Life Update
Ahhhhh...vacation. September was a bastion of doing (mostly) anything I wanted! Being at home is wonderful, challenging, restorative, and stressful, all in a tangled ball and layered both deep inside and on top with dread and abject horror at what the current administration is doing.
The trip started with a travel interruption, described in my August summary. I spent the first several weeks just recovering from the cold (tested negative for covid several times, as well as RSV and flu) I caught on the plane ride over. MASKS UP, PEOPLE.
PhD & WORK
- September has been mostly better. I didn't even open my email account
for many weeks in there. After a whole month of not really looking at my inbox, I started to start cleaning it up so
that when I return it doesn't take 2 months to catch up. There were roughly 400-500 emails when I started and I've whittled it down to 120 after taking ~1 hour a day to chip away at it over the past week. By the time I return in a week and a half, I think I will be in a good place to (mostly) pick up where I left off.
- I am well behind on all of my ongoing work and deadlines now. OH WELL.
- Job-wise, it looks like I have to start my own freelance
consultancy next year. To triply ensure I don't do this when I don't
have to, I'm going to ask the department head about the possibility of
getting a permanent work contract that is contingent on annual funding
during my annual review, scheduled for when I get back. Apparently these are common
place but my Uni seems to have no knowledge of them (?).
In preparation for possibly opening my own consultancy, I did NOT buy a new laptop or phone this year on purpose. Next year I will probably get to replace those things and get a tax deduction on them. Crossed fingers my equipment lasts until then!!
HEALTH & LIVING
- I am STILL coughing once in a while from that cold. How annoying.
- My daily migraines have subsided. Thank Goodness! But the fainting symptoms persist. After driving for a few hours, sitting down, I have noticed that my ears get clogged (?) / start ringing when I stand up. I get a weird whooshing / light headed feeling where the sound comes in and out in waves, like a big fan is overhead. Something odd is definitely going on with me.
- I finally bought a SIM # to port over to Google Voice. The deal (tons of data and minutes and texts for $15) through Tracphone was such a good deal that I have just been using the number/account for the past almost-month while I travel around and need the data for GPS and such. But now that I am returning to NZ in a week and a half, I will use it to get a Google Voice #. UPDATE: Google Voice blocked every single account I have, including the new one (which they put on suspension for some reason, I had to appeal to keep it!). Also, they didn't accept the new Tracphone #. So that was a HUGE BUST.
However, my mom has a google voice # and I can just use her log in to call my family. This still doesn't solve the group call issue (I need to be able to call landlines and cell phones in the US in a group call for my weekly family calls), but it will give me more options.
A sidenote is that the Tracphone SIM and plan was a great deal. I think I paid $5 USD for the SIM card and $16 USD for a no-contract 500 mins/500 texts/500 MB data plan + a $10 3GB add on for a month. With 3 days left in my plan, after using it all over the state for lots of trips and GPS directions, etc., I still have 496 mins, 496 texts, and 2.16 GB of data left.
This is a MUCH cheaper option than both my Tmobile plan (which does not come with data, I would have to buy an extra data pass of 1 GB for $10 USD 1 week at a time, costing me ~$60 - $70 USD over the course of my trip) and my Skinny roaming plan (also would have to pay for 1 week at a time, also 1 GB for $17 NZD / ~$10 USD, again costing me $60 - $70 USD and a lot of hassle refilling every week). I'll just let the Tracphone plan expire when the plan ends. For next year - it looks like Tello might be even cheaper. They have a custom plan with 2 GB of data + 100 mins and unlimited texts for $7 for 30 days, no contract.
I can't wait until I get a phone with eSIM capability - so much easier!
- I saw my high school BFF (the only one I really keep up with), my college BFF / platonic life partner, and my absolute bestie girlfriends from grad school, as well as many beloved family members. I have had a lot of fun, a lot of deep convos and catch ups, and thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone after too long away.
- After getting home from my last BFF trip, I was on a nice high but my mom and dad promptly informed me that the PET scan my dad had a few weeks ago turned up some "bright spots" and this almost certainly means lung cancer. The news came while I was away with my bestie for the weekend. My dad literally JUST started feeling better after stopping chemo for his (blood) cancer last year. Jesus Christ, it literally NEVER ENDS.
