Previously on the blog, I mentioned that we were doing the 34-Day Reset from the You Need a Budget Community. We started on January 3rd and were supposed to go through February 6th….but we got impatient, and tallied our savings on Jan 31. How much did we save?

*drumroll*

$1,575

How did we calculate our savings?

We first created a 34-Day Challenge Budget Line in our YNAB (If you aren’t YNABing, you should. Here’s my referral link to try it out). Into that went any additional income – credit card rewards, Instacart, etc. At the end of the month, we put anything in our variable expense categories into that line item, excluding our personal spending. The categories that we harvested money from included:

• Insurance (since we recalculated our balances)
• Cell Phone (since I switched to Visible)
• Groceries/Housewares
• Transportation
• Dining Out
• Haircuts
• Recurring Donations
• Entertainment
• Clothes

Key Lessons

1) We don’t have to buy or do everything immediately. We had scheduled a plumber to come fix a drain pipe that may or may not be covered by homeowners insurance. We meant to shop around for tile layers and check with insurance, but we had gone ahead and scheduled the plumber. As the date loomed, we still hadn’t done our due diligence. So we canceled. We have three bathrooms in this house. It’s not an emergency, and we didn’t need the stress. I also made a list of several smaller purchases that I was interested in, but still haven’t pulled the trigger.

2) It’s not so bad eating at home. Last year, we averaged eating our four times a week! In a pandemic. During the challenge, we ate out exactly four times, including once when our friends kindly bought delivery for us. Once take-out was off the table, we adjusted our habits, and planned different activities instead of eating out for entertainment.

3) Meal planning was a godsend. I finally did the free trial of Plan to Eat. People in the ChooseFI groups had been raving about it for years, and I never quite understood why. It seemed like a lot to pay for a recipe storage app – $39/year. Instead, I tried PrepDish, PlateJoy, and HelloFresh – all much more expensive options, thinking that the value was in the recipes. It turns out, the value is in the convenience of having all of MY recipes searchable, so I could plan around what was already in the kitchen. The app also combines all of your ingredients into a single shopping list, which you can review and plan your trip to the store. I’ll do a more detailed review later. It makes everything so simple, Mr. FIVE has made dinner TWICE. Totally worth the annual fee. (Want to try it out? Here’s my referral link.)

4) Meal Prepping took the convenience to the next level. Mr. FIVE pointed out that we had a TON of dishes every night with all the cooking that we were doing. Meal Prep has been a block in my life for a long time, but with Plan To Eat, we just started by organizing all the ingredients for each recipe on a Sunday afternoon. Then we looked at each recipe and asked these questions.

• What needed to come out of the freezer and thaw before cooking?
• What vegetables (onion, carrots, celery, zucchini) could be washed and chopped?
• What spices could be blended?
• How much brown rice would we need for the week (one big batch in the instantpot instead of 4 little batches)?

5) Question every recurring expense. I didn’t knock out all the stretch goals on my 34 in 34 list – I didn’t even get to 34 things on my list. However, I did question a LOT of recurring charges. Here’s the impact:

Recurring Charge	Monthly Savings	Annual Savings
Insurance for our Rental Property	$40.00	$480.00
Cancel Paid Canva	$12.95	$155.40
Cancel Board Game Arena	$4.00	$48.00
Switch to Visible from Verizon	$25.34	$304.08
Adjusted Auto Insurance	$20.00	$240.00
Cancel Consumer Reports Subscription	$10.00	$120.00
Total	$112.29	$1,347.48

We were spending nearly a full working day to pay for things that we weren’t using or could get reasonable alternatives for.

The Bottom Line

The exercise of pausing for a month and reconsidering our expenses was incredibly valuable. As we’ve moved forward, the biggest change has been in our eating out. We now ask “Is it worth it? Is this going to be a quality experience?” instead of asking “Am I too tired to cook?” We’ve added freezer meals to our rotation to prevent the immediate ordering of a pizza. It feels like we’ve got much more clarity.

Mr. FIVE suggested that we keep the incentive to save in place. For everything left over in our categories, we split it 50% to a savings goal, and 25% to each of our free spending accounts. For me, that means that half of what I’m getting will be invested via M1 Finance. That will motivate him to spend less, and if he’s spending less, I’ll spend less. Let’s see what we can do with that savings rate in 2021!

Amazon Prime is one of those things that I’ve been renewing year after year. This year, we’re budgeting $125 for the subscription with taxes and fees. But, we’ve also got Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus. Is it worth it?

So What Does Amazon Prime Get Us?

Benefit	Do we use it?	Details
Delivery
Free Same-Day Delivery	X	Qualifying order of $35
Free One-Day Delivery	X	No minimum purchase, but the item must qualify
Free Two-Day Delivery	X	Almost everything that Amazon sells
Free Two Hour Grocery Delivery		Available in Denver – it would replace our Kroger pick up
Free Two Day Delivery of Prescriptions		Could potentially replace Walgreens
Free Release Date Delivery		Get new things the day they release
Free No-Rush Shipping for Rewards
Amazon Day		Get all your orders delivered on one day
Key by Amazon		Let people in to your house digitally! This would be a problem if we had package thieves, or if we ordered a lot of packages, but we’re home now…all the time
Streaming and Digital Benefits
Prime Video	X	We are addicted to The Expanse, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Upload. They are all Prime Originals, which are only available legally with Prime. They aren’t available for purchase individually.
Prime Video like HBO, SHOWTIME, and STARS for $4.99-$14.99/month
Amazon Music Prime		I was using this, but they limited the amount of songs that you can access. Spotify is a much superior product.
Amazon Music Unlimited	$14.99 a month	I believe this is their alternative to Spotify family, but I haven’t tried it out yet.
Prime Gaming		Last year Mr. FIVE spent $388 on games through Steam, but I don’t know if it’s comparable.
Amazon Photos		We store our photos in Google Photos
Amazon Kids		We don’t have kids
Shopping Benefits
Prime Member Deals at Whole Foods		The nearest Whole Food is 20 minutes away. This might have made it worth it for our old housemate, but we don’t see the savings here.
Prime Day		I’ve looked at Prime Day deals the last two years, and haven’t found anything that I’m moved to buy.
Prime Exclusive Deals		I’ve also never gotten in to the Amazon lighting deals
Amazon Prime Rewards Visa		Nope
Amazon Prime Store Card		Nope
Prime Early Access		This is not important to me
Amazon Family
Prime Wardrobe	X	I do like Prime Wardrobe for buying bras in the comfort of my own home, but the Amazon return process isn’t that arduous if I buy things directly from Amazon
Amazon 4-Star and Amazon Books Stores		The nearest physical Amazon Store is 45 minutes away, and the first time I went, I found it overwhelming and unhelpful. It was like a store designed by algorithm. Not cool.
Amazon Reloads – Earn 2% bonus when you reload your Amazon.com Gift Card Balance		This is interesting. If we put $100 on a Gift Card, we’d actually get $102. This might not make much difference, but it would give us more spending power.
Reading Benefits
Prime Reading		I have found one or two titles in Prime Reading that I can’t get from my library. I use Overdrive exclusively for my e-books. I very rarely pay for e-books and when I do, its usually an accident. I also have a widget that connects my Overdrive to my Goodreads, so I can see what’s available at my local library.
Amazon First Reads – One book Free		It’s just not that important for me to have new releases
Discounted Print Magazine Subscriptions		Absolutely not. We do not need more print clutter in this house!

What’s the Value of the Things We Use?

Free Shipping

If we didn’t have Prime shipping, we’d opt for slower shipping. We’d bundle our orders so we hit the $25 minimum. Or we’d pick up things locally at the store (shocking!). There might be one time a year that we’d need to pay for shipping. Let’s put $5.99 in the calculus for that.

Amazon Prime Originals

We love The Expanse, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Upload. The first two are appointment TV in this house. If we didn’t have Prime, we would buy the series – but surprise! Amazon doesn’t let you buy their original series. You HAVE to subscribe to get them. However, we’re talking about 30 episodes of TV here. Imminently bingeable TV, at that. Amazon does let you subscribe to Video only for $8.99 a month. Let’s say these three shows come out at three very different times of year, so we’d need to subscribe for three months. Total value: $26.97

Things worth Paying For	Cost
Free Shipping	$5.99
Amazon Originals	$26.97
Total Value	$32.96

Can Grocery Deliver Make the Difference?

