“It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times”… as the saying goes. July fit this description quite accurately. Much of July was a very good month, but we had to deal with some costly equipment failures and a health scare. It was a difficult month for my mental health…
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Have you ever had a long string of bad luck, completely out of your control? A whole series of bad events, seemingly unconnected to anything you’ve done that suddenly all lands in your lap at roughly the same time?
A whole bunch of these bad things just happen, and there’s very little you could have done or said to avoid this fate…
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Summer is the busy season around the Tako household. While most of the world is undergoing some form of shutdown because of the pandemic (including our family), we’re still finding a myriad of ways to keep busy.
So much so, that I hardly have time for blogging. I wish I still had the time to crank out a two blog posts per week, but alas, my time is now very limited…
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Like most people, you’ve probably found yourself cooking AND eating at home a lot more in 2020. As a result you’ve probably seen some very significant savings in your monthly budget this year.
You’re certainly not alone – The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis recorded a national savings rate of 32.2% in April and 23.3% in May. This is the most recently released data from the BEA. Those two months in 2020 are the highest savings rates ever recorded in the United States! No period in history even comes close (at least since the Bureau of Economic Analysis started keeping track).
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June was an exceptionally good month. Life was good. Really good in fact! Our financials held-up well (all things considered) during the pandemic, and the kids finally finished school in June. Which means we have the resources and time for some family adventure!
In Washington State (where we live), our “stay-at-home order” has finally ended. Things are definitely not “back to normal”, but we can at least get out of the house a bit more…
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Argh! Believe it or not this is the second time I’m writing this post. I was just about ready to publish the first (original) version last Friday, but upon hitting the ‘publish’ button, the post disappeared into a puff of digital smoke.
Damn! Hours and hours of writing completely gone due to some strange technological fart.
But my little blogging mishap is a very very small problem compared to the incredible difficulties many people are living through at this very moment. It’s been a very difficult year.
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In my opinion, Spring is one of the best times to be alive. After a long cold winter, when spring finally hits it’s like rocket fuel for my happiness level. The comes sun out, the plants are green, and the flowers are blooming again.
May also happens to be one of the best months for spring in our area (the Pacific Northwest).
It’s too bad that May didn’t have the same kind of energy this year…
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If you’re the kind of person that’s not afraid to talk about money, sooner or later you’ll encounter the phrase “She’s good with money”, or “He’s bad with money”.
It’s an interesting turn of phrase… one that implies some individuals have a greater ability to make money (or build wealth) than others. Living in today’s very unequal world, this appears to be the case.
On one hand we have billionaires with so much wealth they could literally spend one billion dollars a year and still not outlive their own fortunes…
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Do you consider yourself a frugal person? I used to think Mrs. Tako and I were pretty frugal people. If you remember our backstory, the two of us were good savers in our 20’s and 30’s which allowed us to reach financial independence by age 38.
We saved, but we didn’t suffer. We traveled internationally quite a bit, ate delicious meals, and generally had a very luxurious life — all while saving a good chunk of our income.
That was the past, and this is now…
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