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fireblogger · 4 years

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Common Money Mistakes

Disposing of disposable income. As you move into the corporate world, or your trade, or even get a promotion at your current job you may start seeing more money coming into your account. Bigger paychecks, better benefits, maybe even bonuses. You’ll probably also start seeing some bigger temptations. When I first started getting a decent paycheck my temptation was to go to the mall and shop at stores like JCPenney’s or Torrid. Now, I spent my entire life buying clothes at second hand stores a couple shirts and pairs of jeans a year. So Torrid’s nice business clothes? That was fancy. I went, I found a brand they carried that I liked quite a bit and I bought several shirts and a few pairs of pants, a blazer with some blouses Maybe spent a couple hundred over a few months, now it would not be exaggerating to say that’s about how much I had spent on clothes my entire life. ($10-15 annual budget 6th grade onwards). And at first it was nice, I was so happy to have made it to the point where I could go out and buy myself a nice shirt. And you know what, that was nice. But it didn’t make me happy in the long-term. After two or three months I stopped going – because sure now I had some nice shirts and business clothes, but I never really wore them. Instead, I started buying Gildan brand shirts online from shops like blankapparel. They’re $2-3 heavy cotton shirts that last forever and are really nice quality. All that disposal income I had been disposing of on clothes was rerouted to high-yield savings accounts instead.

Spending too much on housing. Now, I’m a sucker for an apartment with a washer and dryer in the unit. When I bought my duplex literally what I was most excited about was the fact that there was a washer and dryer. I’m not kidding the first night I drove up an hour from my apartment just to do half a load of laundry. So I can absolutely understand wanting to spend extra on a location with a washer and dryer – but the question is how much extra in my area a washer and dryer can increase rent by ~$100/month if not more. The rule I’ve heard several times is to spend less than 30% of your income on your housing, however that percent is greatly dependent on the cost of living. My rule of thumb – get the cheapest livable place you can find with as many roommates as you can stand. I spent years wishing I had a washer and dryer and instead spent years saving that extra $100 a month (well $50 since I had at least one roommate). So my advice is to find somewhere that’s close enough to your job/school that you can still get there with heating/cooling/no pests and to start saving money from there. Of course, if having an really nice apartment, or having privacy with no roommates is important to you take that into consideration. Just make sure you are considering the future value of that extra rent money instead of just the present value.

Debt. Emergency funds are important, and everyone should have something even if it’s not the 3 – 6 months salary that’s often recommended. Honestly, even an emergency $100 could be very important to have. Some people will use credit cards as their emergency fund, this should be your absolute last resort. Credit cards have very high interest rates, which means that any expenses paid for on a card will grow at an alarmingly fast rate. Say you have a sudden $500 expense, and you have a 24% APY credit card. That means that you will need to pay an additional 2% of interest every month. But because that 2% of interest is compounding it’s not the same as adding $10 every month, instead it’s adding $10 of principal. Which means that your next 2% interest add is 510 * 1.02 rather than 500 * 1.02. Let’s say in this scenario that you make a payment of $15 a month towards your $500 debt. It will take you 56 months to pay down the balance, and you will end up paying over $332 in interest. Making your total cost closer to $832.It will take almost two years before your $15 payment goes more towards principal than interest! Now imagine spending that $500 on a new phone, or pair of shoes, or some other non-essential non-emergency. It’s a bad idea.

Not saving for Retirement. Now this whole blog is geared towards early retirement, but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Maybe you like your job. Maybe you don’t mind your job and prefer living at a certain income level rather than trying to save every penny for retirement. Maybe you’re early in your career and don’t feel like you make enough to save for early retirement. You should still be saving for retirement. The greatest asset we have is time, and investing earlier even if it’s in small amounts, gives it time to grow. A $1,000 invested when you’re 25 can grow to be double what $1,000 invested when you’re 35 would. Even if it’s only a few dollars a week start investing early, brokerage platforms like Robinhood have very low minimums and you can invest in funds or ETFs on it.

If you invest, don’t be conservative. I had this problem when I first started investing. I let an older finance manager invest my first $3,000 with the understanding that it would be a retirement account. HE PUT IT ALL I N BONDS???? Okay, I’m young, I should be focused on growth with most if not all of my funds in stock. They’re higher risk, but if I’m planning on holding them for 20-30 years that risk is greatly mitigated. I lost over a year of growth before I realized that the retirement fund he had put my money in was intended for people in the 50s to 60s that already had a decent amount of value and now needed lower risk and lower growth investment vehicles. Since I moved my portfolio out of bonds and into stocks it has nearly doubled, the red line is when I realized my mistake and switched my funds into a stock portfolio.

