Catching up for Mother’s Day.

It’s been a minute. A lot of minutes. Life keeps getting away from me. Days go by and I don’t post on this site, then I get anxious because I haven’t posted for a while. And then the anxiety prevents me from thinking of anything to write.

“Tomorrow,” I promise myself.

Riiiight.

Another dilemma: What to write? Sometimes I think I should post only about personal finance in general and frugality in particular. This is true even though my personal writing topics tend to get more reaction and feedback. Then again, sometimes money and frugality are extremely personal topics. 

I’ve been doing this since May 2010, and while I don’t want to give it up, I do want to feel less pressured to write. Interesting how the only person putting pressure on me is me.

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Weather, COVID and a deep discount.

A couple of weeks ago it was below zero. Today it’s supposed to hit 62 degrees. This has been a weird spring, full of weird weather.  

Re the photo at left: Either the greenhouse effect is real, or the remote thermometer in that greenhouse is defective. Maybe a little of each. (The temperature on the right is that of our living room.) This picture was taken on Monday afternoon, when the temperature was in the 50s outdoors –  not what you would call extremely warm, but the angle of the sun hits the greenhouse just right.

About that sun: Sunday, April 18, was the first night of 2021 without complete darkness. According to the National Weather Service, the sky will not darken past “astronautical twilight” until Aug. 25.

If you, like me, are unfamiliar with astronautical twilight, here’s how the NWS explains it: “the level of light observed when the sun is 12 to 18 degrees below the horizon.”

Okay then. Until I moved here I also had never heard the phrase “civil twilight,” either. Live and learn.

Incidentally: The sun rose at 6:23 a.m. today and will set at 9:34 p.m. But thanks to that astronautical twilight, it will seem earlier/later. And, as DF points out, we still have lots of snow left on the ground to amplify that light. Um, yay?

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Monday miscellany: Debt hangover edition.

About one-third of U.S. residents took on debt for the 2020 holidays, according to a study from the Magnify Money personal finance site. Breaking it down further, there’s good, bad and worse news about these findings. The good news: Fewer people (31 percent) borrowed this year than last year (44 percent). The bad news: Those … Read more

A blogger at rest.

(Surviving and Thriving has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Surviving and Thriving and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses and recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.)

It’s been a while. A really long while. I wish I could say that I’ve been off saving the world, or crafting a best-selling novel, or doing anything else that might justify a 33-day vacation from posting here.

What’s actually been happening is a mix of the usual reasons (holidays, winter challenges, the chance to do extra work) plus an end-of-life situation affecting a family member (and, to some extent, me).

The cumulative impact was that my off-duty writing slowed to a trickle (18 posts in three months) and ultimately stalled.

The longer I didn’t write, the more anxious I became that:

  • I’d run out of things to say, and
  • That I’d need to come up with a super-skookum topic in order to justify the lengthening absence.

Which, of course, led to performance anxiety. I can’t think of anything interesting to write about my own life, and no money-related topics are speaking to me right now.

To paraphrase Newton’s first law of motion, a blogger at rest tends to stay at rest unless it’s acted upon by an outside force. In my case, a pair of forces finally came into play:

My own conscience, and

Comments from readers, both here and on my daughter’s site.

 

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Now available: the FinCon19 Virtual Pass.

We were given a very small number of words to pitch our presentations for FinCon19. Here’s the description of my panel, “From Guest Posts to Six Figures: Actionable Tips for Freelancers”:

Beginning writers often take any jobs they can find, even if they’re poorly paid and/or labor-intensive. You need the clips! But at some point you should ask yourself whether it’s wise to do things like:

– Write for “exposure” (Hint: People DIE of exposure.)

– Write for peanuts (especially for clients who take up waaay too much of your time)

– Take assignments you don’t believe in (“Yay payday loans!”)

– Keep working with First-Ever Client out of loyalty, although other gigs pay better

The takeaways:

– Finding the right jobs

– Learning to say “no” (e.g., to calls/Skypes that take too much of your time)

– Asserting yourself (“My rates have gone up,” or “Sorry, I won’t put together a sidebar without being paid extra”)

– The gentle art of firing a client

It’s your career. Take charge of it, and don’t sell yourself short.

I had three wonderful, experienced panelists – Jackie Lam, Ben Luthi and Miranda Marquit –– and a responsive audience that asked good questions. It was a great experience that went past its alleged stop time and spilled out into the hallway for even more questions.

Sorry you missed it? You can pick up the video version by purchasing the FinCon19 Virtual Pass. The pass features 90+ sessions, including keynoters Sharon Epperson and Ramit Sethi, and it’s the next best thing to attending the Financial Blogger Conference IRL.

 

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Salary vs. the “right” job.

My least-favorite job ever was working at the glass factory, right after high school. Great salary, for its time and for my age. But it was hotter than the hinges of Hades (thanks, glassmaking furnace!). Loud music (mostly country and western) blared nonstop. We stood on concrete floors throughout our eight-hour shifts.