In January, I spent $328.63 on groceries at King Soopers. Fortunately, my King Soopers Card tracks all my purchases, so I was able to “re-buy” all my January groceries at Amazon to see how much it would cost me. There were a bunch of King Soopers Specific things that weren’t available at Amazon. The “eligible” items at King Soopers cost me $255.56.

When I bought them all at Amazon…$270.57

So…no…

I also asked Mr. FIVE if the gaming subscription was good, and he said that he couldn’t see himself using it.

The Bottom Line

AAA isn’t worth it for us right now. It probably isn’t worth it for us in the post-COVID times either. We get the same services for $100 less through our insurance, even though it’s a little bit more inconvenient.

Now to figure out how to stop them from auto-charging our credit card!

Looking at what we actually bought

When I brought this up with Mr. FIVE, I said, “We’re paying $125 a year for $32 of benefits. We’re giving up 8 hours worth of work for the convenience of Amazon Prime.”

Mr. FIVE said “It’s worth it!” I said, “Oh?”

He said, “There’s all these things that I only know to get on Amazon. It’s worth it to not have to go into a store and potentially spend more money, when we can just get it from Amazon and have it show up the next day.”

I said, “But I’m not saying we’ll stop shopping at Amazon. We just won’t get things instantly.”

The conversation continues. We decided to look at our list of Amazon purchases from the past year and see what could’ve waited – this analysis is still in progress. Today, we’re a house divided on whether Amazon Prime is worth it, but we’ll see where we get!

I’ve had AAA for years. When I was single and prone to locking myself out of my car, they saved my bacon. Multiple times.

The YNAB 34 Day Challenge has really got me questioning all of our recurring expenses. When the $120 bill to renew our AAA membership came in, I had to ask, “Is it worth it?” Roadside assistance isn’t something we’ve needed a lot. We keep our cars in pretty good shape, but when I was a single woman, I loved having the safety net. In my first few years living on my own, my car had manual locks, and I had a habit of locking my keys inside at least once a year. It was totally worth it then!

This reevaluation comes on the heels of reevaluating our Auto Insurance. It turns out we get Towing and Labor coverage from USAA for $19.76 for both cars for a year.

The big difference that we’ve noticed is that when we break down in Colorado, AAA is there in 15 to 20 minutes and USAA takes upwards of 3 hours to dispatch a repair vehicle. On average, we’ve needed Roadside Assistance maybe once a year. That was before COVID, when we actually went places and saw people.

So What Does AAA Get Us?

Benefit	AAA	USAA
Towing – up to 7 miles per member	X	X
Bicycle assistance – essentially towing for your bike, up to 7 miles	X
Emergency fuel, delivered at retail prices	X	X
Auto Locksmith Services	X	X
Extricating via Winch	X
Basic Mechanical Tweaking	X	X
Jumpstart	X	X
Change a Flat Tire	X	X
Roadside EV Charging	X

What about the discounts?

Discounts are only worth it if you were going to spend the money anyway. I’ve been suckered in by amazing discount packaged in the past, only to find out that I never use them any way. It’s the coupon effect – you end up spending more than you intended because you have a coupon.

Discounts	Savings
Auto Mechanic – $40 off a $600 bill	$40.00
$10 off Uber Eats (use twice)	$20.00
20% off Harry and David	$10.60
Free Passport Photo	$15.00
Total Possible Savings	$85.60
Actual 2020 Savings	$40.00

When I went through the list of discounts, I was surprised by all the different options. If we were traveling and going out, we could save more.

Post COVID Discounts	Savings
Hampton Inn (and other Hilton Family Hotels)	$10/night
Denver Center for the Performing Arts – 20% per ticket	$2-$20
Harkins Theaters – $9.50 a Ticket instead of $12	$5 per movie
Regal Theaters – 35% off Tickets	$11.20 per movie

In the grand scheme of things, these additional post-COVID discounts are paltry. When we go out to the movies, we go to The Alamo, which isn’t covered in the discounts. We also have the option to get bundles of tickets at Costco for a similar discount. While it would be amazing to get a discount at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, I don’t mind giving them $20 extra because of the great work that they do. I can also probably get a better hotel discount by shopping around.

The Bottom Line

AAA isn’t worth it for us right now. It probably isn’t worth it for us in the post-COVID times either. We get the same services for $100 less through our insurance, even though it’s a little bit more inconvenient.

Now to figure out how to stop them from auto-charging our credit card!

We don’t often do budget challenges, but after seeing our savings rate, I was particularly susceptible to You Need a Budget’s 34 Day Reset. It took a little doing, but I was also able to get Mr. FIVE on board too!

The Challenge only has three rules: 1) Track every transaction; 2)Only the Essentials; and 3) No Dining Out.

We agreed that whatever savings we found during the challenge would be split three ways: 50% to our travel fund and 50% to our free spending categories. (I was leaning toward more rebuilding our Emergency Fund, but Mr. FIVE was only interested if there was a personal bonus. Lesson learned – want to save money, make sure there is a dividend attached!)

The Essentials

The first rule of tracking everything was easy, because we already track everything in YNAB. Figuring out the Essentials was a bit trickier. We decided to fund our categories as usual. All of our bills, mortgages, recurring charges and donations we left untouched. We committed to putting off anything optional until after the challenge. Groceries was the biggest area of uncertainty. Food is necessary, but do we have to spend $125 a week? I decided that we would meal plan and only buy the groceries that the meal plan required.

No Dining Out

Did you hear that? That was Mr. FIVE’s cry of anguish. When we first got together, he was spending $800 a month on dining out. Nowadays, we are spending about $400 a month. The convenience factor is so big in our lives right now. It’s also been our way of supporting some of the businesses that we love in the pandemic. However, last year we were averaging eating out four times a week. We could benefit from a reset.

The Stretch: 34 Things in 34 Days

Wouldn’t it be cool if I could use this challenge to knock out some of those pesky financial tasks that I’ve been meaning to get around to? Here’s my list of ideas:

1. Call USAA to reset insurance on the Salon Rental
2. Find a renter for the Salon
3. Cancel Canva Subscription
4. Cancel Board Game Arena Subscription
5. Seal windows with plastic
6. Find a CPA to do our taxes
7. Submit Income Certification for student loan recalculation
8. Switch my cell phone from Verizon to Visible
9. Call\l USAA about decreasing our Car Insurance coverage
10. Figure out the work reimbursement process
11. Cash out Venmo
12. Cash out credit card rewards
13. Cancel recurring political donations
14. Submit receipts for Mr. FIVE’s therapist to insurance
15. Submit receipts for my therapist to insurance
16. Order all groceries for pickup
17. Move money from Checking to Savings
18. Do 4 hours of Instacart
19. Cost out 5 meals
20. Shop the pantry one week and pay no more than $30 for necessities
21. Submit Employer Certification forms for PSLF
22. Schedule a Health Coaching Session for $30 with BCBS (They would pay me!)
23. Cancel Consumer Reports Subscription
24. Cancel our compost service at the bungalow
25. Move all surplus products to the Canning Pantry to reduce unnecessary purchases
26. Replace Jimmy Dean Eggwich breakfast sandwiches by making egg bake and quiches instead
27. Price out prescriptions at Costco vs. Walgreens
28. Call Blue Cross Blue Shield about Specialist Charges – Let’s find out what is copay and what is deductible
29. ?
30. ?
31. ?
32. ?
33. ?
34. ?

Maybe 34 things is a stretch, but I’m hoping I can figure it out!

At this time of year, I get antsy to figure out where we are on the path to Financial Independence. It’s been a year since I did my last analysis of our larger financial picture. We also did a lot of money moves – setting up our first rental property, refinancing our primary residence, and buying a new, much nicer home.

If you’ve been in the FI world at all, you’ve probably heard how important it is to have a high Savings Rate. Saving 50% of your income will get you to FI in no time! I figured I should calculate this, and The Fioneers happened to post this amazing blog post just as I was getting started.

I figured that we had this in the bag – 2020 was a pandemic, so what were we spending money on? Surely we had a 20% savings rate!

….

Then I did math…

….

Then I did the math again….

4.57%

That’s right. A 4.57% savings rate. That means we have to keep working for another 66 YEARS! So much for early retirement!

I was blown away. This has to change.