Go big or Go Home!

#finance #personal finance #money #money tips #investing #money advice #fireblog #fireblogger

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amythecinnabunny · 5 years

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Apartment 42 -- A BuckyNat AU

Master and rival assassins unknowingly live together for almost a year, making sure their real jobs remain a secret from each other and everyone around them.

Chapter 1

The young woman raked her eyes over the money in the briefcase and smiled. "Beautiful," she murmured.

"Well, it was a beautiful assassination."

The man across her was faceless, but she didn't find anything odd about it. She simply smiled at him. "A pleasure doing business with you."

"Likewise. I shall spread word of the Black Widow. Someone ought to require your services."

Her smile grew. "That would be wonderful."

"Although, I'd hide that pistol a little better. We wouldn't want anyone accusing you of going--" BANG!!

The sound continued three, four more times. She thought he was saying the word, but it sounded like something was pounding a fist against a door.

Again, BANG - BANG - BANG!!

She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she was staring up at an off-white ceiling through red lines. The banging was coming from the front door. Grumbling and groaning, she rolled out of her bed and into the hallway, nearly falling into the other - empty - room.

BANG - BANG - BANG!!

"I'm coming!" she yelled as she stumbled into the adjoined kitchen, dining, and living room, tripping over a shoe as she reached out for the key on the table.

Muttering curses under her breath, she undid the latches and jammed the key into the door.

"Have you got my rent?" her landlord asked.

"Not yet," she grumbled, thinking about the money she had received in her dream.

"Then you get a new flatmate. Work out the rent between yourselves and if he decides to kick you out for not paying your share, I won't stop him. Enjoy the rest of your day."

As he turned and left, she stuck her middle finger up and twisted her expression. She quickly fixed her appearance -- as best as she could in the large sweatpants and camisole, with her hair in knots wilder than the vines outside the apartment block -- when she noticed the young man with a bag over his shoulder and gave him a smile. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Tallie," she said, sticking her left hand out for him to shake.

"James," he replied before reaching out to shake her hand.

She frowned at their clasped hands. Something about his felt off, awkward. Like it wasn't quite human. She'd shaken the hands of manual labourers before and even they had softer hands.

"It's a prosthetic," he whispered, amused.

Her eyes flew open and her jaw dropped. "Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't m--"

"It's okay. So . . . can I come in?"

She suddenly remembered what a mess she'd made of the apartment. "How about I buy you breakfast and you give me two hours to clean up?" she asked with a hopeful smile.

"If you tell me what Tallie is short for, I'll give your four hours."

She thought about it. She could do with the extra time. "Natalia," she said, "but no one ever calls me Natalia."

"Cute," he said with a grin, turning to leave. "I'll be back later with my stuff . . . Natalia."

She watched him leave, whistling a tune as he shoved his hands into his pockets. Oh, how she wished someone would pay her to kill the landlord.

Going into a spring-clean frenzy, Natalia zipped through the apartment, hiding it all. She removed the weapons from the spare room and found places to hide them in her own room. She raided the kitchen cabinets and made sure there were no traces of the chemicals she used to make poisons and their antidotes. She slipped on the tiles in the bathroom as she scrambled to make the first-aid kit look less like a disaster kit and more like your average home kit.

When the four hours were up, she was sweating and breathing heavily, but the apartment looked clean, tidy and most importantly, as if there were no assassins living in it. The ringing doorbell made her jump -- and she hated that she'd been startled by it.

Taking a deep breath and pushing the escaped strands of hair back, she opened the door. "Hi."

"Hi," James said. "Is it safe to come in now?"

"Mhm. I'd just suggest a bedsheets change before you sleep. Unless you don't mind using mine? They smell like lavender."

"Lavender," he said, nodding as he closed the door behind him, "I guess I'll tolerate it."

"Ha," she laughed nervously. "This is your key. Uh, bedrooms are down the hall, bathroom right at the end. This is the kitchen, dining room and living room. It's small but . . . livable."

Natalia didn't actually know if the apartment was livable or not. She barely spent more than three nights at a time in the apartment. More often than not, she was on stakeouts, waiting to hear for a job, or actually on a job. She hadn't received one for a while now and her dreams were beginning to manifest her raw desire for even a simple job.

No job meant no money. No money meant no rent. She was beginning to accept that she might need a day job.

"It's . . . very clean. Is -- is the toaster sparkling?"

"Well, it's May first. About damn time I did spring cleaning anyway. Uhh, why don't you get settled and I'll get to work on dinner?"

"It's four thirty."

"I can't cook very well."

