I love Keyforge. I’ve been playing since it first released back in 2018 and still enjoy it immensely to this day. However, the game has, on occasion, been plagued by the odd problem. Though these issues have been mostly cleared up as of today thanks to some rule alterations and errata, during the game’s infancy – when players first got their hands on the game – one particular combo of cards became so incredibly degenerate that something needed to be done. This is the story of how that combo culminated in the most infamous grand finals that the game has ever seen.
The State of Play
Firstly, I should give some basic information on how the game is played. Keyforge is strictly a 2-player game in which, in order to win, you must forge 3 keys. Each key costs 6 ӕmber (pronounced ‘amber’), which you can gain through certain card bonuses, or by using creatures to perform the ‘reap’ action. If you have enough ӕmber at the start of your turn, you forge a key. There are other intricacies and various aspects of play, but to put it simply: play cards, get ӕmber, forge keys, be the first to forge 3 of them. Got that? Good.
The game has seen plenty of extremely powerful combos, including the likes of:
- GENKA: Martian Generosity and Key Abduction. Players can draw a large number of cards while also forging keys at a lowered cost.
- BRIG: Binate Rupture and Interdimensional Graft. Players can inflate both their own and their opponent’s ӕmber pool then immediately take any remaining ӕmber from their opponent after they forge a key.
- Gangernaut: Ganger Chieftain and Drummernaut. Provided the opponent has no creatures on the board, players can use these two creatures to generate a burst of 5 or 6 ӕmber depending on the situation.
However, none of these combos quite measure up to the nightmare that was LANS. But before I get to that, you’ll need to know some important aspects of Keyforge.
The World’s First Unique Deck Game
As opposed to just about every other card game in existence, Keyforge consists of absolutely no deckbuilding whatsoever. Rather than buying booster packs or singles to enhance a deck that you construct, the game is played using complete, pre-constructed decks that cannot be altered or mixed. While some players have experimented with deckbuilding and making cubes, instances such as these only exist as far as casual play with friends. The vast majority of players choose to play the game as intended.
Another thing to note is that every single Keyforge deck in the entire world is unique. That is, if you buy a deck, no other deck will ever have the same decklist. Each deck also comes with its own unique artwork on the backs of each card, and each deck has its own unique name printed on both the front and back of each card. (Some famously humorous names include The Boy Who Basically Headbutts Heaven and The Child Who Terribly Fears The Church) Suffice it to say, anyone who tries to mix and match cards from other decks can be found out very quickly, as any deviation from the card’s name, art and decklist (which must be shown to your opponent before each game) are easy indicators.
These aspects, from name to decklist to card backs, are all created using an algorithm that picks 3 houses (or factions) and distributes a range of 12 cards to each house, with distribution dependent on card rarity, from common to uncommon to rare and special rare.
Keyforge’s model garnered some mixed receptions, with some praising the game for its low barrier of entry and quick casual setup through sealed decks, while others lamented the inability to build decks and likened the game to a lootbox simulator. With the randomized nature of the game, many detractors assumed that the game would devolve into spending obscene amounts of money throwing away decks in search of ‘the one’, while many proponents of the game simply enjoyed the discovery and puzzle-solving aspect of trying to learn each deck, with the ability to find interesting matchups without the need to build decks for specific purposes.
The big question was: How could a game of random, decidedly suboptimal decks work at the most competitive level? How could you truly test a player’s skill and knowledge of the game if matchups can never be equal? The answer? Adaptive.
A Test of Skill
The adaptive format works as follows: The players play two games, the first using their own decks and the second using their opponent’s deck. If the same deck wins twice, players must then commence a bidding on chains. Chains are the game’s handicap system, which can be used to curb decks that have the advantage in a particular matchup. To put it simply, the more chains you have, the fewer cards you are allowed in your hand at any one time. (The standard hand size is 6) From 1-6 chains, you play with 1 fewer card in hand. From 7-12, you play with 2 fewer cards, right up to the 19-24 bracket, where you play with 4 fewer cards. That’s a hand size of only 2 cards!
The purpose of bidding on chains is for each player to deduce how much of a handicap they would be willing to take in order to play the stronger deck without putting themselves at a disadvantage. A chain is dropped at the end of each turn, meaning if you start out with 3 chains, after 3 turns you’ll be back up to a normal hand size. Each player takes turns bidding until one decides they aren’t willing to increase the bid, and the game starts with the handicap in place on the 'stronger' deck, while the 'weaker' deck simply plays as normal.
Most players consider the adaptive variants to be the truest test of skill at the competitive level. After all, playing an extremely powerful deck holds no advantage over playing an extremely weak deck. Even at the most lopsided of matchups, 24 chains (the maximum) would shut down a dominant deck’s momentum to an extreme level. Theoretically, you could buy only one deck in your entire life and still win adaptive tournaments, given the fact that Keyforge has no set rotation. Decks are legal forever, and aside from very specific events that require the use of certain sets, there are no restrictions as to which sets can play against which.
Surely then, the adaptive tournaments would be the best place to see the most nail-biting and skill intensive matches possible. Nobody could complain about degenerate decks dominating, right?
The Most Broken Combo of All Time
Enter the LANS combo, consisting of Library Access and Nepenthe Seed. LANS could allow you (with some setup) to draw your entire deck into your hand, play a bunch of cards, then cycle those cards back into your hand, then play more cards, then cycle them back…
Let’s break it down. Library Access sees you drawing a card every time you play a card. This on its own is a pretty powerful effect. Keyforge has no mana costs. The only limiting factor is that you can only play or use cards from the active house. In this case, since Library Access is a Logos card, you must only play or use Logos cards that turn. If you keep drawing Logos cards, you can keep playing them, but given that only one third of your deck consists of Logos, you’re bound to hit a wall eventually. Great card, but far from broken. Things get crazy, however, if you pair it with Nepenthe Seed. This is an artifact that allows you to return a card from your discard pile to your hand at any point of any turn you wish. Again, on its own Nepenthe Seed is an excellent card, but not broken. But if you put the two together, first playing Library Access and then using Nepenthe Seed’s ability to return Library Access back to your hand, by playing Library Access again, the effect stacks. Now for every card you play, you draw two cards. And if that already sounds scary enough, it gets worse.
Other Logos cards also include:
- Wild Wormhole: Gain an ӕmber, then play the top card of your deck. With LANS, this means playing Wild Wormhole, drawing two cards, then playing the top card of your deck and drawing another two cards.
- Timetraveller: Gains you an ӕmber on play, and also allows you to draw two cards, meaning with LANS you would draw four cards on play. Each Timetraveller also comes paired with a copy of Help From Future Self, meaning there are multiple ways to get hold of it.
- Mother: A creature that increases hand size, giving you greater opportunity to set the combo up.
- Library of Babble: An artifact that allows you to draw an additional card.
- Phase Shift: The most important piece of the puzzle. Phase Shift allows you to play one non-Logos card. This gives you ample opportunity to use the effects of other houses, and since you’ll likely be drawing up your entire deck, you’ll have all the choices in the world at your disposal. Just as with Library Access, the effect stacks. Using multiple copies of Phase Shift means you can play multiple non-Logos cards that turn.
Does that sound bad enough? Sorry, but it gets even worse than that. You see, unlike most other card games, when your deck pile is emptied in Keyforge, you simply reshuffle your discard pile to form your new deck. This means you can cycle back through your deck again. And play Library Access again. Now you’re drawing three cards for each card you play. And on and on it goes.
Now, this effect cannot go on indefinitely thanks to the Rule of Six. In simple terms, this means that any card (or card of the same name) cannot be played or used more than 6 times. LANS cannot carry on forever, but it can carry on for a very, very long time. Plus, even if the insanity does come to an end, you’ve now drawn pretty much your entire deck, ready to use it next turn. And while the combo does at least require some setup to ensure you get the most out of it, top players would optimize their play to all but ensure it.
I should point out that it was possible to prevent the combo from happening with cards that could either destroy or remove Nepenthe Seed from play. These included Remote Access, Poltergeist, Gorm of Omm, Nexus, Barehanded and Neutron Shark. That said, any deck that didn't have an answer (which was most of them) would be at the full mercy of LANS. And even if you did have an answer in your deck, an unlucky card draw could prevent you from ever using it. Many people outright despised LANS (and to a lesser extent, LART, which swapped Nepenthe Seed for Reverse Time, a card that required more setup for the combo but in turn couldn't be countered). For a game all about interesting and weird matchups with unexpected surprises, the idea of chasing a meta specifically to deal with LANS didn't sit well with many.
The insanity of this combo came to a head at Keyforge Vault Tour Illinois in April of 2019.
The Worst Grand Finals Ever
While you’re more than welcome to watch the entire footage of the grand finals (linked above), here’s some key details with timestamps:
Game 1:
Game occurs as normal until Library Access is played at 18:25. From here, the player cycles through his entire deck, using all manner of cards and counters to keep track of how many uses each card has seen. From there, all his opponent can really do is watch. He spends his time staring a hole into the table, card effects flying left and right, his stacked army of creatures being decimated, until finally, after eight minutes of inactivity, he concedes the game at 26:25, seeing no other way out of this hell.
Game 2:
Decks are swapped between players. Game plays normally until 36:17. Library Access is played and the player cycles through his deck, and again, playing cards continuously. After a grueling nineteen minutes of simply watching the madness unfold without being able to take his turn, at 55:15, his opponent concedes.
Game 3:
Time to bid for chains! Now, you’d think this would be where the LANS deck gets hit with a massive set of chains, stopping it from doing its thing. Right? WRONG. The opposing player chooses not to bid on the LANS deck, allowing the LANS owner to play it with zero chains. Word has it that he still believed his deck had a good chance at outracing his opponent before LANS could be activated, but no such thing happened. At 59:36, Library Access is played. At 1:13:50, the game is over, 3 keys to 0.
Community Response
As expected, this did not go over well with Keyforge fans. (See YouTube comments) “Stupid combo... much worse than exodia,” writes one commenter. “People bringing LANS decks to tournaments should be ashamed of themselves,” wrote another. “LANS: definition of "not fun tournaments", ladies and gents!”
While there were a small minority of players who wished for the game to remain as it was, many saw LANS as a scourge upon the earth and wanted changes to be made. LANS simply wasn't fun for either player when pulled off, but due to its sheer power, LANS decks were highly sought after. The problem was, given the fact Keyforge revolves around opening pre-made decks, individual cards cannot be banned, and the alternative of banning specific decks would set a terrible precedent for the game.
Thankfully, a decision was made that satisfied most. On 29th of May 2019 Fantasy Flight Games announced some important errata which included the rule that upon playing Library Access, the card would be purged instead of hitting the discard pile. Much like the term ‘exile’ in Magic: The Gathering, when a card is purged it is removed from play entirely, making it impossible to return to your hand through Nepenthe Seed. Panic over, and people could play the game in peace again.
While the card is once again balanced, many still remember the horrors of Library Access in the game’s early days. Being able to draw your entire deck into your hand and continue cycling through? Why, it had to be the most broken card in Keyforge history!
Except it wasn’t.
Believe it or not, Library Access was generally considered only the second best card in the game at the time. That’s right; another card existed that even Library Access couldn’t stand up to. A card so brutal and terrifying that it utterly dominated the meta. A card that, by itself, with no card required to combo with it, made players shiver and quake with terror. “But how can that be?” you might ask. “After everything I’ve read, the ridiculous combo potential of LANS, how can any card possibly be better than the broken mess that was Library Access!?”
Well… as Old Bruno would say, it’s a heckuva deal.
Perhaps that’s a story for another time. Please let me know if you enjoyed reading this, as I have a number of Keyforge stories to tell! 😊
EDIT: Wow! I'm shocked my post garnered so much attention! I only found out about this sub a few days ago! Thanks to all of you for reading!
Lots of people clamoring for information on the broken card that I teased at the end. I'll definitely have to start work on that one at some point, even if I'm not sure when I'll have the spare time to write it. I have a number of ideas for topics, and with the fifth set due out next month, who knows? Maybe something else will come up that's worth talking about.
Like that recently revealed trojan horse artifact... I hope the designers know what they're doing with that one! O_O