My goal for 2021 is to get that to at least a 15% savings rate. How? I’m not fully sure, but here’s what I’m thinking:

• Invest 50% of my free spending allocation. Over last year, I spent over $4,000 on my free spending. Free spending is our guilt-free category that I and Mr. FI Value Engineer can spend however we like. I get 5% of our income, and so does she. This should increase our savings rate by 2.77%
• Do the 34-day YNAB Reset Challenge. I’ll write a full post on this later, but it’s a challenge to minimize discretionary spending for a short period of time.
• Cut out needless subscriptions and reevaluate recurring costs. I’ve had a lot of money things that I wanted to clean up, but I haven’t gotten around to it. The big one has been switching my cell phone to Visible from Verizon. More data, same coverage, less cost!
• No big projects. This year’s focus will be to invest not start ANOTHER business.

I’m also interested to see how some of the things we put in motion last year will impact our savings rate. For example, we’re now on a High Deductible Health Plan that allows us an HSA. Right now there’s $800 sitting there, waiting for qualified health expenses.

What ideas do you have?

In my last FI Value Engineer post, I was headed to Kansas to work on this house. I was there for three weeks, working 12 hour days alongside my team of construction experts. Our tenants moved in on September 13, as we were putting the finishing touches on closets, windows, and bathrooms.

When we got into the rental business, we thought it was going to be pretty straightforward – buy a house, put a new coat of paint on it, do some minor repairs, and rent it out. We’ve learned so much more!

Lesson #1: Have the person who will be doing the renovations walk through the house before you buy it.

Although it took us time to find them, On the Level Construction were amazing partners in strategizing the most cost-effective way to renovate the house. Had they been at the walk-thought we would have had a much more realistic understanding of what renovations would cost. I think we would’ve still bought the house, but we would’ve been smarter about what we were getting into.

Lesson #2: Good contractors are worth their weight in gold

It took us a stupid amount of time to find tradespeople who were competent and had space on their schedule, and once they were involved, it was like a gateway opened up to a group of secret contractors. In a small town, it’s all about who you know! I had one HVAC contractor who was overworked, and frankly just needs to retire, and he delayed the project by at least two weeks, and cost me about $5,000 in additional concrete and drywall work.

Lesson #3: The size of your ducts matters

This house had 3 inch duct work, which according to our home inspection, was perfectly adequate. When we did an energy audit, they recommended upgrading the furnace and AC (and the energy company financed it). New energy efficient systems require at least 4″ ducts in order to move the air. That meant that we had to rip out all the old duct work and reinstall new ducts…$$$.

Lesson #4: Be clear on your purpose

As the project drug on and on, I began to question if it was even worth it. We sold stock, and we refinanced our primary home to make sure we could keep up with this investment. Knowing that it would cash flow once we got a tenant in was one thing, but understanding our time horizon of when we would be able to pay ourselves back, kept us in the game.

So what was the damage?

Capital Expenses and Renovations

In 2020, we spent $62,447 on renovations. This included transforming a hair salon into a master bedroom, replacing all the water lines to PEX, replacing the furnace, AC, and all the ductwork, drywalling the basement, rebuilding a half bathroom, and updating all the toilets.

Operating Expenses

While all the renovations were happening, we still had to pay all the utilities and the mortgage. We spent $14,632 on operations. We did request a mortgage forbearance for a few months, but Chase had us pay it in full within three months. The mortgage forbearance also would’ve messed up our refinance, so that was another reason we didn’t keep it longer.

Rental Income

We were able to secure a tenant. We gave them some free rent, because of construction delays, and they notified us that they are ending their lease early. From Sept. to December, they paid us $7,450, excluding their security deposit.

How is this going to pencil out?

Monthly Income/Expenses

Total Monthly Income	$1,800.00
Expenses
Utilities	$251.00
Insurance	$110.00
Mortgage	$666.66
Property Management	$180.00
Total Expenses	$1,207.66
Sinking Funds
Income Tax	$142.16
Maintenance	$162.00
Capital Expenses	$90.00
Total Sinking Funds	$394.16
Net Monthly Revenue – Guaranteed Profit	$198.18

This house is bringing n about $200 a month or $2,400 a year in profit, if it stays occupied. At that rate, we need to hold the house for 25 years to recoup our renovation investment. We can shorten that time horizon, depending on how much taxes we have to pay on the house, but it better to be safe than sorry. We also want to maintain healthy sinking funds for repairs or capital replacements so we don’t have to fund it through out main income.

Looking Back:

• Look at two new houses: Done. Both houses were more than we would want to spend for the state of the houses, but I was really pleasantly surprised by one that I insisted we look at because the pictures didn’t match the square footage. If it had been 30-40K cheaper, we would’ve put in an offer.
• Sign our refinance: Done! We are now in the 3 day right of recision period, and we should have the money on Friday. Also I learned that loan signing notaries make somewhere between $75 and $200 per appointment. Interesting side hustle potential…
• Head to KS to work on our rental house: Big nope. My anxiety reared it’s head, and after crying while packing my suitcase, I took a much needed nap. Mr. Value Engineer and I ended up on a much needed Korean BBQ date night, with a table outside! Their COVID practices seemed on point.

Looking forward:

• Finish my “Songs that Make Me Feel Like Myself” playlist: after a podcast by The Lazy Genius, about the importance of playlists. I made one for Bryce’s birthday trip into the mountains and it was lovely! I use Amazon Prime Music, because we already pay for Prime.
• Set out for KS: Take 2. I really need to see where we are on our current progress with the house to know when our occupancy date will be approved.
• Record a piece for my church’s virtual choir: singing always makes me feel more centered in my body and soul.

One of the best things this blog brought me was the Daily Three. Then I fell off the bandwagon, for lots of reasons. Making space for reflection and baby steps is important.

• Look at two new houses: we are continuing to look at new primary residences. We will see if these meet our needs
• Sign our refinance! After what feels like forever, we are getting $142k out of our house and refinancing the rate to 2.85%.
• Head to KS to work on our rental house

– look at two new houses

One of the best things this blog brought me was the Daily Three. Then I fell off the bandwagon, for lots of reasons. Making space for reflection and baby steps is important.

• Look at two new houses: we are continuing to look at new primary residences. We will see if these meet our needs
• Sign our refinance! After what feels like forever, we are getting $142k out of our house and refinancing the rate to 2.85%.
• Head to KS to work on our rental house

– look at two new houses

Health Insurance. I have lots of feels about this. LOTS of feels. I can hold forth about why this industry doesn’t need to exist, and it’s parasitic extraction of dollars from vulnerable populations, but…well I know this blog post is going to be long enough without it.

Our new Health Insurance year starts in August. Why? I don’t know. Last year, my husband’s organization offered one plan to people outside of the DC metro area. Having worked for companies based on the East Coast, we are used to having one, maybe two choices, because we don’t have the benefits of the local network. This means we usually have no choice but to pay high premiums.

This year, as his company adds more staff nationwide, they decided to offer more choices. 60 choices to be exact. Bless them for being more generous, but really?

I’ve known that health care is a big expense for us, but it’s like an iceberg. Part of the costs are visible, when I pay at the doctor’s office, but the rest are hidden in payroll deductions, negotiations between the hospital and the insurance company, employer contributions, and any number of other places. The premium number doesn’t tell the full story.

So, how was I going to figure out which of the 60 plans would be best for us? I needed something to compare it to.

How much did we pay for healthcare in 2019?

I figured the best place to start was with our receipts from last year. Thanks to YNAB, it was easy to pull how much we spent out of pocket on:

• Doctor’s Visits
• Therapy Sessions
• Prescriptions
• Chiropractic
• Eye Exams
• Allergy Shots
• Emergency Room Visits

But like I said, that’s only a part of the story. I went back to my pay stubs, and figured out how much I was contributing per paycheck, before taxes. I also had to account for the reimbursements my health insurance company paid for my out-of-network therapy.

Grand total: $4,549.50 before taxes PLUS $6,989 after taxes.

Well, that’s not confusing at all. What I really need is one number that includes both that shows me the impact on my take home pay. I know from past calculations that I take home roughly 80% of my gross pay. That means that if I hadn’t have paid $4,549 for health insurance, I would’ve seen $3,639 more in my paycheck.

Total Health Care Costs in After Tax Dollars: $10,628

Dear lord.

There are only two people in our house (and one really expensive dog – her bills go in another blog post). $5,300 a year per person for health care? *Resists the urge to get on a soapbox*

How can we Value Engineer Health Care?

Health care is necessary in our world, and that means good therapists are non-negotiable. At the same time, it’s a gamble. We could have a lower premium and hope that we don’t have any emergencies. If something goes catastrophically wrong, then we are out thousands of dollars. Not cool. As a necessity, but not something particularly enjoyable, we should focus on keeping the costs low.

