This came to mind because of the newest changes to Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Ever since the November update, you can't play holidays unless you have a Nintendo Account. This doesn't effect most players but it bugged me since I wasn't planning on having a Nintendo Account anytime soon.
It's silly that Animal Crossing requires internet access for adding new content. I've played every game and they didn't require internet. Animal Crossing is a single player game. The game should be finished on release and you should be able to play it however you want. The multiplayer parts are purely optional; I've never played multiplayer with anyone in AC.
Until the 360 and PS3 era, most games were simple plug and play consoles. You didn't need to log into an account or put in your wifi for most console games. Currently, internet access is the norm.
It's seen as a quality of life thing. If a game is glitched, the devs can fix that with just an update. But, I don't see the big deal in this. Most games don't have serious game breaking bugs that make frequent updates needed. Usually, updates just patch out things or add in new things.
The need for accounts is annoying. I don't trust companies enough with internet safety. You hear all the time of Playstation or Switch accounts being hacked into. The Wii allowed you to download games without a dedicated account; all you needed was to be on wifi.
Also, what happens when the servers go down? If you want a PS3 or Switch in 24 years, will you still be able to download the updates?

Hello everyone! Man I wrote an absolute essay, I apologize in advance!! The one disclaimer: I of course didn’t mention COVID precautions much, but rest assured, I am CONSTANTLY masked and keeping an obscene distance from every other human around me. My paranoia is way too high to do any less. (Also, fyi, my pronouns are They/She, in that order)
TW: Mentions of Eating Disorder
Section One: Assets and Debt
Savings: $5,000
Checking account balance: $2,000
Credit card debt: $3064.88 (this is a charge-off from about 5 years ago. Because of this, I keep my “active” credit card balance at $0 at all times)
Student loan debt: $40,000 (BA in Film; down from ~50k!)
Section Two: Income
Income Progression:
· Retail through college, ranging from $8/hr-$13/hr, depending on where I was living
· VFX Coordinator (6months post-grad): $12/hr. Found out they were taking advantage of my lack of experience when I found out how much my direct coworkers were making.
· Raise ~5months later: $19/hr (to match what the rest of the department was getting)
· Raise (again) ~6months later: $50k salary (baby’s first salary!)
· Got laid off after 2 years with that company and freelanced for a while before going back to retail, ~$15/hr
· VFX Coordinator: $19/hr. After 9 months of unemployment / underemployment I was back in! But I was only brought on as a contractor / permalancer, and this job ended up sucking so bad.
· Video Game Coordinator: $50k. Left my previous job after a year of terrible conditions, and made an industry switch after getting majorly burnt out on the VFX production pipeline.
· Associate Producer (games):$75k - Current job! So happy to be where I am now. The switch to games has been the best thing I’ve done in my career.
Monthly Take Home: $4,219 ($2109 every other Friday)
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: ~$900/month for my half (it varies because utilities are “included” in the bill)
Retirement contribution: Literally just got the enrollment for this at my current job, so nothing yet.
Savings contribution: ~$500-1000/month
Student loan payments: Currently paused due to COVID, but I’m planning on dumping 100% of my savings into them right before interest kicks back in. I’m so so tired of having these hang over my head and want to be aggressive as possible. I AM tempted to wait and see if forgiveness does end up being part of Biden’s 100-day plan though. Please give me advice, smart money people!!
Donations: I budget ~$50/month to spend as I see fit.
Electric: Included-ish in rent
Wifi: My wonderful darling partner pays for our WiFi.
Cellphone: $90 send to my dad every month
Subscriptions:
· Sunday Scaries CBD: $39.38
· Curology: $61.70 (every other month)
· Meowbox (yes I have a subscription box for my cats): $22.95 (every other month)
· Apple cloud: $.99
· Nintendo Online: $3.99
· Netflix / Hulu / Disney+ / HBO / etcetc: We absolutely mooch off our families, bless
Gym membership: $19.99 (I use Street Parking, a CrossFit-style online training program. I paid $200/month prior to the pandemic for my box so I’m thrilled at these savings)
Pet expenses: ~$50/month (my partner and I switch off on the essentials like food + litter)
Car payment: $203.86 ($4000 remaining)
Car insurance: $171
Regular therapy: $120 ($60 per session, every other week)
Registered Dietician: $660/month ($165/week. I’m in recovery from a long-term eating disorder, and while this is a huge money dump, it’s honestly the most important piece of my mental health ~journey~)
Medications: $100/month (I’ve been using Cerebral for my psychiatry, but since my health insurance just kicked in, this is going to go way down. I basically needed an insurance stop-gap, since I have Bipolar and cannot go without medication)
CandidCo Aligners: $87.50
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes and no. I was definitely the main source of any pressure to go to college. There were a few members of my family who expected it, but had I not, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a thing, as long as I was working. I wish I had understood the financial implications way more, since I was totally on my own, and just kinda… expected to be able to pay it all off after I got out? Maybe I would have thought differently about my arts degree if I had that kind of financial literacy at 18.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
Very, very minimal. For a large part of my youth, we were quite poor, and I never really understood the full depth of what was going on. I absorbed a lot of the negative attitudes my parents had as a result of that (I absolutely hated the idea of credit cards etc). I didn’t really have an opportunity to learn the value of money, let alone any more thorough conversations.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I moved to a VHCOL city for college, and needed to work if I wanted to eat, so within about a month of moving I had two jobs. The first was at that ubiquitous bath bomb store, and the 2nd was a major department store chain. As a teen / kid I did odd jobs (helping on construction sites etc), but those definitely weren’t “jobs” as much as “things my parents bribed me to do”.
Did you worry about money growing up?
100% of the time. Like. Always. When the 2008 crash happened, we lost our house, and were homeless for awhile before moving into a hotel for several years. Eventually, we moved in with my grandparents, where we stayed until after I left for college. Even if I didn’t fully grasp what was happening or why, the whole experience definitely shaped me in some huge ways, especially with how I feel about financial security. I wasn’t able to have 99% of the experiences of my peers (I went to pretty wealthy demographic schools), which left me pretty jaded.
Do you worry about money now?
Still yes, but it’s different, for sure. Like, I’m making enough to live fairly comfortably, but I’m still incredibly frugal, mostly motivated by my debt. I would love to be able to own a home some day, but considering it’s going to take me 5-10 years to pay off my loans, I can’t wrap my head around how long it would take me to save for a down payment.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
Similarly hard to answer. I definitely didn’t have much support starting pretty young, but I wasn’t totally independent until after college. My parents still bailed me out a few times in college, which I understand put them in a very rough position. Probably a year after college was when I was all the way on my own, but I was building to there starting when I was like, 12. Thankfully now my parents are doing much, much better, and I know if anything catastrophic happened I could turn to them.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Nope, and I likely never will. Much of my family has the “it’s my money I’m going to spend it on me before I go” mentality, which honestly, respect. Otherwise, no one in my family is really in a position to have a much of money to pass on once they’re gone.
Money Diary!
Monday:
7:30: Up a little late today, but it’s fine because I’m exhausted from the weekend and want to cuddle my cats. My partner N and I drove down to LA (where we actually / normally live) to finally get my car up here with us. Two ~6hr drives in 48hrs is rough on the body. (For some context: We left our apartment in LA over the summer to come up to a waaaay less densely populated area and live in a home of N’s family. I am endlessly thankful for this privilege. I’m pretty severely immunocompromised, so it’s nice to be able to go outside now without a panic attack.)
9:00: Monday mornings are always absolutely chaotic with meetings, but today is particularly bad. It’s the start of the last sprint up until we break for the holidays, so I feel particularly crunched to get things wrapped up. During one of our meetings, I remember that I have a $120 balance on my credit card and get that taken care of. ($120)
1:45: a 15-minute break in meetings to inhale some food! I microwave a can of Amy’s Vegetable and Barley soup and absolutely destroy it.
5:00: Last call of the day wraps up an hour over time, but I’m actually really happy about it. At the end it turned into the small team I work closest with just chatting for an hour about games that we like, game theory, and just.. having fun. I really love my team and considering I started this job in the pandemic, I’m so happy to feel as close and integrated with everyone as I do. I know the “my coworkers are like family” thing is potentially toxic and overplayed, but I genuinely feel that way! It also could totally be influenced by the fact that they’re the people that I interact with most (read: exclusively) other than my partner, and god, I miss human interaction.
5:30: Finally done-ish with work, and I desperately need to get away from a screen. I’m exhausted, but reeeaaally should work out. Fitness is super important for my mental wellbeing, and I took a long break and felt that, hard. I commit do doing something, which is a big part of the program / community I’m in.
7:00: Done and showered. N is finishing up our dinner of pasta and vegan meatballs. We watch Barry while we eat (N got me hooked and it’s soooo good guys), and eventually break out some ice cream (non-dairy Netflix & Chill from Ben&Jerry’s, one of my favs).
10:00: Head to bed and do all the boring stuff (skincare, brush teeth, blah blah blah). N and I cuddle watching It’s Always Sunny, and have some intimate time. I pass out around midnight, very much past my old lady bedtime.
Daily Total: $120
Tuesday:
7:00: Alarm, not happening
8:00: Whoops! Apparently I didn’t hit snooze. Up way too late, so I rush through getting ready. I really play with fire and drive out to the closest town to pick up doughnuts from a local vegan spot. ($10.00)
9:00: Rush in to hop on my first call of the morning from my phone. During the call I open my running Money Diary doc and it’s gone! Ugh. Thankfully I have a pretty good memory of how yesterday went, but sorry in advance if it feels… summary-y? Anyways, I eat a doughnut while half paying attention to a call I really should be paying at least 75% attention to.
10:30: I have a longer break between meetings and really need to get some head-down work done. It heavily involves playing a video game, woe is me. I grab another doughnut while I dive in.
1:30: Another can of soup for lunch – N is out getting groceries because our stock is abysmal. He’s getting stuff to get us through to the holidays, as were bunkering down starting Sunday. This run is highly motivated by the list I gave him for Hanukkah feast prep!
5:00: I’ve been staring at a screen for far too long and call it a day. N was out taking photos and told me it’s amazing out, so I throw on my airpods, blast my incredibly embarrassing playlist, and head out. I walk along the shore and I’m blown away – the waves have never been this high, there’s practically no beach! I usually walk / run in the morning, so it’s a rare treat to watch the sun go down over the ocean. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to see all the fancy houses’ Christmas lights! About halfway through my walk it’s 100% dark, and since there are no streetlights or sidewalks here, it’s a little dodgy.
6:00 When I get home N is making dinner – roast chickpeas and veg with field roast sausages. He also asks me to venmo him for groceries without giving me a number, a thing that happens regularly. We’ll see how long it takes for that charge to come through.
9:30: I have no idea what I’ve been doing for the last few hours, but I’ve definitely mostly been scrolling through my phone. Ugh. I’m feeling super drained so I decide to start getting ready for bed while N continues to play video games. I fall asleep around 11, after more messing around on my phone.
Daily Total: $10.00
Wednesday:
8:00: Boy I’ve really been oversleeping this week. I probably need it, but it’s still frustrating. Go through the AM motions, cuddle with the cats, and head downstairs to log into work. I grab the last half a doughnut and buckle in for another busy day – although it looks like it’s starting to lighten up.
1:00: I’m starving and take a quick lunch break – I wrap yesterday’s leftovers in a tortilla with some hummus and call it a day. I also spend some time staring at my credit score. I decide to finally take care of the charge-off on my account and opt to settle it for 50% (I argued for a pay-for-delete and it was a no-go). I know this might hurt my credit at first, but I really hope in the long run this does more good than bad. I curse my poor life decisions made as a college student, even though I ran up this credit card to survive. ($1,532.44, from savings)
2:30: Time for my annual review, which is always terrifying. This goes surprisingly well – almost nothing but positive feedback and some very light constructive criticism, all for things that I’ve been working on. I also find out I’m getting a slight raise and a bonus! I’ve never gotten a bonus before!! This really helps balance out my buyers remorse over paying off my charge-off earlier. I text my dad and let him know, and while he’s quite proud and happy for me, he also reminds me about my phone bill. D’oh. I send that to him right away. ($90, listed in monthly payments)
5:30: I’ve done basically nothing since my review, other than reply to a few emails that came in and looked at apartments back in LA I can’t afford. I move to the couch and start the dinner convo – N says he’ll start on a tofu & veg stir fry in a bit. I’m way too drained to think about working out, even though today’s workout looks fun.
7:00: Therapy! My bi-weekly therapy has started to become… less than useful, but I really like my therapist as a person. It’s become a bit of a weird dynamic since I started taking medication again, and I know I should shift to using my health insurance to find a better fit, but I’ve been seeing her for a year and honestly don’t know how to leave a therapist?? It’s fine. I still enjoy my sessions with her, even if its not the groundbreaking therapy I’ve had in the past. ($60, listed in monthly payments)
8:00: We watch Black Christmas (the remake from last year) and it’s… really bad. But we’re both scrolling through twitter during, so whatever. Afterwards I accept that I’m falling asleep on the couch and head to bed. Why am I so tired this week?? This comes and goes and it’s always a bit concerning, but there’s not much I can do about it. I’m out hard by 11.
Daily Total: $1,532.44
Thursday:
7:30: I wake up closer to on-time, but definitely don’t get up. One of the cats is at the end of the bed sleeping on his back, which is way too cute for me to get up and disturb, so I snuggle up with him for another 30 minutes. Eventually I hop out of bed, remembering that it’s the first day of Hanukkah! I throw on my new ugly Hanukkah sweater (it’s got cats and says “Meow-zel Tov”, of course) and check into work. Today is soooo much lighter, and I’m thrilled about it since I’ll be cooking this afternoon.
12:30: Break for lunch – I take the lazy way and make some instant ramen. Love that one of the cheap ones are vegan, it’s a great easy staple to have on hand!
1:30: Weekly appointment with my RD. I’ve made an incredible amount of progress with my eating disorder since I started seeing her about 8 months ago. My life w/t food is night and day from before. I definitely still struggle with body image / body neutrality, and I’ve put on a noticeable (but unknown – I left my scale behind) amount of weight and it’s a challenge when my clothes fit differently than before. But I’m working on it! I genuinely think I’m going to “graduate” out of this program soon, I’m hoping by March (partially motivated by the cost, tbh). ($165, listed in monthly costs).
2:00: After my appointment I run out to the grocery store to grab a few things N missed – namely Gelt and bread. I’m going to teach him how to gamble (aka the Dreidel game) tonight and we need the awful chocolate coins to complete the experience. Thankfully I find some pareve coins, so I don’t have to worry about there being dairy. There are a few other odds and ends we need too, since we’re starting our full-lockdown this weekend, and I go a little crazy (ice creams, treats, cereal, etc etc). ($46.24)
4:00: I start my cooking prep while watching The Game Awards with my coworkers (virtually, of course). This event is way less about the actual awards and way more about fun trailer drops. There are a few that I’m pretty into, based on what I see.
7:00: Finally done cooking! I made latkes (with applesauce, always applesauce) and a savory spinach kugel. Hilariously, I hate frying food, so this is a good holiday for me, ha. Everything came out super good, and I’m so pleased since I am NOT the cook of the house. Pretty much as soon as we finish eating I fry up the sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) I had prepped and get those done for a dessert. Doughnuts are hard, and these weren’t perfect by any means, but they tasted good! We throw on Seinfeld in the backround, our go-to comfort show (and honestly, appropriate).
9:00: I’m exhausted, what’s new. N so kindly starts cleaning up the kitchen for me and packaging leftovers, bless. We both head to bed and I pass out at 11, according to my Fitbit.
Daily Total: $46.24
Thursday:
7:00: Actually wake up on-time today, but stay in bed for about 45 minutes cuddling the cat and scrolling socials. Force myself out of bed so that I have enough time to go for a walk and listen to the new Taylor Swift album (first take: not as good as Folklore, but “no body, no crime” is a bop).
10:00: Finish up my first meeting and make some breakfast – Cheerios & banana.
12:00: Run to the post office to pick up some boxes. I have to send a return and mail a gift out before they close today! When I’m home, I heat up some leftover kugel and have that with more applesauce.
3:00: Last meeting done, back to the post office to actually ship. I did not think this through. To send two packages it costs $30.10 because I accidentally grabbed flat-rate packages because I’m a millennial who doesn’t know how mail works . Back home to finish up my odds and ends for the day, before I remember I have to level up my DnD character before our session tonight! ($30.10)
9:30: DnD goes great! It’s honestly the main non-work interaction I have, and it’s with a group of dudes (and N) that I hadn’t had much contact with since college and really love. We’re definitely more of a “lets goof off and do dumb stuff” kinda team, which is my favorite. We also all talk about Cyberpunk 2077, which everyone outside of our household has been playing. I have some very strong (not-great) opinions about it, but I’m glad they’re all really enjoying it. We might pick it up eventually but definitely not until I get my next-gen console, which I’m putting off until January when all the insanity dies down (and some bugs get ironed out).
11:00: We finish up Barry (it’s really so good) and head to bed. We catch High Fidelity (the movie, not the show) on TV, and both remember how much we love it. I pass out pretty shortly after that ends.
Daily Total: $30.10
Saturday:
9:00: Technically awake… but N and I stay in bed until 11 cuddling each other and the cats, and scrolling through Twitter. I really, really gotta break that habit of socials-first-thing. Once I finally get up, I take my time through my skincare and realize it’s time to shave my face (hairy Eastern-European genes whaddup). I should do my brows too, but I pluck about 2 hairs before deciding my will is not strong enough.
12:00: It rained last night, so I get myself ready to head out for a long walk. It’s so wonderful and smells so good out. I just love being somewhere with nature all around, which is so foreign as someone who has always been a “city person” first and foremost. It’s one of the major revelations the pandemic has given me. I stop at my favorite coffee shop on my way and get my tried-and-true peppermint mocha with soy (7.50). The big downside to this town – it’s like a Covid bizzarro world. Outdoor dining is still a thing (which we absolutely do not take advantage of), and there’s a damn nail salon open. During the week, pretty much everyone wears a mask when they’re around others. On the weekends, it seems like a bunch of people come in from out of town, and they’re all the worst version of entitled. Mask usage goes way down and people are pretty insufferable about it. I do my best to keep extreme distance and be as passive aggressive about it as possible. When I get back, I’m thoroughly damp and start rage cleaning the house. ($7.50)
3:00: Got sufficiently through cleaning the house for the day, and realize I have yet to eat any real food. Whoops. My RD is going to want to talk about this, even though I genuinely haven’t been hungry. I have a bowl of Cheerios with a banana, and add some snacky things to bulk it up a bit. Time to relax a bit with garbage tv (HGTV is my heroin).
5:30: One of my cats starts acting weird (hissing and yowling at nothing) and I have an absolute breakdown and demand we rush to the vet. I am wailing the entire way, and pace in the parking lot until we find out that he’s absolutely fine, and just had worms. What a drama king!!! N pays for the vet because I’m in no state to communicate with anyone. When we get home I follow him around and give him as much love as he’ll allow (which is a lot, tbh). When I’m more relaxed N pours us some wine and we watch “Underwater”, the movie that’s basically “Aliens” but… underwater. It’s alright – the production design and creature design are absolutely incredible though!
11:00: After I head to bed I hear my cat hissing and yowling again. We jump on it and start paying close attention to him. After watching him for a bit, we come to the conclusion that he must be constipated, poor thing. I give him some pumpkin puree until I can go get him some more wet food in the morning. My anxiety is definitely way high tonight over all of this.
Daily Total: $7.50
Sunday:
9:30: It’s raining out, so we have a bit of a lazy morning in bed, while keeping an eye on the cats. He manages to go to the bathroom a little without screaming after, so I think that’s progress! After a bit I run out to the pet store and get an obscene amount of their favorite wet food, so we don’t run out again (at least for a while). While I’m there I grab a few holiday-themed cat toys, which my spoiled children absolutely don’t need, but always deserve. ($34.88)
1:00: Since it’s raining there’s no way I’m going on the run I had hoped to. Guess that means a lazy Sunday! We light the fireplace, throw on the TV, and I make a Chik’n salad wrap. I put off eating too long two days in a row, ughhhh.
5:00: Welp, very little has happened today. I get up to finally get the rest of the laundry done, and pick up the cat toys for N to vacuum. I start prepping my work / life week until dinner, while we have The Iron Giant on in the background. The stopped-up kitty seems to be totally fine now, but we’ll be keeping an eye on him over the next few days to monitor his water consumption and bathroom habits.
8:00: I do a 30-minute yoga flow (Yoga with Adriene forever!) before taking a shower and doing my long CGM shower routine. Full-on wash day takes forever, and I probably should have done this way earlier in the day.
10:00: Finally wrapping up the ~ process ~. Thoroughly feeling the Sunday night blues, so I pop a few CBD gummies, make sleepytime tea, and finish my pm routine before calling it a night.
Total for week: $1,781.16
Grocery + Dining Out: $63.74
Fun + Entertainment: $0
Home + Health: $0
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transportation: $0
Debt: $1,652.44
Other: $64.98
Lastly, reflect on your diary!
Man I’m boring, huh. This was a fairly normal-spend week for me in quarantine, other than the debt payment obviously. The main fluctuation I experience is in groceries, depending on which of us does the main run / N actually sending through a Venmo request, ha. This was also a very low-energy week for me, I usually work out 4-6 days/week, which I’m trying to be gentler on myself about missing. I feel like I’m doing pretty good, I’m definitely quite frugal with hopes of building up my savings / paying off my loans. I feel like I’m quite uneducated about my finances, and would seriously love to hear thoughts & advice from this group of money-savvy folx!