James nodded. "Right. Well, I will . . . be back out in a while."

Natalia smiled as he disappeared into the hallway. Once he was gone, she allowed her terror to take hold of her features.

How the hell was she going to convince him she lived a normal life -- and that she lived in the apartment?

Damn that landlord.

///////////////

"NO! YOU'LL START A --"

James sighed helplessly as the pan caught fire and Natalia screamed.

"-- fire," he finished lamely.

"I'm done. I can't do this. I'm ordering food."

James raised his eyebrows. "Or you could let me try for once. I've been here one week and you've tried to poison me with burnt pancakes, raw chicken, expired milk, undercooked eggs, dead vegetables, and now you've somehow managed to set fire to the oil. Just . . . go watch the news or something. I'll call you in fifteen minutes."

Sighing, Natalia stalked off, angrily turning the TV on. How hard could it be to pretend to be normal? Was it supposed to be this difficult to learn how to cook? Was she supposed to be this terrible at learning?

Most importantly, how long would this charade need to go on for before she could start sneaking out again?

Surprisingly, exactly fifteen minutes later, James called her name. Switching the TV off, she got up and walked over to him. "Yeah?"

"Taste this," he said, shoving a spoon in her mouth and turning back to the pot.

She glared daggers at his back as she pulled the spoon out of her mouth, but she could not hold the glare. The soup was divine.

"It's not bad," she grumbled.

"Not had?" James asked, laughing, "it's the best thing in this whole country!"

"I doubt that," Natalia argued, leaning around James for another spoonful of the hot soup, "I mean, REO Speedwagon's Can't Fight This Feeling? Dirty Dancing? Lionel Richie's Hello? Soup is not on that list."

"You're a romantic, huh?" James asked, leaving the soup in Natalia's hands as he went to set the table.

"Am not," Natalia scoffed before taking another two spoonfuls of the soup.

"Hey, you better leave some of that for me."

"Make your own damn soup," she muttered, leaning over the pot.

"I did!"

"It's mine now."

"You are unbelievable, Natalia! Move over."

"No, I want more. It's tasty."

"You'll get more in a minute. Go get the cola I bought yesterday and put it on the table."

"But the soup--!"

Natalia blinked and stilled sharply at the look James gave her. It wasn't the stern, parent-like glares he'd been giving her everytime she screwed up at the stove. It was cold, harsh, demanding. She couldn't tear her eyes away, but she knew she had to do as he said. Who knew what would follow?

When he finally turned away, it was as if someone had lifted a concrete slab off her chest. Quickly, she walked to the fridge.

Natalia never realised it was the same look she gave the mirror on the nights when she prepared for a job.

"So," she said once they sat down at the table, "where'd you learn to cook like this?"

"Home," he responded, "my sisters loved it. Sometimes I learned new recipes to impress them."

"That's sweet. Are you the eldest?"

"Mhm. What about you? Siblings?"

Natalia shook her head. "Just me."

"Friends?"

Natalia shrugged. "Not really. I actually--"

Natalia's phone lit up. James noticed that it was a private number. He waited patiently as she answered the phone, mouthing apologies whenever she wasn't speaking.

"Yes, what time? . . . Now?! I -- okay. Where? . . . Right, I'll be there in ten."

"Work?" James asked when she put the phone down on the table and sighed.

"I'm so sorry, James. You made all this and --"

"I'll keep some in the microwave for you."

"I'm really sorry, James."

"It's all right. See you in the morning?"

"Yes. I'll be back by then," she said, getting up. He waved to her as she passed by on her way to the front door. No sooner had she gone out, did his phone ring.

He didn't even greet.

"We have a job for you. Central Park, thirty minutes."

"Yes, sir. I'll be there."

"Is that a problem for you, Soldier?"

Grabbing his jacket and his emergency bag, James left the apartment.

///////////////

"Howard Stark? You want me to take Howard Stark out?"

"Is that a problem for you, Soldier?"

"Uh, yes! The man's reportedly been considering hiring an assassin for a bodyguard! You know what assassins are like!"

"So do you. That is why this job is yours."

"But. . . fine."

The aged Russian smiled as he watched his obedient soldier shrug his dark jacket and shirt off. "It's good you accepted, Soldier."

"Not like I had a choice," James grumbled, peeling the old photostatic veil off his arm. "Sir," he added in a mocking tone.

Vasily Karpov was not a man to be trifled with and for a long time, James did fear Karpov's wrath. Once he learned of his own importance to Karpov, James developed an attitude no other would be allowed to to show to Karpov. Still, he didn't push often. As important as he was, there were gaps in his memory that made him wonder what his punishment had been. Having spent no less than a minute being as rude as he liked, James took the uniform silently and held still as the mask was fixed to his head for alterations.