The Process

1. Estimate how frequently we will use our benefits

Gathering the receipts for 2019 gave me a huge start on this process. It told me not only how much we spent, but also how often we used health insurance-related things. I made a spreadsheet (of course), with how frequently we went to the various doctors, and adjusted it, knowing what I know now about COVID and my therapy plans.

Between the two of us, I anticipated:

• 4 Primary Care appointments
• 1 Specialist appointment
• 72 chiropractic sessions
• 48 therapist sessions
• 26 prescription refills
• 2 emergency room visits

2. Filter the Plans

As I started to go through the 60 plans, I noticed patterns. First off, only 30 were available outside of the DC Metro Region – whew!

Then I noticed that there were three main types of plans, each with variations of metal level (Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum) and deductible. The type of plan set the rules on what was allowed and wasn’t allowed, and the metal level influenced the copays.

That meant I could compare a Gold Plan with a $500 deductible across all three plans to get a good understanding of what was covered and what wasn’t.

3. Make friends with the Statement of Benefits

Thanks to the Affordable Health Care Act, all health insurance plans have to offer a Statement of Benefits that is formatted in the same way. It lists many common procedures and what you’ll pay in-network vs. out of network.

I made a chart from the Statement of Benefits, listing out the common copays. It’s not pretty, but it got the job done.

4. Make a Calculator

Now that I had a sense of how often we’d use our benefits, and how much they would cost, I made a simple calculator that estimated the out of pocket costs we could anticipate. To really compare plans, you have to know BOTH the Annual Premiums (available from your employer) and the Out of Pocket Spending (OOP). Again, it’s not pretty, but it works.

You notice that the deductible spending is in a different column? I set up my table and calculator so that it would throw an error message (intentionally!) when something required us to meet our deductible first. Because our amazing therapists are out of network, we have to pay between $130-$150 a session. BUT those expenses make sure that we are well on our way to meeting our deductible every year. For each plan, I had to reckon with whether or not we would meet our In-Network Deductible and Out-of-Network deductible. Based on our Explanation of Benefits from last year (this is the piece of paper your insurance sends you after you’ve gone to the doctor), I could roughly estimate how much each visit would cost us.

5. Time for Chart #2: Comparing Plans

After I ran all the calculations to estimate the Out Of Pocket spending, it was time for another chart.

Again, I had to convert the Pre-Tax Dollars to After-Tax Dollars to really compare apples to apples. The total After-Tax cost in in the “Total Realized Cost” column. (I’ve really struggled with the terminology for these columns…it’s confusing!)

The thing that is striking when everything is side by side is that the Platinum and Gold plans end up costing us more in the long run for the types of health care that we use, even through the higher premium is supposed to mean that the insurance company picks up more of the bill. At the same time, the lowest premium isn’t the best deal, because so much of what we use has a co-pay.

6. Make the Final Choice

Ultimately, we settled on going with a Silver Plan that comes with a Health Savings Account (HSA). If we have the same needs as we did last year, we will end up saving about $3,100. If I could trim $3,000 from a few other areas, it would be amazing!

The Magical Nature of HSAs

Health Savings Accounts are much loved in the Financial Independence world, and I’ve heard some podcasts extol the benefits of using this money tax free for all kinds of things. “That’s great,” I think, “But what about those of us who spent over $10K on health care last year?!?”

Spoiler alert: They are still amazing. Let’s look at an overly simplified example.

Say the FI Value Engineer makes $1000 at a regular, W-2 paying job. Using our rough estimate from earlier, her take-home pay is $800. Then she goes to the doctor and pays $100 out of her checking account. Straightforward, right?

Now, say the FI Value Engineer has an HSA. She still makes $1,000, but now she puts in $100 in her account pre-taxes. Her take-home pay is now $720. Then she goes to the same doctor, and pays them $100 out of the HSA. She still has $720 left in her wallet. Using pre-tax money allowed her to get the same amount of service, and have some money left over.

If our family had been able to fund all of our out-of-pocket expenses with pre-tax money using an HSA, we would’ve saved nearly $1,400. Here’s looking at what is possible in 2020-2021!

2020 has been…indescribable… In addition to the pandemic and the tragic murder of George Floyd, I got a call from my mom at the end of April, saying “Come home now, your grandmother may be dying.” I broke quarantine, drove 300 miles, and worked side by side with my mother to move my grandmother into a higher care assisted living facility. Stubborn woman that she is, my grandmother’s physical health has rebounded. Unfortunately, dementia has set in. There’s a whole series of posts to be written on this situation.

At the same time, we’ve been really trying to make our home work for us. Increasing privacy, fixing things, installing solar. Then at the end of April, someone broke out our next door neighbor’s truck windows, and in response another neighbor fired off nine rounds. One of the bullets lodged in the side of the house. He’s lived in this neighborhood for six years, and I moved in four years ago. This is only the latest in a series of shootings, thefts, and vandalism.

When we had to install piers under our foundation in 2017, we said that it was worth it, since we would live here for another 5 years. Our Denver Bungalow had so many things going for it!

• An easy commute to our jobs downtown by public transit, bike, or car
• A big fenced in yard for our dog
• 10 minute drive to an entertainment district
• 5 minutes to the grocery store
• A big walking trail just a few blocks away
• A 1 bedroom apartment in the basement that we rented out to a dear friend
• Decent neighbors
• A rapidly changing neighborhood

After the latest incident, we started questioning, does this house still work for us. Then a drone started flying over our neighbors’ house. Turns out the owner of the house on the corner is planning to sell. Two blocks over, developers have put up 10 narrow townhomes, and another lot is being prepared for something. Could our darling Denver Bungalow become the “UP House” sometime soon?

My husband started looking at houses in a nearby suburb, with a unique downtown/city center area. We have friends who already live in this area. He found this house – a four bedroom, three bath house, with a fenced in back yard (patio, garden, and shed included) listed for $515,000. Further searches have found comparable houses in the $475K-$485K range. Redfin estimates that our current house could sell for $530,000, so if that’s true, we have $321K in equity to work with. It’s possible that we could sell our current house, buy a new home that has been recently updated, and lower our mortgage substantially.

A big downside is that by moving, we may lose our housemate. He’s being very silent on his needs/desires, although we’d be willing to take that into account. If we lose the income from him, we’d need to reduce our expenses by $800. On the flip side, a newer/more updated home, means that we’d need to put less aside each month for capital maintenance.

This seems very different than buying our investment property. It means we’re leaving our home. When we were looking for our rental, everything seemed stable, and we wouldn’t have to move anytime soon. In these pandemic times, I don’t even know where to start. Is it time to retain a real estate agent? Can you even look at houses? I’m unemployed, so does that hurt your chances of getting a mortgage? Ugh. It seems like the FI thing to do, but seriously…can I phone a friend?

When I was a kid, my brother had one of these marble labyrinths. I was fascinated by it. How were you supposed to get the marble to go through all of these little twists and turns, avoiding the holes? To my emerging motor controls, it was nearly impossible. Yet, I still remember the balsa wood smell, and the concern in my brother’s voice as my frustration grew.

Right now, the COVID-19 pandemic has me feeling like the marble in the labyrinth. Am I going up or down? Left or right? Too fast or too slow? Is this what early retirement is like? If so, I’ll keep working until I’m 80!

In uncertain times like these, it feels like we’re flying blind. Pilots train for flying blind, in case they caught in weather patterns that they may or may not have expected. What does their training tell them to do? Turn to their instruments. Take readings. Infer from the facts where they are headed.

I’ll admit, I’ve been reluctant to look at our instruments for financial independence. With the market tanking, our rental house still sitting empty and unfinished, and only one of us working, it seems like a scary proposition. At the same time, data can be soothing for me. That means, I’ll soon be updating my MadFientist Tracker, showing the real time progress towards the goal.

BUT, getting closer to our FI date is only half of the battle. We want to have a life that we enjoy, and those instruments are a lot harder to check. Full disclosure, this metaphor on checking your instruments in the darkness isn’t my creation. I “borrowed” it from Wendy Williams, Senior Minister of Jefferson Unitarian Church, in her April 12, 2020, sermon. She recommended that we interpret this as turning to our practices of self-reflection and connection. What information are we gathering there?

I’ll admit, I don’t have a ton of self-reflection practices. For us to figure this out, to really know if we have hit a point of financial independence, means that we have to identify those softer metrics. Stay tuned as we build that part of our FI system.