Update: IT'S BEEN FOUND! Check out Update #3 below for details

--
Hi,
Long story short, my kid lost our nintendo switch *somewhere* within wifi range of my router and we've now spent the last 9.5 days looking for it.
it's still connected to our modem as I write this. I can "arp-ping" it's IP address from my computer.
She was playing a bunch of animal crossing in the car last sunday, and sometime between her getting out of the van and an hour later when I went to grab the thing to buy some Turnips in AC, *poof* it was gone. I've turned my vehicle upside down, we've deep-cleaned everwhere she was, i've looked all over my bloody house, top to bottom, but no trace of it.
Except that it's apparently still alive.
So my obsrvation is simply: this thing should have been dead a long time ago right? It's not attached to any chargers or the dock, so it's presumably just.. sitting somewhere, collecting dust. But off dock for 9 days? It shouldn't still be active on my network, much less pingable. How long do these batteries last when not being used, but also undocked and clearly alive?

--- UPDATE 1: 01/12/2020 ---

Hi Everyone,
This post blew up in ways I wasn't expecting, and I thank everyone for their interest in suggestions for where to look. I'd like to supply an answer to some frequently suggested concepts:
​
The Vehicle
The moment I found out I could ping the device with arp-ping (seen here: https://imgur.com/SJVENPl) as the switch blocks the ping protocol, I jumped into my vehicle and drove it a couple blocks away, and continued to run arp-ping continuously while doing so. When I got home, i kept the arp-ping going for quite a while, just to be sure. The signal never went away, and never got any weaker. I was genuinely hoping it'd be in the vehicle, would have been such an easy win
My kid is hoarding / hiding it
I'm sure this is a pretty valid theory in most situations. But my kid is 7, and one of her favorite things to do is collaborate on our island. I've caught her having nightmares in the middle of the night about having lost it, and she feels genuinely awful about it. But as far as her memory serves her, she ran from the vehicle, kicked off her shoes, and ran to the living room. To get really specific it's because she had a tent setup earlier in the day that she wanted to "camp in" once we got home and was ultra excited about it, so she rushed. She has no idea where she could have placed it, sadly. We've been through the memory and retracing steps together execise several times over
My Neighbor has it
This one is a work in progress. My downstairs neighbor and I aren't on very good terms at all, to the point where we communicate with each other exclusively through our landlord. He's a 45yo divorced drunkard who makes his living selling weed, loves to get high and as such likes to project his anger in life and pick fights with my family and has an on and off again feeling towards my kids.Based on ALL of this, if my kid dropped the switch outside while b-lining to the front door and didn't hear it fall (landed on the grass?) I could beleive he would have seen it, snatched it up, and brought into his suite. At the same time, his kids come around every other week and I think there were there that sunday. So I could also beleive that one of his kids saw it, picked it up, and brought it inside. I've sent an email about it to our landlord, attached with photos of the device in my kids hands.But, there's a couple holes in the theory though that keep me from nailing this one down

1. He's somewhat tech savvy. If he had the switch in his possession, he'd know to switch the wifi to his own, or wipe the device with a factory reset and he jsut scored a several hundred dollar baby sitting device for basically free
2. If his kids had it, and let's say, hid it from their dad.. wouldn't they have taken it with them during the week when their mother picked them up?