I don't get what you guys are worried about with PLTR.
Here's my personal DD on PLTR, you're welcome to read and do whatever you want. Other helpful info or pointing out mistakes in my DD is very welcome.
Fears preventing you from buying PLTR

1. Targeted ads on your phone from Yahoo Finance or Zacks telling you PLTR = BAD!!!1!eleven
2. Shills spamming "pLtR tO tHe MoOn" and :rocket: on PLTR thread comments.
3. Last quarter's seemingly bad financials/earnings.
4. Financials Moving Forwards
5. Soros who owns 21 million shares "threatening" to sell his shares upon DPO expiry.
6. DPO expiry 3 days after February's earnings and possible insiders and DPO holders sale and dip.
7. What does PLTR tldr.
8. Other Information

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#1 Targeted Ads
Ads and articles are both paid for by someone.The fact that in the past 3 weeks i've been getting multiple multiple targeted ads on my phone related to PLTR since i love PLTR so much.
Ads are telling me that PLTR is bad, doesn't provide a dividend, they're telling me PLTR's fair price is 20 instead of 25 based on some financial model and have gone as far as to provide a list of alternative stocks to buy.
To me, this all screams: SCARE TACTICS
Additionally, the last few weeks of ups and downs in PLTR's stock price is another indication of the attempts to short the stock to sh!t and drive investors out. (For what reason? I don't know.)
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#2 Shilling PLTR
I myself love to shill PLTR to people whenever i can. I do this because i legitimately think this company will do great. I work as a product manager in a software development house and understand what PLTR does. PLTR is not cryptic.Regardless, i think when people shill PLTR to you, they are right to do so as you're probably missing out on a great opportunity to make money in the long run. If you're looking for big gains short term, maybe try something else.
Shillery is OK, but at least give the facts.
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#3 Last Quarter's Bad Financials
If you'd done your DD not by searching reddit posts but by checking PLTR's actual quarterly report, you'd know that PLTR's "bad" last financial quarteearnings were due to the costs of listing themselves on the New York Stock Exchange.~855million were spent on listing and stock related compensations and this is the big reason.
Direct quote by PLTR here: https://investors.palantir.com/news-details/2020/Palantir-Reports-Revenue-Growth-of-52-in-the-Third-Quarter-Raises-Full-Year-2020-Guidance/default.aspx

We incurred a loss from operations of $847.8 million, which includes $847.0 million in stock-based compensation following our recent direct listing.

