50/month (which is more than I usually spend but car bills can hit high when they hit), we'll be with $5/week or $20/mo for toiletries (for budget purposes a month has 4 weeks)...which may be more than I spend.  I tithe 10% of my net income, which means I tithe more when I make more, but we'll use the $386 for budget purposes.

$38 - Gas
  $50 - Maintainence
  $20 - toiletries
$39 - Tithe ($386/10= $38.60, rounded up)
$147 - Other Expenses

Your budget may have a lot of more categories than mine.  This is an area where looking back over reciepts or last years expenses may help you make more accurate estimates.  But these are areas that can fluctuate.

Step 5: How much should I save?

Let's see how we're doing.

$386 - Regular income
- 190 - ($43 Regular Expenses + $147 Other Expenses)
$196 to split between savings and entertainment

I want to stick to at least $100/mo for my IRA contribution.
I have a sufficient emergency fund, but because inflation is always a thing, I like to keep a trickle of money going into my EF, at least $5/mo.
I want to keep building up my brokerage fund, so if I take $10 out of each biweekly check that's $20/mo.

That leaves $71 ($196-$125) for entertainment money, which if I divide by 4 give me $17.75


Step 6: Do the numbers add up?

This step is just double checking your math.  (And I did make three math mistakes that I fixed cause I thought I could do this without a calculator.)

Summary:

Income $386

Expenses:
 $43 Phone
 $38 Gas
$50 Maintainence
$20 Toiletries
$39 Tithe
$190

Savings:
$100 IRA
  $20 Brokerage
 $5 EF
$125

Entertainment $71

$386 - $190 - $125 - $71 = 0

So this budget is balanced, but $17.75 is an awkward amount to pull out for spending money.  Since toiletries are an item I can easily pay cash for, I'll give my $20/wk and try to purchase soaps and such from that amount, but I'll have a little extra reserved in my account if I need it.

This is pretty much the budget I use.  I do have a betta fish, but at this point I can pay for his small needs from my entertainment funds.  If that caused a problem because I was over spending, I could move his betta water into expenses, but it hasn't been a problem.

This approach to budgeting is intentionally simplified, and it does work.  If you're trying to figure where the odd pennies go and what happens when I get a higher pay checks, then check out our posts on padding and unexpected income.

How Are We Doing?

This is Kay. PJ may give you an update in another post later, but he just started a new job and needs to focus on that for now. I'm not sure I'm back to regular posting yet, but tidying up old blog entries made me think an update was due.

Our book's focus is far more towards the basics of budgeting, but it is one of those things that pays off over time, so I think my financial progress is relevant to that. The tag can help you find previous budgets for comparison. I may focus in a bit on the first step for this post, because I didn't post as planned for a few years and may need to talk about how I got here.

First our basic budgeting steps:

Step 1: How much money do I have, and where is it?
Step 2: What is my regular income?
Step 3: What are my regular bills?
Step 4: What other expenses do I have?
Step 5: How much should I save?
Step 6: Do the numbers add up?

Going to focus in on Step 1 today, because the last one of these I did was in 2017 and I want to talk about why I've moved money around the way I have.  I use my personal finances for transparency and as an example.  That does not mean I'm saying you do exactly as I do, only hoping it may spark some ideas and share information.

My Feb 2017 numbers:

Checking/EF: $1822.04
HSA: $3074.19
Business Investment: $3993.57 (total capital investment) [$1500 (easily accessible), $500-800 approx. (assets that could be liquidated), the rest is mostly intangibles]
Savings: $600.02
Roth IRA: $2105.82

My April 2025 numbers:

Checking: $1335.20
Savings/EF: $2051.79
Brokerage/Money Market/EF 2: $5,313 (total capital investment)
Municipal Money Market: $404.36
Brokerage/Investments: $1021.70 (estimated value)
Cash HSA: $1778.54
Investment HSA: $4437.55 (estimated value)
Business Investment: $5,150.21 [$1431.99 (easily accessible), $500-800 approx. (assets that could be liquidated), the rest is mostly intangibles]
Roth IRA: $29,591.70 (estimated value)
403b (Retirement): $3,260.24 (estimated value)

Checking:

In 2017, I had my Emergency Fund (EF) and my "checking" together in a money market account because I wrote very few checks and paid cash for most everything else, so it was an interest bearing account.  I think Money Market accounts may have gotten more restrictive, but also my habits have changed.  I pay for more things with my debit card now.  I think I opened the checking account when I got the apartment on my own because I had more bills I was paying directly (as opposed to giving my roommate money to pay the bill).

In checking, I try to keep minimum balance + 1 to 2 months expenses.  Normally that's about $1000 for me these days, and I have a little extra in there for an ebay sale I did for my dad (waiting for the 30 day return/refund period to pass before declaring the sale final).  Usually I treat $1000 as my minimum balance (I think the bank minimum is $500), but I keep that padding in there so little dips from miscalculations don't hit me with extra fees.