Lost in the couch or shelves
I can't begin to overstate how much i've obsessed over checking every nook and cranny of our upholstry, furniture, shelving units, even the fireplace 😂 it's been quite the adventure, every day
Use the router as a "metal detector" of sorts with wifi signal strength
*sigh* man I wish.Unfortunately the router itself is one of those modern ones with the "friendly UI" that was supplied by my ISP. It's a Shaw BluCurve for anybody who's curious. This interface does nothing for displaying signal strength, nor does it provide much logging information. It just shows a histograph of network activity and that's it.See here: https://imgur.com/HQtzD4e for a snapshot of the interface I took a couple minutes ago as of Dec 2nd 2020 (this was lost on Nov 22nd 2020)I've gone through hoops to find apps both on my phone and laptop to detect wifi signals, but they all seem to require I track a mac address. And while I have that mac address, the Switch itself only periodically once in a while pops on, and secondarily the switch seems to block standard protocols, like ping, which I somewhat suspect these apps are using to detect signal strength; so the switch's mac address is never available to detect in these apps.Some luck would have it that I have had the switch connect to my phone's wireless hotspot before as an auto connectable SSID. So I have unplugged my router and turned on my hotspot, and I have had the switch connect to it, but it only stays connected for a few seconds at most, and goes away again just as quick as the device pops up in my connected devices list. And still yet, no apps will detect it's mac to track 🙄I've even used my laptop for this purpose too.I'm open to suggestions on how to improve this process though.

-- UPDATE 2: 04/12/2020 --

Well everyone.. looks like the device has finally bit it.
https://imgur.com/w1wFbL9 It's been well over 24h since it last reached out to the router, with my router reporting the last connection was 2/12/2020
The good news is, this means my neighbor doesnt have it. Because I know for a fact he possesses USB-C devices (his phone) and there's no reason he wouldn't have found itself on a charger if someone knew where it was around here. So this means it's definitely in my suite somewhere.
Sadly, that night (2/12) is when my family needed the wifi until late at night. I had hoped for just.. one more day. One more day of hope. But the Nintendo gods said no, and before i could set my laptop up as a hotspot with the same SSID/PW as the router, shut the router off, and use ARP tools while I walked around the house..
Seriously that's the thing that gets me, simply because I never use this feature, I completely forgot you could use a laptop as a hotspot. I'd been using my phone as a hotspot, because, well, "data", y'know? *sigh*

-- UPDATE 3: 07/12/2020 --

It has been found!

Boom, here it is, in all of it's dead battery glory: https://imgur.com/CoWjXi8

Where was it?!

Let's cut right to the chase with a TL;DR: It was found in this: https://imgur.com/kDz9FT2
How was it found? How. In the world. Did it wind up in there? and as a follow up: how did it go for so long without being found?
Well, I have your answers.

How was it found?

I carry my laptop backpack around with me everywhere I go, because naturally it has my laptop in it. I do a lot of chauffering my family around as I'm the only driver in the family, and as a software engineer who's "peace zone" is writing code (I know..) it's always by my side.
Today, as I was picking my oldest (the one who lost the switch) up from school, I was informed to park a little ways away so my oldest could get some walking in with her friend today. Happy to oblige I did so, and while my youngest slept in her car seat, whipped out the laptop and did some stuff.
When my oldest got to the van, and I went to put my laptop away, I noticed that I couldn't get the laptop into the bag far enough to zip up. But, I mean, for the past couple months I've been packing my laptop charger in the same slot out of convenience. So I reached down to the bottom of the slot to move the charger aside so the laptop could seat properly.
and that's when I felt something.. distinctly not my laptop charger, https://imgur.com/E6df4my

How in the world did it wind up in there?

I shoved the newly found switch into my inner coat pocket after picking my jaw up off the floor, and got out of the car and gave her a huge hug. Specifically so she'd feel something in my coat pocket that isn't normal. People of reddit, the look on her face when she felt the switch in my coat, ran the gammut of emotions from happiness, to relief, to mentally exhausted, to excited, to confused, and back to happy with a tear. My youngest, still in her car seat and missing the heck out of Mario (her favorite game) was losing her absolute mind with excitement, to the point of actually crying (three year olds and their emotions haha)
Part of my oldest's range of emotions was the fact when I told her I found it in my backpack in the laptop slot, her eyes lit up like everything was coming back to her.
"OH. OH YEAH. OH MY GOD THAT'S RIGHT." she exclaims.
That's when she takes me through what really happened that fateful evening.
Switch under her arm, she hears me ask her "remember to bring in the case" from the front door way, and see's me turn around and enter the house. She tells me that because she was "running out of hands", she noticed I had forgotten to bring in my backpack, and decided to unzip it and slide the switch into my laptop's slot, before rezipping my backpack back up, and then in her rush, only remembering to grab the case to bring it in, also forgetting the backpack, before bolting for the door and coming inside.
After she takes me through the whole thing, I ask her straight out: "Why would you put it in my backpack, and not the it's case that you we asked to bring in?", and she answers "You know, that's a great question and I wish I had an answer..."

How did it go for so long without being found?

The switch was lost on a sunday. It was either Tuesday or Wednesday that I noticed it was on the WiFi and tried the whole pinging thing, and that's when I tried taking the van a couple blocks away and walking home to see if the pinging reduced, figuring it was left in the van.
Thing is, while I had forgotten my backpack in the Van on Sunday evening, I had retrived it the following morning (Monday). I had asked my oldest to look through the Van that Sunday evening and she reported she couldn't find it.
When I brought my backpack inside from the Van, I inspected it of course, In case I somehow had a memory lapse and it was I that put the switch in there.. somehow, and I checked each of the pockets. However, as I have already mentioned, I'd been putting my laptop charger in the same slot as my laptop for a while now. It's a pretty deep pocket. But this means when I reached in and pulled out my charger, somehow, I managed to miss feeling or even seeing the switch sitting in the bottom this entire time. Of course I went through each of the other pockets, but here's the weird part: I've been taking my laptop and charger out and back into my backpack nearly every day for the past couple months. It -somehow- had simply evaded my grasp and sight this entire run, and of course at no point did my daughter remember that she had at any point slipped the switch into it at all.
But this is why when I drove the van away to test the ping, that the ping enver went away.
But this is also why the signal was weak, it was stuffed inside my backpack in a room onthe opposite side of the house. But the thing that really slays me the more I think about it, is that I had actually taken my laptop and charger out of my backpack SEVERAL TIMES in order to use it as a beacon to track the wifi signal, little did I know the switch was beside me the whole time.
In fact, the thing was always with me, all the time, every day.
Pictured: the normal view of my laptop's backpack slot open https://imgur.com/QJ1DSjJ
But now we have a happy ending. My youngest (3) is enjoying her favorite game https://imgur.com/UYIHtB4 and my oldest can't wait to meet up with Apple in Animal Crossing later when it's her turn.
​
Thank you everybody for your wonderful suggestions, for all of your help, care, and wishes for a hopeful finding. I hope for those who were curious and desired a follow up post are not disappointed with the outcome 🙏
​
Cheers everybody! 🍻
​
Now, time for me buy one of those bluetooth beepers or a 2nd controller or something lol I'm just really excited to have it back, and in perfectly working order!

Alternate R29 Title: A mental health worker who makes $36k spends some of their money on things that will inevitably be chewed.
Content warnings: mental health issues, abuse, addiction
Some background: I lived nomadically in a home built van with my partner for one year, at which time my income and expenses were both very low. We moved to an area of the US with an extremely HCOL to pursue jobs, and I was living essentially paycheck to paycheck for this year. When our jobs went remote, we moved to Minneapolis to live with friends and be only a state away from our families.
Also, before we begin: In this diary, I am not and would never suggest that I am the smartest about money. My parents are both financially irresponsible, and financial control and manipulation was a big part of my childhood and young adulthood with my father. I am doing the best I can with what I have, and feel very fortunate to have landed a job where I can begin to save money in a meaningful way. Please be kind.

Section One: Assets and Debt

• Retirement Balance: $200 in a retirement account offered through my job with no employer matching. Currently contributing 3% of my paycheck.
• Equity if you're a homeowner: None
• Savings account balance: approximately $700. At one point I had over $3k, but it was wiped by an emergency surgery and moving cross country. That’s why it’s there! I am very grateful that I’m still being paid my HCOL salary while living in a much LCOL area, and plan to have this up to $5k by next year.
• Checking account balance: $1,718.53. Payday!
• Credit card debt: $4k. This was my last semester of college that I couldn’t secure loans for, and some COL expenses when I was between jobs for a few months in 2018. On a Capital One Savor One card with 0% interest. This interest rate expires in December, at which point G has graciously offered to pay it and let me make my remaining payments to him. I pay at least $400 on this per month, more if I can manage.
• Student loan debt: $18.5k for a BA in Psychology and Criminal Justice . $17k managed by ~the government~, $1.5k managed by an individual institution. This debt was accrued across three schools: 1 semester at a small liberal arts college before dropping out for mental health reasons, 1.5 years at a community college, and 2 years at a public research institution. I took small loans out as I went, and paid the rest out of pocket by working full time. I think my total education cost was around $30k.

Anything else that's applicable to you:

• Partner’s finances: He makes $100k after taxes, and has savings and various investments in an LLC that exist pretty separately from his life, and most certainly from mine. We have a pretty significant wealth disparity between us and have a proportional system to account for it. We have both joint and personal banking accounts, and split all joint expenses according to our income- he pays approximately 75%, I pay 25%. Even when we lived in the Bay, we made sure that my 25% was equitable to what I could afford if I lived independently.

Section Two: Income

Income Progression: I've been working in my field for 5 years, but mostly in a volunteer capacity.

• 2011-2018: I started working (unofficially) in kitchens when I was 12, as my father owns a restaurant. I worked there and at approximately 6-8 other restaurants from age 16 to 23, paying my way through school and supporting myself. My salary was very variant because over the years I worked as a server, hostess, line cook, barista, and did A/R bookkeeping. But approximately $14-$22/hour.
• 2015-2019: I did a ton of variant volunteer and stipend based community work that is too variable to recount here. Great for my resume, not so much for my finances.
• 2017: Non-profit work with youth in the criminal justice system. Earned $16/hour.
• 2019-present: I work at a nonprofit school as a mental health counselor. Starting rate at $20/hour. At my year mark, I applied for a few promotions and received a pay bump to $22.26/hour.

Main Job Monthly Take Home:

• I make $22.26/hour. I work 40 hours a week, plus a variable 2-4 OT hours for some extra responsibilities.
• Average Gross Take Home: $2,850
• Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None
• Any Other Monthly Income Here: None

Section Three: Expenses

• Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees: I live in a house owned by good friends. We pay $800 total, split proportionally as mentioned above. I pay $206/month.
• Renters / home insurance: none, paid by roommates.
• Retirement contribution: see above
• Savings contribution: I put at minimum $400 into savings per month. Looking to double this as my COL goes down.
• Investment contribution: none

​

• Debt payments:
  • Government managed student loan: $237/month, the minimum. Currently on COVID deferment, reallocating this payment to the private loan until I hear otherwise.
  • Privately managed student loan: $200/month, minimum is $47. This has the highest interest rate, so as per the avalanche method I’m paying this down first.
  • Capital One Credit Card: $400/month

​

• Donations:
  • $19/month- ASPCA Guardian program. I don’t know how I got signed up for this and I don’t know how to cancel it, so I have just accepted it.
  • $20-80/month- reparations donations to individuals via venmo/gofundme
  • Approx. $100/year to political campaigns/orgs

​

• Electric: $50/month, split with G
• Wifi/Cable/Landline: $50/month, split with G
• Cellphone: $25/month
• Subscriptions:
  • Spotify family account with G: $14/month
  • Nintendo Switch Online: $20/year
  • Hulu: $6/month
  • Amazon- I use G’s membership
  • Netflix- use a friend’s

​

• Gym membership: None
• Pet expenses: Only 3 weeks into pet ownership so hard to say, but I’d guess $100-150/month. Split with G, though he covers all larger costs.
• Car payment / insurance: None
• Ride Share: $30/month
• Regular therapy: I continue to see my therapist of 5 years who is in another state, so insurance doesn’t cover it. She’s got me on a very gracious sliding scale, $100/1-2 times a month.

​

• Paid hobbies:
  • Approximately $20/month on video games
  • $50/month on my recently developed online shopping hobby
• Monthly Discretionary Budget (all split with G):
  • Groceries- $400
  • Eating out- $200
  • Toiletries & Misc- $300

​
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
There was definitely the expectation, but the financial issues from my parents made it quite complicated. My father insisted I apply to private schools, including a lot of Ivys, for no apparent reason (other than his ego) as I had mediocre grades. Surprising no one, I was left with only a few options. My father purported to pay for my college, but that ended up being smoke, mirrors, and lots of angry phone calls. I worked full time (up to 50+ hours a week my last two years) to reduce the loans.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
My parents are divorced. My mother (and me, by extension) lived in poverty for most of my childhood. My father is middle class, a business owner, and has always used money as a way to control and shame me, my mother, and his wife. My mother struggles with addiction in various forms, and money was alway seen as a way to ease pain and stress in our home. But there was never enough of it, so she was always stressed… even before we get to that question, yes. I did and do have a lot of anxiety around money.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
Working for my father in his restaurant. It was viewed as a “helping the family” kind of thing. Despite other features of my upbringing, I do want to acknowledge that having a parent able to hire and pay me at a business is a privilege without question. It allowed me to purchase a car in high school, among other things.
Did you worry about money growing up?
See above.
Do you worry about money now?
It has taken so much emotional work to unpack the effects of my childhood on my financial health and sense. Because there were much larger, urgent to my life ramifications of my upbringing, it took time (and lots of therapy) to recognize and unpack some of the subtler things. I would say a year ago is when I started to seriously work at my financial health, and looking back it’s so upsetting to see how I was living up until then! I’m really grateful for where I am right now.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I was financially independent starting at 19. I lived with my mother after high school for around a year after a few hospitalizations, and after that I was on my own. I have over the years received cash gifts from my parents or grandparents ($500-1000), but more often than not they were used for coercion, in exchange for large work or family projects, or promised and never received.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?
No. G did receive significant inheritances as a young adult, and this allowed him to invest at an early age and graduate with his Master’s debt-free.