I would like to remind everyone that this is a 1 TIME THING. Put simply, this means that PLTR won't have as excessive losses next quarter as they did this last quarter.
Additionally, let me go into further detail on this and not just leave it to that.

• PLTR's quarterly operating expenses for the past 3 quarters were at around ~260 million.
• PLTR's operating expenses this quarter were ~987 million.

ADDITIONALLY...
PLTR also had a higher R&D cost this quarter that just passed. Normally they'd pay 80 million on R&D, but somehow ended up paying ~300 million this quarter. No one knows why, but this is another thing that influenced PLTR's earnings.
https://investors.palantir.com/news-details/2020/Palantir-Reports-Revenue-Growth-of-52-in-the-Third-Quarter-Raises-Full-Year-2020-Guidance/default.aspx

On September 30, 2020, in connection with the Direct Listing, we incurred $769.5 million and $8.4 million of stock-based compensation using the accelerated attribution method related to the satisfaction of the performance-based vesting condition for RSUs and growth units, respectively, that had satisfied the service-based vesting condition as of such date.

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#4 PLTR financials moving forwards
PLTR is deep in bed with the government and the Biden regime although may look like it would be against using PLTR is in fact secretly very pro-surveillance e.g pro Palantir.
Here's some of the known organizations in the US Govt that use PLTR:

1. CDC
2. Office of the Secretary
3. Food and Drug Administration
4. Immigration and Customs Enforcements / ICE
5. Internal Revenue Service / IRS
6. National Institute on Drug Abuse
7. DOD/ARMY - ACC Aberdeen Proving Ground
8. Coast Guard / DHS
9. DOD/NAVY - Naval Information Warfare Systems Command
10. US Attorney's Offices / DOJ
11. US Special Operations Command / SPEC OPS

Boys. The big institutional people know these things. You just found this out. See how deep PLTR is already in bed with the Government?????? Palantir IS the next Raytheon/Lockheed of DATA aggregation and visualization.
UPCOMING EARNINGS
I've done some quick maths and it looks like PLTR is more likely to be in positive earnings this quarter and with a 0.02 cent EPS target, we can easily assume that they'll destroy this with maybe 0.04 or 0.08 EPS. In the worst case scenario, PLTR's EPS this quarter could be somewhere around MINUS -0.05 ish due to interview costs and ad/campaigning costs that were not there before the company was listed.
WHAT CAN DESTROY PALANTIR
Now, there's big possible downsides and Palantir can fail IF contracts that expire are not renewed. That's biggest REAL reason for Palantir's balance sheet getting screwed.
I've seen a disturbing pattern with PLTR's financials and that's that every year, it's R&D cost is rising by between 150 and 350 million dollars. This is quite a bit of negative revenue and if new contracts are not constantly coming in, PLTR's balance can start going into the negative.
WHAT WILL NOT DESTROY PALANTIR
Some people may have concerns over the new left leaning government dumping PLTR. An article was posted that is behind a paywall EVERYWHERE that goes something like this:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cdc-officials-urge-biden-team-to-dump-palantirs-covid-tracker
In my opinion, i believe this is inconsequential and that a few people crying to daddy Biden to kill a multimillion contract with PLTR is a stretch. Also we know the current new Biden team has his hands full and will have them full for at least the next 1 year with what's going on.
There is no time to deal with a few crybabies and even if he did deal with it and did decide to kill the PLTR Tiberius Covid tracker contract with the CDC which he WONT, these things take months and years to deal with, and by then the contract/s will have already brought PLTR tons of money and revenue in.
HOW MUCH DOES KARP AND HIS GOONS GET PAID
Short answer is... A LOT. The amounts below are PER YEAR. That's a lot of money in the hole and contributes to annoying amount to why PLTR is always just at the edge of just barely being profitable.
https://preview.redd.it/ba58nqcurob61.png?width=2615&format=png&auto=webp&s=55d45833faad4d60ea8dc142a9601c44b4cc7395
Palantir's prospectus 311 page document's 130 last pages are almost all exclusively talking about extremely complicated options trading schemes that are made by Cohen and others to make sure they can squeeze out a LOT of money out of PLTR.
Mithril Investments has existed from before and is not a new company. Owned by Thiel/Cohen/Karp as a way to launder and exchange options for more options and more money for all 3 of them. Also Shyam Sankar to me feels corrupt which scares me a bit, he's had some very shady dealings and has brought his wife in PLTR that gets paid 200k per year.
Prospectus Document: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1321655/000119312520230013/d904406ds1.htm
I suggest you skim through it, it contains EVERYTHING about Palantir.
Palantir is going to need to have to be getting AT LEAST 500 million in NEW contracts per year to REMAIN BARELY profitable. It's doable in my opinion, but just barely and it's why they made the company public to try and get more people's attention and increase the inflow of contracts.
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#5 Soros and his 21 million shares
First of all, i think we can all agree that Soros can suck it.
If you've read a few articles here and there, you'll know that Soros owns/owned 1% of Class A PLTR shares. No one knows whether he's sold them yet or if he's an DPO holder who'll sell 3 days after February's earnings.
Whether he sells them or buys more will be mostly inconsequential in my opinion. We see dips and pumps every day. He legally cannot sell his shares all at once, he'll have to sell certain amounts daily and over time. This will create annoying sideways motion as shares exchange hands and consolidation starts for 2-3 weeks until his and insider shares exchange hands.
Nothing special to see here, move along just a little draw down resulting in some consolidation.
PLTR is exposed to OIL more than anything, so fluctuations in the general market and general market crashes affect PLTR much less than other stocks. Also PLTR does not track ANY benchmarks. NONE.
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#6 DPO expiry 3 days after earnings in February
To my limited knowledge, this is how BIG plays who are holding DPO shares usually work:

• If a stock has performed well up to earnings and investors are more than happy with the returns, they're more likely to not sell their stock or just sell less than they normally would.
• If a stock hasn't performed as well as investors thought, these investors are more likely to sell stock or reduce their positions more than normal.

There's a total of 1.16Billion Class A PLTR shares currently (Give or take don't flog me). We are currently trading with ~250 million shares while the rest are locked away in the DPO.
When those shares are "unlocked" in February, the price of the stock won't be diluted. These shares already exist and are accounted for. They are simply locked. Also when they are unlocked, the share price won't simply multiply because all shares are now tradeable.

According to Palantir’s after-hours filing with the SEC this afternoon, the company has 1.16 billion Class A shares, 484 million Class B shares and 1 million Class F shares on its cap table outstanding today, or a total of roughly 1.64 billion. Only Class A shares will trade, and Class B and F shares are convertible to Class A shares on a one-to-one basis. On a fully diluted basis, which Palantir says represents 2.2 billion shares total according to its most recent S-1 filing, the company is valued at $16 billion. The difference between those two aggregate numbers comes from outstanding stock performance grants, warrants and other financial instruments.

What WILL affect stock price:

• Employees exercising their non class A options into Class A shares. This IS dilution.
• The bigwigs e.g Alex Karp, Peter Thiel and a few other bigshots exercising their options and then selling them for a profit.

