Money Diary #140

Morning: Up around 6, brush my teeth, and log on. Yesterday was so busy that I wasn't able to prep for the meeting with my boss this morning. Today is her last day in her role before she moves to her new position on Monday. I review the project that's giving me stress, jot down some notes, and walk through the questions I plan on asking her. Drink a cup of tea & jump on the call with her at 9. I share the news about the colleague whose position was eliminated & other news that I've heard. Then I go over the project that was stressing me out and she's aligned with how I reviewed it. Send a quick message to my new boss to see if I can chat with him next week. Do a dry shampoo and then go shower. 

Afternoon: Current boss sends an email to our admin and myself seeing if we can grab lunch at the end of the month before she moves to her new city. Lunch is a blueberry bagel, do the coconut oil pull, and lounge around. I send a note back to my current boss that I'd love to grab lunch and that I'm okay eating inside if everyone else is since it's so hot outside these days. New boss responds back and I'll reach out to him next week to set up a time. Review a project and then have an afternoon snack of homemade fried hashbrowns & milk tea. 

Evening: Read for a while, and here is what I learn: 

• Book I want to read: Soul in the Game by Vitaly Gerasimov

• A good reminder: "Don't fight with people you can lick."

• Temporary pops in income: "Many of the loans were extended to buyers who had temporary pops in income during the pandemic. Those monthly incomes fell -- sometimes by half -- as the pandemic stimulus programs stopped, and now they look even worse on an inflation-adjusted basis & as the prices of basics in particular are climbing."

Dinner is air-fried focaccia bread with roasted tomato & parmesan and mangoes. Do the coconut oil pull, brush my teeth, and bed around 10.

Money Diary #139

Morning: Up at 5:30, brush my teeth, and drink a cup of tea. Head to the bathroom and log on around 6. Send an email and head back to the bathroom. Settle in for my 7:30 meeting which ends in 30 minutes. Jump on the 8 am call with the department & the leader of the department. We spend half an hour introducing ourselves and get to know the leader a bit. After the meeting, I get a chat message from a senior colleague if I can set up a couple of follow-up meetings on our project. I send those invites & eat half of a blueberry bagel for breakfast. Also have another cup of tea. Jump on my 9:30 call that ends in 15 minutes. I get another project to work on, and as I start reviewing it, I get stressed. I reach out to my soon-to-be-former boss, and she, being the great human she is, sets up a meeting with me tomorrow to go over. Work on other projects and send related emails. Jump on a group call with my boss. She can tell something is wrong, and I tell her we'll chat tomorrow when it's just her and me. 

Afternoon: Head to a noon call that ends after 30 minutes & eat a milk-based dish for a very quick lunch. Jump on my last meeting of the day at 1 & jot down some notes to share with the senior colleague next week. Go shower, eat sliced mangoes as a snack, and keep working for the next few hours. Stop for an afternoon snack of milk tea & crackers, and then more work.

Evening: Keep working, review projects, and send emails. Dinner is rice & my favorite spicy fish stew. Do the coconut oil pull, brush my teeth, and log back on. Review a project, let my colleague know that I've completed my review & that I've inserted questions for her, and a different colleague sees I'm online and says I should log off, haha. I tell him the same, and I log off at 10. Oof, so tired today. Surf the internet for an hour, and bed at 11. 

Money Diary #138

Morning: Mom wakes up me at 6, and I lay around until 6:30. Get up, brush my teeth, and drink a cup of tea. Log on & check email. Drink another cup of tea and have toast for breakfast. Get dressed, download grocery coupons for Albertsons, and head out to the store. They grab bananas on sale ($0.29/lb), 2 things of milk ($1.49 each), 2 green peppers ($0.49 each), and 4 2-liters of Coke Zero & Sprite Zero (99 cents each). Come home, unload groceries, and log back on. A project comes in, and I review it. Reach out to the stakeholder with a few questions & set up a call with him tomorrow to connect.

Afternoon: Lunch is foccacia bread, cauliflower, and eggplant. Do the coconut oil pull and jump on my 2 pm call. Listen in and pipe up with a question. Reach out to a colleague to give her a heads up. The call ends by 3:15, and I get a few projects to review. Get started on those, set up a meeting for next week, and flag some initial questions to myself. Will review again later this week. Reach out to a colleague on a question & she shares that her position has been eliminated. I give her a quick call and see how she is doing. Drink a cup of milk tea and air fry some spring rolls for an afternoon snack. 

Evening: Read for a while, and here is what I learn:

• Easiest way to increase your compensation trajectory: "Lateral in the good times but stay put in the bad (because you have a built-up store of good reputation and a network and many places take a last-in-first-out perspective for cuts)." 

• Conserve your energy: "If you are exhausted in this job, you are a sucker. You need to learn the subtle trick of not exerting too much energy or as little as possible on this job." 