7 Day Money Diary

Tuesday, 11/10:

• 3AM: Not quite asleep, but hear the puppy rustling around so I take him out so my partner doesn’t wake up. Even though it was 70 degrees this past weekend, the temp has taken a turn and it’s now hovering around 40. Both me and the pup are disgruntled about the cold wind and fall back asleep.
• 7AM: awoken to the sweet rousing music of the puppy crying. Since I did the nighttime wake up, it’s my partner’s turn to take him in the morning while I get a few more hours of sleep.
• 9:30AM: woke up to snow falling outside and a text from my roommate, R, that he’s picking up coffee. I have been craving something froofy so get a peppermint mocha with oat milk, and a turkey bacon/egg/swiss sandwich. My partner also gets the mocha and I buy R’s drink as a thank you for a total of $19.21.
• 10:30AM: Because I moved from the west coast, I get to start work two hours later, which has been a godsend with my insomnia and the addition of this puppy. It does mean I have to work until 6:30PM, but I don’t mind too much as I don’t have a bustling social calendar these days. I have been dealing with chronic back pain this past year (being 25 is so, so cool) so opt to start my day of zoom calls in bed with a heating pad.
• 11:30AM: It’s my turn with the pup, so I give him some toys to chew next to me and catch up on emails, texts, and generally stare into space to ponder my existence. I then procrastinate a bit before my next meeting to order a new phone case (someone in my house chewed mine…) and, completely unrelated, some more chew toys. $37.33
• 12:00PM: Time for one of my favorite meetings of the week! I applied to be on a small team of people who handle all the technology needs of our students- which I love and is a big departure from my typical day to day with the kids. We discuss some on-going issues where the kids can get around parental controls on the school issued iPads, and plans to replace all tech with chromebooks. That means a bunch of research on which to purchase- a task I love and will so happily be paid overtime to do!
• 1:30PM: Starting to feel sluggish, and the gray sky spitting slush is not helping. I go hug my partner and pup, make some ginger tea for the nausea, and heat up leftovers for lunch: pasta with red sauce and tofu parmesan, along with the requisite lact-aid and peppermint oil. I also call my mother, who doesn’t answer, which sparks up some latent anxiety. My parents, step-parents, and siblings have all tested positive for covid, and all of them are showing symptoms. The past few weeks have been extremely difficult for me, as both of my parents are very high risk. Our relationships are complicated, but I have been calling them every day just to see how they’re doing. I decide to call her back in two hours and dive back into work.
• 5PM: Some zooms, a few stressful miscommunications, and a few hours later, I am settled on the couch watching Criminal Minds with my roommates, finishing up work things. The puppy is getting really bite-y and it is exhausting to keep up with all the time. Fortunately I’ve got dried fruit (pineapple and mangoes) and a glass of my favorite red wine. I am stressed out because HR hasn’t updated my direct deposit and my paychecks keep going to my old bank account. It’s going to take at least 4-5 days for the transfer to go through, which is annoying but not that big of a deal. I did hear back from my mom and she’s doing okay, just really tired.
• 6:30PM: It takes me a lifetime to finish my documentation, but when I do my partner has made unbelievable homemade ramen, and we chase around the puppy for a while.
• 7PM I realized my roommates bought blueberry bagels so I munched on one with cream cheese while talking to a woman I am hoping to meet later in the week on a socially distanced date. My partner and I are poly-am and had just started getting in the groove with new relationships when we up and moved to Minneapolis, so it’s nice to reconnect with people.
• 8PM: Got on with a few friends to play Among Us, which was a blast. When I was done I saw my roommate, R, had made warm apple crisp (!!) so I had a plate of that with coconut whipped cream, watched a bit of House, and then took the pup out one last night. We got about seven inches of snow, so he was thrilled to experience his first snowfall. Watching him romp around trying to eat the snowflakes tugged deeply at my heartstrings, and I got into my warm bed feeling very grateful.

Food & Drink: $19.21
Home & Health: $33.73
​
Wednesday, 11/11

• 7:15AM: Uggh good morning little dog! Not quite though. Do your business in the chilly morning air, and then back to bed.
• 9:30AM: After dozing a bit I hear the espresso machine roaring, and it’s impossible not to start off the day right when R brings me in a latte. I strip the bed and do laundry, sweep the house, and play pick up dog toys for a while.
• 11AM: It’s a staff development day, and I’m grateful for the break from the virtual learning monotony. I munch on an everything bagel with cream cheese and some strawberries. My work is buying lunch, so I order delivery for west coast lunch time- vegan cold cuts! I’m reimbursed for my sandwich, but we split some extra vegan deli meats for the house and I pay $32.57.
• 12:30PM: A tattoo artist I have been checking out emails me back, and we decide on a rabbit portrait done in a geometric style for my right calf. I send them a $100 deposit for an appointment next month.
• 2PM: R and I stand in the kitchen and lament about the weather, and marvel at the birds outside. We resolve to keep the birds well fed and ourselves entertained, so I order some more bird feeders and seed: $52.92, split with roommates for an out of pocket total of $26.46. We use an app called Splitwise to share expenses, which makes everything remarkably easier.
• 6PM: Half working, half dicking around on the internet. I order a book of short stories and a poetry anthology from my favorite indie reseller, Bookshop, for $38.64.
• 10:30PM: G and I have our now normal routine of putting the pup to bed in his crate and then rolling around talking and laughing for a few hours. I eventually pass out around 1AM.

Food + Drink: $32.57
Fun / Entertainment: $138.64
Home + Health: $26.46
Total: $197.67
​
Thursday, 11/12

• Writing this now on Sunday, I have absolutely no idea what happened. I assume I worked, and ate, and did some other things. Maybe I slept through it? Judging by my bank account I didn’t buy anything, so I suppose we’ll call this day lost to time and space.

Spent: $0
​
Friday, 11/13

• 8:00AM- like clockwork… today I try to convince the baby that he wants to go back to bed, but he’s not buying it. Fridays are always the longest day of the week, so I’m particularly grumpy about the sleep loss.
• 10:30AM: My workplace is doing a lot of work around racial inequity, so I spent my morning discussing whiteness, privilege, and power in small groups. I am really grateful we’re spending so much time on this, especially considering most of our students are POC.
• 12:45PM: Rough morning for the kids, and me too! The day is really dragging, and I give myself and my middle schooler a pass to take it easy. We chat while he plays his favorite video game and I remind myself of the importance of duality. Doing this virtual shit for the last 9 months is really starting to take its toll, with no end in sight.
• 6:30PM: It’s time for one of my favorite work traditions- every Friday we have a check out meeting to end the week. It’s some business, but mostly fun- we nominate each other for who was the most helpful/funny/supportive, or gave the best advice/led the best zoom activity/went above and beyond. It’s usually pretty silly, and who doesn’t love some positive validation?
• 7PM: I have been putting off a bunch of purchases that I really need due to paralyzing indecision. I make a drink and bunker down to order new bed sheets, a heated blanket, and some kitchen equipment for $222.07, a laptop desk tray, new duvet cover and a bluetooth mouse for $118.27, and some dog supplies including food storage and a new harness for $62.10. I also get my check from Rakuten for +$7.29, which makes it all worth it.
• 9PM: I do something for the rest of the night, but fuck if I know what. Best guess is I ate some weird assortment of pantry items, talked shit with my roommates and wrestled with the dog and my partner intermittently until it became the mysterious hour that I am dead tired.

Total Spent (all Home & Health) : $402.44
​
Saturday, 11/14

• 10:30AM: up and at ‘em! On the agenda is a vet appointment, so I pack some coffee and breakfast for the road and we head out.
• 12:15PM: We have to wait in the car while the baby gets his butt shots, and it’s honestly really nice to have more than a few minutes of quiet time to ourselves. I’m beginning to get the sense of what parenthood might be like… G pays for the vet out of his personal account, so I am not recording it here. I think it was around $200- he got 3 vaccines and a microchip!
• 1PM: When the vet tech comes back with our boy, she’s startled by an older woman trying to get a look at the “adorable baby” and trying to drag her partner outside to look too. This exact thing happened the last time we were at the vet, which amuses me to no end.
• 2PM: It’s rainy and cold, and the poor dog is exhausted, so we are all bundled in bed watching movies and dicking around on the computer. My roommate very graciously gifted me their old macbook air, so I put my Asus laptop up on Ebay. The auction ends today and I get a decent price, only $150 less than what I bought it for 6 months ago.
• 4PM: G and I notice our pup is not doing well- he isn’t very responsive, very sensitive to touch, and breathing extremely fast. We also realize he peed himself while laying in his bed- something he’s never done. Unfortunately our vet is closed, so we call an animal hospital and review his symptoms- we’re not sure what is a normal response to the vaccines. They advise us that the wait time is 6 hours, which is so upsetting to hear (for us and all the other pets!) and feel torn. By the time all the phone calls are done, we realize he seems a bit more alert and is breathing more normally. We resolve to reassess every 5 minutes, and so fortunately he seems to start returning to his normal self.
• 8PM: Our poor pup seems to be doing better- I spent probably an hour feeding him spoonfuls of broth and peanut butter to get him hydrated. Once he’s settled in, we play a strange indie game called Inside, watch a stressful/awesome horror movie called Green Room, and fall tf to sleep with our poor sick boy.

Spent: $0, + one year of my life in stress
​
Sunday, 11/15

• 10:30AM: I needed that sleep, and apparently so did the pup after his long day yesterday. We all wake up and I make some cereal and coffee. We also have our virtual dog training appointment, where a very sweet lady from New York shows us some great training games! Sadly the pup isn’t feeling 100%, but I’m looking forward to trying these out later on. It is $34/session, which G pays for out of his personal account.
• 11:30AM: It’s a quiet one! I get a ton done on a website project for work, and make some chai tea to sip on. My partner works quietly with the puppy rolling around- it’s the definition of a cozy Sunday.
• 1PM: My younger sister calls wanting to know if I’ve seen this particularly scary movie called Megan is Missing. She and her roommates are all anxious to watch it, and I’m happy to take a break and join. We hop on zoom and watch what ends up to be a terribly acted and unnecessarily gory movie, but I enjoy a beer and some popcorn while we watch and am so happy to connect with her.
• 4PM: The buyer on Ebay finally pays, so I spend a while getting the shipping set up and packaging the computer. I set up a USPS parcel pick up for tomorrow, but can’t get the printer to work and decide to wait for my roommate to get home.
• 7PM: A group of friends is playing Among Us, so I get on discord and spend a few hours laughing and having an excellent time. G joins us later, and we end up staying on voice chat with a friend of mine long past the games to talk about ghost sightings and other paranormal experiences. Around 12AM: we play a few rounds of the game Phasmophobia, which is ridiculously silly and spooky and we are up way too late giggling and shrieking. This friend is from our hometown but happens to live in our current city now, so we’re both excited to reconnect.
• 1:30AM: Still giggly but must sleep. Overall a really good (and low cost!) day.

Spent: $0 (+$515)
​
Monday, 11/16

• 10:45AM: Whoops! Looks like I am paying for my late night. I text my boss an apology and hop onto our morning meeting with a bit of frantic. This is not how I’d like to start the week off, but at least I’m well-slept!
• 12:30PM: I finally figure out the printer and am taping up the box just as the USPS worker is walking up to the house- what timing! I’m so grateful I made it in time, driving to the post office and risking the exposure does not sound great to me.
• 2PM: I finish my meetings and other errant tasks and decide it is entirely time to take a nap. Which for me, one who does not sleep during the day, means getting burrito-ed in the blankets and listening to House really quietly. It does what it needs to soothe my brain and prepares me for…
• 6PM: puppy class! The trifecta of being new in town, during covid, and upcoming Midwest winter means that we’re in a sticky spot to socialize our dog appropriately. Fortunately after a lot of research I found a great class where we got to hang with one other couple and a trainer in a huge indoor dog park! I was worried about covid measures and was ready to bail if needed, but was very glad to see it was as described and we all had a great time. Watching two five pound puppies try to topple each other is a medicine like no other. G paid for these classes up front, 5 sessions for $158.
• 8PM: With a very sleepy dog between us, G and I do some banking and finances housekeeping, and make plans to go ghost hunting with our friend later in the week when the weather's better.
• 1AM: Must stop reading money diaries, must sleep!