To note, regular employees will barely affect the price of the stock with their miniscule share holdings. Alex Karp, Peter Thiel and a handful of other high ranked executives in PLTR are the ones that will create a tiny but manageable ripple in the stock price.
What COULD affect the stock price a lot:

• Massive sell off by the big institutional holders.
• Not shorters. (Citron and Citi can suck it, we're in control here)
• People with weak spaghetti wet paper hands.
• Everyone fomoing the same weeklies e.g like when everyone bought Jan 15 calls on everything.
• Big but silent scare campaign (that's already going on) to scare off normies like us.

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#7 What does PLTR do, tldr.
Imagine Facebook's database of everything about everyone & Youtube's Database of everything & Geolocation data in a database made by the US Army for known terrorist cells.
Palantir allows you to select and match varied data TYPES from several different database, combine it in any way you want and visualize it so that it's human readable by even the dumbest person in the room so that even they can see patterns and come to conclusion on a subject matter.
It's kind of like filling an excel sheet with data and then visualizing it with a bar chart, except the date you filled the sheet with can be anything and not just numbers or dates or countries and you can make various combinations using all the different rows of data to maybe come up with a pattern to something like how to best distribute the Covid vaccines in the counties in a very specific state in the US.
Literally what you see in SciFi movies where people combine random data by smashing keys on a keyboard and somehow find the murderer, the location of a terrorist or the percentage that someone will commit a murder in the future based on a lot of random data about that person or the area, country, family, history... anything.
While this all might sound super cool and amazing, it is. Maybe in 10 years time there will be a few more companies doing this, but for now, it's only Palantir, Circles, Alteryx and a few other private entities that do this type of thing. Many of them work with governments and are hush hush due to the kinds of things they use this type of software for (terrorist cells, warzones, etc) and the public backlash this could cause.
tldr: Glorified data aggregator and visualization platform/software with different access levels for different people.
PLTR is superbly positioned to offer their software to SLOW and Boomer like organizations like Governments.
Governments are stupid and don't have neither the time, nor technical knowledge to develop this software themselves for internal use. This is what PLTR capitalizes on and why Governments use them so much.
Governments could have spent the a fraction of the money they spend on PLTR contracts to make the software themselves but only for their own internal systems and use, but they can't and if they tried, they'd fail because technocracy in governments is not a thing. By the time they'd even complete a project like this, it'd likely be out of spec, unusable and would require further development and money and we know how slow and bad governments are at doing even the basics. Again PLTR wins because of this.
PLTR is likely NOT to be adopted by giants like Google or FB or other modern tech organizations of any size because they are not stupid. They have their own purpose built internal systems that they use to do everything related to data aggregation and visualization because they have the technical knowledge and resources. Buying PLTR for their use is a joke.
PLTR capitalizes on being general a general purpose tool and is set up manually by an engineer over the course of 4-10 days for each customer. The engineer customizes and configures the system for each company's custom use since the software allows you to do so. Regular aggregation and visualization software CAN do the same, but typically lacks data input types and features that PLTR has because PLTR has cultivated a special set of features over many years that were suggested by their existing clientele in battlefields and other places.
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#8 Other Information
\*Big known PLTR Holders*\**
https://preview.redd.it/a404oalxrob61.png?width=1631&format=png&auto=webp&s=8c2dbcfac5a7ca207127771ec4e3133f8d943359
\*PLTR's Price List (2019)*\**
https://www.esi.mil/Download.aspx?id=7186
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\*Personal TA and Crayon Mania*\**
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/PLTnrjqL4dw-PLTR-Risky-April-100-200-possibility/
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/PLT5YcdCye0-PLTR-Schizzo-Technical-Analysis/
https://www.tradingview.com/chart/PLTCkCTvtqM-PLTR-PLTR-train-leaving-the-station-get-ready/
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\*PLTR stock pumping events*\**

• 7'th Jan - Interview
• 26'th Jan - Demonstration
• 11'th Feb - Earnings
• ~15'th Feb - DPO expiration - Havoc

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\*Similar Companies*\**

• PLTR - Palantir - Stock Price ~$25 - Market Cap 48bln
• AYX - Alteryx - Stock Price ~$125 - Market Cap 8bln
• Semantic Research - Private

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\*Known Contract Info*\**

• 240 million Palantir Air Force contract expiring soon in 3 months. If it's re-signed, it'll be a big catalyst for a PLTR pump. If not, it'll be a sad dump day.
• Mithril, investment/financial company owned by Karp and Thiel buys a 3.15million share stake in Palantir. Somehow this makes them major stakeholders.
• Sompo holdings has 5% of all PLTR shares.

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\*Past and new US KNOWN gov contracts. Source* govtribe.com\\**
https://preview.redd.it/kbim7afrrob61.png?width=1392&format=png&auto=webp&s=9abc99d9995c4972919e275f407e1bba6382dfdd
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\*Quotes from Won and LOST contracts from Federal Agencies*\**
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIH) - WON

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) intends to award a contract without providing for full and open competition to Palantir Technologies, Inc., 100 Hamilton Ave., Suite 300, Palo Alto, CA 94301.

Veteran Health Association - WON

The pandemic-related data management and operational decision-support requirements have led the program office to determine that the Palantir data management and analytics platform is the only viable solution that would maintain the current operational capability, without a degradation in VHA COVID-19 decision-support.

AFLCMC Wright Patterson AFB (DOD - USAF - AFMC - AFLCMC) - LOST

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) held meetings in January/February 2020 timeframe with potential vendors to determine their capabilities and their abilities to meet this mission requirement. They met with Palantir, Recorded Future, Altyrex, In-Q-tel and Semantic AI. From the information they gathered in those meetings it was determined that Semantic AI would be the only company that could fully meet the requirements of this effort without further delaying the project and incurring additional costs

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Now friends, here's my position on PLTR. I'll be holding onto it for the next year. If it's not at least 300% by then, i'm selling it and moving on to the next stock. App i'm using is Revolut.
Also yes, i'm ALL-IN only on Palantir because i know my money will multiply itself in the short term. I'm not holding this till 2025 as others are supposedly doing. I'm selling in 2022 with 300% or more profit. PLTR is severely undervalued, underpriced because it's a DPO. Give it till EOY and we're going to be rich. If it was an IPO it'd be trading at 180+ already imho.
I've spent the last month and a half holding PLTR. I've gone full schizzo mode when it comes to PLTR. I lose sleep daily and i love it. I hadn't slept for 37 hours a few days ago because i spent so much time researching PLTR and scraping the internet for all possible information.
I come from an IT/Development background, so i understand what PLTR does completely.
My PT's for PLTR are:

• 48-89 by March or April.
• 75 - 125 by EOY.
• 200+ 2022 IF they solve their income and constantly increasing R&D cost issues.

https://preview.redd.it/4t0k1ujprob61.png?width=407&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b3a16265edafa290432e6b79f9009e3df99f495

Welcome to… a series I don’t have a name for. Tracking Trump? Trump Watch? Do titles really matter?
Housekeeping:

• HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
  
• NOTIFICATIONS: You can signup to receive notifications when these posts are done.
  

Investigations

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron again ruled against the Trump Organization, ordering the company to turn over more documents to New York Attorney General Letitia James. In December, Judge Engoron required the Trump Org to produce records it had tried to argue were shielded by attorney-client privilege. The judge went further this time, ordering that the company’s communications with a law firm also had to be given to AG James.

