Disneysteve's Common Cents Blog

September saw a spike in spending but some of that was work-related and I will get reimbursed so I need to adjust for that.

It looks like we're right around $5,475 for our monthly average when I tease out that other stuff.

Of course, I also bought a car in September but I'm not counting that in our monthly spending average since it's a one-time pre-planned event, not part of our everyday budget.

Even with the increase, we're still running almost $1,200/month lower than 2019 so I'm okay with that. And I do think September was a bit of an anomaly. That number will probably drop again in October.

I've been looking for a car for a little while but didn't start looking seriously until last month. I had decided that I wanted to avoid car salespeople and do it online as much as possible so I focused on Carmax and Carvana.

I found one I liked on Carmax 2 weeks ago. It was in NC so I paid $99 to have it shipped to NJ. It arrived on Wednesday and we went over to see it on Friday and I bought it.

It's a 2018 Toyota Camry XSE. Only has 13,500 miles and is in beautiful shape.

The whole buying process with Carmax was fantastic. No pressure at all. No attempt to upsell me on anything. Clean and easy, the way it should be. I would definitely do it again the next time we need a car.

I've been car shopping and found one today that I will probably buy if all is well when I see it in person.

I decided this time around I was going with either Carmax or Carvana. I wanted to do as much of it as possible online and have a fixed price and not have to deal with a sleazy commission-based salesperson. I'm paying cash so no need to deal with the finance department either. I had saved a search for what I wanted on both sites and have checked back daily for new inventory. One came up yesterday that was very nice but also more expensive than I wanted. Then today, a couple of new ones popped up and I jumped on one of them.

It's currently in North Carolina so I'm having it shipped to NJ ($99 fee). They'll let me know when it arrives and is ready for me to come check it out. No obligation to buy, and if I do buy, they have a 7-day return policy.

Anyway, it's a 2018 Toyota Camry XSE with just under 13,000 miles. Red exterior, black interior.

Now I just wait for it to get here and then go check it out.

I realized a while back that our cash allocation had grown rather large - larger than I really want it to be.

I finally sat down and did something about it today. I had a bunch of cash in both my traditional IRA and my Roth, so two places with no tax implications to moving money around.

I put in a buy order for something in the traditional IRA. Then I put in an order to move money into the settlement account in my Roth. I know I could do the buy orders I want right away but I always get nervous by the "there are insufficient funds in your settlement account for this transaction" warning that pops up. So I'll wait a day or two until the money is actually there and then place the buy orders.

The end result will be our cash allocation dropping and our stock allocation rising by about 2.7% which will put us back right about where I want our asset allocation to be.

I was going to wait until the end of the month to look at this but I happened to check today. We're almost 2/3 of the way through 2020. It's remarkable how much of an impact COVID has had on our spending.

In 2019, our average monthly spending came to $6,657 or $79,884 for the entire year.

So far in 2020, our average monthly spending is only about $5,190. Extrapolated out for 12 months that will be just $62,280, almost $18,000 less than last year.

I haven't sat down and really dug into the numbers but just on the surface, the biggest chunk of the savings has got to be from the lack of travel. Number two would be the lack of dining out.

We have started dining out again since NJ opened for outdoor dining at the end of June but we're still doing way less than previously. It's been too darn hot to eat out most of the time. As the weather starts to get a little more moderate, we'll probably go out more so our spending will pick up a bit, but we'll still be way off last year's numbers. And travel isn't resuming anytime soon, certainly not in 2020.

I know the sharp drop is temporary but it's still nice to have that extra cash to stuff into savings.

Hurricane Isaias came through our area yesterday morning. Heavy rain and high winds. Other than a little water in the basement, we thought we had made out okay. And then around 12:30pm, after the rain had stopped and the sky was actually clearing, the power went out. It's now 7:40pm the next day, so 31 hours later, and the power is still out.

We were able to spend last night at home. Fortunately, it wasn't terribly hot so even without AC, it only got up to about 75 in the house.

Still no power this morning but DD and I both had to work so off we went. DW stayed home except for running out to get some breakfast since there wasn't really anything she could have at home.

When I got home, I picked up some lunch, and we were debating what to do. It was hot today so the temp in the house was up to about 85. We knew we wouldn't be able to stay in the house if the power didn't come back.

Once DD came home, we decided pretty soon after to book a hotel room and head out. There was no sign that the power would be back anytime soon and it was pretty oppressive in the house. DD is also in the middle of a big project that she needs internet access for.