Total Spent: $0
​
At the end of each day please tally up your daily expenses. Then at the end of your diary please tally up all expenses in the following categories:

• Food + Drink: $51.78
• Fun / Entertainment: $138.64
• Home + Health: $462.63
• Clothes + Beauty: $0
• Transport: $0

Total: $653.05
Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have!
I would say this is a little higher than normal in the Home & Health category, and that has been true since we moved. A lot of little things to furnish and prepare for winter. Food was way, way down, but that is because our house did a $2k Costco order a few weeks ago and expect that to be the bulk of our food needs through the winter, save for produce and speciality items.
I’ve oscillated a lot through spending- sometimes definitely nesting, and other times I’ll go a month without buying anything other than necessities. I feel comfortable with this, and feel good about my upcoming budget to replenish my savings and pay down debt.
Overall this was a very interesting activity to do- sometimes I was very excited to write, and other days I dreaded it. Though I suppose that reflects just about everything in my life. Thanks for reading!

I just received my Retroid Pocket 2 in yesterday (ordered 9/23...) and have been spending a few hours the last couple of days setting everything up. Wanted to give some my impressions as I've found those posts useful on here myself.

Basic Setup:

First thing I did was pull out the 32GB card, clone it to a file on my PC just to be safe and throw it in my desk. I also duped the internal storage for backup using a USB cable. Then I filled a new 128GB card with all the roms I wanted and plugged that into the RP2. I uninstalled every pre-installed emulator / DIG and cleaned out the folders. I also disabled all the junk I won't use... Phone, Browser, Calculator, Calendar, Videos, Gallery, Sound Recorder, things like MS Exchange services, Anti Theft, Contact Sync, etc.
I bought a $25 Google Play gift card on Amazon and added it to a brand new Google Play account I made specifically for the RP2. Then I installed all the emulators I wanted, including a fresh copy of Retroarch and the cores I care about.

File Manager:

One useful tip I have is to install X-Plore file manager. If you have an Android phone you can use it to download files and easily transfer them to your RP2 using the WiFi file sharing feature of X-Plore. It's also just much easier to manage your data on your internal storage and external SD Card.
Speaking of managing your external SD Card... you might notice the built in File Manager doesn't show your card, in-fact it just shows your "Internal" storage which is path "/storage/emulated/0". With X-Plore you'll see another option, Root, which will link you straight to your RP2's Root "/" path. Without Root access most of the stuff there isn't straightforward to mess with but there is a "folder" called "rsdcard". This directory is actually your external SD Card. You can go into it, move files around, rename some roms, etc. Depending on the situation this may be easier than removing the SD card and plugging it into a laptop.
Warning though, be careful with your limited memory. If you expand a folder nested 10 directories deep into your root with 150 items on both sides you'll likely crash the app. I would highly recommend going to the Configuration of X-Plore and disabling the option to save your folder location... that way if you crash out you won't be forced to reinstall the app from scratch to reset it.

Front Ends and Launchers:

ATV Launcher: I set this up originally and it's pretty cool. Works infinitely better than the default launcher because it has DPad support for the home screen icons. Unfortunately I wound up disliking the fact that I couldn't just easily access an app drawer. I made sections and folders within sections but overall just a little too complex for what I needed. I also don't like that I can't see the battery icon in the corner, I had to launch into an app to see that as ATV Launcher hides the default notification bar.
RePola: So much better! This is a stripped down version of ATV Launcher, I think specifically made for the RP2. No more dealing with folders, widgets, sections, etc... you have your default notification bar and big square icons you can customize. Then at the bottom quick access to a full app drawer, configuration panel, plus handy wifi and bluetooth toggles.
DIG: I did set up DIG but I'm not using it very often. I open it very occasionally to look at the metadata for a few games in my library but overall I just like using Retroarch's playlist feature. DIG and the other other front-ends like Pegasus and Reset Collection are better for discovery - if you know what you want to open then getting to it straight from the emulator on the android launcher is just faster.

Emulation:

Game Boy Advance:
The big one for me. Works flawlessly from my experience using MyBoy. I would assume Retroarch could also emulate it fine with the mGBA core but I just jumped straight for MyBoy because I used it so much on my phone. So far I've played a lot of Harvest Moon: FoMT, FF VI: Advanced, and Advance Wars. Hotkeys are easy to configure, single button fast forward and save state on the triggers are especially nice - then the extra face buttons to bring up the menu and such.
Playstation Portable:
Really mixed bag for this one. Obviously I am using PPSSPP. Any 3D game is hit or miss. I tried some Burnout and Monster Hunter and wasn't really happy with it, the most luck I had with a 3D game was the second Untold Legends game. It definitely slows down in parts but I was able to clear the first few dungeons. I switched to some 2D games and had a much better time - specifically I got drawn into the Final Fantasy II remake. I recently moved over Persona, Trails in the Sky, and another Legends of Heroes game to try out.
One thing to note about PSP is the aspect ratio causes the image to be letter boxed. Games with very small fonts like Monster Hunter are hard to read.
Sega Dreamcast:
Not looking good so far for old Dreamcast. I've tried Flycast, Reicast, and the Flycast core in Retroarch. Reicast seemed to run games the fastest but was very volatile - crashed like crazy emulating Crazy Taxi 2 and Evolution 1. I actually had the best luck with Evolution 1 on Retroarch with the Flycast core. It's too bad ReDream won't be a thing on here because it works amazing on my $50 chromecast. If anyone has tips that would be great.
Sony Playstation:
No issues here for me. At first I went with the emulator FPSE64 but was immediately turned off - but honestly mostly for a lack of familiarity. I switched to Retroarch with PCSX ReARMed Core and I played a bit of Grandia and a bit of Chrono Cross with absolutely no slowdown. I have a late game FFIX save that worked, though I didn't really run around too much.
Nintendo 64:
I'm a huge fan of N64 but only slightly interesting in emulating it on the RP2 (from experience elsewhere it's not the most gracious). I installed Mupen64Plus FZ and had zero issues immediately jumping into Diddy Kong Racing though - very slight lag but nothing to write home about. I also booted up Harvest Moon 64 and haven't noticed any issues yet. I may try Banjo Kazooie later since I have a save in the middle of that game on my Chromecast I wanted to continue. I've heard good things about N64Oid but never used it - that'll be my first jump if I run into an issue with Mupen64.
Nintendo DS:
Honestly I'm really surprised by this one. I knew Drastic was a great emulator but I'm surprised how well it runs. I played the first hour or so of Final Fantasy IV (the 3D remake) and also booted up a Pokemon: White 2 hack. Biggest issue is with the screen size, to play I set the volume triggers to L3/R3 and use those to Swap Screens and Switch Layouts. One layout is the bottom screen really tiny and overlaying the corner of the main screen and the other is just one screen full-size.
Super Nintendo and Gameboy Color:
I grouped these together because they all work perfectly so far in Retroarch and I wouldn't have expected any different. I use Gamebatte core for GBC and SNES 9X 2010 for SNES... I know from experience a few SNES games run better on the older 9X cores but I haven't messed with them.

Game Streaming:

Moonlight:
I have a pretty robust setup already on my PC for streaming. Basically a Playnite set up with Retroarch, Dolphin, CEMU, Citra, and Yuzu plus all my PC games obviously. I use it extensively to stream HD games to my TV through my Chromecast.
It does work on my RP2 but unfortunately the lack of 5ghz wifi really hurts performance, even streaming at 480, and the aspect ratio of the screen causes letter-boxing similar to PSP emulation. I don't know if there's a way to force 4:3 streaming but it wouldn't work well with my current setup anyways. I streamed a little bit of Gamecube games but the latency was an issue.

Got a Stadia as Xmas present? This is a great place to start.
Gift that you just received, Stadia Premiere edition is amazing! Also, combo of Chromecast Ultra (CCU) and Stadia Controller is by most of the Stadia users the best way to play on Stadia. CCU provides the best image quality, it is silent and Stadia controller connects via WIFI to Stadia servers directly so it does not add extra lag as regular wireless Bluetooth controllers. CCU is in general an amazing streaming device. In order to get best possible performance, link it with wired internet to its power brick. If you can't link it with wire, make sure to use 5Ghz WIFI network.
Where can you play?
PC - via Chrom or new Microsoft Edge - disable not needed extensions or create new profile without any extension. You can get useful debugging info and additional settings by installing Stadia+ or Stadia Enhanced extensions.
Android phone - any Android phone from last 5 years would work through official Stadia application. Just enable Experiments from the settings.
iOS device - Stadia works great on iPhone and iPad too! Use Safari to play (just open stadia.com), not official Stadia app.
People managed to run stadia in Tesla cars, on their fridges and even Nintendo Switch, Google it!
How do I get games to play on Stadia?
There are 2 ways:

1. Being subscribed to Stadia Pro (it is OPTIONAL, if you don't want, you don't have to be Pro subscriber) where you get games to claim each month. You can play claimed games even if they are removed from Pro, as long as you are subscribed to Pro membership. Pro subscription also grants you better discounts, 4K and 5.1 support.
   
2. Simply browse store and do one time purchase, as on any other platform. Be patient and wait for Sales in order to get games at lower prices. Discounts go from 10 to 80%! Games are yours to play forever, no hidden or additional cost.
   

Troubleshooting
There is a great troubleshooting guide here. Community is friendly and helpful if you need some help, feel free to write at /Stadia.
PSA: Stadia has referral program which gives additional free month of Pro subscription, to the one who sign-up through referral link. Link owner also gets 1 month of Pro if you continue being subscribed. Ask your friend to provide you referral link or use my which is posted in the comments below, and make sure to add me as a friend, love meeting new people.
As I would like that we make this guide better, feel free to post additions to it and I will update this post with credits to the authors.
Have fun and enjoy holidays!

TL;DR
You should try out Destiny 2 on Stadia for these reasons. It is now free so you can transfer your character and try it out for no cost. If you are coming from Steam, make sure your video settings in game on Steam are set to vsync on and capped at 60 fps (the settings affect Stadia). If you play M and K, follow these guidelines. You can plug in almost any controller and it works seamlessly. Load times are shorter because everyone is using the same strong processing power. There is no player lag because if someone has a bad connection it only negatively impacts their stream, not their connection to host. There are no cheaters because it is impossible to cheat. Haters are going to hate, you should try it for yourself and see.

I have been playing Destiny 2 on Stadia since it’s release. I originally played on Xbox but after moving abroad I was forced to make the switch to Stadia because I couldn’t afford a gaming laptop. There are a lot of pros to playing on Stadia that I wasn’t expecting and honestly the biggest downside is the small player population. I’m hoping that by writing this segment and educating guardians on some of the benefits, more players will give it a try.
First thing is that recently D2 has gone free to play on Stadia. This is important because now you don’t even need a paid Stadia subscription to try it out. You can make a free Stadia account, transfer your save on Bungie.net, and play some crucible to see if your internet connection is good enough for Stadia. Stadia says they need only 10 mb/s for low settings play but in my experience it’s more like 15 or 20 mb/s.
Here are some tips for new Stadia players. Always play with a hard wired connection when possible. I play on wifi and it works fine but in the past when I’ve had the option, ethernet connection is always better. If you are coming from Steam, make sure your settings in destiny 2 ON STEAM are set to vsync on and capped at 60 FPS. It’s crazy but your D2 settings on Steam can affect Stadia’s performance in D2. There are some tricks you can do to make M and K feel better and have less lag. If you tried Stadia before without these tips and didn’t have a good experience, please give it another try. I promise they make a big difference. Almost any controller works with Stadia. I first used a Nintendo switch pro controller but have changed to a normal Xbox controller.
Now for the main benefits of playing Destiny 2 on Stadia. I’ll start with the load times. They are fast and will probably remain the fastest of any platform. I play on Steam occasionally through Geforce Now and this was the first thing I noticed. Since players on steam are all running the game on different powered rigs, the load times for getting into games is super long. Until everyone has a fast PC this will always be the case due to Destiny’s peer to peer connection system. If you play on console then you already know the load times take forever, unless you have an ssd, which then results in you loading in before all your friends who don’t. Even more unfortunate is that Bungie is planning on having cross play between last and new gen consoles meaning this problem is going to persist. However, on stadia everyone is running the game on the same powerful system, making this problem irrelevant.
Another problem I had forgotten about until playing on steam again was the player lag. It’s very frustrating when you’re on a kill streak and a laggy player kills you. This doesn’t happen on stadia. If someone’s connection is bad then on their screen their stream is lagging but their character in game is still there, walking into a wall or something, he’s not rubber banding or anything. I honestly can’t imagine going back to playing against laggy players now that I haven’t for so long.
If you are thinking of trying out from console then you are in for quite the upgrade. D2 on Stadia runs at 60 FPS and it is a wider field of view. You will notice immediately how much better the game looks compared to 30 FPS. The next gen systems are getting both of these advantages in December, but if you’re mainly planning on playing D2 and want a less expensive option then this might be the fit for you.
A minor benefit that shouldn’t be overlooked is the portability. You wanna run a strike while waiting for your nachos in the oven? Just take your laptop or phone into the kitchen. There have been plenty of times I just felt like being casual and grinding strikes in my bed and it was nice to have that option.
Finally, the last benefit is there are no cheaters on Stadia. I have plenty of friends that like to cycle between Steam and Stadia while playing trials and they almost always revert back to Stadia after playing cheaters so many games in a row. It is true that Bungie is taking more steps to address the cheating problems on Steam, but it will still linger until thoroughly rooted out. I haven’t played trials on Steam but it is nice on Stadia not having to second guess if a team I’m playing against is cheating.
Now let’s talk about the things everyone says about Stadia. Yes there is input lag. Coming from console, I didn’t notice any difference. I think it is worse for m and k users, but with the guidelines above it can feel a lot better. If I am hardwired to my internet, I rarely get any skips or freezes while playing on Stadia, but this is going to change depending on each person’s network and their internet speed. I have lived in three different places while playing Stadia and the experience was only semi poor when I had internet that was 20 mb/s. The last issue is the biggest and that is the player population. Since the new expansion has come out, the population has remained larger than normal. I’m really hoping that now it is free, more people that want an upgrade from console, or guardians from Steam that are sick of cheaters, will come try out Stadia.
Let me know what you think. Did you have a bad experience on Stadia? Did you have good experience for other reasons I didn’t list here? Thanks for reading guardians and have a wonderful day.
​
https://wondaswords.wordpress.com/2020/11/26/the-case-for-destiny-2-on-stadia/

