Life Update
December passed with me in a fugue. My world stopped when I got the phone call that my Dad had passed the day before Thanksgiving. My mom left a voicemail at 4 am NZ time and I woke up and saw the notification at 7 am. I've been at home since the Friday after Thanksgiving. Our holidays will always be marred by that memory. Nothing will ever be the same anymore. So far the grief is just getting larger and larger as the missed moments without him pile up. We'd be making noise in the kitchen or somewhere in the house and normally he'd yell to find out what was happening. Every single time we have a scene like that, I expect to hear his voice and when it doesn't come, think, "Dad would have said ___ right now, but he can't." And then the wave of devastating sadness returns. Those moments are just building up. I've never ever gone this long without speaking to him and hearing him say he loves me.
It feels so unfair that I was SO. CLOSE. to my defense and graduating with my PhD. It was one of the big things he was looking forward to. As was I, of course. We *almost* made it. Him passing before that could happen was literally my biggest fear throughout my entire PhD. When I wrote the dedication to my entire (alive) family in my thesis, I thought, WHEW, we're nearly there, we're actually gonna make it! When I hit the 'submit' button on my thesis, I thought we were in the clear. I was so thankful that he would get to see our dreams come true. I let my guard down, and now I'm paying for my hubris. I should have known better. Good things like that just don't happen to people like me. Things always have to be so difficult, or snatched away at the last moment.
I had a flight home the day after he passed. I have zero annual leave left due to some snafus in the HR system, but applied for 2 weeks' bereavement leave and was approved. I had to work the week before Christmas which was awful. I think I got through about one email a day. One day I had a half hour meeting and it was excruciating. I was in bed for about 16 hours afterward. The trying to focus thing is so difficult right now, it wipes me out.
Christmas was terrible. We went through the motions and got through it as a family, but it was quiet and sad. We hadn't gotten the tree up or decorated at all. My little sister in particular really wanted us to put up the tree. I couldn't be bothered, and neither could my mom. But the day before Christmas Eve I felt guilty and talked about it to my mom. I went to Walmart to get a small pre-decorated tree. It sufficed for the holiday and was a good decision. On Christmas Eve we went to my aunt's house and hung out with my cousin and her kid. We went to the Christmas Eve church service and saw people from church. Then we went back to their house and opened presents and ate some food. Christmas morning was just me and my mom and sister. For the first time in my life, we didn't have stockings to go through first. It was so weird to not have my dad there exclaiming over our usual presents of socks to him, of course.
One day afterward I traveled to see a college friend and his family for lunch. It was nice but we are just not as close anymore, and he has changed a lot. For NYE, I drove 4 hours away to see another college friend and stay at his place for a few days. He has a new puppy that kept us very busy. I sobbed telling him about my dad passing and how it all unfolded, and I cried many other times during the trip, esp the morning of New Year's Day. The prospect of a full year ahead of me without my Dad was too hard. It has barely been a month. I wasn't sure I could go and stay with my friend for so long - I have
only really been around my mom and sister for long periods of time since
my dad passed. I thought I was going to have to drive home early, actually. The thought of facing a whole year without my dad still overwhelms me. I'm not going to get through it without feeling even worse emotionally than I do now, and it scares me.
On the 5th, I have to go back to work. My employer forces us to take the week between Christmas and the day after New Year's Day off. I'm not up for it. I'm working remotely for now, but have a flight back to NZ next week.
PhD & WORK
- I am well behind on all of my ongoing work and deadlines. But I can't bring myself to care.
HEALTH & LIVING
- I still don't have a flatmate. Luckily my LL gave me a break on rent while I'm in the US grieving my dad. That will stop when I'm back in NZ in mid-January. I have to put up an ad and interview flatmates when I return. I'm not looking forward to it at all.
- On the plane ride to NZ, I had all these delusions of spurring my mom and sister to go on short walks while I was at home, but I have been eating badly and not exercising at all. I'm definitely still too sad to find any motivation to do anything healthy.
- My well person check in November revealed I have very low iron (ferritin). I got my shingles vaccine. I asked about issues with my thumb/hands, feeling dizzy when I stand up after sitting for a while, and perimenopause. The doctor just looked at me like I was a hypochondriac. She said she should refer me to get scans but won't if I don't have health insurance. In NZ? Where we have a public health system?? She also said that I shouldn't "go looking" for perimenopause symptoms when I described my irregular periods, hot flashes, and very CLEAR signs of perimenopause. Private health insurance is many hundreds of dollars in NZ and I keep looking into it and deciding not to get it. I guess I'll just see how I get along on the public system.