So we're all settled in at the hotel. Lights, AC, Wifi, all the amenities we need. We ordered takeout for dinner. The hotel is right down the street from my office so I'll be at work in 5 minutes in the morning. And it's about the same distance from DD's work as from home so she's fine, too. I booked for 2 nights but can always extend it if necessary. Hopefully by Friday the power will be restored.

Another month has passed, just about.

July was fairly calm all around. I was off for most of the first week because I was supposed to be in St. Louis for a conference that didn't happen.

We celebrated our 28th anniversary on the 12th with dinner at a local Italian place we like. They had 2-person tables set up along the sidewalk out front which was nice. Well spaced and the sidewalk is covered. Plus it faces east so by dinner time, it has been in the shade for a while so not terribly hot.

Work has been picking up slightly but still low compared to normal. Not too many COVID suspects but still a handful every week.

Financially, all is well. I just paid 3rd quarter property taxes. I get paid tomorrow and my take home jumped $500 because I maxed out the SS tax for the year. I wasn't expecting that so it was a nice little surprise.

Nothing else too exciting to report. I hope everyone is doing well, staying cool, and staying safe.

I'm on a conference call and decided to take a look at our portfolio. As of market close today, we hit $1.4 million for the first time. Barely, but we hit it. And it could drop back below that mark tomorrow given the volatility of the market these days, but I'll take it for the moment.

So I posted that last night, an electric circuit tripped and wouldn't reset. I scheduled the electrician to come out this afternoon.

I checked the circuit this morning before I went to work and it still wouldn't reset. When I got home around 2pm, and the electrician was on his way, I tried one more time and sure enough it reset and everything worked.

When the tech came, I told him the story and my theory that during the storm, some moisture had somehow gotten into something, most likely one of the outside light fixtures. Once it dried up, everything worked again. He agreed with me and explained that there was really no way for him to trace where the problem had come from.

The "overkill" solution would be to take apart every connection on that circuit, check the wires, and rewrap and seal everything, but he did not recommend doing that. If this happens again, I should call them and at that point they would start tracing everything but if it was just a fluke from a severe storm, it might never give us any trouble again.

I'm okay with that. He charged nothing for coming out since he never got past our front step and a 5-minute conversation. So crisis averted, at least for now.

We had a violent tropical storm move through the area this afternoon. High winds, heavy rain, even some hail in the area. Our lights flickered a few times but never went out. We did get a bit of water in the basement, which isn't unusual, and it was pretty minor. We thought we had escaped the worst of it.

Then a short time ago, DD went into the family room, turned on the TV, and the power went out. It only affected the family room, half the living room, and part of the basement. I checked the circuit box and one circuit is tripped but I could not get it to reset.

It's a GFCI circuit so I'm thinking water must have found it's way into something on that circuit, like maybe one of the outside lights. I can't see anything obvious but something tripped that circuit.

I put a call into our electrician. I didn't see the need to pay for an emergency call tonight since the rest of the house is fine so they're coming out tomorrow afternoon.

Hopefully, they can trace and fix the cause and hopefully, it won't be anything major/expensive.

June is just about over so I updated our portfolio spreadsheet today.

Year to date, we are up $29,687 which is about 2.23%. Back in April when everything was crashing, we were down a lot so there's been a nice recovery.

When you factor in new contributions, however, we are still down. We've invested $53,890 in new money so we're really down $24,203 when you count that.

Still, all things considered, that really isn't too bad. Plus, the market has been so outrageously volatile that our total can change by 10-20K in one day if the market has a big move up or down.

Hopefully, the second half of the year will bring some recovery to the economy.

A few months ago, I made a post asking people how they spend their evenings. And I really didn't just mean evenings but down time in general. More and more often, I was finding myself just sitting on the sofa watching TV or doing nonsense on the computer.

More recently, I've gotten a lot better about keeping a written to-do list. Mine is actually a physical piece of paper (usually the back of some junk mail envelope) that I keep on the kitchen table. Whenever I think of some task that needs doing, I add it to the list. If I think of something while I'm out and about, I'll email myself a reminder and add it to the list when I get home.

Now, when I have some down time and don't just want to be a couch potato, I take a look at the list. The things on there are generally quick little jobs, not big involved things.