It's a long post so please bear with me.
With the upcoming Quest 2 with higher resolution screen, many people have wondered whether it's possible to play (flat) console games on a big virtual screen. Some people tried wifi streaming using sideloaded Remote Play or getting the video feed into a computer and then using Virtual Desktop or the Link. It works to a degree but I've been thinking about a solution with less latency. Another poster here gave me a new idea and after some research I think I found a viable way path to accomplishing that.
​
The answer is UVC compatible, low-latency capture card.
It seemed good on paper so I asked Carmack about it on twitter:
Me:

Is there a better way to feed the video from Nintendo/PlayStation to Quest 2 (to play on a big virtual screen) than by using an android compatible UVC capture card? Those have the latency of around 200ms.

Carmack:

I have suggested that we make or partner with a company to do that so we are a good TV replacement, but nothing is in motion.

https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1306720365171953665
​
Sadly, although he suggested it, there's nothing coming from Oculus in the near future so if we want this, we need to figure this out on our own.
​
So how could this work?
It's actually relatively simple. Plug your PS/Switch/cable box into a UVC compatible USB 3.0 capture card/stick, connect the device to the Quest using USB-C adapter and then use a UVC viewer app in Oculus TV.
​
What is UVC?
UVC is "USB video class" which essentially means that the system thinks it's just a generic webcam/camera input and so it doesn't require any special drivers or configuration and should more or less work plug and play.
​
How is it better than wireless/virtual desktop/remote play?
- Latency - after doing some research I realised that any half decent capture card can offer latency as low as around 60 ms (I miscalculated my latency calculations in my original tweet). This means that the latency would be dramatically better than any wireless solution and small enough to be near imperceptible.
- Stability and throughput - it's a bit like having an Oculus Link but for anything with hdmi output. USB 3.1 provides enough bandwidth for potentially pushing even 4K stream straight to the headset or playing at higher frame rates while providing a stable connection without sudden drops or compression.
​
What's the catch?
- Although there seems to be a lot of UVC viewer apps in the Play Store, most seem pretty terrible and don't have great reviews
- The app needs to be sideloaded and used through oculus tv or someone needs to write one specifically for the Quest if we'd want to be able to control screen size/quality etc.
- Not all capture cards support UVC
- Some capture cards are better than others. I did find a nice website that compares a lot of different cards and benchmarks their latency. A lot of good candidates in the $100-150 price range.
​
What do you think? Does anyone have any experience with android UVC apps that could be suitable for this purpose? Anyone tried any of those cards to see how fast they are?

