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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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!

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.

Every month, I put money in our Ally account and money in our taxable Vanguard account. Last month I bumped up the amounts from $1,500 each to $1,600 each. I made the February deposits yesterday.

That's rarely all we put in but we always put in at least those amounts. Last month I actually put $5,000 into Ally.

I realized yesterday that we have not yet gotten the property tax bill. I was sure the payment is due February 1 so it seems awfully late to have not received it yet.

I posted a question in our town's Facebook group today and others confirmed that the bills haven't gone out yet. Someone mentioned that there is a 10-day grace period so you really don't have to pay until 2/11, but I don't play those games. I pay before the stated due date, and typically when I get the bill so it doesn't actually get misplaced or forgotten.

Someone also mentioned that you could pay online and that the bills were already posted. I figured there'd be some convenience fee for online payment that I wouldn't want to pay, but I checked anyway. Turns out that the e-check fee is only $0.99. Since a stamp is $0.55, that means it would only cost an extra 44 cents to pay online and be done with it, not to have to write a check, and have immediate confirmation that my payment was processed. No chance of it getting lost in the mail or anything like that. So I went ahead just now and made the payment. Yes, I paid 2 weeks before I had to, but it's done and I no longer have to think about it - until April.

I'm glad they made the convenience fee so reasonable. It's worth 44 cents to me for sure.

Last year, I pretty regularly picked up an extra shift, maybe once or twice a month. But I haven't done that for at least a few months. We hired a lot of new people so there haven't been nearly as many open shifts, and I was just kind of burnt out and didn't feel like working any more than I needed to.

Recently, I've been paying attention to the openings again. Two or three times in the past few weeks, we've gotten a text or e-mail saying they needed help last minute but every time I've either already been working or had personal plans. Yesterday we got a message that they needed help at one site from 1-5pm today. I was free, double checked with my wife, and took that shift.

I hadn't been to that site for ages, probably close to 2 years, so it was nice to go there and see everyone. It wasn't terribly busy which was also nice. And the other doc on with me is pretty new. We've met at meetings but I never really had any time to talk and get to know her.

And, of course, we get paid $140/hour for weekday per diem shifts so I made an extra $560 for giving up my afternoon. Not a bad deal all around.

CCF suggested this idea and I thought it would be fun. Post a comparison of where you were 10 years ago and where you are now, and talk about what happened in the interim. So here goes.

12/31/09: Total financial assets (not including home)
$395,673.73

12/31/19: Total financial assets (not including home)
$1,329,432.03

12/31/09 Mortgage balance: $92,285.99
12/31/19 Mortgage balance: $0.00

So our net worth went up by $1,026,044.29.

Major financial events of the last 10 years, and I'm probably forgetting some

Bought my car in 2012, paid off in 2013
Bought my wife's van in 2013, paid off in 2016

Daughter attended college 2014-2018, all loans by her and us have been repaid

Paid off mortgage in 2019; now totally debt-free

Began a job transition in April 2016 that was completed in November 2017 and now earn more than double what I made at the old job

I think those are the real biggies. Obviously, lots of smaller things, car repairs, home repairs, travel, medical expenses, and all of the other normal stuff. It's pretty powerful to look back like that.

Now that the market is closed, I did the final 2019 update on our portfolio spreadsheet.

12/31/18: $1,023,684.61
12/31/19: $1,329,432.03

An increase of $305,747.42 for the year. That number is incredible to me. It really shows the power of investing and compounding. That's more money than I earned in 2019 gross and a little more than double my take home pay. Obviously, a strong stock market had a lot to do with it. We'll see how long that continues.

I hope you all had a great year and have an even better 2020.

For most of my career, I was one of those folks who did not have an employer-sponsored retirement account. I finally got one when I started working for urgent care in 2016, so less then 3 years ago.

As of today, my 401k balance is just over the $100,000 mark.

That's less than 8% of our total portfolio but it was still nice to see that one account cross into 6 figures. I did max it out last year and this year and intend to do so every year I work there so it should continue to grow nicely putting $26,000/year into it.

I just updated our portfolio spreadsheet and the total topped $1.3 million for the first time. It's been close for a while with the gyrations of the market but it finally got there.

It means nothing. It changes nothing. We'll just keep plugging away as we're far from ready to retire (financially speaking) but it's nice to see the number continue to climb.

Many years ago, I typed up a list of all of our financial accounts in case anything ever happened to me. It listed each account company, type of account, account number, and phone number. I realized recently that I haven't updated that list for a very long time.

I pulled out the list today and it was dated December 2006. Surprisingly, it wasn't terribly outdated. A couple of companies have changed names and we have a few new accounts.

I made a new list today. Instead of phone numbers, I listed website addresses with user ID and password for accessing each account. I attached that list to a copy of our portfolio spreadsheet so that it all matches up.

As soon as we have a moment, I'll have a "financial date" with my wife and show her the new list and how it all goes together. The list will be stored in our lockbox with other important papers.

Not much new going on. Everything is cruising along nicely which is good.

I've sold a couple of items on Facebook Marketplace recently. It definitely has advantages over Ebay and I've used it to get rid of some things that have been sitting around or a while, including things that I tried unsuccessfully to sell on Ebay. The fact that there's no shipping cost helps a lot. That's what makes it hard to sell lower priced items online.

I maxed out my 401k a month or so ago so for the last couple of paychecks, I took the money that would have gone to that and put it into our Vanguard account instead. I did the full amount even though I was doing it with after-tax dollars. We have one more paycheck in December and then the 401k funding will resume, plus they upped the limit $1,000 for 2020 so it'll take a bit longer to max it.

We took advantage of the Target gift card sale today and bought $600 worth at 10% off. Last week we bought gift cards for one of our favorite restaurants. If you bought $75 they gave you an extra $20. We go there about once a month so that'll save us a bit. And yesterday I paid our auto insurance bill through PayPal with our Chase Freedom Visa which has 5% cashback on PayPal purchases this quarter. That saved me $63. $60 from Target, $20 from the restaurant, and $63 from the insurance. All of those things can really add up over time. Oh, and we bought $300 of the Target cards with our Discover card that has 5% back at Target this quarter though we're not sure if that includes gift card purchases. I'll have to wait and see.

My wife and I are going to NYC this week overnight and seeing a show. It's for her birthday. I booked the hotel on reward points so that's free. Of course the parking, dinner, and show aren't. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be very cold so we probably won't do much in the city. That's okay because I like wandering in the city much more than she does anyway.

I guess that's all the main stuff for now.