"Do not disappoint, Soldier. The longer you spend around that civilian, the worse you will get at your job . . . and you know what happens to soldiers that do not perform well. Do not make me use the triggers on you."

"Yes, sir," James said firmly, accepting the new photostatic veil from Karpov.

///////////////

"I'm sorry, could you please repeat that?"

"You are assigned to Howard Stark. Am I right in assuming you do know who he is?"

"Right, but you don't want me to take him out?"

"Ms Romanova, we will give you twice your usual payment to complete this mission."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand why I've been assigned this mission. I'm an assassin. I don't look after people, I kill them."

"Howard Stark believes himself to be a target. We believe he is a target to Hydra."

"Hydra . . . they'd most likely sent the Winter Soldier after him . . . that's why you're assigning me to protect Stark, aren't you? I'm the only one who's gone up against the soldier and survived."

"You understand the severity of your mission, then, Romanova? This is no side job, no small assassination you're paid for on the black market. This is your test, your proof of your versatility. Proof that the Red Room breeds perfection, not mere killers. Do not fail us, Natalia."

Natalia shuddered. Hearing her first name fall from the lips of Vladimira Barkova -- a woman all students, Natalia included, referred to as Madame B -- always sent shivers up her spine. Madame B never meant it with warmth or care. Using a Red Room student's first name was Madame B's method of letting them know she expected nothing less than perfect.

Natalia was hesitant. How could she protect someone when she had been raised to do the opposite? Why did Madame B want to protect Howard Stark anyway? What did he have that they needed? Still, all her uncertainties meant naught.

"Will I need to be within a certain distance from him at all times?"

"Not always," Madame B said, shaking her head. "You will report to his home every morning and remain where you can see him until he returns to his home. Distance is of no consequence, though I don't see how you can protect him if you're not near enough. You will be given access and control over the security at the manor. Though his wife and son are not part of this arrangement and may come and go as they please, if their security ensures Howard Stark's security, then their security is your responsibility. If he wants to leave the manor at midnight, you will be awake and alert to escort him wherever he wishes to go. The manner with which you approach this task is up to you. But fail, and you will become a lesson."

Natalia nodded. "Understood, Madame."

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Masterpost

#apartment 42 #fanfiction #marvel #au #90s #buckynat #tony stark #peggy carter #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff

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anxietyeveryday · 5 years

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On the Latest Episode of “My Life is a Shitshow...”(Panic #114)

TL;DR: We can’t stay in our house right now because it’s being torn apart to fix water damage. This has happened once before, the guys moving things lost some stuff from my room, and we were out of the house for four months, so I packed accordingly.

SO, uhh a few weeks (maybe over a month?) ago, a tree fell on our house. BUT when it happened, it only really looked like it took out the outside porch, so we weren’t very concerned about it. But recently, our ceiling started leaking... So we went to try and figure out where the leak had started, and discovered that one of the branches from the tree smashed a considerable hole in the roof.

So for the past few days we’ve had a few guys coming in and out of our house to assess the damage, and they wound up having to put three dehumidifiers in the house to dry things up. One in each bedroom (upstairs) and one in our kitchen (downstairs.) The thing about dehumidifiers though...? They make the rooms they’re in hot. Like really hot. Both bedrooms were practically turned into saunas, and the downstairs was barely any better.

Normally, to combat this heat, I’d turn on the A/C right? Except, the man who put the dehumidifiers in said not to do that. Cause it would blow the power to have both large machines going at once. So neither of the bedrooms were bearable for me to stay in (my mom had gone away for the weekend for work, so I was dealing with these guys in the house by myself. Yeah, being alone with strange men was also a big plus) and I wound up sleeping in the living room. On our leather couch... (Leather makes me get really sweaty if it’s hot.)

So I dealt with these terrible living conditions for about three days. It was too hot to go in either of the bedrooms, and the living room was miserable too. I was barely getting any sleep, and definitely wasn’t comfortable. Also, I had to get up like an hour earlier than normal, cause the guys had to keep coming in to do maintenance on the dehumidifiers and continue assessing things. And they couldn’t come in after I got out of work at 4:00.

Finally, my mom came home. We decided to sleep in her room for the night, and call the insurance people to figure out if we could stay in a hotel because the house really wasn’t livable at that point. We opened two big windows in her room and tried to sleep... until about 3:00am. Cause it started raining and we had to close the windows.

We finally gave up and turned off all three dehumidifiers, turned on the A/C, and each slept in our own rooms... Until we had to get up at 8:30 to let the guys in again at 9:00... I say we, but my mom had work, so it was just me again.