Introduction: I’m Asian-American, first generation, grew up low-income. My career has been focused on financial wellness and wealth building for low-income communities. I’ve learned alot about finances, but not sure I would’ve sought out the same info at such depth if work wasn't the catalyst.
SECTION ONE: ASSETS AND DEBT
Net Worth: -$2,100
Retirement: $39,000. Before my Master’s, balance was ~$50k, accumulated in 3 years post college. Maxed out Roth IRA and 401k for 2 of those years.
Equity: None. My partner K bought a house for us recently, still under his name only.
Savings Accounts: $650
Checking Accounts: $250
Credit Card Debt: $0
Student Loan Debt: $42,000. $22k federal, $20k owed to siblings.
College: No debt, thanks to a full-ride scholarship I won. I had part-time jobs and spent most of my money on clothes. My brother sent me $1000 every year, and other siblings gifted me money during holidays.
Grad school: All my current debt. I dumped savings and some retirement funds into tuition. Even with a scholarship of $20k/year, I had to borrow 40k. Professional school is expensive, y’all. I had part-time jobs, and all earnings went to living expenses.
Other Debt: $0
Inheritance: Me - none.
Partner – The house down payment was a gift from his parents. He’ll also get a significant inheritance from eventually. His parents grew up poor but aren't anymore, and have always been frugal. The life his parents gave him is what I’d like to give my kids if I have them: set them up well without spoiling.
My parents worked so hard to support my family. When I tried to give them my paychecks in high school, they told me to keep them for myself. When I bought gifts for them during holidays, they told me I should spend for myself. My siblings (including me) who spent the most time in the US, and thus could benefit the most long-term, are all financially stable. My older siblings still struggle and won’t accept help. I remember all the time how lucky I am to have a supportive family.
Other Related:
Before March, I lived in a 2 bed apartment in a big city with a roommate. I planned to visit K for Spring Break but moved in with him instead due to quarantine. We intended for this to happen after my graduation, but the timeline was sped up. We never shared finances before but now he was taking care of all our living expenses. K didn’t mind and was happy to. I wouldn’t have cared if our situations were flipped. But I felt guilty having someone else pay so much for me. And for so long I was a strong, independent woman and it felt like I was giving up some of that.
But I realized that we are partners in many ways, including this. We try to make life easier for each other, and K was doing that for me just as I do for him. Besides, my independence was enabled by the safety net of my family. I aim to provide the same for K, for my nephews/nieces, and for my kids if I have them – and I certainly won’t consider them “less independent” for taking those opportunities. Seriously, this has been a main point of my whole career! Gotta apply it to myself.
Partner’s Net Worth: $200,000+
SECTION TWO: INCOME
Income Progression: I was an English and Classics major who had tried some teaching and considered law school. I really blossomed skills-wise at my first post-college job, and learned so much from many wonderful people. Also, the nonprofit field allows me to be a jack of all trades due to their funding constraints. Turns out I’m a master of none, and that's okay (;
2015 - $15,000 for 10-month term
2016 - $48,000 annual, promotion
2017 - $52,000 annual, promotion
Start grad school
2018 - $40/hour, consultant
2019 - picked up $20/hr for university
End grad school
2020 - $65,000 annual, strategy-related role
After graduation this year I was unemployed for 3 months. In August my current employer offered me a short-term, full-time position and hope to keep me long-term. Crossing my fingers, as I’m very inspired by their mission and impact. Regarding salary, if I stayed in/gone back to expensive cities, I would’ve sought a higher range. I’m now in a low COL town so adjusted accordingly.
Monthly Take Home: $4,481. Taxes taken out, no benefits.
Partner’s Monthly Take Home: ~$7,000. Deductions for health insurance (for both of us), 401k, HSA, all that jazz. This has been his salary for 2 years. Before this, a grad school stipend (~$35k) for many years.
SECTION THREE: MONTHLY EXPENSES
Our finances are joint now and we consult each other on buys at $100+.
Mortgage: $700
Property Taxes: $800
Home & Car Insurance: $45
Savings & Investment: Whatever’s left after expenses.
Debt Payments: $0. I'll funnel all my earnings into this (after Roth IRA). But it won’t be enough before the grace period expires and interest is capitalized on my federal loans. Anything left owed to the feds will be covered by K’s savings and paid off before 2021. Then I’ll focus on paying my siblings back.
Donations: $625
Gas/Electric/Heat: Unknown, these bills are lying around somewhere.
Trash: $15
Wifi: $50
Phone: $0. K is on a family plan, and I’m on one with my siblings.
Groceries: $600 average
Subscriptions: Amazon Prime $10. Netflix and Hulu 0, using family plans. Google Play Music Family $15.
Gym Membership: $60 for K's membership. Will get mine once we’re comfortable going again.
Pet: Unknown, haven't summed up all the cat things.
Miscellaneous (eating out, hobbies, gifts, random purchases, etc.): $200 average
SECTION FOUR: THE DIARY
Day 1, Sunday
8:45 am After waking up and going back to sleep a few times, I finally just get up. I do my morning routine: wash face, brush teeth, take pill, contacts, ring, brush hair, moisturizer.
My partner K is playing with the kitty, and I join. We adopted her not long ago, so she’s still acclimating. K calls her a scaredy cat because she’s skittish about everything. She's now in her carrier, in catloaf position (paws tucked and hidden, so she looks like a bread loaf) and not budging.
9:20 I check on my plants and do some planty things. I decide I want crepes for breakfast, and defrost 2 leftovers in the oven. As I wait, I scan through old starred emails. One is from Chase, offering a complimentary Shoprunner one year membership. Why not? The website tells me I already have an account, of course. But I don’t know my password and have to reset. I’m hungry and will get back to this.
I eat the first crepe like normal but everything falls out, so the 2nd gets the pancake treatment. With apples and maple syrup, they’re delicious.
Shoprunner finally works. I haven’t been spending much online, but if I do I’ll get free shipping (I never buy online without it).
12:00 pm We eat defrosted pizza for lunch. We’ve been watching Brooklyn 99 during meals, but today we watch Adventure Time. I give him my crusts as usual, since I don’t like them. Afterwards, K asks me to crack his back by standing on it. I manage to do so without totally breaking his back. Then I putz around while he packs for a work trip. I make him coffee and give him his daily portion of cookies (he asked me to hide and portion them). K leaves to finish up work at his office. I play Tetris on the Switch.
4:15 I take a shower. Fall weather hit one day last week with zero transition, and it’s been much cooler since, and the toasty water is so nice. K gets home and finishes packing. We drive out to his company lot so he can get the rental car. We hug goodbye. It feels like our long distance days again ); I've gotten very used to seeing him all day every day thanks to quarantine. He calls me before I get home - his car wasn’t delivered due to some miscommunication, so I have to drop him off at the rental center.
7:40 I feed the kitty and finally start cooking. I make pork chops seared in a cast iron pan, finished in the oven. I flavor it with salt, pepper, thyme, coriander, dill, and sage. I love cooking and being able to experiment so much. Sometimes it turn out a bit funny but hey, that's how I learn. I eat a pork chop with leftover jasmine rice.
My favorite Youtube channel has a new video. I don’t follow many but enjoy Safiya Nygaard’s content so much. The new one is about acrylic pour art. I think I'd feel bad about all the paint, but the finished pieces look so cool! I actually like her “bad attempts” more. I should try acrylics; I've mostly used watercolors but might be missing out on a medium I'll like.
9:30 K texts that he’s reached the hotel. It’s not that long a road trip and unlikely anything bad will happen, but I still worry. I’m glad he arrived okay.
9:45 I cut my fingernails. They grow like weeds, so I snip them every week otherwise they poke my eyeballs when removing contacts. I play Hearthstone on my phone during this. Then bedtime. My nightly routine: brush teeth, mouthwash, rotate fittonia plant, ring off, contacts out, lip balm, lotion.
11:30 Okay, I’m still awake, browsing online. I set my alarm for 7:30 am and sleep.
Total $0
Day 2, Monday
7:30 am Alarm wakes me. Snooze. Alarm again. I get up and feed the cat.
7:55 I put on a work outfit: green pleated maxi skirt and a mint green top with an orange, pink, and green floral pattern. Pink cardigan too since the office is cool.
My style is the most "feminine" and "loud" at this office - lots of colors and patterns, and silhouettes that are stereotypically feminine. Sometimes I wonder if I should tone myself down. Whether people might take me more seriously professionally if I wore more pants, muted colors and patterns. But this is what I enjoy, and if people underestimate me based on how I dress, that's on them, not me. I'm fortunate that previous coworkers have shown confidence in my abilities (even when I had little confidence) that I never had to "tone down” myself to get more respect.
8:00 Pack for work using a swag bag they gave me, which I know is cheesy but fits all my things well. Grab Greek yogurt and spoon for breakfast. I need to attach a voided check to my direct deposit form, so I add that. Got badge and mask. Mist my maranta. Shoes on – I pick Sketchers since my maxi will hide them mostly. But no one will notice my shoes, per the wise words of Gustav in Ever After!
8:10 While backing out, I spot trash bags on my neighbors' curbs - it's trash day. Usually my partner takes out the trash, so I debate waiting until next week. Then I tell myself the trash will get gross and stinky, even if in plastic bags, and also to be an adult. I roll the can to the curb. Upon arrival at work, I find a parking spot where I don't have to back up to get out. I'm always paranoid about hitting things/people, even with plenty of lot space. I haven't actually hit anything/one (that I know of) but still.
8:40 My coworker responds about the office book club. They've been reading White Fragility. I stop by her office and get the book, yay! The group is meeting again next week so I need to catch up. I then eat my yogurt. As my boss walks by me, she compliments my skirt (:
10:00 Meeting with boss and person she's been waiting to chat with for awhile, via phone. Person is shocked and unhappy at our update, and ends the call fast. Me and boss chat about a realization I had this morning, that will likely change one of the main things we want to do for my project. Whether this is a good thing or not is TBD. I go refill my tea at the hot water dispenser, so far away at the other end of the office. Note to self: bring own mug and stop hogging this office one. Then I find a thing that could be a big breakthough, maybe. If other things go a certain way, perhaps.
11:45 I head out. I'm doing half days remote because I don't feel like prepping lunches to bring. Also I feel bad about leaving kitty alone all day (dunno if she cares). It's sunny but chilly outside. I'll definitely want all remote when it gets colder.
12:00 pm Wegman’s pit stop. They stock new plants every week or so. I debate a cute succulent for $5, but as I put it down, accidentally brush against a leaf and break it. Now I have to get it! I also buy a huge cat grass for $4, to distract kitty from eating my ponytail palm.
12:20 I drop into a local flower shop for the first plant I’ve ever ordered, a rattlesnake calathea. So pretty (: There are more leaves than expected for this size pot and price. This florist sells small plants for only $5 and take orders. (Very dangerous, but I limited myself to one plant...for now.)
Going home, I have to do a loop because the main road has one-way sections, arg. I think I have a lot of driving anxiety, probably because I spent 8 years using mostly public transportation and walking.
12:35 Instant ramen and diet grapefruit soda for lunch, classic adult meal. I think that the best standard brand is Mama ramen, and my favorite flavor is the creamy shrimp tom yum. The best spicy ramen are the Samyang spicy chicken ones. I usually add dried seaweed, but not feeling it today.
I later set up work in our office room. It’s so nice to have my own desk. I was using K’s since he no longer works from home, but prefer mine with my own pictures and knick-knacks, like my squishy stress bunny. I try to access files through remote desktop but can’t. IT puts me on hold. Is it worth driving back into work? Now the line tells me to leave a voicemail; I do, but I’d rather just keep holding.
2:55 An IT person calls me back. As I’m telling him what’s wrong, I realize I never logged into remote VPN, so of course I had no access. I apologize to him, feeling bad I wasted his time. This must be like the jokes about people not plugging things in yet expecting them to work. IT sends an email saying the ticket was resolved. My silliness is documented for eternity.
Meat stick (prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella) for consolation. Back to work, more munchies so I eat an apple too.
5:40 K and I chat and agree to play Don’t Starve Together later, which we started a few days ago. Dinner is pork chop, rice, defrosted mixed veggies. My friend and I talk over the phone as I eat. We grew up in the same hometown, and she's been my bestie for a long time. I can’t recall a time when we weren’t friends! (She does - when we were very young. I just have bad memory.) She’s recently had very exciting things happen, and I love hearing her life updates. She's one of few friends I'm close enough with that we speak very candidly about everything.
7:30 Kitty joins me on the living room couch. Her sudden epiphany: she can knead my blanket, and does for a long time. I pet her while she kneads. Then dinner for the cat. I also check on my new plants and water them.
As I go outside to repot a plant, I see a small package on the porch. Addressed from a friend and labeled "fragile". It’s a ring dish! So lovely and thoughtful, and I was just thinking about getting one. I text my friend many thanks and place it in the bathroom.
8:40 K and I play Don’t Starve Together on our computers. About 5 minutes in, we’re suddenly attacked by scary dogs and I die ): I’m a ghostie for awhile as he attempts to revive me, but it’s a struggle. We decide to play Stardew Valley next time, since this game more difficult than we thought it’d be. I play Animal Crossing afterwards. A new neighbor moved in, a cute koala named Alice!
11:30 Okay, time for bed. Ugh, I keep browsing instead of sleeping.
Total $15.10
Day 3, Tuesday
8:00 am Alarm goes off. I push snooze. Then I remember kitty is waiting for food, so instead get up and feed her. I eat yogurt and get work started.
9:50 Break time! I drive to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore nearby. I haven’t gone in the past two weeks, but we got some amazing furniture deals here. Like our beautiful 10x13 living room rug for only $50. The thrift stores around here have actual thrift store prices. Our friends recently got a coffee table from here that was exactly what we're looking for. I’m happy they got it but also kind of jealous.
I find a pretty glazed square saucer ($0.50, plus another 25% off), an adorable panda mug ($1.00), and a mug painted with a lovely floral pattern ($0.50) but a chip on the lip. Doesn’t matter since these mugs will be pots.
10:40: Home and work, more research on how to do all the things. I get a meat stick and prep ramen. I am so cold‼ I wrap our living room blanket around me like a shawl. This was an Amazon gift last year from K. He searched “softest blanket” and said everyone recommended this one. It is indeed incredibly soft, and I love it so much. I’m shall walk around and sit like this. Thermostat says it’s 64 degrees. Hmm, maybe my body is just rebelling against adapting to lower temps.
12:40 I finally eat lunch. I got distracted by work. The ramen warms me up some, but my fingers and feet are still cold. It’s far too early for me to break out mittens, right? My new succulent’s plastic pot fits perfectly into the flower mug. Panda mug is less of a home run; it’s a large sphere but the opening is just a bit too small. I’ll just repot another plant directly into it. I replace the dining plate under the grass with the square saucer. I check my money tree. I tend to ignore it, as it does pretty well left alone. Its new leaves got so big!
1:30 I use Teams chat for the first time. A colleague tells me some people who received my earlier mass email were confused about a certain line and emailed her assuming a more positive future outcome. I send out a clarifying email that the news is indeed as bad as it sounds...and people are not happy about that now. I just feel guilty I can’t make things better.
4:00 The itchy bumps on my finger are multiplying. I have some isolated eczema. Years ago, it was all over my hand and severe, but with medication slowly receded and now pops up in small spots. A similar bump on my leg that keeps coming back (only when I scratch it…I know, I know). I put on medicated ointment.
4:20 Someone replied all to my clarification email, pointedly questioning our decisions. Yikes! I ponder how to respond, then decide to do that tomorrow instead, when I can fully refrain from being snarky.
I go repot my haworthia into the panda mug, which should be the last time I repot her. I’m doing this out on the porch, squatting over pots with a spoon and bag of dirt, and wonder if people are judging me. Another package out here, from my hometown friend. It says Edible Arrangements, ooh. K calls me as I start opening it, so I narrate the process for him. It’s strawberries dipped in chocolate! I eat one right away, so yummy. I text my friend thanks and eat more. Must save some, reluctantly, for K.
6:00 I do some clean up. I’ve been leaving dishes, wrappers, and such strewn about. Without K here, I’m less prompt because no one can see my shame. Mini brush to sweep crumbs and such off counters, then regular broom for the kitchen floor because I made it messy in just 2 days.
The cat is eating the grass!
6:30 I consider exercising. We made sandbags with contractor bags and lawn pebbles, but I'm not workouts. Before quarantine, I went to the gym 3x a week (starting last Sept) even in bitter winter. I really enjoyed feeling myself get stronger. Now I’m not nearly as disciplined. My partner is much better about it, even doing cardio in between lifting days. Maybe I’ll work out tomorrow.
Instead, I wash rice and Instant Pot it for dinner, then take a shower. I feel so warm afterwards! I’m determined to keep myself that way.