TRAVEL, FAMILY, & FUN
MONEY THOUGHTS
- I applied for a new cc in December. On my flight home in November, American Air gave out special credit car bonus deal that was hard to pass up: 80K points for $1K spend. That effectively replaces the airmiles I used to pay for my round trip flights to/from NZ for my dad's funeral.
- I gave a talk at a conference and won runner up for best talk. The prize for that was $250.
- I need to start
feeling OK with spending the money that I saved up for for a certain
reason ON that reason. Otherwise I'll just end up hoarding money or
feeling like my bank balance is too low (because I use my income to pay for things instead of the money I've saved up). Once I recognized this problem, I devised a new strategy that I'll start in 2026. It will mean that my Net Worth will plummet, but I need to change my mindset around spending money that I have saved up for a specific purpose. If my dad's death has taught me anything, it is that I need to stop putting off my life and actually live it.
MONTHLY CHALLENGES
- N/A
- When I'm back in NZ, I need to get back on the Healthy Food
and Exercise train.
December 2025 Budget
I am earning a full salary now so things are very comfortable. I was
in the US through the whole month.
Income: $6,423.97
Salary: $5,667.04
Lending Crowd repayments: $176.21
Zagga repayments: $5.22
Garage rent: $325 (it was a 5 Monday month)
Talk award prize money: $250
Spending: $2,260.96 (35.2%)
Moved to Savings: $2,500
Kept in Reserve (US cc bills): $1,663.01
Spending categories (budgeted amount in parentheses):
Rent: $1,212 (no flatmate; I'm paying half of the total rent myself because my LL took pity on me this month)
Groceries: $0 ($500)
Electricity & Internet: $0 ($150). December's bill came in January.
Charity: $356 ($50) I contributed to a grad school friend's go-fundme. He worked for the US govt and got caught up in a terrible situation during the administration's shenanigans, this all while caring for a disabled child who needs special housing and schooling (very expensive).
Cell phone: $20 ($20) I bought a roaming package in the US.
Medical: $20.20 ($100) I wasn't eating much after I got home so I bought some multivitamins to ensure I at least got some good stuff in my system.
Eating out: $119.65 ($250) These are deferred costs from my flights and travel at the end of November - I forgot to log them before I did my November budget round up and reconciliation, so they ended up moving to December. It's mostly a pizza night from Sal's and a smoothie and food and souvenir food from Auckland airport.
Misc: $533.11 ($959)
alcohol, self care, gifts, goods and wants, transportation: $0
entertainment:
$35 - chatgpt for one month. It came in handy for asking about various things pertaining to my dad's death, but I don't think I'll renew unless I have a similar stressful month coming up.
fees: $421.77 for contents insurance for 2026 and $75 for my ANZ credit card biannual fee (worth it for the travel insurance alone).
travel: $76.34 - flight back to NZ fees and taxes (used AA miles)
Savings and Funds Activity Update
- I
have about $104K in Rabobank. I really need to transfer some funds
elsewhere because $100K is the limit that is insured by the NZ
government. The funds are split between a notice saver, a premium saver,
and a regular old raboplus account. There is apparently a trick I can
use to move funds from my premium saver account which requires the
balance of the account to be $50 more than at the start of the month in
order to qualify for a higher interest rate.
- I have $50K+ in an on-call account earning 2% p.a. in Squirrel, with $3700 of that money invested in various peer-to-peer loans at $100 each at 6 to
6.5% p.a. About $3.3K 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 made no Zagga investments this month (again). With the housing market
being so soft, I just don't...trust it? It is also $1K a pop in
investments, and I'm not comfortable putting that many eggs in one
basket. I have ONE loan out and I'm seeing how it all works.
- I am waiting for Lending Crowd to start up again.
-
I've met all of my short and medium term savings goals, and
then some. In lieu of goals, I have decided to save up for the
eventuality that I will have no home and no job this September. This
slush fund will also serve as a a start up fund in case I go freelance
as
well. I am calling it my "Freelance Consultancy Start Up Fund."
Net Worth Tracking
NZ Savings (cash): $150,027.50 NZD. This does not include funds invested in peer to peer loans.
Peer to peer lending: $5,874.55 (Zagga, Squirrel, open principal at Lending
Crowd)
-
LendingCrowd: $1,090.48 NZD - principal still owed, repaid with interest in
weekly installments
- Zagga: ~$1K NZD
- Squirrel: $3,799.73 NZD
Kiwisaver: $128,307.00 NZD
US investments: $67,051.16 USD
Total Net Worth (Dec 2025): $390,596.56 NZD
This
is an increase of
$4,588.14 NZD since last month, and an increase of $48,270.92 since
the beginning of the year. Starting in January 2026, I will be changing
how I report my Net Worth. It will drop about $100K for reasons I will
explain in another post.