Emergency Fund:

An Emergency Fund is generally about 6-months living expenses.  Mine is split in two for a couple reasons.  The first is that my actual expenses are fairly low right now because I live with family and still use my grandfather's old car, so while I still have some expenses like gas, toiletries, etc. 6-months would not much of a fund.  So my I based my emergency fund goal on 6-months living expenses if I did not have family support.  I could maybe do without the car, but 6-months based on the cost of local 1 bedroom apartment (assuming no roommate) plus food and estimated utilities added up to about $7000.  I was with a bank that I liked but they merged with another bank, and now they will randomly drop my money market interest rate down to .001% with no warning.  They'll bump it up again if you go into a branch and ask for a better rate, but you shouldn't have to do that.  I'd switch banks completely, but my family opened a shared account (while dealing with the house fire recovery) and it's proven very useful for moving money around for share bills.  Fidelity's SPAXX money market was getting 4.99% interest for a while which is pretty good for a Money Market.  So I move $5000 over to Fidelity... I did consider moving the whole amount, but the downside of the Fidelity account is that's not FDIC insured, so while it's very unlikely to lose money, it is possible.  So I left $2000 in the more secure account with a lower interest rate, and moved $5000 over to take advantage of the higher interest rate.

Brokerage:

In 2023, I decided to experiment with investing with the goal of building an income stream.  A professional author I knew talked about investing his royalties, and I was starting to see some wisdom in that for an author/artist because our income is notoriously unstable.  Aslo Jay Leno has always talked about having 2 jobs and living off the income of one while investing the other.  I still think it's wise to start with savings and build up an emergency fund first.  And for most people, you should max out your retirement contributions before worrying about additional investing because IRAs and 401ks get tax advantage.

But I wanted to build up an income stream that would kick in before my 60s.  I started with a $100 desposit.  Since then I've added $10 from each biweekly paycheck of my part time job (and some odd amounts from birthday money and things like that), and reinvesting the interest and dividends from the SPAXX account and other investments.  While I was still getting a 4.99% return I was seeing about $20 a month in interest from the SPAXX money market.  I did play around with penny stock for a little while, but I've determined I don't enjoy day trading.  Most of my brokerage investments are bond index funds that cover different areas of the market and a couple total market index funds (stock/growth centered) and a multi asset fund (mix of stocks and bonds).  The main appeal of the bond funds I've found is that they payout monthly.  Most other index funds tend to pay out once or twice a year.

I'm spread out over 12 funds... hoping to sell off most of the penny stocks without a loss at this point, but I don't have high amounts in any of them (like $1-$5)...  I'm also gradually increasing the amount of liquid savings I have in the money market, while it's no longer getting 4.99% return, it's still much higher than my bank account interest.  I have this planned out with a chart, but I'm not experienced enough with this to suggest other people do what I do.  But I like how it's building.

Municipal Money Market:

I don't really think of this particular fund as my money.  I use it for money I earn on "family" yardsale and ebay items.  Before the housefire I had saved up enough to buy the family a new couch.  My current goal is to save up for a riding mower.  Currently my dad like to cut the grass for exercise, but he's in his 80s.  But this is also a fund I put money into when I can't think of something to buy them for a birthday or Christmas and let it build until I find something I think my parents would really enjoy.  I also dipped into it a little for yardwork items at my brother's house... family stuff.  Anyway I bring it up, because I moved the account out of the bank and into this particularly money market because it's tax exempt.  So a bit of an experiment for me, but something you might check out if you're getting into investing.

HSA:

In 2009, I opened an Health Savings Account, which is another tax advantaged account.  Now you can only contribute to an HSA when you have HDHP (high deductible heath plan), which I don't always have, when I do I try save aggressively in my HSA.  It's been a life line during uninsured periods, but I had been using the account specifically to save up for lasik and clear dental aligners.  So over thirteen years I had built up $6647.33 in the account.

In 2022, I learned that I could invest part of that money.  Long story short Fidelity has far more investment options than HSA bank but didn't work as well for my cash needs.  I split so I had about $3800 in the investment account and the rest in the account cash to avoid a minimum balance fee.  I've kept putting cash into the cash account and built up enough to start my clear aligners.  While dental insurance got me discount, I paid a significant amount on those and had some other medical bills brought my balance down.  But that's what that account is for, covering what insurance won't on medical bills.

I've got that money spread across 16 index funds...but this account is a bit more retirement focused, though not fully.  Most of those funds are date targeted retirement funds with staggered dates.  I don't plan to ever fully retire, but probability is that my medical bills will increase as I age.  So this is my effort balance out my stock/bond ratio.  10 of the funds are staggered 2025 to 2070 (furthest out I could get).