For example, today I lubricated the flusher handle on one toilet that had been sticking and I glued back a piece of molding on my car that was peeling off. I also changed the filter on our AC. A few days ago I cleaned the bathtub drain and did a DIY improvement on our bathroom sink to help it drain better.

I have next week off from work so I'm trying to populate the list with as many things as I can think of to help keep me busy and help me accomplish as much as I can while I'm off. One thing I want to do is list a bunch of items on our neighborhood's "Buy Nothing" Facebook group. I've started a separate list of the items to give away through that.

I learned long ago - but sometimes manage to forget - that writing down the things you need to get done greatly increases your odds of actually doing them. I'd encourage everyone to give it a try if you don't already.

We've had a dead tree next to our driveway for months. I've been meaning to call our tree guy for that one. Then in the storm a couple of weeks ago, a large limb came off the big tree next to our garage. That's the 2nd time that has happened. It's time to get rid of that tree. And while they're at it, I'll have them prune the tree in front of our house.

Tree guy came today. Total damage is about $2,400. He's hoping they can come by the end of next week. Hopefully no big storms before then.

Little by little, we've taken out almost every tree on the property. Whoever plants all of the trees so close to houses clearly doesn't give any thought to what happens when those trees grow up.

If you have a newer property, the best advice I can give you is to tear out any tree that is close enough to hit the house if it falls in the future when it's 40 or 50 feet tall. Get rid of it while it's small and cheap. Also take out any tree where the roots could damage the concrete or the sewer line.

Stick to small shrubs and bushes and maybe ornamental sorts of trees that don't get that big and don't develop extensive root systems.

They announced yesterday that restaurants can resume outdoor dining on 6/15 and that salons and barbers can reopen on 6/22. I couldn't care less about salons as I cut my own hair and have for years, but the two main things I've missed during quarantine have been the gym and eating out. Gyms are still closed but restaurants will start coming back in 2 weeks.

We are not typically ones to dine outside. My wife has bad allergies and it's rare for the weather to be cooperative. Either it's too hot and humid or too cool or windy or raining. I'm trying to think of the local places we like that have nice outdoor seating areas, especially ones that are covered. That way the sun and/or rain isn't an issue. There is one Italian place nearby that has a great patio space. With social distancing requirements I'm not sure how many people they'll be able to accommodate at a time but if DW is willing, maybe we'll do dinner there one night once things are up and running. They have short rib that is to die for.

Work seems to be gradually picking up, though some days not so much. We saw 22 patients on Thursday and I think they saw 23 on Friday, but then I saw 4 yesterday. However, 2 of our sites that had been closed reopened yesterday so that may have been part of it. I was only in 9-1 today but we had seen 8 when I left so that was decent.

I suppose it's sort of like survivor's guilt. So many people are suffering with so much right now - disease, unemployment, having to home school their kids, having summer camp cancelled, struggling to keep their businesses afloat, and more.

Meanwhile, here we are with me still fully employed earning my normal income. My wife is very happily quarantined and almost couldn't care if things open up again or not. Our daughter is unemployed but fortunately not suffering financially as a result (though it has been hard mentally - she can't wait to get back to work). We do have a couple of friends who have been quite sick from COVID but thankfully haven't lost anyone close to us.

As I've shared before, our spending is actually down by about $1,000/month largely due to COVID. There's nowhere to go and nothing to do that involves spending money. So ultimately, we're going to come out of this whole mess better than when it started. So many millions of people can't say the same.

Not to say, of course, that it hasn't been a challenge. For weeks, the stress level at my job was sky high, the worst I've ever experienced in my 30 years as a doctor. Things were changing daily and we just didn't know what was going to happen, what we were supposed to be doing, how best to protect ourselves. Patient volume plummeted making us all concerned if we would maintain our jobs, especially as we heard more and more stories of healthcare layoffs.

Fortunately, we seem to be past the worst of it now and things have settled down. Work isn't so stressful anymore and we've adjusted to the new procedures. Volume is starting to pick back up also so I think our jobs are safe at this point. Now we're just dreading the fall when we have seasonal flu AND COVID to deal with. That certainly won't be fun.

Anyway, it's just been a little awkward or uncomfortable when we're talking with friends who have it way worse than we do. We're very thankful not to be financially impacted, not to have little kids to deal with, not to have had COVID strike too close to home.

I was listening to a podcast on my run this morning and they were talking about visiting and supporting your local science museum.