• Patience wins the day: "The quicker you want something, the easier you are to manipulate.​"

• Breaking the pattern: "Venture teaches you to pattern match, but by definition, you are supposed to invest in companies that break patterns." 

• Other people have ways of doing things that are correct: "After several years as an individual contributor, I was recruited into management. This is when I learned that other people also have ways of doing things that are correct, and they appreciate it if you consider the merit of their alternate ways instead of immediately dismissing them."

• No maintenance costs: "Work in a job that will shower you with money but has no maintenance costs (fancy clothes, country clubs, luxury cars, meal services because you don’t have time to cook) or high entry fees (a degree that comes with six-figure student loans)."

Dinner is rice & air fried shrimp, yum. Sliced mangoes for dessert. Do the coconut oil pull, brush my teeth, and show Mom a funny butt picture. Bed around 11.

Money Diary #137

Morning: Mom wakes me up at 6, and I head to to bathroom. Brush my teeth, drink a cup of tea, and eat a couple of Ritz crackers. An email came in earlier this morning, so I respond to it, loop in some colleagues, and set up a meeting for later this week. I have a D&I meeting this morning, so I jump on that 8 am call. I leave the call at 8:30 and eat Hawaiian bread rolls & scrambled eggs for breakfast. Head to my 9 am with a senior colleague where we chat about the department's changes & she gives me a few things to follow-up on regarding a project she is leading. Send those follow-up emails and prep for a meeting with my boss. It's my last 1:1 with her, so I walk through a few questions, talk about career steps, and say goodbye to her :-( She knows me really well, senses my sadness, and says we'll still have monthly 1:1's to catch up. Man, I'm going to miss her. Go shower after the call.

Afternoon: Lunch is rice, my favorite spinach dish, my favorite soup dish, and spicy fish stew. Do the coconut oil pull, and lay down on the sofa. Close my eyes for 15 minutes and hear the ping of emails come in. Head back to the computer and prep for my 2:30 meeting. Go over a proposed action plan with a few colleagues, and implement that plan during our 3 pm call. That meeting ends in 15 minutes, and I'm done for the day. I should read for work, so I do that for a few minutes but decide to try again tomorrow. Drink a cup of milk tea for a snack. Read for a while, and here is what I learn:

• Good career advice: "Corporate governance is the best area for success because you’re in front of the Board and senior management. Focus on areas that are high profile for the company and allow you to present to the Board and CEO/CFO. Focus on impact to org outside of the department and not within the department, like number of reports which doesn’t matter."

• Truth: "Stop telling people more than they need to know."

• Real estate vs the stock market: "Real estate is close to an all time high. Equity markets are not. I know which of the two I’d throw the next dollar at."

Evening: Watch I Love Lucy on the tablet. Dinner is rice, my favorite spinach dish, my favorite soup dish, and spicy fish stew. Finish the last of the lemon mint drink with Dad. Do the coconut oil pull, brush my teeth, and bed around 10:30.

Money Diary #136

Morning: Mom wakes me up at 6:30 since I have meetings from 8:30 to 11 this morning, and I want to eat breakfast & shower before that. Get up, brush my teeth, and drink a cup of tea & eat a couple of Ritz crackers. Go shower & then log on. The trainings have come in, so I start working on them & eat breakfast of scrambled eggs & toast. Get an email from a coworker requesting to move the 9 am meeting to tomorrow morning, and then another email from a different coworker to move the 8:30 am meeting to tomorrow afternoon. Reschedule the meetings, finish the trainings (yay!), and jump on my 9 am call with one of our interns. Speak to her about what she is interested in and answer her questions about grad school & work. My 10 am meeting gets cancelled, and my boss moves our meeting to that time. I prep for that meeting and then jump on the call to speak with her. Go over some questions with her and then talk about career steps for me. While I am sad that I won't be reporting to her after this week, I'm excited for her new role in the company. Then jump on one last call this morning with a different colleague. Speak to him about an issue that came up last week, get his thoughts, and also talk about the changes in the company. He just got back from an Italian vacation & sends me pictures which I drool over, lol. Once I finish speaking with him, I go through my inbox and look at emails that have come in this morning. Eat an early lunch at 11:30 of leftover Thai fried rice and do the coconut oil pull.

Afternoon: Jump on my noon call that ends at 1:15, and I'm done with meetings for the day. Eat a snack of cherries & grapes. Keep an eye out on email and read for a while. Here is what I learn:

• On splurges: "I have a few college friends who make more in their bonus than I make in a year :) I splurge on things like kerrygold butter and a Pret coffee membership."

• Mental peace comes from owning fewer things: "In my 20’s, most of my clothes came from discount places, and I was willing to hunt sale racks. Now with more money and less time, my savings come from owning fewer things."