Some communications that had been marked as privileged, he wrote, were “addressing business tasks and decisions, not exchanges soliciting or rendering legal advice.” He also said that communications related to public relations were not of a legal nature and that privilege was waived in some circumstances where third parties were involved in the discussions.

James’ office is conducting a civil investigation into whether Trump inflated his assets in financial statements to obtain bank loans and understated them elsewhere to reduce his tax bill. While the probe is wide-ranging, the rulings from Engoron focus on Trump’s Seven Springs property in Westchester County, New York. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance is also looking into the property as part of his criminal investigation of the Trump Organization.
Now that he is no longer in office, the IRS is expected to advance its review of a $72.9 million tax refund Trump claimed and received in 2010. The tax agency has not given any indication of how it may rule and it’s possible the public may never learn of the outcome either way. If the IRS determines the refund was not issued appropriately, Trump could be required to pay it back with interest - a more than $100 million debt at a time when his biggest properties are “suffering severe revenue losses”.

• Note that the commissioner of the IRS is still Charles Rettig, appointed by Trump in 2018. His term is slated to end in November 2022. Rettig has numerous conflicts of interests, including a 50% share of two units in a Trump building that has earned him $100,000-200,000 a year since 2006.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) told the Washington Post that he will continue to seek Trump’s tax returns. Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen can unilaterally surrender Trump’s tax returns to the committee. There is a court case still open on the matter, but the judge is waiting on the Biden administration to take a position before moving forward. In other words, the Biden administration can decide to no longer fight the committee’s request.

• Trump-appointed judge Trevor McFadden ordered the new administration to give the former president’s attorneys 72 hours’ notice if it decides to give Trump’s tax returns to Neal’s committee. The Treasury and DOJ have until March 3 to submit a status report to the court; lacking a Senate-confirmed Attorney General may lead to another month-long delay in proceedings.

Prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, have opened a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s election results. On Wednesday, numerous officials in state government - including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger - received requests to preserve documents related to “an investigation into attempts to influence” the election.

Of particular note in Ms. Willis’s letter was the wider scope of the investigation. Potential violations of state law include “the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration,” the letter states.

While the probe reportedly focuses on Trump’s Jan. 2 call to Raffensperger pressuring him to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s win, unnamed officials told the New York Times that Trump’s calls to Governor Brian Kemp, AG Chris Carr, and state election officials, as well.

Money and properties

Before leaving office, former President Trump issued a directive allowing his four adult children and two of their spouses to receive Secret Service protection for six additional months, at no cost. Normally, only the president, wife, and their minor children are entitled to the security. In addition to Trump’s adult children, he ordered Secret Service protection for three former officials: Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, chief of staff Mark Meadows, and national security advisor Robert O’Brien.

The perk for the Trump family is expected to cost taxpayers millions of dollars and further stress the elite federal security force, which in the past four years had to staff the largest number ever of full-time security details — up to 42 at one point...

An analysis by watchdog group CREW found that the Trump family took twelve times as many trips with Secret Service protection than the Obamas did: “On average, Obama’s family took 133.3 protected trips per year, while the Trump family has taken an average of 1,625 annually.” Many of the trips taken by Trump’s adult children were to benefit their private business, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in the process.

In February 2017, Eric and Don Jr. flew to Dubai to open a Trump-branded golf club, which cost the Secret Service more than $200,000. The same month, Eric flew to the Dominican Republic to potentially relaunch a failed Trump-branded resort project, which cost $20,000. Eric Trump has visited Uruguay twice for Trump Organization business, costing taxpayers $97,830 in 2017, and $80,786 in 2019. And those are just the receipts we have obtained so far.

After losing the election, Trump managed to shift over $400,000 of donor funds into his private business. The majority - $331,000 - came from his campaign’s joint committee with the RNC. The remainder was donations directly to Trump’s reelection campaign. In total, the joint committee spent $4.3 million with the Trump Organization; his reelection campaign spent $2.8 million.

Two days after the election, on November 5, the joint-fundraising committee paid $11,000 to Trump’s hotel empire. A week later—after the Associated Press, Fox News and other major media outlets had already called the race for Joe Biden—the same committee put another $294,000 into Trump’s hotel business to rent space, order catering and pay for lodging.

Room rates at Trump’s D.C. hotel have more than doubled around March 4 due to a Qanon conspiracy. According to the baseless theory, Trump will be sworn in for a second presidential term on March 4, the day presidents took office prior to 1933. It gets crazier than that, but the main takeaway is that the Trump Organization wants to profit from the Qanon movement by changing the room rates from $476 a night to $1,331 a night on March 3 and 4.
Trump seems likely to reside at his private Mar-a-Lago club despite challenges issued by neighbors after an attorney for Palm Beach sided with the former president. In his 1993 agreement with the town, Trump agreed to change the property from a residence to a private club, barring him from making it a full-time residence. However, Palm Beach attorney John “Skip” Rudolph accepted Trump’s assertion that he’s an employee of Mar-a-Lago who just happens to also live there, which is not prohibited in the town’s zoning laws. Rudolph recommended the town council allow Trump to live at his club; no decision has yet been reached.

Marion, Trump’s attorney, has tried to counter suspicions that Trump is not actually a bona fide employee of the club by telling the council that the former president now walks around the grounds acting as if he’s “the mayor of Mar-a-Lago.” He also showed the council a list of Trump’s jobs at the club, including the sort of greeter job that senior citizens take at big-box stores: “welcomes/thanks those attending” events.

Scotland’s Parliament declined to open an investigation into how Trump obtained his golf courses in the country, saying it was a matter best left to law enforcement. Some Scottish lawmakers have been calling for the government to issue an “unexplained wealth order” to probe whether any financial crimes were committed in the course of purchasing or operating his business. In the 16 years since Trump first incorporated in Scotland, none of his companies have made a profit. In fact, they’ve run up losses of $75 million and owe around $216.5 million to U.S. companies and trusts in Trump’s name.

...[Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick] Harvie said the purchase of Menie and the Turnberry golf resort were part of Mr Trump's "huge cash spending spree in the midst of a global financial crisis".
Mr Harvie said that the House of Representatives had heard testimony which stated: "We saw patterns of buying and selling that we thought were suggestive of money laundering" - with particular concern expressed about Mr Trump's golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.

Illinois Judge Sophia Hall ruled that Trump’s Chicago hotel is liable for violating environmental laws by using Chicago River water without a permit. The state attorneys general office brought the case against Trump’s hotel in 2018, stating the property uses more than 19 million gallons of river water a day to cool its air-conditioning systems. Judge Hall has not yet set a penalty, but the AG is asking for the maximum $50,000 each for two violations, plus an extra $10,000 for every day of the 3 years the violations persisted.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s final financial disclosure reports reveal that between January 1, 2020, and January 20, 2021, the couple earned between $23 million and $120.6 million in combined outside income. $1.4 million of the total originated from Ivanka’s involvement with Donald Trump’s D.C. hotel. Furthermore, despite agreeing to divest his $25-50 million stake in Cadre, Kushner never followed through.

Miscellaneous

Far-right platform Parler was in negotiations with the Trump Organization to give Trump, then the president, an ownership stake in exchange for his membership. According to Buzzfeed News, former Trump campaign manager brought the idea to Trump last year as a way to counter Twitter and Facebook. Parler reportedly offered the president a 40% stake if Trump began posting exclusively on their app.