It got me thinking that currently, we really aren't supporting any local non-profit cultural, entertainment, or educational ventures. Over the years, we have had memberships at various places like a botanical garden, a community theater, an art museum, etc. I think once the whole COVID thing settles down, we need to get back to doing that.

I'm going to speak to DW about this. I'd like us to subscribe to the community theater again. We both love theater and enjoyed when we were kind of "forced" to go see the shows there because we had already paid for them.

I don't know that we want to do the botanical garden again but maybe one of the many museums in Philly. DW has gone to one particular museum a few times with a friend who has a membership. Maybe we can join one of the others and take her along in return.

I know it's not the most altruistic sort of charity since we get something out of it ourselves, but it's a way to help a good cause and provide some activity and entertainment for us at the same time.

I posted last month that our spending was down significantly year to date at least in part due to the COVID shutdown and not being able to go anywhere or do anything.

As May is nearly over, I took another look and the savings continue to grow.

I compared our total credit card charges from January through May 2019 to the same period for 2020.

2019: $20,931.71
2020: $15,460.73

So YTD we've spent $5,470.98 less than last year.

Not all of that is COVID-related because our January and February spending was also lower this year, and that was before the shutdown, so we have just been spending less in general, but still we've spent an average of almost $1,100/month less than in 2019. I'll take it.

I was planning to attend a medical conference in St. Louis in early July. I booked the hotel months ago. I realized that I haven't heard anything about the status of the convention itself so I went to their website last night and sure enough it has been cancelled.

I checked my saved email and it turns out that while I had made the hotel reservation, I had never actually registered for the convention which is why I didn't get a cancellation notice. Makes sense.

I went on and cancelled the hotel stay this morning. Fortunately, I had the good sense to not book airfare in advance so I don't have the hassle of having to cancel that.

Looks like I'll have a little staycation in July. No reason to cancel my PTO. I have more PTO than I will likely use this year anyway. I might as well use it. Hopefully by July we'll at least be able to do something fun with some of that time, even just a day trip or two. Who knows at this point?

We love to travel but we are not major planners. We rarely plan our Disney World trips more than 3 months in advance and rarely plan other trips any farther out than that. We might know when and where we want to go but don't usually make all of the plans far in advance.

The only exception is when we're attending a specific event like a convention or something like that.

Disney World's 50th anniversary is October 1, 2021. Disney opens room-only bookings 499 days in advance, which was just a couple of days ago. I hadn't made note of the booking date but fortunately a friend posted on Facebook this morning that he made his reservation. I immediately e-mailed our travel agent to book us a room. I'm waiting to hear back. It will be stupidly expensive but we've said for years that we want to be there for the anniversary and stay at the Contemporary hotel so that we can walk in to the park and not have to deal with any transportation. Hopefully it hasn't already sold out.

Our garbage disposal died a few weeks ago, sometime soon after quarantine began. I tried fixing it myself to no avail. I wasn't up to replacing it myself so we contacted our handyman. He installed the current one. Of course, due to COVID, he wasn't able to come out, nor did we want him to, but we wanted to get on his list for when things started loosening up.

So for however many weeks now, we just haven't had a working disposal, which honestly wasn't a huge deal. He reached out a few days ago and asked if he could come today and we said yes. He came this morning and installed it so we're up and running again. We made sure to wipe everything down before he arrived, wore masks while he was here, and wiped everything down again after he left.

Disposal itself was about $150 from Home Depot plus $65 for him to install it so $215 total.

I know I'm not the only one experiencing this but we've actually saved a significant amount of money as a result of the world shutting down.

For March, which we only lost half of, our spending was down by $500 compared to March 2019.

For April, which we've lost all of, our spending was down by $1,000 compared to April 2019.

I'm not incredibly surprised but I didn't expect the savings to be quite that high. It really makes me wonder about things going forward.

I think I will take a look at the actual charges last March and April to see where most of that savings has come from. I'm quite sure that dining out will be the single biggest factor. That's actually the thing I miss most about the whole quarantine thing. I know we aren't going to stop eating out (once we are able to do it again) but I will definitely be more aware of how much we're spending in the process.

How about all of you? Have you noticed a drop in spending?

Well, there's not really much in the way of news but it's been 2 weeks since I posted so figured I'd check in.

Our daughter wasn't eligible for unemployment because her last job was with a non-profit and they don't pay into the system. The look back period ended 9/30/19 and she had only been at her current job about 2 months at that point and needed to have 20 weeks of work history.