With COVID-19 in the news, and the world focused on finding a treatment or a vaccine (or both!), my mind has been going back to middle school science classes a lot. My favorite part was doing experiments. Trying things out, seeing what we learned, and seeing if the results are repeatable.

Right now, we are being forced to participate in a grand scientific and economic experiment. Recently, our state epidimeologist showcased the models of what it will take to continue to keep the COVID-19 virus at bay. Spoiler Alert: It’s not a one size fits all solution. There are five different components that will have to work in tandem to keep people safe. So what does this have to do with personal finance?

Personal finance is personal. What works for one person or family won’t work for another. That’s why you’ll hear things like “I tried Dave Ramsey, and it did/did not work for me.” While my partner and I have figured out what works for us, it doesn’t translate directly to our friends and family members. There is an emotional charge around money – memories, beliefs, feelings, actions – that are different for everyone. As your figure out your personal finance journey, try to let your middle-school scientist lead the way.

1. Define your question: What do you really want to know about your personal finance strategy? Maybe it’s “Why am I always stressed about money?” or “How can I build up a buffer for unplanned expenses?”
2. Do your background research: How have others solved this problem? Be sure to look up your sources and pull from credible experts (not just reddit.com/r/personalfinance), who aren’t trying to get you to buy their investment products.
3. Formulate a hypothesis: If I do [______], then I think [_____] will happen. Fill in those blanks with the variables that matter most. If I [go to the grocery store once every two weeks], then I think [I will spend less money].
4. Run your experiment: Set some parameters, like how long you will run this experiment. Think about making it repeatable. Document it all, so you can review and see if there were any other factors that might
5. Collect your data: What were the results from your experiment? What are you able to measure? Total dollars spend? Change in spending? In personal finance, the emotional data is as important as the hard numbers. How did this experiment feel? Did you love it or hate it?
6. Make sense of it: What does it mean? Does the data support your hypothesis or contradict it? Why? Are your results in line with the background research? Do you think you could repeat it?

Part of the reason I started this blog was to document my own personal finance experiments. In my first phase, I’m trying to figure out what the minimum spend is for a lifestyle that we enjoy, and that requires running a lot of different experiments at lowering costs. Share your questions and experiments in the comments!

It’s been two weeks since I’ve blogged last. In those two weeks, life has slowed down to a crawl. My husband started working full-time from home a week ago Monday, and last Thursday I helped my housemate bring home his computer system from work so he could continue to work from home. My routine has changed to getting up in the morning, checking the news, tuning out from the news, watching a press conference, baking, eating, and watching Gilmore Girls.

Strangely enough, my anxiety has calmed during this crazy time. There is nothing to do in this time except for being in the moment. When the thought occurs that should plant some seeds now, so we have fresh veggies in the next few weeks, I dig up some soil from the backyard. When the thought occurs to inventory the pantry and use up things that have been sitting in my fridge, I do that. When my body aches to move, I join the Planet Fitness live broadcast.

It’s interesting to think about this self-isolation as a way of reconnecting with our values – what do we miss when we can’t have it? What do we really need to have?

When I grew up, we lived 30 miles from the nearest supermarket and Wal-mart. We went to town once every three weeks. That was the time to get new books from the library, stock up on groceries, and make sure we had all the supplies we needed for the next three weeks. While this way of life was isolating, intentionally by an abusive parent, we never went hungry. Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without. That was the motto. And excellent preparation for the COVID-19 epidemic.

It’s interesting to reflect. I asked my partner the question “what does our FI life look like to you?” Immediately, his mind went to travel. I pushed back “But our day to day FI life? Do we still live in our home? Do we still have a dog? What’s different aside from the fact that we don’t have to go to the office?” The closest thing we could come to was that we would sit on our porch in the morning more, savoring hot beverages.

I’ve been catching up on Jillian Johnsrud’s Everyday Courage Podcast. Episode 6: Get Unstuck from a Mediocre Life has haunted me since I heard it. She said to identify those things in your life that are just okay, a 6 on a 1 to 10 scale from Terrible to Amazing, and work to improve them. It’s very aligned with my initial concept for value engineering. What I’m concerned about is that my partner and I are stuck at 4s in so many areas, and we’ve accepted that as good enough. Maybe this social distancing will give us the space and energy to question that process.

The other thing that I am very aware of in this time is the need to limit news and social media. I’ve been averaging six hours on my phone in the last week (down 8% from the previous week!). In response, I’ve made this little beauty: A Time Out Box

Just two days ago, our phones were in the box, and my husband and I were cuddled on the couch, trying to choose what board game to play. My husband says “This is what I want our FI life to be like. How can we have more moments like this?” The only thing different about that evening? No phones.

As I posted last week, I’m baffled by the amount that two people in our house spend on food. Then I turned around and spent half of our monthly food budget stocking up for a possible COVID-19 outbreak.

One way I plan to combat this is by making my own ingredients. So far, I’ve just looked at three things that I’ve bought for convenience: Garlic Paste and Chicken Broth. Earlier this year, I started pricing out my recipes like Budget Bytes does, and I was taken aback by the cost of chicken broth and garlic paste in my recipes.

Now, I often get rotisserie chickens for convenience, and they come with a magic ingredient for making chicken stock: a carcass. How do you make stock from a carcass? Put it in a pot, cover it with water, and boil for an hour or so, until the water reduces by half. Or, if you have an instant pot, try this method from Budget Bytes. ( I made this with just the carcass, bay leaves, peppercorns, and water, and it was so rich!). Water + throw away bones, means it costs $0.00 for each serving of broth, and I get about 8 cups of broth each time. Way better than $1 a cup!

When I started to wonder if this could hold true for garlic paste, I found out that making your own is a common “trick” among Indian cooks, thanks to My Heart Beets’ Recipe. If you put your unpeeled cloves of garlic inside of two metal bowls and shake them, the time it takes drops immensely. I also used a pastry bag to drop 1 tsp size servings on a parchment lined cookie sheet to freeze them. For $3.45 worth of garlic cloves, I was able to create 54 tsps of ready-to-go garlic paste. That’s about $0.06 a clove.

My hypothesis is that I can save $100 this year by swapping out these two convenience items. Already, with two batches of chicken broth and one batch of garlic, I estimate that I’ve saved $23.06. If I can figure out a thermometer widget for this blog, I’ll include it to track my progress!

What convenience foods do you wish you had a cheaper option for? Let me know in the comments!

Did you notice that there wasn’t a D3 yesterday? I write these posts to encourage the aggregation of marginal gains, as the Choose FI community says. Yesterday, there wasn’t a D3, because I started writing a blog about my most recent work in the nonprofit sector. I believe strongly that nonprofit staff and leaders need the principles of FI, but my brain shut down just writing it. You see, I left my job thanks to a severe bout of PTSD, which has taken four months and counting to recover from. The same thing happened when I started writing a post about Public Service Loan Forgiveness. So obviously, I’m not quite ready for that.

Looking Back: 3/4 and 3/5, 2020

• House Admin: Laundry and dishes are done. The house always feels more relaxed after this point.
• Mins Game – Days 1, 2, and 3 are caught up. 30, 29, and 28 items removed from the office collectively. I’m starting to get a bit stuck, so I’m going to start digital decluttering as well. My laptop is always in the office anyway.
• Instacart: I signed up for Insta Cart and they’re sending me a prepaid credit card to start making purchases.
• The Search for a Soda Stream: I visited 6 thrift shops looking for a used Soda Stream machine. We’re going through cans of seltzer like its going out of style. #sendhelp. I’m thinking if we make our own, it will be much more managable of a habit, and better for the planet too. So far, no luck. Any thoughts on where to look?

Looking Forward: 3/6/2020

• I’m going to look for jobs with the JobSpotter App in Downtown Arvada
• I’m going to blog and work on my website from the Arvada library. Libraries always make me happy.
• I’ll sign up for Rev.com transcription services.

Looking Back: 3/3/2020

• Catch up on the March Mins Game. I totally got started on the 30 day #MinsGame from The Minamilists, but the office was such a hot mess that I decided to go in reverse order. Instead of starting with one thing, I started with 30! And then since I’m behind I did 29 more things. It’s such a HUGE difference.
• Look at my resume. I updated my work history on LinkedIn and looked at a few job directories. I’ve got three positions to apply for. Now I just have to do the work.
• Make Chicken Enchiladas and freeze them. I made two batches of enchilada, one with Nightshade Free Enchilada Sauce Recipe and one with Old El Paso Sauce. It was so unfair how beautiful the one with canned sauce looked, compared to my hubby’s sad nightshade free enchiladas. The taste wasn’t bad, although it was so much better with a splash of lime. I’ll do the recipe again, but this time I’ll add lime to the sauce, thin it down with more chicken broth, and possibly add a splash of tamarind.