Four sources told BuzzFeed News that Parscale and Trump campaign lawyer Alex Cannon met with Parler CEO John Matze and shareholders Dan Bongino and Jeffrey Wernick at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago in June 2020 to discuss the idea. But the White House counsel’s office soon put a stop to the talks, one person with knowledge of the discussions said, ruling that such a deal while Trump was president would violate ethics rules.
...Discussions were revived in the weeks following the election, according to two people involved, but the deal fell apart after the Capitol invasion. Following that event, Apple and Google removed Parler from their app stores, and Amazon kicked the company off its cloud hosting service, forcing the site offline.

Trump resigned from the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) last week with an irate letter after the group voted to hold a union disciplinary hearing over his role in the insurrection. SAG accused Trump of inciting the attack on the Capitol and “sustaining a reckless campaign of misinformation aimed at discrediting and ultimately threatening the safety of journalists,” ultimately seeking his expulsion from the union.
Trump’s letter (pdf) to SAG President Gabrielle Carteris opens with: “I write to you today regarding the so-called Disciplinary Committee hearing aimed at revoking my union membership. Who cares!” He then says he is “very proud” of his work on movies “such as Home Alone 2, Zoolander and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps…” After declaring “[y]our organization has done little for its members, and nothing for me,” Trump resigns from the union.

TL;DR I built an online course and got over $6k in pre-orders in 5 days. But my journey started 8 months ago when I started writing and sharing value consistently.
—
At the beginning of 2021, I had set a goal to find out one way to monetize my blog. The purpose of the goal is to have fun and learn something new. The money is a nice by-product of doing it right.
31 days into 2021, I can safely say that I checked off that goal.
Learn Programmatic SEO, my first online course, generated $6,622 in pre-orders in just 5 days.
(Gumroad sales dashboard screenshot)
Now I'm going to tell you everything, from the very beginning, so strap in.

The story begins 8 months ago

Honestly, the last thing I want someone to takeaway from this post is that I just put a course out into the world and made money.
No, it’s not that straightforward lol. If it were, everyone would have done just that, right?
The good news is, you can do it too.
But you need to do 3 things for a duration of time before it can work for you.

1. Find your target audience

Defining an audience and finding them online is a tough job. I cannot codify it exactly for you, but I can tell you who my target audience is and how I arrived at that.
Who is my target audience?
People who are building an online business, and also wanting to live a good life.
How did I arrive at this?
This is me! I’m building an online business! I wanted to read less thought pieces and high-level analysis of some billion dollar company’s strategy, and more of things that work for a small business like mine.
I was already active on the Indiehackers forum where people would share stories about their successes or failures and their learnings from it. So I knew that people did want read such stories.
The direction became clear - Let’s talk more about how someone can go from $0 to $1000, from $1000 to $5000, and so on!
At the same time, my identity is not limited to ‘founder’ or ‘someone who builds a business’. My blog is a creative release for my mind. It’s my canvas and my words are paint. I didn’t want it to feel like work.
I like living a good life, improving upon my mind and body, learning about new and interesting things. Turns out, many other people in the pursuit of building their own business felt the same way.
So it was decided, my blog was going to be about all of these topics!

2. Add value to their lives

Almost every tweet or blog post of mine is always about providing value to my target audience.
How do I come up with topic ideas that can add value?
I write about ideas, problems or learnings that I

• encountered myself in my life or business.
• discussed at length with someone from my team or with a friend or a random kind stranger on Twitter.
• saw others talk about it, could relate to it and therefore wanted to share my perspective.

You’re going to say “really, that’s it?” but really, that’s it.
The best topic ideas come from real world experiences. So get doing!

• Work on interesting stuff, you’ll face problems.
• Talk to people about their lives or business, you’ll learn about their problems.
• Think deeply about problem statements or ideas, you’ll probably have a perspective to share.

Here’s a live example in action.
It’s this very blog post that you’re reading. I launched an online course and now I’m writing about it.
With this framework, you will practically never run out of ideas.

3. Be consistent

Now that you know who you’re writing or creating content for, and what content you’ll be creating, there's really only one thing left.
Similar to my 3 pillars for building a successful business theory, when you have a real problem and a way to acquire customers, the third element is hustle.
From the POV of a content creator, hustle = consistently producing new and valuable content for your readers.
Here’s a small secret.
Before I got consistent with my blog, I was struggling with consistency and putting out content for nearly 4 years.
Until 2016, I used to write almost every day, and then I stopped and couldn’t get back to it until 2020.
I have been a member of Twitter since 2011, but the first time I started posting seriously was in April 2019.
Since June 2020 is when I got consistent. I’ve been blogging and tweeting ever since, and I’ve missed only one weekend.

Here’s how I built my consistency

Consistency is hard to build, but the great part is once you've gathered some momentum, the inertia will continue carrying you forward.
I can't NOT write on weekends anymore. It's just what I do, similar to how I exercise first thing in the morning or work on DelightChat during the weekdays.
To everyone who has asked me on how they can build consistency and write or create content regularly, I share the same advice. This is the first time I'm blogging about it.

1. Start small

I cannot emphasise on this enough. No matter what you do in life, whether it’s starting a new habit or creating a new blog or building a new business, start small.
How small? As small as it needs to be for you to be consistent.
When Sankalp and I started SuperLemon, we intentionally tried to build a small business. Our revenue goal was $3k MRR (ramen profitability!).
When I started writing on this blog, my goal was to publish everyday no matter how few words I wrote. On some days I wrote 500 words, on other days I wrote 100. But after 25 days of publishing daily, my mind got into a habit of writing and hitting publish.
It’s another matter that I switched to a weekly schedule. Here’s the rationale behind it - I can’t produce high-quality stuff daily.
Moving to a weekly schedule allowed new post ideas to germinate in my mind before I would vomit them out into my notes app and edit it for your reading pleasure.

2. Know your WHY

For anyone to work on something day in day out, it’s impossible to do so without an internal drive. External motivations can only drive you so much.
Therefore, it’s really important to figure out your intrinsic motivations before starting a long-term or high-effort project.
In my case, I had 2 strong why’s.

1. I knew clearly that 10 years from now I want to see my brain on the internet, in the form of blog posts, videos, audio or whatever medium works best.
2. I also knew that the way I can make the world a better place is by helping more people achieve financial freedom, making them free to focus on creative pursuits and outcomes that give them happiness and satisfaction. It’s what I’m doing with my own life.

And so I visualised the future.‍

“What would my blog look like in 1 year from now? It would have 52 posts, hopefully read by thousands, and hopefully impacted at least a dozen entrepreneurs trying to make progress.”

3. Build accountability

It’s really hard to gain consistency and momentum. Almost all of the hard bit is concentrated in the beginning of the journey. That’s where everyone needs most help.
In my case, when I started writing on this blog, my girlfriend Mausumi would ask me everyday if I had written. And if not, she would force me to stop whatever I was doing and go write. Write gibberish, but write.
And so, on the days I really didn’t feel like writing, I got the push needed to get off my ass and do what I really truly enjoyed - writing.
It’s not possible for Mausumi to always be on my ass (I wouldn’t want her to be), so that’s when I decided to launch my newsletter Sunday Coffee ☕️.
My goal with the newsletter - Build an external accountability system.
The day it was announced, my newsletter got 100 subscribers.
Now I was accountable to 100 people who I promised weekly updates on what’s happening with my life and business, and new learnings the form of blog posts or tweets.
Sunday Coffee has evolved into my little corner on the internet. I LOVE writing the update. It feels like a weekly checkpoint in my life. And I believe that readers get the same feeling while reading the newsletter.
I am grateful to them for their time 🙏

Fast forward to the present

“Alright Preetam, enough with the flashback. Tell me what you did last week.”