7:00 The cat joins me on the couch for some blanket kneading. She does her bass purr, which disturbed me when I first heard it because it was so strange and so deep that I thought it might be a distress sound. I hear it during pets, and sometimes she’ll sit far away from us and just rumble like that. Eventually dinner time for kitty, then for me. I eat a pork chop with rice and leftover mixed veggies. I put the rice in the fridge! I forgot several times and had to throw it away the next day. I know rice is cheap, but I hate wasting food like that. Some Animal Crossing after. One of my neighbors is moving out tomorrow :(
11:35 It’s so late. I do my nightly routine and go to bed.
Total $2.02
Day 3, Wednesday
8:15 am I finally get up and go through my morning routine. Putting on my ring is easier to remember when it’s out on a dish instead of hidden in a crowded basket. I feed kitty and start work. My boss responded to the reply all email yesterday evening. Whew! I do think that was better coming from her instead of me the newbie.
9:00 I look up how to access someone else’s calendar on Outlook, because I need to see my bosses’ schedule. Microsoft’s directions seem to apply to the online version, and other search results match it. I click around Outlook instead, and figure it out that way. I mist my prayer plant and eat a yogurt.
9:50 To the ReStore. I go in and out of the house 3 times because I forgot my keys, donation box, and phone. Rihanna's Skin comes on from my playlist as I drive. Yeees, I haven't heard this in a while and sing along enthusiastically.
I find 4 ramekins for $2.00. This will complete the set I picked up here before. K wants them for baking but doesn’t think he’d use them enough to justify a new set. I also nab a ceramic thing made for an unknown purpose ($0.50), to be a nice small pot.
10:35 Home, shrouded in the blanket as I type up research. Ramen again for lunch. I could bring it into work, but then my coworkers might judge and/or pity me for eating like a college student.
12:40 pm I get dressed for the office. Weather app says it's 70s outside, so I put on a light pink maxi skirt with a geometric pattern, a light orange/coral top with a floral print, and teal cardigan. I end up walking instead of driving since it's nice out. I immediately feel happier and refreshed! I think I’ve been grumpy from feeling so cold in the house. Like hangry, except…crumpy.
1:00 A sign outside a bakery says today’s special is carrot cake cupcake. Nooooo, I love carrot cake but I’m trying not to buy treats. But this bakery has such good cupcakes…I go in and buy one for $3.00. It’s difficult to resist these when they’re so cheap compared to prices in larger cities. I eat the cupcake at work and it is the perfect dessert.
1:50 The internet stops functioning as I'm writing up a form online to submit ): Instead, I call someone to break the bad news to since there's no email listed for them. I really dislike calling people I’ve never met, since I rely so much on expressions and body language. Several tea treks this afternoon.
4:00 I text a friend about helping me lift a dresser out of the garage later. I bought a lovely wood dresser for $150 from FB last month to replace our current dinky one, but it needs TLC. I’ve been procrastinating hard but am afraid this is the last week of nice weather, so want to fix it up now. Plus it can be a nice surprise for K.
4:30 As I’m leaving, some coworkers chat to me! I’m so happy – I’m a shy person at work, mostly because I feel like I have to absorb all the info possible and then I can start to say things, otherwise I’ll make a fool of myself. This shouldn't apply to general chatter, but somehow does for me. It’s really nice talking to them.
5:00 At home, NY driver’s license came in the mail. I feel so official now! Except, this isn’t a REAL ID and I thought I was getting one. The NY webpage says to bring more documents to the DMV for one one. I guess since I won’t be flying soon, not a big deal. And I can always use a passport, though I dislike carrying that unless really needed.
5:35 My friend comes over and we carry the dresser from the garage to the driveway. He points out that some of the backing is reinforced with staples (???) instead of nails. Ah well, this was cheap. I start off by sanding edges where the veneer is scratched or started to peel; harder to do precisely than videos show. Then a long, long time putting wood filler in those spots. It’s hard getting it to stick without bits falling off. Okay, not so sure how well this will turn out :/ I leave it to dry overnight, so tomorrow I can stain
7:00 After a hot shower, I put on my workout leggings that have a fleece lining. Not to workout, just for the warmth. Desperate times! I know that after winter, these temps will feel like beach weather. But right now I’m cold. I go feed the kitty. Then I remember I was supposed to send a form for work and do so, so very late :(
8:00 Dinner. Pork chop, leftover rice, defrosted corn. K and I chat as I eat. We call it a night early though. I finally get the dishwasher going; I left so many dirty dishes sitting around this week. I play Animal Crossing. I search for a new neighbor and pick the first one on a mystery island, a horse named Papi. He really likes nature, so I feel we’ll jive there.
9:00 A couple of friends text yes for a group video call next week. We know each other from grad school but are all in different states now. Many things have been happening for everyone, so I’m excited to toast to them!
10:00 I actually want to go up to bed this time, but the kitty is snuggled next to me. I’ve been petting her for at least 30 mins. But finally we go upstairs for the night. I scroll through subreddits before sleeping.
Total $5.94
Day 4, Thursday
7:45 I get up and do morning stuff, then feed the cat. I try to turn on my work computer but it does nothing until I charge it. Yogurt for breakfast, then burrito myself in the blanket for work.
9:50 ReStore break. I accidentally walk out in flip flops instead of sneakers but am too lazy to switch. Oh well, I’ll be that person in socks and sandals.
At the store, I immediately grab these beautiful blue glazed pots, labeled $4 for the set. There’s also a soft, pinkish white pillow. But it doesn’t fit colors I want for any room; nah, I’d regret it later. I find a pretty set of Japanese-style art, depicting varied pots and flowers. The frames are beat up though. I take a picture to send to K later to see if he likes them. But on my last circle about, the paintings have disappeared. That’s okay, someone else will enjoy them.
K might declare a pot moratorium when he gets home, as he’s threatened before. Hah, he’ll be using the car anyways so I can’t even go thrifting then.
10:55 Home and back to work. I get an email from Accounting that there’s a check for me. First one, woo! They told me it would be Thursdays, but I’m so used to Fridays that this was a surprise.
11:40 Hot ramen, mmm. While waiting for them to poof, I check my plants. I browse FB and subreddits while eating. Then upstairs to dress. Today, a navy and white triangle print blouse to pair with my black and white feather print pants. I also break out a nice pair of sneaker-like shoes, in grey suede.
1:45 Back in the office, many rounds of hot leaf juice. I pick up my paycheck, and Accounting confirms my next will be deposited. I also stop by HR to ask how I can set up Zoom meetings.
4:00 I drive to the credit union to deposit checks. They close too early, in my opinion. How do people who don’t have flexible workplaces find time to use them?
K recently added me to his account. My bank has no branch here, though I got them years ago specifically because they were national and I wanted access wherever I went in the US :/ I don’t like paying ATM fees, so K has been withdrawing cash if needed. I’m also not comfortable using a bank app out of paranoia that someone might steal my phone and siphon my account. I think my bank accounts and Social Security number are the only things the tech giants don’t have, so I guard them as my precious.
4:30 Home for more work in my blanket.
5:30 K and I chat. We decide to see if our friends are available for board games this weekend, and if not, watch a movie. I suddenly realize I didn’t defrost a protein for dinner, and even putting it out now won’t be enough time to unfreeze it. Nooo. I end our call to work on the dresser (but lie to him about why).
I put stain on a few samples of filler. I got it matched at a local hardware store, but not sure if the stain will look like its label image. Wait, the label says to leave the stain for 4-6 hours before using a 2nd coat…well, I can keep sanding. Except there's definitely too much wood filler on these spots, because I’m doing one corner for so long.
6:23 I go inside and eat leftover corn and a meat stick for dinner. I’m crumpy again. And sad this won't be done by the time K gets back. I decide to make a latte, likely a bad idea so late. But I want something cozy. I mix in cocoa powder and honey with it. We have a grinder, aeropress, and French press (for guests) but use Wegman’s beans and a cheap milk frother. Occasionally we get nicer beans at a local shop, and my partner eventually wants to upgrade to a real fancy grinder. The coffee set up captures well our spending habits.
7:00 The cat stole my half-eaten meat stick‼ She flees, but stops to eat her prize, so I snatch it from her clutches. K had asked me if she’d be unrecognizable when he gets back, and I think so. Very bold now. After I feed her, she goes downstairs and meows a lot. I will not be summoned, cat! XD I stay here until she’s back in the room, quiet, and then I go downstairs. I eat chocolate strawberries and browse FB and subreddits about plants, finances, and furnishing homes. I should read for the book club. Eh.
9:15 I find out online there’s Fall Festival on the main street on Saturday! I’m excited; I was visiting last year when it happened. There were hay bales and scarecrows and tractors and kids getting faces painted. I wasn’t sure they'd have it this year, but glad that local businesses will get a huge boost in sales.
I also remember we got a beautiful bouquet of dried flowers from there, now still our living room and only shed a bit during the year. Since they last for so long, I want a set for the guest bedroom.
9:30 I play Tetris. A couple of bad rounds, but I get 6th once! Pretty good. I cross some animals, and say hello to Papi. Then I go empty the rest of the dishwasher and load it again, and sweep up ramen bits. I don’t want all this to linger longer if I feel lazy tomorrow. K sometimes says, “Good job, past self!” out loud to acknowledge what he did in the past that make the present less stressful. I really like that, so now I try to approach things more that way.
11:25 I go to bed. But I have a throbbing caffeine headache, and my stomach feels hollow. Why did I do this to myself? I read some “messy” Money Diaries from the Drama Watch Roundup to tire out my brain. It takes a long time for me to fall asleep.
Total $4.32
Day 6, Friday
7:00 am I wake up needing to pee. Can't go back to sleep due to residual headache. I do my morning routine and feed the kitty. I have to boot up my work laptop. Its battery runs out so quickly; it’s a bit annoying that I won’t be able to go anywhere without the charger. Oh well. I start filling in a spreadsheet to organize what I’ve been researching.
I am blanket. Blanket is me. (Or is it I?)
I email my Boss about setting up a Zoom call for us and another person. Then tea time. I use a loose chai from Wegman’s. It’s really good; I’m glad their generic stuff tends to be decent quality.
9:50 To the ReStore. I almost forget my mask but luckily don’t. They’re strict about them, thankfully. I saw them kick out a man who tried to go in without one. He kept arguing that he had the right not to. Of course, and there are consequences to that. This is also a charity shop and volunteer run, so they probably care less about pissing off a few people. I feel bad for the businesses and employees who end up with potential losses from booting noncompliant customers. It’s not a dilemma I’d want to face.
Today I find a large peachy pillow, $3. Glad I didn’t get the other, since this fits better and is so soft. I also get two glass vases of similar height and shape but one has a vertical pattern ($1.00, with additional 50% off) while the other has a wavy pattern ($1.00, with additional 25% off). Close enough, for the guest bedroom flowers. And I finally drop off the box.
10:45 I reach Wegman’s to grab a few things. Two 10-pack meat sticks (12.29 each) and two 2-liter bottles of diet grapefruit soda ($0.75 each). I also look at the fish, since they stock fresh ones on Fridays and are usually sold out by evening. I love whole fish and would eat it every day if I could. I pick 2 porgies ($6.99/lb) and ask them to descale and trim the fish but keep the heads. I’ll get both fish heads tonight since K never eats them. I’m so excited for dinner!
More work at home. My boss CCs me on an email about me sent privately to her and few others. Her response is amazing and is a virtual mike drop. I appreciate her so much. I do a speedy lunch, ramen and soda. And speedy dressing: same pants as yesterday, sheer burgundy top, teal cardigan, the suede shoes. I finally bring my mug! It’s bigger so less tea trips.
2:00 Meeting with boss and another person our org works closely with. The prep I did is not useful, because the conversation turns in a different direction than expected.
4:15 I get home early and do last minute cleaning. K texted earlier that he should arrive by 6:00.
5:00 I haven’t heard kitty in a while, and get worried. I walk around calling her, and she meows in response, from our master bed. She rushes out once I open the door.
5:45 Finish work and take a shower. Kitty gets many pets in apology for accidenally imprisoning her. I manage to snip two of her nails, but she escapes before I can do the rest. Then the house alarm goes off. K is back! He says the house is chilly – okay I’m not going crazy XD He is skeptical that it’s truly 65 degrees in here and turns on the heat. The cat hides, shy again with K here. I tell him it’s probably his haircut. We unload the rental car and return it.
7:00 Dinner prep. I season the fish and wrap them in aluminum foil for the oven. This time I use salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and coriander. I chop up mushrooms to roast too.
The fish and veggies end up delicious! I do warn K about the little stomach bones. If we’re sharing one big fish, I split it into fillets and pick out all the bones myself, but we each have our own and I don’t feel like doing it twice. I get all the fish eyes, yum.
9:30 K tells me the news about Ruth Bader Ginsburg passing. A friend also texts me about it a couple of minutes later. I am so sad. She was such an amazing person and inspiring woman. I read an article detailing parts of her life I hadn’t known about before. This makes me even sadder, though.
10:00 We finish the strawberries together. K nods off during Adventure Time. I’m hit with a sense of déjà vu: this happened exactly, early on in our relationship. Sometimes history repeats itself in a cute way. We eventually go up to sleep. My mouth stings as I brush my teeth - the sore on the inside, near my lip, is getting worse. I've been trying not to irritate it too much since it's in an awkward spot, but that's clearly not working.
11:30 I’m still awake reading random things on my phone. So bad. I go to sleep.
Total $42.29
Day 7, Saturday
9:15 am Phone buzzes me awake. Friends confirm the Fall Festival plan.
10:15 I’m still in bed because warm. K offers to turn the heat up, but I’ll be fine. After I wash my face, I can’t find my towel so drip awkwardly over the sink until I remember one on a nearby shelf. K must have grabbed our dirty towels for laundry.
10:30 I put crepes in the oven to defrost. I wish I'd put parchment paper between layers when stacking, because it’s been annoying separating them.
K and I talk about the new health insurance cards, and what appointments I'll make. First will be Planned Parenthood, because I’m on my last pack of pills! The only time I wasn’t covered was the months after college graduation and before my job started. I worried so much that I’d have an accident and be buried in debt. Luckily didn’t happen. I also really appreciate when work pays into insurance, after having to pay the entire premium myself during grad school.
K browses the Nintendo shop and pulls up the Ori sequel. I do want it but think we should wait; $40 seems pricey and we have so many other games we haven’t started or finished. He tells me he did buy Hades on sale since we tend to play these types of games more. I really liked the trailer so glad he did.
11:30 I scroll online while I eat the crepes, watch K play Hades. I love the art, but not sure I’d be good. You battle many enemies, and you have to react fast. We switch and I play! It's challenging but not too much that I feel like I can’t figure it out. At some point, K finds socks on the ground and puts them on me since I’m too busy playing but still complaining about cold feet. Thanks K!
1:45 He reminds me we’re supposed to meet friends at 2:00. Today's outfit: green pleated maxi, a mustard top, and a magenta suede vest with long fringe on the shoulders and edges that reach my calves. One of my favorite statement pieces.
2:15 We find our friends and chat, waiting for the other ones. Apparently the festival was canceled, and instead there’s a small farmers’ market. Now I feel bad having asked them out for this – the cancellation wasn’t mentioned on the official webpage!
Our other friends get here and we check out the market. It smells delicious; there’s one stall with donuts, one with pretzels. K and a couple friends go for donuts. I find the dried bouquets vendor and request two with orange, pink, and purple-blue flowers. They cost $9 each, but K pays since I don’t have cash. We all decide to walk down the main street for fun.
4:00 I stop for $5 bubble tea. I get lavender with traditional bubbles (there are popping ones, but I think those are weird). It's yummy, enough flavor but not so much that I’m eating a candle. K and friends get ice cream, trying the fall flavors. Then we all part ways and go home. Another package at the door, with K’s name on it, but he’s not expecting anything. They’re cool wooden coasters with a laser cut outline of the city we met in! Turns out a friend sent it as a gift.
6:30 Dinner time. K baked chicken with cumin and other seasonings, plus rice and defrosted peas. We watch Adventure Time. It’s interesting to me how adult kids shows can be. There are incredibly sad/disturbing moments that would be completely missed by kids. During episodes I get text alerts from in my siblings' group chat. Adorable pictures of my cute niece, finally smiling instead of looking angry. For the rest of the night, K and I take turns playing Hades. He keeps getting further than me, but I’m not too behind!
9:30 Bed time. We’ll see if I can sleep early tonight.
Total $5.67
Weekly Total $69.97
Food + Drink = $46.89
Home + Health = $23.09
REFLECTION
I think I tend to buy little things during the week. In contrast, K tends to make bigger purchases of many items once or twice a month. It’s nice to see my spending be “normal” again, since for a few months I was spending a lot on furnishings and such. I do want to be better about buying less treats, and resist buying plants (though now that space near the windows is running out, less a problem). The resale market is good for calming my inner shopper. I don't feel like I’m missing out too much, because there’s so much out there that even if I don’t nab this thing, a similar thing will pop up later. So I'm okay being pickier about those purchases.