Looking Forward: 3/4/2020

• Work on MinsGame Days 28 and 27.
• Catch up on household admin – with the levels of anxiety that both my hubby and I have felt the past week, there’s laundry and dishes for DAYS!
• SEO optimize two posts from this blog

Looking Back: 3/2/2020

• Check out the Mercado on South Federal. The Lowe’s Mercado on South Federal blew my mind. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but it’s so clean on the inside. The produce and spice selection is fantastic. I ended up finding black beans for $0.89/lb, half the price of what’s in the white-centered grocery stores. This place will definitely be on my list going forward.
• Call about the energy audit on the rental property. I called and left a message, so hopefully they’ll get back to me today.
• Pupusas with a friend for dinner! – Well, the pupusa place turned out to be closed on Monday, but we still got together at the Mac N’ Cheesary. Gluten-free Mac and drink for $16 including tip, yes please! They let us stay for three hours, just catching up on life, the universe and everything.
• BONUS – Vanity purchased for the rental. I checked out the Wheat Ridge Habitat for Humanity Restore for the first time. I bought a beautiful bathroom vanity top and sink from the Hays Restore during my last Hays trip. It needed a 36″ base, which I thought was common. It is common, but they are expensive. It was going to be $215 for the cheapest Home Depot version. So, I started checking out the Restores. Well, I hit the jackpot! I found a 36″ vanity base in good condition for $75 – AND I got 10% off for joining the loyalty program. Now I just have to figure out how to schlep it to Kansas!

Looking Forward: 3/3/2020

• Catch up on the March Mins Game. I love the 30 day #MinsGame from The Minamilists. Basically, on the first day of the month, you get rid of one thing, on Day 2, two things, and on and on until you’re getting rid of 30 things at the end of the month. I like to focus on one room in my house at a time. Right now it’s my office. It’s got a serious case of post-holiday homeless items, and it’s ripe for the Mins Game.
• Look at my resume. I’m starting to feel some compulsion to apply for jobs. Several are coming through my network, and it’s time to get things started. We’ll see if I have a panic attack or not.
• Make Chicken Enchiladas and freeze them. I want to try this Nightshade Free Enchilada Sauce Recipe, although I think I’m going to make a batch that includes nightshades as well for my purposes.

Looking Back: 3/1/2020

• Go to church – check. During the service we tried Toning, humming in concert with a tone from striking a crystal bowl. That experience was both overwelming and hugely aligning. I don’t remember much from the homily, but the toning made an impact.
• See RENT with my housemate. 525,600 minutes, how do you measure a year in the life? Live musicals are amazing, and this cast was such high energy. I’m really glad that I knew the movie and the score, but it was so great to see it live! Live performances are so much more valuable than the recordings. As a special bonus there was a brass band performing right outside.
• BONUS: I found a new theme for this blog, which does what I want it to do mostly, right off the get go!
• BONUS: YNAB Reconciliation. After I got home from the theater, my hubby decided to start the monthly reconciliation of YNAB. We pull in any pending credit card transactions, fill any overspending in the previous month, and go through and see if there are any overages that we can rebudget. It’s good bonding time and it puts us on the same page of our finances.

I’m really glad that I kept my daily expecations low. Yesterday, I felt like I was moving through quicksand. I’m not very good about giving myself grace, and that’s a self-defeating behavior when I’m recovering from a mental health episode.

Looking Forward: 3/2/2020

• Check out the Mercado on South Federal. Ever since my instant pot made black beans a lot less intimidating, I’m going to see where I can find them for cheap, and I LOVE going to grocery stores. Dry beans and rice are a great staple for “stocking up in case the coronovirus makes us stay inside.” If you’re starting to feel increased anxiety from this potential pandemic, read this Scientific American blog post about how to prepare.
• Call about the energy audit on the rental property. This energy audit will make a new stream of financing available, which will hopefully have a big impact on things.
• Pupusas with a friend for dinner!

Looking Back: 2/29/2020

• Church Leap Day Party – Success! We finally got to see the new church building, which is huge, and would be a wonderful home for JUC.
• Prune the fruit trees – Check. Huge thanks to the hubby for getting started on this project. James Prigioni’s video on how to prune an apple tree gave us the confiedence to take care of our poor neglected dwarf apple. See the before and after below.
• Work on our February Value+Money Report – Didn’t happen. I worked on my rental budget some more, but this will be delayed.
• BONUS: Went to the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and got a lot of ideas for the rental house.

Looking Forward: 3/1/2020

• Go to church, and see if it will be recharging.
• See RENT with my housemate. The tickets were a Christmas present, and I’m stoked to see this show live.

I’m only setting the expectation of these two things today. Yesterday I had a mental health episode that’s left me really drained. If I get anything else accomplished, it’s a huge win.

Looking Back: 2/28/2020

• Make a budget for the rental house rennovations. I started this process, and realized that I didn’t need just a budget, I needed to start with a profit and loss statement, in order to get my arms around how much we’ve invested so far. I set up a new budget in YNAB to capture the investements and the outflows of money. That took about two hours to reconcile and set up in a way that I wanted. I wasn’t sure how to wrap my head around the planned expenses, and my lunch date was coming up, so I paused on the project.
• Go to lunch with a friend. My friend has a 9/80 schedule, and yesterday was her Friday off. We met up at a local Indian buffet and stuffed our selves on chai and pakora, and I got gajar halwa AND Kheer! Winning. Spending ~$22 including tip. They let us stay there for 3 hours chatting.
• Went on a hike with the husband and the dog. My husband wrapped his week by 3pm and scootered home as I was finishing up my lunch date. I had scoped out the trails and decided that this was the day to go hike Lookout Mountain Nature Preserve. I’ve been up to Buffalo Bill’s grave before, but never to the Nature Preserve and Boettcher Mansion. We made one wrong turn and Google maps decided it would take us 30 more minutes to get to our destination, but thanks to B’s amazing driving skills, he founda spot to U-turn, and we found the park. The veiws were AMAZING! Totally recommend.
• BONUS: Holidaily Brewing: As it was rush hour and there was an accident on I-70, we decided at the sput of the moment to check out Holidaily Brewing in Golden, CO, a dedicated gluten-free brewery, and they happened to be dog friendly. Not only were the beers great, they had the Dedicated Bistro and Bakery food truck on site! We struck up a converstation with a Golden City Councilor and his wife, as we sampled a flight of different flavors. The doggo got treats from two different folks, and I ended up with a basket of GF chicken fingers. Unfortunately, the food truck battered everything in potato starch, so my hubby had limited options, but the food truck owner figured out how to get him pulled pork and coleslaw that had minimal nightshades! She rocked, as did the ladies who run Holidaily – definitely a spot to check out. We ended up spending around $50, but it was a great date night for the whole family.

Looking Forward: 2/29/2020

• Check out the church party at the potential new home of Jefferson Unitarian Church. I hear one of our pastors is dressing up as a giant pickle.
• Prune the fruit trees. We have a peach, plum, and a bunch of apple prouts coming up from a heritage fruit tree. Youtube is going to be our friend here.
• Work on our February Value+Money Report.

Looking Back: 2/27/2020

• Made chicken broth from the bones of the last rotisserie chicken. I started doing this last year, after realizing that the 8 oz servings of store-bought chicken broth were astronomically expensive ($3.99 for 4 8-oz single serve containers, or $1/cup). When I make it myself, I use the bones and skin from a rotisserie chicken. In a stock pot, I place the carcass and I fill the pot with water. I set it to boil, and then I boil it until about half the water is gone. Once cool, I strain out the solids and freeze it in quart baggies. It makes 8 8-oz servings from what I would’ve thrown away.
• Call about house rennovations for framing the bathroom at the rental house. I got a hold of another handy man that came recommended, and he’ll come take a look at the house sometime next week.
• Figure out student loan defferment – forms submitted! Since I’m unemployed, I knew I could qualify for a defferment.Because of how my income went up last year, I’m now paying $620 a month for student loans. The change went into effect right as I lost my job. Terrible timing. I was able to find the paperwork from the state unemployment office, fill out the form and submited it via the online portal. Now we wait!