I don't think I'd suggest that for everyone, but where you may consider date staggering if you're unsure your retirement age.  I'm helping a young friend set up her retirement account, and like me she just plans to work until she can't.  She turns 60 is 2047.   So we set her up with 5 date targeted funds, 2050, 2055, 2060, 2065, 2070.  What those funds do for her is automatically shift her investments from stocks to bonds and cash to be stabler as she hits retirement age.

IRA:

I can't remember exactly when I opened my Roth IRA... lost a lot of records in the fire, but looks like I move it from a saving account at my bank to an investment account at Fidelity in 2019.  I had a full time job in 2018 & 2019 was out of work in 2020 due to the fire/pandemic and got a significant amount from insurance which let me max out my 2021 and 2022 contribution.  I've been pretty regularly contributing a $100/mo since then.  Looks like all together I deposited $21,809.29.  I've gotten remarkably return on investment so far, this is partly because I had a large bond mature around the time the market crashed in 2022 and then was able to put that in stock indexes which then recovered.

Anyway, compound interest does add up, usually not quite that quickly.  My general investment philosophy is based on "The Lazy Person's Guide to Investing" by Paul B. Farrell... while the details are likely a bit dated, I think it's a good introduction to a lot of ideas and terms.

One part of the book that is dated is you can start investing for much smaller amounts than you could in 2006.  Fidelity has a $10 minimum vs. the $2000+ when I first looked into noload funds.  The technology has changed so the fees are lower or easier to avoid and investing is far more accessible to small accounts than it was 20 years ago.

403b:

A 403b is s type of retirement account similar to a 401k.  I did not pick it.  I had a job at a church run daycare, and they automatically matched 1% if my income and put in the account, which was a very nice bonus.  It seems I worked that job March of 2018-January of 2020.  My employer put in a total of $2103.98, and the rest is interest and growth.  Unlike my Roth, this is a tax deferred account, so whenever I do take money from it, it will be taxed.  But since it didn't come out of my paycheck, I'm not complaining.  I *could* roll this over to my Roth IRA, but I'm holding off for a few reasons.  The first is I could get hit with extra taxes now since Roths work differently.  The second is I'm working for the same employer in a different position and if I go back to full time in the future, it may be help to have the same account.  Third, while I think I know what I'm doing, it's kind of nice having some money that someone else is managing at a different institution.  So it's kind of a back up to my back up. I may revisit that idea, but for now it seems to be doing well, so I'm inclined to leave it alone.

Business:

My personal money has been able to grow mainly because I've been able to keep my expenses down and prioritize savings for the past few years.  My poor business has been neglected and isn't doing as hot.  That number going up just means I had to sink more personal money in to keep afloat... Since the business is still active and could potentially make money, then it's an investment and not a true loss yet.  Long story short, I spent 2018-2019 doing a year long project that was effectively destroyed by the fire along with a bunch of business records, so I've been keeping afloat with 2 childcare clients and one of them has effectively age out of needing me on a regular basis.  Down to 1 steady client who doesn't really pay enough to cover my full salary plus tax each month.  I knew I had a loss last year, but did not realize how bad it was until I did my taxes.  Yipes.  However, the pandemic shut downs are over, and I have time to pay attention to business again.  So I'm tidying up my web presence and relearning programs and preparing new products for launch on the publishing side.  Not quite ready to throw in the towel, but definitely need to change tactics and get revenue up.

This post is already very long, so more on that in future posts.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race I guess...

I've heard for several years about the number of Americans with less than $1000 in savings and that number gets more alarming as inflation makes $1000 less than it used to be. An online discussion led me to look up the most recent statistics on the matter and I found this Forbes article ( https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/savings/average-american-savings/ ).

From the article: "According to our survey, roughly 28% of Americans across all four generations currently have less than $1,000 in personal savings, including emergency funds, non-workplace retirement accounts and investments. With the average national rent price sitting at $1,372, having less than a grand tucked away means many Americans are teetering on the edge of financial instability, with little cushion to absorb unexpected expenses.

Undoubtedly, age plays a big role in the amount of savings one has—older generations typically have more money saved, as they've had more time to accumulate wealth. Our survey found that the majority of Gen Zers (54%) and Millennials (52%) have less than $5,000 saved, compared to 42% of Gen X respondents and 29% of Baby Boomers.

Unsurprisingly, the oldest generation—Baby Boomers—have amassed the most impressive savings balances. Our survey revealed that around 17% of Baby Boomers have more than $500,000 saved, while that figure dwindles to just 4% among both Gen Xers and Millennials and a mere 2% among Gen Zers."

(This only tracks through Boomers. My dad is technically in the "Silent Generation" and the "Greatest Generation" is hanging in there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation#Social_generation Lot of wealth is more concentrated with elderly.)