I just expected them to be doing more maintenance, so I just stayed in my pajamas, expecting a relatively uneventful day.

But no.

At this point, they were done assessing, and done doing maintenance. They found mold in some of the walls, the floors, and ceilings. So they had to start tearing things down, and I had to move basically all of my stuff out of my room.

Now, you may be wondering why I had to move pretty much all of my stuff. The answer? This isn’t the first time we’ve had walls and shit torn out of our house. We had the pipes burst a few years ago, and I left most of my stuff for the workers to move (my mom left most of her stuff too.) When we finally were able to move back in, several posters from my room were gone, along with a picture that really meant a lot to me, and we were also missing a lot of money we had hidden around the house.

I have a lot of breakable things and electronics. And money. And just in general stuff that I don’t want to see anything happen to. So, in all my pajama-clad and unbrushed hair glory, I threw on a pair of sneakers (no socks, like an idiot), and set to work. Packing things in boxes and bags, and taking things off the walls, and moving anything I was concerned about into my car. At nine o’ fucking clock in the morning. After getting less than five hours of sleep.

Meanwhile, while I’m going up and down stairs carrying a whole buttload of stuff, these guys are pretty much tearing my house apart, causing a lot of dust to get kicked up, and exposing the mold under the floorboards (which I’m allergic to, by the way,) and they also started spraying something to kill the mold (having forgotten that my mom needed to sign something before they started doing that... I stopped them from continuing, cause my mom had bad asthma and I have sinus issues, but I still think it was bothering my system since I was in the house so long.)

After about three or four hours, I was finally done. I got all of the important things stuffed into my car, and I was ready to leave the house in the hands of these guys... But I was immensely sweaty and gross, and still in my pajamas... I couldn’t really use my own shower though, cause there were tubes going from the dehumidifier in my mom’s room into the bathroom sink. Thus, the door was permanently open. And I wasn’t about to shower with the door open by myself in a house with about five strange adult men.

So I called up a friend, and showered at her house. Then went out to lunch with my mom, then had to go back to my house to get some stuff I forgot (and save some stickers from a part of the wall they had to remove that I wasn’t aware they were removing.) Then, finally, I was ready to go to the hotel we’d booked a stay in (which is thankfully in my hometown.) It took me three trips with a big cart back and forth from my car to get all of the things I needed into the hotel room.

So yeah. We’re not sure how long we’ll be in this hotel for, but I’ve prepared for the worst, cause the last time we had to stay in a hotel because our house was getting worked on, we stayed for four months.

Wish me luck, guys.

~mod liv

#panic #anxiety #stress #water damage #remodeling #livvi panics #liv post

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firereblogger · 4 years

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Common Money Mistakes

Go big or Go Home!

#finance #personal finance #money #money tips #investing #advice #money advice #fireblog #fireblogger

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sarahburness · 6 years

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Don’t Settle for Living Half-Alive

“Who you are is what you settle for, you know?” ~Janis Joplin

I spent several years in a state of light depression without noticing.

Why was it only “light”? Because I was functional: I went to work every morning, I managed to feed myself (mostly with convenience food, but still). My house was reasonably livable, though far from sparkling clean. And I wasn't particularly sad, nor was I ever even remotely suicidal. It was simply like my life had been wrapped in a thick layer of cotton wool, with nothing much ever getting through to me.

Why didn't I notice? Because I told myself I liked it this way. I was honestly convinced that I was happy going to work every day, coming home in the evening. and then sitting down to read or play a computer game.

I'd kicked my friends out of my life, and any required travel was an inconvenience, even if it was to see my family. I preferred being alone, and if it hadn't been for my online gaming friends, I would have had no social contact at all.

I'd become highly proficient at appearing “normal” to my colleagues at work. I even invented friends I was seeing at evenings or weekends so they wouldn't think I was a loner. To be honest, I can't even remember how I justified this to myself; in hindsight, it seems like I refused to even think about it. Denial can be one of the symptoms of depression, and I was very good at lying to myself.

The Awakening

There was an outward reason for my isolation, and that's a sum of money I was paying back from a near-bankruptcy years earlier. I simply didn't have the cash for a lavish wardrobe or nights out on the town because every cent I earned went into repayments. But that's only half the truth—if I'd wanted to see friends, I could have met them for home-cooked dinners, after all.

The truth is that I used my financial situation as an excuse, yet another reason not to see the depression that had swallowed me whole. Thankfully, the shell began to crack when this reason/excuse disappeared: I had finally paid back all my dues and began thinking about leaving behind my soul-eating, high-pressure job and moving back to the place where my soul feels at home: the West (of Ireland).