Looking Forward: 2/28/2020

• Make a budget for the rental house rennovations
• Go to lunch with a friend
• Plan a hike with the husband and the dog

In 2019, we averaged $483.75 a month in grocery spending, and another $722 a month in dining out. Our family is two humans and a large dog. For a girl who used to spend a total of $150 a month on food in grad school, that’s a whole lot of lifestyle inflation. On the flip side, my husband was averaging $800 a month feeding himself when we first got together, so by his standards, we’re doing good.

Groceries and dining out are one of the first targets for people looking to reign in spending. Last year, the average meal at home cost us $3.10 a person, but when we ate out, we averaged $16 a meal per person. The markup on food that’s prepared for you is out of this world. Two Cents did an amazing video on this called “How Eating Out Keeps You Poor.” Totally worth a watch.

One of my 2020 goals is to wrap my hands around this issue. The dollars we spent on food last year could’ve had a much higher value.

My first step in January was to set up new YNAB goals to help us understand where the money goes:

You’ll notice, we split our Dining Out Category into five different buckets. I don’t have a problem spending money on Date Night. Usually that’s really high quality time and food. I’m also okay if we spend money on Dining Out with Friends. That also adds a lot of value to my life. Dining Out because we are Too Tired to Cook or On The Go is a little more questionable. Those categories continue to make up a full quarter of our dining out budget!

Groceries came in right on budget in January ($400). I see all these YouTubers who spend less than that to feed a family of four. We don’t eat a ton of prepackaged food, name brands, organic produce, or gourmet ingredients. I also have a freezer, and I enjoy cooking. I’m puzzled about this number, so there’s a lot of room for investigation. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

1. The ingredients in my common recipees don’t match what I think I buy from the store. I pulled the ingredients from my most common recipes into a Pivot table, and besides chicken breasts and onions, I was surprised at what came into the top. Misalignment costs money.
2. We ate from the pantry for most of February, but still spent over half of our budget. I went to the grocery story 14 different times during the month to get one or two things, and came out with more than I bargained for. I think limiting it to once a week grocery trips is important.
3. Conveniece products like garlic paste and 8 oz chicken broth are hella expensive in comparison to their counterparts. I made my own garlic paste and froze it in 1 tsp portions. I was paying $4.49 for 24 tsps of garlic paste ($0.187/tsp). My homemade version was $3.45 for 52 tsps ($0.066/tsp).

While these three lessons are helpful, it definitely isn’t the bottom of the myster yet. Our grocery shopping is complicated by the fact that I’m adjusting my cooking to be largely nightshade-free, when everything used to be based on tomato sauces and peppers.

We’re also over our target weights by between 20 to 40 pounds at any given moment. I love Beth at BudgetBytes’s principle #3: Portion control. She says it best: ” When you eat more food than you need, you are quite literally spending money that you don’t need to spend. ”

As I learn more, I’ll keep you updated!

Looking Back: Feb. 26, 2020

1. Made Black beans in the Instant Pot from dry beans following Detoxinista’s instructions. One pound of beans for $1.69 made the equivalent of four cans of black beans from the store, which I typically buy for $0.69 each. These came out to $0.42 each. I think I can easily double this recipe and make twice as many cans in the same amount of time. Now to find the cheapest dry beans!
2. Fill out paperwork for my new consulting therapist – done. Appointment today.
3. Order sink and ceiling fan from Home Depot – done. Home Depot’s pick up in store option was super fast. My property manager had them in under three hours, and they’ve been dropped off at the house.

Looking Forward: 2/27/2020

• Call and get a quote about house rennovations for framing the bathroom at the rental house.
• Make chicken broth from the bones of the last rotisserie chicken.
• Figure out student loan defferment

Initially, I thought, “Okay, blog world, I’m going to write two big posts each week on Tuesday and Thursday.” Well, that’s gone well. Last week, I was in Kansas working on our rental house, and I had great plans to write a post on Public Service Loan Forgiveness. Then it all got mixed and mashed up, as my student loans were more complex than I thought. Shocker, right?

Instead of big posts, I’m going to attempt to post daily baby steps towards greater financial independence or improved value in my life. I’ll share a look back at yesterday, and what worked (or didn’t!) and then set intentions for today.

Looking back: Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020

1. Joined a gym and went with my hubby! He had been talking about it for a while, and I went and visited two Planet Fitness franchises in the area. One of my doctors reccomened physical activity to help with my anxiety. A thirty-minute session before dinner put both of us in a better mood. Cost: $1 until 3/17
2. Made homemade pizza. Pizza is unfortunately complicated in our house. I’m gluten free and my partner has a nightshade allergy. After the gym, we made a homemade crust and topped it with safe things. It was so good, and it was a real quality us activity! I don’t know that it was cheaper than our Papa Murphy’s habit, but it gained us some energy. Cost: $15ish dollars.
3. Listed to an audiobook on Overdrive while cleaning the house. My anxiety is letting my finally read and follow more complicated books. I finished Data: A Love Story by Amy Webb, and it was so good. I’m out of the dating scene, but I would’ve love to have this book when it was first out. Cost: $0 thanks to the Denver Public Library!

Looking Forward: Feb. 26, 2020

1. Make black beans in the Instant Pot from dry beans following Detoxinista’s instructions. I’ve been using cans for ever, so I’m interested to see how this works.
2. Fill out paperwork for my new consulting therapist.
3. Order sink and ceiling fan from Home Depot, so my property manager can pick them up in store. Keep that rental property moving!

If you listen to The Lazy Genius Podcast, you’ve probably heard how Kendra reccomends that you limit the number of gurus that you follow in your life. I didn’t realize how much I needed this advice, until I heard it last summer!

When I’m stressed, I look outward – someone on the internet has to have mastered this! Last summer, I was tuning in to fundraising gurus, podcasts on how to declutter, articles about how to get your spouse to help with housework, how to live more efficiently and effectively. How to do more with less. As I was trying to optimize my life, I didn’t realize that I’d gone past the point of being more effective to the point of trying to use life hacks to splice my being into smaller and smaller peices. In fact, trying to follow all these systems was making my life less desirable, instead of more.

Once I heard Kendra’s advice to not have more than one guru per life area, I started trimming. My podcast subscription list was cut in half! I stopped checking out nonfiction books from the library. I unfollowed many YouTube personalities. It was the permission I needed to take a breath. But there were some voices that were still valuable, and here’s who made the cut in no particular order.

• Brooke McAlary, host of The Slow Your Home podcast and author of Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World. Much of my current perspective on living a good life is owed to Brooke and her husband Ben’s inspiring podcast, where they talk about their imperfect journey to savor the world and raise their kids. I kind of want to be Brooke when I grow up. She is incredibly honest about the role that postpartum depression played in realizing that she wasn’t living a life she would be proud of in the end. Since realizing that she needed to make a change, she’s authored multiple books, and they’ve even uprooted their family to live in the Canada and the US for nearly a year. Slow is a must-read for anyone who is considering living with a little less stuff and a lot more intention.
• Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius, podcaster and soon to be author. I first came across Kendra when I was trying to figure out how to plan meals without wanting to die. Meal planning is both enjoyable and an anxiety trigger for me (thanks, brain), but Kendra’s method of embracing brainless crowdpleasers is super calming to me. She started out as my go-to guru for household maintenance and routines, but I’ve also found a lot of values in her approach to self-care. I also like to have her keep me company as I putter around the house. Follow her instagram @thelazygenius for more inspiration.
• Sarah Von Bargen, author of the Yes and Yes blog, coach, and teacher extrodinaire. Sara is my happiness guru, and I learned about her through the A Simple Year course that Brooke McAlary was also a part of. Sarah’s approach to money and happiness is a big influence on my life experiment and my path to financial independence. Her approach to happiness and money brought me a whole new lense on how I have tried to buy happiness in the past. I love her sassy attitude and her focus on traveling in smaller cities. She also has a No Grocery Challenge book that is gold when you want put yourself on a spending freeze and clean out your cabinets. (Hi, my name is the FI Value Engineer, and I’m a food hoarder…)
• Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa, hosts of the ChooseFI podcast. A dear friend turned me on to this podcast when she told me that she was building a studio efficiency apartment in her house, post divorce, to allow her to house hack and buy her freedom from her mortgage. I devoured the episodes, as it appealed to both my frugal self, and the part of myself that wasn’t happy in my job. I love their approach to building a community that is learning from itself, sharing replicable strategies to not have to subscribe to the rat race. I’m on a waiting list for their new book Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.