• Truth: "The more you scale, the more you need to appeal to different kinds of people, which sucks the personality out of what you're doing."

• Good advice for relationships (both personal & professional): "You can be happy or you can be right. Don’t count on being both."

• Why stuff gets done: “The way things get done in the world is because of two things — relationships between people and focus.”

Air fry some focaccia bread and have that along with spicy hashbrowns for an afternoon snack. Drink milk tea. 

Evening: A friend & former coworker calls and we chat for an hour about her work & how she is thinking of what is next for her professionally. She is leaving for a 3-week vacation (yay for her!) and she's flying on Qatar Airways. I make a request for her to take pics of the food, as I'm a huge fan of international airplane food, haha. Dinner is the last of the leftover Thai fried rice, do the coconut oil pull, and brush my teeth. Bed around 10. 

Money Diary #135

Morning: Mom wakes me up at 6:15 since we want to get groceries & come back home before it get super hot. I roll around & finally get up at 6:45. Brush my teeth, drink a cup of tea, and eat a couple of Ritz crackers. Get dressed and we head out around 7:30. First stop is Albertsons where mangos & grapes are on sale, so we get those along with 6 bagels from the clearance aisle. Also get a couple of agua frescas for free with their Saturday Sampler coupon. Next stop is a nearby grocery store that has shrimp on sale -- in and out in around 10 minutes. I start coughing in the car and put my mask on. Last stop is Kroger, where we get ginger aisle on clearance, three kinds of foacia bread on clearance (though I thought all of them would be $1.79, two of them turned out to be $2.29, whoops), clearance Hawaiian rolls & mushrooms, a free yogurt, and 5 pounds of cherries on sale. Back home around 9:50, unload groceries, and pass out on the couch for a while. Mom makes fried Hawaiian rolls with butter, so we eat those and I drink a cup of ginger tea that she makes. Watch I Dream of Jeannie for a while, and then go shower. 

Afternoon: Lunch is rice, poppy seeds & veggie drumsticks, my favorite spinach dish, and fish stew. Decide that Love Cookies, Hate Cooking would be a great name for a food blog someday. Watch Wimbledon for a bit, take the stems off of the cherries, and then switch back to I Dream of Jeannie, which is on an episode marathon today. I had gotten an email earlier last week that there will be several trainings to complete this week, so I log on to see if I can start them today. They aren't available yet, and I'm not feeling up to reading for work, so I log off and have an snack of tea, grapes/cherries, and crackers. Settle in for an afternoon of reading Money Diaries instead. Here is what I learn:

• "Win some, lose some, still thankful to be in my position": "I would love to have a life where I could just write a check for $500 and not bat an eye, though, yes, the surprise part of it sucks."

• "Would you share a bit about your investment/strategy that helped you accumulate assets?": "I haven’t done anything special. Just having a high income relative to my expenses and investing consistently."

• "It was only one person": "I'm not bothered by someone projecting their own boundaries onto my situation." 

• Manage the margin: "Our cost of living stayed relatively the same while our salaries increased."

• What I want in retirement (renting in a city by the water that has grocery stores I can walk to): "Even though most people have cars here and there's no reliable public transportation, I live by downtown and am in walking distance of the grocery store which covers necessities as someone who WFH. It's great cost savings, and you get in exercise too, so in the end, you are better off."

Evening: After the I Dream of Jeannie marathon ends, I switch over to The Munsters. Dinner is rice, poppy seeds & veggie drumsticks, my favorite spinach dish, and fish stew. Do the coconut oil pull, and brush my teeth. Bed at 9:30.

Money Diary #134

Morning: Wake up around 6:45, brush my teeth, and drink a cup of tea. Go shower and breakfast is a hard boiled egg with toast. Get dressed & head out to our local Chinatown. First stop is the grocery store where we get goatmeat, salmon steak, and perch along with various veggies. Next is the Asian bakery where they get garlic toast and I get a couple of milk butter rolls. They split one garlic toast & save the other for later, and I do the same with the milk butter roll. Then is the Japanese store where Dad buys stuff for the garden. He asks if I want sugarcane juice and I ask the same question back to him, lol. We decide to pass this time, and head to the Thai place to grab fried rice & panang curry for lunch. Last stop is the ethnic grocery store where they get a bunch of groceries. 

Afternoon: Get back home around 1 and unload groceries. Lunch is fried rice, white rice, and panang curry. Do the coconut oil pull. Read for a while for work & take notes. Eat the milk butter roll from this morning and drink a cup of coffee for an afternoon snack. Continue reading for work & taking notes. 

Evening: Dinner is leftover fried rice & panang curry. Do the coconut oil pull, read & take notes for work, and brush my teeth. Play on my tablet for a while and then bed around 10:30.