- My sis has gone back to the hospital 4x on my trip, and is going to a doctor tomorrow again. I really feel like 90% of my trips
home now are spent in a hospital of some sort, or ferrying people to medical appointments. Sigh.
- Canceled my Alaska, JetBlue cc's.
- Updated my documents for my mom to refer to if something happens to me.
- Met the min spend on my new Southwest card.
- Am about 90% of the way towards meeting the min spend on my Cap One Venture card.
- I extended my Delta airways flight credit from way back during covid for another year. It now expires in August 2026.
- Food
and Exercise: As stated in my last update, in the US all food rules went by the wayside. I enjoyed too much soda, sweet tea, pizza hut, fast food bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits, bbq, lemon oreos (a new love of mine!), and white cheddar everything. Some days I literally just craved salad and ate that instead of anything too unhealthy. But there was no exercise. I had planned on visiting the pool a lot but it was closed. I had planned on going to the beach but it wasn't safe going into the water due to hurricane-induced currents. I had planned on going for walks but my family needed the car and it isn't safe to walk where we live (country road/no sidewalks/loose territorial dogs). Oh well. I'll get back on the healthier eating and work out classes when I'm back in NZ.
- Medical: I got new glasses. My mammogram and bowel cancer screening test results came back: all clear :)
Once I'm back in NZ, I'll make an appt with my GP, and see a dermatologist and a physio, and get a full blood panel and discuss HRT/perimenopause with my doc, as well as look into ADHD coaches and therapists.
September 2025 Budget
I am earning a full salary and am in the US on vacation with minimum spends to meet - I therefore placed zero controls on my spending. I tracked it only to make sure I met minimum spending for the cc's.
Income: $7,108.24
Salary: $6,537.36
Lending Crowd repayments: $240.66
Zagga repayments: $5.22
Garage rent: $325
Entrust dividend: $364
Spending: $1,775.41 (18.8%)
Spending categories (budgeted amount in parentheses):
Rent: $1,080
Groceries: $0 ($500)
Electricity & Internet: $252.83 ($150) - Over $100 over budget just for my share - guess my flatmate went a lil crazy in my absence!
Charity: $0 ($50)
Cell phone: $0 ($20)
Medical: $0 ($100)
Eating out: $0 ($250)
Misc: $0 ($959)
alcohol, entertainment, fees, gifts, self care, goods and wants, travel, transportation: $0 (Money to spend during
my trip comes out of a different pot than my monthly budget.)
Savings and Funds Activity Update
-
I've continued to move money from my Rabobank account to Squirrel's on-call account as
it offers a better interest rate than what I have now with my basic Rabobank
savings account. Also, now that the national NZ bank insurance has
kicked in and covers $100K per bank, I need to transfer at least $11K
more to my Squirrel on call account so that all of my liquid savings is
covered across both banks.
-
I have $35,874.19 in an on-call account earning 2.25% p.a. in Squirrel, with $4124.28 invested in various peer-to-peer loans at $100 each at 6 to
6.5% p.a. About $3K of the money in the on-call account is waiting to be
invested in personal loans at 7% p.a. when they become
available (the wait times for those is about a year!).
- I've met all of my short- and medium-term savings goals, and then some. In lieu of these goals, I have decided to save up for the eventuality that I will have no home and no job next September. This fund will also serve as a a start up fund in case I go freelance as well.
-
I made no Zagga investments this month (again).
Net Worth Tracking
NZ Savings (cash and CDs): $153,322.62 NZD
Peer to peer lending: $6,582.56 (Zagga, Squirrel, open principal at Lending Crowd)
- LendingCrowd: $1,458.28 NZD - principal still owed, repaid with interest in weekly installments
- Zagga: $1K NZD
- Squirrel: $4,124.28 NZD
Kiwisaver: $124,324.25 NZD
US investments: $64,753.43 USD
Total Net Worth (Sept 2025): $379,479.14 NZD
This is an increase of $13,317.17 NZD since last month, and an increase of $37,153.50 since the beginning of the year. Things really start rolling once you get to a certain threshold.