I found a work-from-home role and made the big move across the country. I now had much less money every month, but you can't possibly put a price tag on the quality of life in the absence of stress. I began to sleep better, eat better, take an interest in my environment again—it was like my entire being was breathing a slow, deep sigh of relief.

In the following months, I re-connected with my friends, started dancing again (something I'd loved to do all my life, but “forgotten about” during the dark years), and, feeling rested for the first time in years, got curious about trying out new things.

Healing Through Passion

It took a lot of time. I needed to heal physically as well as psychologically; my body was in the worst shape it had ever been in, not just because of the pounds I'd piled on from all the junk food, but also from spending the last years in a sitting position, apart from walking to the car and back.

I slept. I fell in love with whole, gorgeous foods. I took up mindfulness meditation. Then I slowly, very gradually started exercising, and when I say “slowly,” I mean five minutes of stretching on some days and nothing else.

These first few months were mostly about well-being, feeling good and comfortable, which astonished me because I hadn't even realized how long these feelings had been absent.

As the healing progressed, my emotions returned. I'd been numb for years, but now I remembered that I'd always been a highly sensitive and highly emotional person. There were some very dark weeks to get through, in which I mourned all the wasted time and some actions I was ashamed of, such as not being there for my best friend when she needed me. Gradually, I made it through the swamp, and on the other side, I re-discovered my long lost enthusiasm.

I have some rather unusual interests, and now I threw myself into them. I signed up for training in traditional archery and historical sword fighting. I kept exercising and dancing every day. Suddenly, I began to experience levels of happiness the likes of which I wouldn't have thought possible a year before.

What I've Learned

I wish I could tell you that I lived happily ever after, but that's just not how human lives work (and anyone who tells you differently is usually trying to sell you something). The point is not to be eternally joyful, in any case; it's to experience the full spectrum of human emotions and to show up and sit with them as they occur.

Striving for happiness and joy is a worthy pursuit, however. Like most things, it's a habit that can be cultivated. I've learned that one shortcut to happiness is passion, or rather, radically prioritizing your passion (or multiple passions).

I know this isn't something that's encouraged in our society. We're brought up to be responsible and put duty first; work for a living, pay the bills, be a good citizen. While I don't debate that these things are important, I'll humbly submit that we've got the priorities wrong. What good is making a living when you're just going to exist and survive, rather than thrive?

The lure of mediocrity is strong. I see it all around and it's most pronounced in my own story. If settling were an art then I'd be its master; I was prepared to settle for such a reduced version of my own life, I find it barely recognizable even from the distance of a mere three years.

The Pursuit Of Happiness

The way to fight this is to remember what truly matters in life. Our own well-being, our loved ones, and that elusive state, happiness. To leap out of bed every morning, looking forward to doing things that light me up, is something I'll never, ever take for granted again.

In order to achieve this state, we need to radically and consistently fight against the current thatthreatens to pull us back into settling. Life isn't meant to be “all right” or “not so bad.” It's meant to be ravishing, beautiful, and filled with joy.

Whenever I feel myself slipping, I pull myself back up by putting a passion front and center. It takes some courage to say “no” to anything else until my passions are looked after, scheduled, and happening. Only then will I look at social commitments and distractions. The only thing I consider with a comparable priority to passion is my work—but then, the work I do today is a passion, too.

I certainly don't know everything, but I do know this: If I don't fall in love with life all over again at least once a week, then I'm doing it wrong. It may feel like constantly pedaling a bicycle up the hill, but boy is the view from the top worth the effort.

How You Get There

If you feel like you’re just getting through your days, take some time to discover what needs to be in place in your life for you to prioritize passion. For me, it was the job and where I lived, but what you need to do might look completely different.

Take some time to “audit” every area of your life—work, finances, self, relationships, health—and find out where you need to make changes in order to accommodate your passion(s).

You may not be able to do everything at once, and that's fine. It took a long time for me to be ready for my radical downsizing. You may also need to accept that there are some things you can’t change any time soon—if, for example, you’d like to move by you need to stay where you are for your family. The point isn’t to change everything, but rather to change something.

Make a realistic plan to put all your steps into practice, and set down a time period for them too. Get the support you need, be it from a professional coach or from friends or loved ones.

Just be sure to insert passion today while working toward your plan. If all you do is to plan, you postpone your joy to the future and never achieve it in the present moment.

It's always possible to find pockets of time. Be ruthless with this! Cancel other commitments if necessary, because your well-being comes first, and being joyful also enables you to be a better partner, parent, friend, or co-worker to others.