On January 19th, Webflow published my blog post about how we used programmatic SEO and Webflow to grow DelightChat’s search traffic from 600 to 240,000 monthly impressions.
Initially, there was no traffic spurt. But then Webflow featured the post in their newsletter and shared it on their social media channels.
Boom 💥
Dozens of emails, Twitter DMs and LinkedIn messages started pouring in saying they read the blog and would love to learn more.
Some wanted me to consult with them, which I politely declined (because DelightChat is my baby).
One Ecommerce company that signed up on DelightChat’s waitlist actually wanted to talk about programmatic SEO 😂
I ended up giving them a free demo of course, because providing value is what I do best 😉
They too wanted me to work as a consultant for their 12+ Ecommerce brands. Obviously I declined. But it got me thinking.

“A lot of people want to learn about this. I can’t work as a consultant. Maybe I should record myself talking about this and share it as an online course.”

Note: I’ve given out all my content for free, and I will continue doing that. While charging money seemed lucrative, I also didn’t want anyone who actually needs this to be barred from accessing it. Hence the course is free for students and Indiehackers with <$100 revenue. Just drop me an email, no questions asked!
Here’s what I did next

• Wrote a tweet thread to announce the course - 5 minutes
• Created this page on my blog to talk about the course (I also wrote the course outline there) - 20 minutes
• Setup my Gumroad account correctly and create the course page - 10 minutes
• Hit publish everywhere.

Honestly, my expectation was nothing.
Okay, not nothing. I thought it would be GREAT if my course made me $1000 in 30 days. It would give me a nice dopamine boost to write on my blog every weekend, and that’s it.
What happened next will shock you
(sorry about the Buzzfeed title, I couldn’t resist haha)
Here’s really what happened next.

• 6 pre-orders within 30 minutes (🤯)
• 53 pre-orders, $1073 sales in 6 hours (🤯🤯🤯)
• 144 pre-orders, $3016 sales in 24 hours (🧘‍♂️)

Haha, it was more 🤯 but times x100.

Here's everything I did after launching the course

In an ideal world, I would have been promoting the course consistently with new content on Twitter following-up to then launch. However, we were having an intense work week at DelightChat so majority of my mind, energy and time was focused there.
However, behind the scenes, I did do several ad-hoc marketing stuff whenever I would get free for 5-10 minutes during the day in order to promote my course.

1. A personal reply to every person asking for free access

Whenever a student or Indiehacker would email me asking for free access, I would reply with this templated response. I would edit the template and add a sentence about their business or goal.
Here’s the template: (link to screenshot)
That tiny favour got me dozens of retweets. So every time I gave out the course for free, I would get more sales. Win-win!
Takeaways:

1. ‍‍You can make money while giving your stuff out for free.
2. Do things that don’t scale.

2. Announced the course to my newsletter subscribers

I’ve been writing Sunday Coffee, my weekly newsletter, for 32 weeks straight.
Because I never tried to ‘grow’ my newsletter, all the subscribers came in organically. As a result, my newsletter open rates are consistently >50%.
For the first time in 32 weeks, I sent my subscribers an email outside of Sunday.
(newsletter subscribers screenshot)
I had 564 subscribers at the time, and many were interested in the course. It was also great to read replies from subscribers and hear from them.
This post that you’re reading will be shared in the 33rd edition.
Takeaway - A captive audience is far more valuable than focusing on big numbers.

3. Asked people for a favour

I’m very apprehensive of asking people to “share this” or “do that” for me. In general, I never do it.
But that became the exact reason why I had to at least try.
Because as it turns out, you miss 100% off the shots you don’t take.
Here’s the shot I took with Hiten Shah (and a few others). It worked and he retweeted the course.
(screenshot of message to Hiten Shah)
Important note: Don’t do this unless you’ve established credibility with someone. They are most likely to ignore you. That definitely happened with a few of the people I sent this DM to.
I sent roughly 10 DMs before deciding against doing more. Putting out content felt like the right thing to do.
But hey! It works if you do it right. And I’m sharing transparently here, so 👁👄👁
Takeaway - Be okay with doing uncomfortable stuff and asking people for help.

4. Share snippets from the course

Once I got around the creating the course content (remember this was a pre-order launch?), I started sharing snippets from the course on Twitter.
One of those snippet tweets really took off and has brought me more sales, like $500 in the next 12 hours.
Takeaway - Share snippets that are basically juicy bits from the info product you’re selling, with the aim of informing people what they can expect to learn. That way, someone seeking that exact value would be interested in the product.

That’s it. That’s the post.

Now you know everything! So, what should be your takeaways?

1. If you’re thinking of becoming a content creator, start today. Just do it. The first section of how I started 8 months ago is most relevant to you.
2. If you’ve been creating content since a while and see steady engagement from a tight knit community, then I urge you to experiment with creating info products. The best ideas will come from the loudest questions asked by your community. So ask yourself, “what do people who read my content ask me for help with?” Go help them.

