Money Diary #131

Morning: It's past 7:30 & I finally get up. Feel super tired for some reason. See that a colleague wants to move our meeting to tomorrow since her son is not feeling well today. Log on and reschedule the meeting. No meetings today, and breakfast is air-fried toast with an egg in the middle. It's super tasty, yum. Read for work for a while and take notes. 

Afternoon: Watch I Dream of Jeannie & lunch is rice and goat stew. Keep an eye out on email and lay down for a bit. An email comes in, so I set up a follow-up meeting for next week. Read for a while, and here is what I learn:

• Yes, recessions are buying opportunities, but . . .: "But the closer you get to retirement, they can be incredibly detrimental unless you can delay retirement, easily cut expenses, or add supplemental income for a few years."

• Think like a VC: "Check if any secondary trades have occurred, and if so, at what valuation and when (Forge, Equity Zen, etc). The point is to understand: will they be able to raise another round, when, and at what price. This is all that matters. The likelihood to the company of achieving a liquidity event."

• "Meet yourself": "Your note about how being an expat allows you to 'meet yourself by living in a new context. It just expands the lens of your life' hits the nail on the head for me. I did a couple of weeks in one of the Asian offices at the former company, and it has been the highlight of my career so far. (In undergrad, I studied abroad for a couple of summers, and hands down, those were the experiences I enjoyed the most. There is something about combining travel + work/studying that seems to bring out a version of me that I never knew existed)."

• "The difficulty level of our relationship is about zero": "Plenty of money, low-stress jobs, no kids. So yes, marriages without kids are exponentially less stressful than marriages with kids. But it’s not just that: It’s that a marriage without children can be every bit as meaningful and loving and important as a marriage with kids. And not only that, there’s no question that in the best case scenario having kids can enrich your marriage. But it is, perhaps, just as likely to drive you apart — especially if you get into the division-of-labor wars. Or if the kids bring extra challenges that you aren’t in agreement about how to handle. Or because finances are inevitably tighter when there are more people in the picture. I guess what I mean to say is that people seem to automatically consider childfree marriages “second best” and I wanted to push back against that. You can have a very meaningful marriage and life without being a parent."

• "Trust your gut": 

• "If something is wrong your gut will alert you even if your mind can’t quite logic through what exactly you’re picking up on."

• "While it is true that some people are exceptionally good at hiding their true nature until you’re invested, most people will let the mask slip, but it might only be for a minute. Be on the lookout for that minute."

• Don't attach a moral weight to finances: "If I decide my bougie spin studio is important to me, then I cut something else to keep my free towels and fancy shampoo."

Evening: Eat a Lindor chocolate and watch I Love Lucy on the tablet. Dinner is rice, my favorite spinach dish, and goat stew. Do the coconut oil pull and brush my teeth. I loved the Boxcar Children growing up and realize that there is a 1924 edition of the book. Read the original 1924 version for a while and remember how much I loved reading the series. An internet friend emails me, and I respond back to her. Bed at 11:30.