About Sibylle Leon

Sibylle is a trained and experienced life coach who empowers fellow wild spirits to prioritize their passion(s) and align their lives with their unique purpose (wildspiritscoaching.com). Her own passions include music, people, and changing the world one heart at a time. Sibylle lives in the beautiful West of Ireland.

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from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/dont-settle-for-living-half-alive/

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dredshirtroberts · 7 years

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I wish I could just up and quit my entire job.

I mean, theoretically I could absolutely just tell my dad to fuck off and good luck finding someone to do all the shit on my shoulders for as much (little) as I make. I mean...there are a bunch of homeless people in this city who would love to take my job that i hate. Grab one of them off the street.

And then I could just cut my family out of my life entirely.

I wouldn’t be financially reliant on my abusive family who only keeps me around as a status symbol and as a target for my sister’s attitude and who deliberately ignores me when it doesn’t suit their needs to talk to me or care about me at all.

I could have a job I enjoy doing instead of stagnating in this fucking position i’ve had for 8 fucking years that I’ve literally had to train myself to do. I could have BENEFITS. I could make enough to build back up my reserves quickly and easily. I could enjoy the people I work with. I could MAKE FRIENDS.

But in order to be fair to the other two people in the company I would want to give them about a month’s notice to start looking for someone to take my place and train them in my job. And I’d have to be looking for shit to do. There are a ton of jobs I could do that I’m more than qualified for now because i have so much experience. I could sign up for the temp company boyfriend went through and find something almost immediately. I could go work in a call center (i’m really good at answering phones now). I could work in something mindless like data processing and data entry. I could do lots of things!

Every time I try to talk myself out of looking i’m like...but there is so much out there and I don’t want to be stuck in my dad’s company making piddlins for doing everything that isn’t programming. Technically I’m not even a partner though they’ve told me if they sell the company I’ll get 15%. If I stick it out long enough they’ll have to sell the company because I’m not going to be in charge of this shit.

The product is great. Our customers are fantastic. I don’t want to be here anymore. I’m not excited to do work. I don’t want to be here at all. I don’t want to work when i’m in the office. I don’t want to work at home. I don’t want to be here.

I also have to wait to make sure boyfriend gets hired on full time at the company he’s working at now. We need to be financially stable before I start doing crazy shit with my job.

And I don’t necessarily want to throw my leaving out of the blue at my dad and his business partner. Mostly for his business partner because he’s a nice guy who really appreciates the work i’ve done for them and thinks i do an amazing job. My dad’s the real issue here.

Because what I do is never enough. I’m never doing enough I’m never getting enough finished, I’m not doing good enough. Every other week or so he’s complaining that i haven’t finished x y and z projects and I’m like...when would you like me to work on those? because I have 0 time.

Between our customers, and me beboping around between projects based on which ones can be done while not needing to worry about being interrupted, and the fact that I have to take care of most of the housework at home, and care for the kitty cats, and I have camp and I have to do everything for that which I still haven’t gotten around to because OH MY GOD WHEN DO I HAVE TIME FOR THIS SHIT

This weekend is to be used to finish dice rollers and possibly go out to michaels and get shit for my textile-craft classes and hope what’s left on my gift card will cover it.

because i can’t really afford to do much right now with what’s left after bills because i don’t actually have anything left after bills and i’m so

i’m exhausted. i’m tired. I can’t keep up. And I just...

ideally i’d like to live in a world where I could stay at home and get everything done and still make money - universal income anyone???. Because there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it and I just...

It would make me feel better about everything and I could make time for everything and there would possibly be breaks and shit and I could have time to myself on top of that and there could be...i could be peaceful and happy and shit.

i wouldn’t have to worry about anything.

but i live in america so UI isn’t happening, and livable wages aren’t a thing yet, and my dream job doesn’t exist and i’m going to run myself ragged until i fall apart and hope someone’s there to catch me because no one’s gonna stop and wait for me and it’ll be what it is.

I think i’m hungry.

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usfcaexperience · 8 years

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My story: Fighting against no-fault eviction threat since last summer.

In the past five or so years, eviction rate in SF has gone up by 60%. My family and I have been facing a no-fault eviction threat since last August, when the sale of our rental property was announced.

I went to a free legal consultation at the SF tenant union, whose lawyer advised us not to be absent during the open house as much as possible, in order to avert the illegal lock out and/or any property damage. Since our building was put on market for sale, there had been weekly open house where 30 to 70 brokers and potential buyers come and walk through our apartment including the times when my 3 years old son was very ill and needed to rest at home. They all looked at us as if we're annoying pest to exterminate. They kicked our son’s toys and our belonging to make their way into our living room. Our sense of security has been compromised and our son kept asking me, “Whose house is this, mama?” We already pay pretty high rent for this 2 bedroom as we moved in only a few years ago when our son was born. But right now, most of comparable unit now costs 700 to 1,000 dollars more than we pay, which we cannot afford.