I tend to sit on the cusp between Gen X and Millenial. I think of myself as the baby of Gen X, but newer articles would put me as a Millennial elder. I started this blog in my late 20s, and I'm now in my early 40s. I was a saver even as a kid. I took off a year between high school and college just to save money. College definitely took a big chunk out of my savings, and to have time to do my writing and creative work, I've mainly stuck with low income jobs, often part time.

Prior to the pandemic, I had my first full time job with benefits at a daycare and worked that for two years or so before the housefire and pandemic prompted me to make a more domestic shift. These days I'm homeschooling my nephew, helping my aging parents around the house and working a part time job for spending money. But despite other frustrations and set backs, I have kept up my savers habits.

I do think I'll make another post to talk about insurance, but the money I got back from insurance was not more than I would have been able to save by continuing to work my full time job and keeping expenses down by living with family.

But it's surreal looking at this and seeing that my total savings puts me in the upper 26% to 40% of my generation (depending on where Forbes put their cut off). What the Forbes article does not factor in is property and other tangible assets, and if you factor in home equity and collections, I might not be as high up on the comparison chart. I think at this point my total cash assets are similar to my brother's, but he managed to buy a house before the market went crazy, so he has equity in his property that I don't. (Debt is another factor, if you have $10,000 in savings but $100,000 in debt, you may have far less net worth than someone with less than $1000 in savings but no debt.)

I've been thinking about doing an update for how I'm progressing, and that may be the next post for length reasons.

But if you're tight/struggling, you're not alone. And we should acknowledge currently not having $1000 doesn't always mean you're irresponsible with money. The job hunting process seems to drag out for a lot of people right now, and if you burned through a 6-month emergency fund because job loss or an emergency came up that's what the emergency fund is for.

However, I think the chart does strongly demonstrated how wealth tends to build over time for those who are building it. Yes, the wealth you're born into certainly makes a difference. We're not all starting at the same point, but most people who build wealth are doing so over time and not starting out with it.

Tidying Up Links and Other Updates

I just spent the past week tidying up the blog. I deleted a few posts that were no longer relevant and attempted to clear out all the broken links from, egads, 18 years of blogging. Remember when we thought stuff on the internet would be around forever?

So the pandemic hitting after the housefire set back a lot of the recovery and my business and creative work. While my main focus since 2020 has been homeschooling my nephew, I have still been working on a second edition of Living Single on Minimum Wage off and on.

The good news is my efforts to be active in the fire recovery did pay off for my family. I did manage to retrieve more story notes and sketches than I thought I would, but I lost most of the video files. The ones I did have backed up on the laptop I had with me were quickly made out of date by rapid inflation. I made a video explaining what happened... but I've taken it down. I was not in a good place, and you can see in the video how frazzled and depressed I was.

The fire was just bad enough our house got stripped down to the studs. We took the opportunity to do some renovations. I lost hundreds of books, but because insurance was good to us, I was able to replace most of the ones that were important to me, often with nicer copies. By not replacing everything, I was able to take some cash in place of lost items, most of that went into catching up on IRA contributions since I was out of normal work.

I used to worry I'd need to support my parents in their retirement, but as my dad was an only child his parents passing away passed on enough assets that social security is covering all my parents retirement needs, which took a huge a weight off me. Fire recovery and insurance and watching the nephew and helping with household chores became my full time job. May do some more detailed posts on that later.

I'm working part time outside the home and trying to get my business/publishing efforts back on track. Currently trying to tidy up my web presence, then I'll focus on promotion and putting out new material. (My nephew is 16, so we still have 2+ years of homeschooling left, but there is a light at the end of that tunnel.)

Blogging here will still probably be sporadic, but I'm likely to do more once the 2nd edition is finished and we get ready for that release.

Poor PJ's been out of work for the past few months... I know job hunting has been slow and difficult for many people with AI taking over so much of the process. But he got a new job this week. So hang in there, companies are still hiring.

Update

So the initial plan had been to post some of my videos from the project.  Unfortunately, rapid inflation made them outdated pretty quickly.  If I could go back in time, I definitely would have posted as I went along with the project.  I've decided to make the videos on YouTube private for now.  I may revisit the channel in the future when I have something new to post.  May switch to an animated avatar... I've never been TV pretty, and getting in front of the camera feels like a hassle.

I am trying to devote more time to writing, but other projects may take priority.  Hope you all are well and recovering from the pandemic shutdowns.

Stimulus Payment and the 5 Priorities

A rough video to review our 5 priorities from the "Living Single on Minimum Wage" book and how they apply to your stimulus payment.  May use some of mine to upgrade editing software.  I shot this last week, had editing obstacles, but got it figured out today, so here you go...

Priority 1: Needs
Priority 2: Small Debts
Priority 3: Emergency Fund
Priority 4: Large Debts
Priority 5: Big Dreams and Entertainment