Well, eight hours for some people. That summer I did a lot of double shifts. Here’s how my regular schedule looked:

Work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. for five days, then get a day off.

Go in at 3 p.m. the next day and work from 3 to 11 p.m. for five days, then get two days off.

Go in at 11 p.m. and work until 7 a.m. for the next five days, then get two days off and go in at 7 a.m. the next day.

Labor, rinse, repeat.

Except, as noted, I worked a lot of double shifts. Normally I might have grossed anywhere from $163 to $171 per week, depending on the shift. In two months of work, I grossed a little over $1,800.

 

While the job stank on ice, it was a good example of what I didn’t want to do for a living. It wasn’t that I was too good for the work, but rather that I wanted something different. Some people got married, bought homes and raised families on glass-factory salaries (which increased as you gained seniority). That was fine for them. It just wasn’t a good fit for me.

Lately I’ve been wondering whether I’d say “yes” if Company X asked me to return to the world of full-time work. After all, I’ve still got some years left before retirement and wouldn’t mind goosing my Social Security check a bit. Thus I decided that if the mythical Company X offered me a job, I might take it – provided there were an obscenely large paycheck attached to the gig.

How large? Not sure. But certainly more than the $77,000 annual salary cited in a recent study from the fintech company Self Lender.

 

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Calling all Sue Grafton fans.

Yesterday I pulled a T-shirt out of my “play clothes” pile, i.e., the stuff that’s too faded/holey to wear in polite company but just fine for slopping around like a freelancer. It was my old Alaska Sisters in Crime T-shirt, from way back in the 1990s.

In case you are unfamiliar with that organization: SinC is made up of readers who enjoy mysteries and wish to support and encourage those written by women.

The shirt our chapter made up bore the slogan: “Sisters in Crime Alaska: Where the trail is always cold.” Which is a lot funnier if you’re a fan of mysteries, thrillers, whodunits or police procedurals.

(I’m proud to say that I came up with the slogan myself.)

What does this have to do with the late writer Sue Grafton? I’m getting to that.

 

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Black Friday 2017: Are you in or out?

I have given birth to boring. My daughter put up a blog post today that testifies to tedium:

“I check the leaked Friday ads for what the Walgreen’s site-wide discount will be – so that I can buy really exciting stuff like toilet paper and garbage bags.

“Last year, I made a whole Excel spreadsheet to find the best price for loading up on the aforementioned toilet paper and garbage bags, plus hand soap, body wash, a couple of skin-care products and…Ugh, it’s all a boring, boring blur.”

Truth is, my own tastes are fairly plebeian this year. In fact, I have only two things I really want to get:

Butter. It’s $2.29 per pound, limit five, at Fred Meyer. That’s noticeably cheaper even than Costco, and since DF and I are all about the holiday peanut brittle and sea-salt caramels, I plan to limit out on this greasy goodness.

Bedclothes. Sheets are on sale but I’m not sure I’ll get them; will depend on how they feel. I’m more interested in the micro-plush blanket sale, also at Fred Meyer. Right now we’re sleeping under a mass of loosely connected blanket molecules; it’s a machine-crocheted number that’s so old DF can’t remember its exact age. Still warm, but the crocheted holes are turning into gaps in spots so I want to get one of those blankets, which are limited to stock on hand.

Speaking of which: I may or may not go there at 5 a.m. Friday. Yes. On purpose, for a handful of reasons:

 

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Second eye fixed; second book almost done.

The cataract surgery on my right eye took place last week and went as smoothly as the first one. Well, all except for the healing: This one is bloodshot and a bit sore seven days after the procedure.

It’s not infected, though. I know this because I went for a check-up today and was told I could stop using the antibiotic eye drops, although I do need to keep squirting in the steroidal ones.

Once the eye is completely healed I’ll be able to get an updated prescription for glasses. Until then, I’ve been enjoying the odd sensation of walking around the house sans specs without bumping into anything. Or to sit at a computer and write, as long as I increase the type size.

Speaking of writing…

 

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‘Playbook For Tough Times’ update.

thWho knew the amount of work it takes to self-publish a book?!? Answer: Everyone who’s already done it or is working on it now.

I’m firmly in the latter camp. About 10 days ago I finished writing and editing “Your Playbook For Tough Times.” Sort of.

Even as I rejoiced that the work was done (a butt dance may or may not have been involved), I felt a bit uneasy. Within a day or two my subconscious was nagging: “Aren’t a couple of those chapters a little bloated?”

No! Shut up! It’s done and it looks GREAT!

In fact, I was so sure it was done that I sent it off to a few people who’d offered to read/critique the thing. And then last Saturday evening I sat down to take “just a quick look” at the manuscript. You can guess what happened next.

 

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