Last year, we have lost our child caregiver unexpectedly as she also faced a threat of no-fault eviction herself and needed to start a new job which pays more than what we could pay her. It was not easy for us to replace her or to secure a spot in daycare in such a short notice. My husband ended up taking many personal days from his work to take care of our son so that I don't have to cancel classes (I was teaching 3 classes on MWF). His boss did not like his absence. As a result, he was marginalized at his office and harassed by his boss to the point that he was led to leave his job. In this competitive economy/job market, taking his personal days to care for his child was not acceptable or permissible even if it is legal. We have no family member to rely on. In fact, our aging parents need a financial support from us.

Now my husband commutes 1.5 to 2 hours each way to get to his new job outside the city. As the population increases in bay area, the traffic has gotten far worse in the past a few years.

Last fall, my son started a preschool. We applied 8 schools in the city and got accepted to none. The number of childcare facilities in the city is not keeping up with the population increase at all. Thus, getting into a preschool that offers full day care is extremely scarce thus competitive in SF right now. I applied three of those schools when my son was only 2 months old! Keep in mind that these are just ordinary preschools and daycare catered toward working parents. So we end up deciding to send him to preschool near my husband's work outside the city for two days a week while he goes to day care with younger children for the rest of week. When he goes to preschool, my son does the same commute with my husband – 1.5 to 2 hours each way. 　

As we are facing this no fault eviction threat, we started looking for a new housing outside SF with a hope that we could find something less expensive than in the city. But it does not look very promising for us at all. The areas where the decent public school district exist are far beyond our financial mean. Due to the scheduling requirement by USF, I have to teach at least one class during non-prime time slot schedule in order to help our department. This poses a serious limitation on where we can live. Because it means that my husband has to be in charge of dropping our son at school as he cannot leave his work before 5pm, while I have to be in charge of picking him up. We cannot live too far away from each other's work to manage this. Anywhere close to SF or South Bay where my husband works is no longer affordable to us. And if we are to pay a current market rate housing, we cannot afford to hire any additional help for childcare, either. Unfortunately, while I do appreciate the university's childcare subsidy, it is unfortunately just a drop in bucket right now.

As the financial pressure looms so rapidly, my husband and I hired a financial planner last year. While she agreed that both my husband and I make respectful amount of salary as professionals and she was impressed by how modestly we live, nevertheless it is not enough to "survive" in the bay area, considering rising cost of childcare, education, health/medical cost and housing. We were told to buy a house in next a few years and if we cannot pull it off, then we were advised to consider to leave the bay area and look for another job elsewhere if we wish to save enough for our retirement, medical cost and our son’s college. Call me naive, but I really did not expect to face this prospect after I worked so hard earn my promotion with tenure at USF.

Getting 2% raise essentially means a substantial pay cut to us unless our inflation miraculously improves immediately. But existing data does not seem to suggest the inflation will improve or even stay constant as the last year. How could we take a pay cut when we are already struggling? If our inflation remains constant or gets worse, this essentially means my household will have to cut down further. As my financial advisor pointed out, we have no more excess to cut down as we already cut it down as much as possible and if anything, she said we were not saving nearly as much as possible for our future – retirement, medical cost, life insurance, and our only child’s education.

Since the last recession, our family (aging parents) have lost their substantial saving and income. My husband and I have been sending money to help them but if this pay cut is put in place, we could no longer send our help to their way.

By committing to serve for USF in midst of this hyper housing inflation, we have been already making a great financial and personal sacrifice beyond our mean. Making any further sacrifice would mean two dire consequences. First, we are setting ourselves for further financial demise in both short and long term. Second, this seriously hinders our ability to serve USF and most importantly our students. If I cannot afford child care, parking fee and gas to commute daily, it means I have less time to spend with my students outside classroom and our regular office hours. How could I do that to students who is taking enormous amount of student loan to receive a private Jesuit education? Needless to say, I will also have significantly less time and money to conduct an international research which seriously compromises my ability to deliver a globally competitive and comprehensive teaching at USF. If I cannot deliver the best quality of education to my students, why am I struggling to stay with USF? That is the question that I would like to ask our President and Provost. That is why I advocate for livable wage from USF. I do not ask the university to solve my hardship or problem, but I do expect them to understand why this “new normal” is not acceptable to us.

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