Better month net worth-wise; we made up last month's lost ground and added $10K. We're now at Coast with a $225K+ surplus!
I like to go on the calculator and move my retirement age down a year...if I'm still at Coast I make it one lower...see how far I can get. Well I got to retiring at age 60 and was still in Coast!
I don't really know if my spending estimates are accurate. Maybe we're worse off because I haven't factored in how much me and the spouses are gonna spend, or maybe we're better off because I don't factor Social Security in at all. But I do like imagining that I'm less than 8 years away from retirement!
I also don't really know what retirement would look like for me. I imagine I'd still want to work in some capacity but maybe most of it would be doing unpaid or lower-paid stuff I love, like fiction writing, music journalism, etc. I do like marketing work still, but occasionally I feel burnt out from the hustle of it. It'd be nice to be able to pick and choose my paying work!
Anyway, the improved net worth was a bright spot amid our current struggles. For one, our kiddo's gender supportive care so far is gonna cost us $4500, and we haven't even begun to get to the hormone stuff, let alone if surgery is on the table. That's gonna take us over our healthcare spending budget for the year and there's still me and AS's mammograms and who konws what else this year. We def can't go any further on the gender care until we make a plan for how much it's gonna be and how to pay for it.
That was the expense side. On the income side, AS and I had booked a 6 month or so contract that was meant to gross $90K. Well the project was canceled after we'd only billed about $30K. So our calculations of our annual booked income went way down and I've been hustling to take every job that comes my way. I feel okayish about hitting our goal of me and AS making $164K; we've booked about $80K and it's less than halfway through the year. But it's still ambitious because it's $50K more than we grossed last year, and there can be quiet periods, and if we get one of those it could really throw us off track this year. And plus, it does look like we're gonna go over budget in a few areas, mainly home improvement (boiler replacement) and healthcare, but there are other things that could go wrong.
On the happy life side though, at least things have calmed down somewhat in Minneapolis. ICE is still here, deportation flights are still happening, loads of people are detained or deported including 70+ MN kids (you know, the worst of the worst), but they're keeping a lower profile presence now. And it sounds like Tr*mp did not repeat the pattern of Metro Surge anywhere else because of how bad we made them look, so that's good.
On a frivolous home note, we adopted 2 young cats in early March! They are somewhat feral (but in a gentle fearful way, not a bitey scratchy way) and still spend most of their time under the bathtub, but they are lovely boys and we are so in love with them.