There may be a silver lining, though. She got a call from her manager the other day and it sounds like they got money from the payroll protection program as she said they may be able to pay her for 8 weeks worth of income. She's waiting for confirmation and details.

I'm working same as always. Urgent care is still very slow. The hospital census has been gradually increasing but not to a point where they are overwhelmed and calling in more help. I'm hoping that remains the case and they won't need us. I really don't want to go work there.

DW is managing okay. She and her mah jong friends got set up with an online game platform so a couple of times a week they get together virtually and play. They use a 2nd device to Facetime so that they can all see and talk to each other. They'll probably keep using that system even after quarantine ends at least sometimes because it means nobody has to drive around. It will be great if we have bad weather or someone isn't feeling well but can still play without getting others sick.

We've become regular Zoom users, as I'm sure lots of you have. We've had meets with our bourbon club, our Disney friends, family members, and more. What a great resource to stay connected with everyone. I've used it a few times for work also for updates and meetings.

At work, we've been very grateful for some of the community support, mainly in the form of free food. We've gotten lunch from Five Guys and Mission BBQ, free smoothies from Smoothie King, and free donuts from Krispy Kreme among other things.

Financially speaking, the quarantine has really cut down our spending. Less gas, less dining out, less unplanned shopping, no outside entertainment - it's all added up to over $3,000 of reduced spending compared to the first 4 months of 2019.

I hope everyone is hanging in there. Stay safe.

It's been 2 weeks since I posted. Things are going reasonably well. Work remains slow but also very stressful. I'm having dreams about work pretty much every night. Several of my coworkers have said the same. Constantly working with the threat of catching COVID from our patients is really taking its toll mentally on all of us.

As part of the Emergency Operations Plan, they have all of us urgent care providers getting oriented in the hospital so that when the surge hits, they can send us there as additional help if needed. I haven't done any inpatient care for just over 20 years so I'm not sure how much help I can be. I did a little orientation yesterday so I at least have a general concept of where things are and what the workflow looks like. But if I actually have to start working there, I'll need a great deal of help and support.

Passover was essentially cancelled thanks to COVID. We always host the seder at our house which obviously didn't happen. My cousins in NYC did a Zoom seder but none of us really felt like participating.

I'm trying my best to exercise regularly which is hard with the gym closed. I have gotten out to walk/jog several times and I've been doing some floor exercises at home with what limited equipment we have. I figure it's all good and better than nothing but I look forward to being able to go to the gym again whenever that happens.

Financially, things are pretty normal since I'm still working full time. Our daughter has been out of work since 3/13 and filed for unemployment. She got the debit card a couple of days ago but hasn't actually gotten her first payment yet. We're hoping that her place is able to reopen and doesn't go out of business. She'll be devastated if it does.

Not much else happening since the world is pretty much all closed. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy at home and being super careful when you must go out.

I realized I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. Heck, I haven't even been reading anybody else's blog. Obviously, it's been a crazy time, and being a healthcare worker, I'm not on lockdown like so many others including my wife and daughter. I've still got to go to work every day and that's been a whole new level of crazy with the rules and guidelines and policies and procedures changing pretty much daily.

On the plus side, patient volume at urgent care has plummeted. My theory is that with schools closed and so many people working from home, there just isn't that much routine illness going around. Also, with all sports and activities suspended, gyms closed, etc., we're not seeing all of the sports injuries we typically get. So we've been quite slow.

On the other hand, we're on the front lines of the COVID-19 stuff. We are seeing plenty of patients with respiratory symptoms so every person who walks through the door is a potential case and we need to act accordingly. That is quite stressful for all of us.

In addition, because of the decreased volumes overall, we're starting to worry about our jobs. They have already stopped urgent care services at 2 or our 8 sites and reassigned providers to the remaining 6. But we wonder how long that is sustainable when we're seeing about 1/3 of our normal volume. Colleagues across the country are reporting their urgent care clinics are cutting back operating hours or closing sites entirely. Some providers have even been laid off. So obviously that's a huge concern for me.

The "good" thing is that I work for a large hospital system, not an independent urgent care company. If the situation reaches a point where they really feel they don't need some of us in urgent care, they may reassign us to other clinical duties, especially if the hospitals start getting overwhelmed with COVID patients and/or a lot of providers are out because they are infected or at least quarantined due to exposure. So at least right at this moment, I think my job is safe, but I know that could change at any moment.