While I go through stages where I try to collect more gurus, these are the ones I return to again and again. I limit my googling by starting with their websites and podcasts, and then decide how far down the rabbit hole I need to go.

Who are your gurus? Not sure? Check out Episode 32 of Emily P. Freeman’s The Next Right Thing podcast, “Stop Collecting Gurus” for an interesting approach. Emily pops on and off of my radar, becuase she’s a little too churchy for me, but she has some amazing pointers here. If you know who your gurus are, pop them in the comments below!

I’m unemployed at the moment, and the last thing a responsible personal finance blogger in my position should advocate for is taking a vacation, right? Maybe not.

Since September 2019, my anxiety and depression were spiraling out of control, hitting a breaking point in early November. In the early part of the spiral, I had a video call with my three besties from Grad School, and we decided it was time to get together. I confidently said that the time didn’t really matter, becuase I had a bunch of vacation days to use up. Little did I know what was around the corner…

Thanks to YNAB, I had the money set aside for the trip, so there was no need to worry that I wouldn’t be able to go when I lost my job. We settled on Blowing Rock, North Carolina in February, in the off season. As my guru, Kendra, the Lazy Genius says, Name What Matters. Our main purpose was to step out of our daily lives and be with one another. Really, our decision-making procress reminded me of that JoDee Messina song “Heads Carolina, Tails California.”

In some of my most challenging times during this period of anxiety and depression, I’ve wished I could go back in time to Grad School, where I keep mental bookmarking as the high point of my life. At that time, I was seeing these ladies multiple times a week. We’d have potlucks, coffee dates, random chats after classes, and adventures throughout Indianapolis. My life was incredibly high value, even though none of us had any money to our names.

In my mind, this “vacation” was far from optional. I needed to reconnect with these women who knew me when I was a version of myself that I liked. I needed a break from the life that continues to feed the voices in my head that say “You’re broken, and you’ll never be whole again.”

I prepped for the trip by making sure I had what I needed in case the anxiety hit. I had almonds, and planned to stop by the grocery store on our way to the condo for juice boxes. Eating a handful of almonds and drinking a small box of juice each morning calms my morning anxiety substantially. Thanks to the West Pines Medication Management Clinic for that hot tip. I made sure my LexaPro and my Vistaril were packed. My husband prepped two of my traveling companions with what I’m capable of. It felt safe enough to venture out of my turtle shell.

And I am so glad I did. Despite some canceled flights, motion sickness, and unexpected snow (one my friends had to cancel her part of the trip), it was utterly refreshing. I was able to stay in tune with when things were getting to be too much, and step back and rest. We cooked, we laughed, we bought a new quote book, we shopped, and we stayed up far too late eating ice cream and watching movies. It filled my cup.

This Girls Weekend was priceless in its value, but it did have a cost. A huge thanks to Splitwise which helped us keep track of who bought what, and who we needed to reimburse. Splitwise is an app that links with Venmo and Paypal to make paying your friends easy, but the real gold is in the ability to split payments among a group, in nearly any configuration you choose.

All in, I spent about $800 including flights, lodging, meals, and shopping. I have abosultely ZERO regrets. The value of this trip has really encouraged me to look into travel hacking. In fact, I started the ChooseFI Travel Hacking course on the flight home! This trip felt full of luxury, but in truth it was a necessity, and one that I will gladly factor into my financial independence journey.

2019 was the first year that my husband and I had all of our expenses in the same place. Talk about transparency. You Need A Budget (YNAB) has helped us allocate our money and set intention for spending. Comparing intention to reality? That’s another story.

I kind of geeked out about the data at the beginning of the year. And by kind of, I mean I created three spreadsheets worth of analysis and developed a 38-slide powerpoint presentation for my husband. You guys, it had motivational quotes. #IHaveAProblem #TheFirstStepIsAcknoweldgement

What were my top takeaways from this process?

1. We spent a lot of time and money on travel. We were on trips 43 days last year – and that doesn’t include our work travel.
2. Our dining out spending was more than I had thought. We averaged $700 a month for the two of us. Granted, when my husband and I were first dating, he’d spend $800 a month eating out for himself alone. I was on the opposite end of the spectrum.
3. We spent a lot of money on things that didn’t bring us closer to the life we want to live. I had the “magic number” salary of $85,000 a year for peak happiness, but I was exhausted and burnt out all the time. My anxiety kept spiking through the roof, and money didn’t make it better.

These three points have really framed my recommitment to exploring Financial Independence. In so many ways, we spent money to try to drive up our energy, but the opposite happened. I don’t know where it went wrong, but I want to find out.

March 2038. That’s our FI Date. 18 years from now. If nothing changes from last year, which it DEFINITELY will. It already is. This estimate is from the MadFientist’s Calculator, and while I don’t entirely understand all the math behind it, it’s good enough for now.

I’m not going to lie, I’m diassapointed in that date. I was hoping it was a five to ten year timeline.

As a caveot, last year, the big spike in expenses in October was buying our first rental property. We won’t be doing that every year, so perhaps our FI date is closer than we think. Excluding the rental house, our monthly averages for 2019 were:

• Income: $9,458
• Expenses: $6,943
• Savings: $2,515
• Savings Rate: 26%

In 2018, we were riding the credit card float, and I wasn’t sure that I’d have enough from each paycheck to cover the payment. The fact that we made any substantial savings in 2019 was due to joining You Need a Budget (YNAB). My love letter to YNAB will come later, but take my word for it. It’s so worth the learning curve to change how you think about money.

My goal is to update this chart monthly, and track my progress towards shortening that date. I’ve got so many ideas, it’s a bit overwhelming!

I don’t have a job at the moment. I’m on family and medical leave. I did the math last night to see how if we kept our spending the same, where we would be by the end of the year. It was $30,000 in debt. I brought this up to my husband, with the suggestion that we see what we can do to value engineer our life in the next three months. He heard it as “what are we going to sacrifice?”

When I think about value engineering, I think about a few things.

Are there things that we are paying for that aren’t bringing value to our lives?

For me, this is the $30 a month I pay to Save the Children. While the cause is dear to my heart (I thought I would work in international relief), I donate because of a street canvasser, and that practice makes me feel icky. Over the course of a year, that’s $360 that makes me feel icky.

Are there ways to get the same experience but spend less?

The easiest thing for me here is thinking about grocery spending. I priced a meal of my favorite chicken curry at $12.82 for 4 servings. Chicken is on sale this week, as are the frozen veggies use. That same recipe, is now 10.15 for 4 servings. That is $0.67 savings per meal. If we were able to do that for one meal a day for both of us for a full year, that’s nearly $500 in available money.

Last year, we spend $105 dining at Smashburger. Costco sells packages of $100 worth of Smashburger gift cards for $75. Had we bought a package of those, we would’ve been ahead $25. I did the same with Old Chicago gift cards for the last time we were in Hays. Two were for Christmas gifts, and the other two I kept, saving us $25.

Are there things that bring us more value for less money?

This is the hardest one, but also the one I’m most interested in. For me, the closest thing I’ve achieved here is riding my bike to the office. If I drove, it would be $12.35 for parking at the office. If I took the train, it was $5.10 round trip. If I biked, it was free. I also got in some of my daily exercise, and I had the freedom to arrive and leave when I wanted (like if I drove). I also got experience the outdoors, which was good for my soul and stress levels.

The second type of value engineering is rampant across the internet in frugal living websites, coupon match blogs, and more. A part of the enjoyment of this is inthe hunt. One of my dear friends was an extreme couponer in grad school. She excelled at getting a huge number of things for pennies on the dollar. When she moved, I inherited a huge number of things from her stash. I think I finally used them up over the last move.

The 1st and 3rd types of value engineering are more akin to the principles of Your Money or Your Life, which is one of the best books for rethinking your relationship with money, and Vicki Robin’s most recent update is spot on.  The basic principle is that you turn your time into money every day that you go to work. Then we spend that time when we spend our cash. I’ll do a longer post on that later, but it really puts things into perspective. Is my $5 latte worth 20 minutes of being on the job? Could we have a life that brings us so much joy that we don’t have to work full time? What is possible?

As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifiying purchases, so if you purchase Your Money or Your Life from this link, I get a referral fee! You’ll want the paperback version to scribble all your notes in the margins!