My daughter's job shut down a week ago Saturday and they were officially laid off a few days later, making her eligible to file for unemployment. She was upset about that and is hoping that her job opens again whenever appropriate. Her manager told her they definitely want her back but there is always that chance that they might trim staff or simply fold if they can't financially stay afloat.

My wife is managing pretty well with the whole situation. She doesn't work outside the home so her routine isn't quite as disrupted as ours, though it's still affected. Other than us taking a couple of family walks, I don't think she's left the house for well over a week. She normally does a weekly volunteer gig packing home meals for the elderly, plays Mah Jong every week, and does another monthly volunteer thing for a blind support group. All of that is gone for now. I know she's also really worried about me, afraid that I'll catch the virus at work.

And of course, we can't ignore the financial impact this whole mess is having. Last time I checked, our portfolio was down about $230,000. I'm sure it recovered a bit yesterday and today but that's still a huge loss on paper. I did do some buying over the last couple of weeks so I'm hoping that will help when the recovery ultimately happens. I got some stuff at pretty rock bottom prices (I hope) so that will goose the returns some when things start going back up.

I guess that's long enough of a post for now. I hope everyone else is holding up okay through all of this. Stay safe. Stay healthy. And STAY HOME!

We finally got an answer from the utility company today. They said that the meter was 99.7% accurate (I think that was the number). So apparently there's no refund coming our way and we've somehow managed to increase electricity usage 40-60% in the past year without changing anything we do or use in our home.

At least there was no cost to getting our meter replaced. I'm really curious to see how the bills are going forward. If the continue to show higher usage, I guess that will confirm the answer. If, however, it shows a significant drop in usage, I may reach out again to complain and question that analysis.

This isn't quite a financial topic, though everything is to some extent, but I'm looking for everyone's thoughts.

How do you spend your evenings? After work and dinner, what do you do for the rest of the day?

I've really been struggling with this for a while. I feel like we don't do much of anything except watch some TV and spend time on the computer or our phones.

We do go to the gym regularly, but not at night. My wife does a lot of sewing and quilting, but not typically at night. I really have no hobbies or interests that I engage in anymore.

I don't like shopping unless there is something specific that I need, which is rare. I don't actively collect anything like I used to. I occasionally list some items on ebay but that hasn't been a regular thing for years.

It's a bit easier in the warmer/longer sunshine months because I'll do a little yard work or spend some time cleaning the garage or go for a walk/run, but especially in the winter with the colder weather and shorter daylight hours, I just feel like a slug.

I don't expect anyone to have a magical solution for me but I thought that maybe hearing what everyone else is up to might inspire me.

I met with our CPA today to do our taxes. They aren't actually done. He and his crew need to actually do the work and then get back to us with the results. That will take a week or so, but my end is done. He has all of the data he needs.

I'm super organized when I go there, which he greatly appreciates, so we zip through the actual tax part of the meeting pretty quickly. We then move on to the discussion portion: How much do we have saved for retirement? Do I have a retirement age in mind? Have I thought about when to claim Social Security? What's our daughter's situation and to what extent will we need to continue to subsidize her? Do we plan to stay in our current house?

I brought up the inheritance issue I posted about on the forums and we talked about how that will play into everything. For those who don't read the forums, I have a terminally ill relative from whom I am in line to inherit somewhere in the 700K-$1 million range, possibly within the next year or two unfortunately. We talked about what that could mean as far as when I retire.

We talked about selling taxable investments and buying tax-exempt ones. We talked about converting traditional IRAs to Roths.

I love the free form flow of ideas I have with him each year, and he loves it too because most of his clients don't have the financial knowledge that I have and he has to explain every concept to them in great detail. With me, he can just think out loud and throw out ideas and we can discuss them.

As for our taxes, I expect that we'll get a small refund, a few hundred dollars, from the state and that we'll owe under $2,000 on Federal. So net cost of around $1,500 is what I'm guessing. We'll see when they're done preparing our return.

Text I just got from my daughter (she's 24). She is at the bank waiting to have a form notarized.

Her: Lady in the waiting area on her phone, "I always check my account balance on the app and it said $168". It was normal for me to have more money than other college kids but this lady is 50 or 60. I mean she could have more money in other places but still.

Me: Surveys show that most people can't cover an unexpected $400 expense.

Her: People need to get their stuff together because that's crazy.

Me: Just keep being abnormal and you'll be fine.

Her: Sometimes it's good to be different.