—
Originally published here

Edited to remove the tables because when I obsessively checked this post on my phone I couldn't read them?? Also I tried to, but was prevented from, editing the title. I know it looks sanctimonious but that's just one small part of my personality I swear. D:
❤️ Section 1: Assets and Debt
Total Net Worth: $30,875 - all equity.
Retirement Balance: $0 for me; $20,500 for my husband in the state pension program for teachers. (My partner, L, has been paying into the state teachers' pension system for 5 years. For most of my 20s, I either worked at very low-paying jobs, or supported myself and others on a teacher’s salary, so no retirement for me. My current job does not have a retirement program, but one of my goals for this year is to either start a Roth IRA or get a new job with a 401k match… or maybe both?)
Savings Account Balance: $23,733 We’re moving this summer to a city closer to our families, and are saving all we can for a down payment on a dreamy spot. After we move, some amount of what’s left over will go into a retirement fund, and the rest will stay in this HYSA as our emergency fund. For us, three months of expenses, including childcare, is about $18,000.
Checking Account Balance: $455
Credit Card Debt: n/a, pay off each month
Student Loan Debt: $80,000 for L’s undergrad and MAT. $18,000 for my undergrad and (unfinished) MAT. (My undergrad degrees were mostly covered by the Pell Grant, scholarships, and a $10,000 529 from my parents. L was a nontraditional student - didn’t start undergrad until he was 24 - so none of his was covered. Most of my debt is for a MAT program I dropped out of after one year. I was trying to find any way out of teaching at the time (it is demanding, all-consuming, and carceral at once) and thought a PhD would be my only route. When I got my current job I promptly left the program and any dreams of a PhD behind.)
Equity: $83,875 (This number is from an online equity calculator, and is for our house in a very popular neighborhood in a very popular city. Our outstanding debt on the house is $295,000. We put our whole savings down in 2019, which was $9,000 at the time.)
❤️ Section 2: Income
Monthly Take Home: My base pay is $65,000, and L’s is $45,000. I worked a side gig last year that totaled about $10k in additional compensation; all of it went to savings so we don't budget for it. My take home is $4096/month for my full time job, and my current side gig income (grant writing) is variable, between $300 and $600 a month. L’s take home is $2262/month. My health insurance is paid in full by work. L’s insurance and B’s come out of L’s paycheck, as does L’s retirement contribution.
Income Progression: I’ve been working since I was 15 years old, moved out for college at 18, and paid my own bills starting that year. I won’t include that money here though (it was like $12,000 a year as a college student, for reference). Income below starts when I graduated with two BAs that had nothing to do with teaching.
Year 1: $15,600 (part time ABA therapist, full time baby anarchist)
Year 2: $32,000 (year 1 teacher salary: I accepted a spot in Teach for America for this giant salary even though I thought it was an obnoxious neoliberal org. Yes, I was also obnoxious at the time.)
Year 3: $33,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 4: $34,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 5: $35,000 (teacher, step increase)
Year 6: $15,000 (community organizer; at the time this felt like a dream job)
Year 7: $20,000 (community organizer & cafe worker)
Year 8: $40,000 (back to teaching, felt rich; this includes a side hustle writing grants on the side for $50 an hour)
Year 9: $45,000 (left teaching for my current job, quit the grants side hustle)
Year 10: $55,000 (got a raise, got pregnant)
Year 11: $65,000 (got a raise and promotion, had a baby)
Year 12: $75,000 (was promoted again in January but waiting on the pay increase to hit, hopefully with backdating. This money diary doesn’t reflect this salary as it hasn’t been reflected in my check yet)
❤️ Section 3: Expenses
Mortgage/PMI/Insurance: $2,110
Retirement Contribution: n/a (L’s retirement is pulled out of his check before he receives it: it’s $169 a month. Right now, I don’t have a retirement contribution)
Savings Contribution: $1000 to main savings, $400 to sinking fund (This is a super aggressive goal for us and is only possible because our childcare costs are covered by work)
Debt Payments: n/a right now (We have student loans to the tune of $100k but haven’t been paying a dime since they were paused due to COVID. But then the other day I checked and saw they've gained interest? Should we be paying them then? WWJD? I legit don’t know.)
Electric: $130
Internet: $100
Cellphone: $65 (For L & I both. We are on a bigass family plan with 40 gajillion other people.)
Subscriptions: $45 ($10 Spotify; $10 Youtube music; $2.99 Apple data (Why?!); $22 NYT (for newspaper and cooking app); also have a split subscription to the New Yorker with bestie F but we paid for a yearly deal.)
Car Payment and Insurance: $150 for a car payment; $202 for insurance (Insurance covers both of our used cars and my dad’s used handicap van. Our car payment is for our used Honda. We only owe $6,850 on the car and I’m back and forth on whether to pay it off with savings)
Medical/Therapy: $0 (My therapist is $140 a session, and I just started seeing her again once a month, but this is reimbursed by work. I also get an inhaler at least twice a month - that’s reimbursed too, costs $60 total.)
Misfits Market: $120 (For a weekly box, which really helps us cut down on overall grocery cost)
Gym membership: $30 (For my intense local yoga studio’s app which is so great in the winter. We also run and bike a lot, as long as it’s warm enough)
Donations: $100 (We give monthly to our local Democratic Socialists of America; the Working Families Party; and a small, local org. I’m also on an organizing committee for that org. We’ll give them one big gift of at least $250 this year, probably in May. I support a couple organizations with grant writing and grant-finding support as much as I can, which usually amounts to a few hours a month.)
Childcare: $0 B goes to a very precious Montessori preschool, and we can walk him there. It’s pricey af ($1300/month). The other $200 is to account for some babysitting from my little sister when L or I have to work weird hours. For now, work reimburses this full amount as a COVID perk; if that changes, we will have to cut costs significantly.
House cleaner: $160 (They come twice a month and charge $80 each time.)
❤️ Section 4: Money Diary
NOTE: We are masked and afraid everywhere we go.
✨DAY 1: THURSDAY✨
4:20 am: Good morning world! I shuffle into the kitchen in my panties and my slippers to fill up the gooseneck kettle. I recently got into pour over coffee even though it’s quite a commitment. With a toddler, a full-time job, and a Libra sun, I don’t really have time for meditative morning routines. This lengthy, half-naked coffee regimen is my closest attempt. As soon as I get the coffee brewing, our 18 month old, B, starts making noise. I open the door and see he’s got his pacifier in his mouth and his pillow in his arms. He wants to lay with Dada. I help him get in the bed with my husband, L, as quietly as possible. Last week L was super sick and we thought for sure he had picked up COVID. Blessedly all of our tests came back negative, but on the heels of that, he started having major tooth pain and had to have an emergency tooth extraction, AND he got an ear infection as he was coming down from whatever virus he had. I hate it :(
I get dressed and do some chores while they snooze to ease L's morning. I start the diaper laundry (usually his job - we use cloth), put away the dishes, start the Eufy vacuum, and get B and L’s breakfasts together: sunbutter and a little bit of syrup on some banana pancakes I prepped earlier this week.
6:30 am: B and L are up! The hour before we take B to preschool is kind of a marathon. L eats with B (and supervises his syrup consumption) as I clean out some more dirty diapers, brush my teeth, make another cup of coffee, strip our sheets, spray my hair with water to refresh the curl, return a few group texts, and wash some breakfast dishes. Somewhere in here I also eat two boiled eggs with Everything But the Bagel seasoning, and a bunch of grapes.
I help L get B loaded up in the car, and just as they pull off, my parents Facetime me. They’re calling to see B but are polite enough to talk to me for a few minutes. They live a few hours away, and are divorced, but cohabitating. The full story is long and spiritual for me so I’ll spare you. Anyway, my mom and I talk for a while about this couch she thinks I should buy from one of her friends, but it’s two hours away and we’d have to rent a U-Haul, so I think we’ll pass. I do hate our current couch though. Please drop comfy toddler- and dog-friendly recommendations in the comments!
8:15 am: I set out to walk the dog and listen to the Daily’s recent update on the coronavirus. Donald G. McNeill, Jr., says we’re in this through the summer, which is a bummer on the personal and global front, but I suppose it could be worse??? Maybe?? As soon as they finish talking I switch over to You’re Wrong About. I’m deep in the Jessica Simpson series and highly recommend this pod for any other nerdy, lefty, kinda burnt out millennials, especially those of you that are queer or queer-adjacent. Once home, I take my whole operation onto the front porch to work, since the cleaner will be here soon and I don’t want to crowd her in this time of COVID. I LOVE a clean house and I love paying someone else to do the big stuff, which is a recent luxury for us.
11:00 am: I’ve been working steadily in my email and google docs for a couple hours now, and it’s COLD out here. The cleaner leaves and I am grateful to go back into the heat. I Venmo her $80 for the cleaning (included in monthly expenses). I take a break from work and check out the job boards. My current job is the best, and highest-paying, gig I’ve ever had, but I’m planning to leave some time this year for several reasons. The premier reason: I recently learned that I’m qualified for several positions that pay over $100k at similar organizations. With that kind of money we could pay off our student loans, help our families out more, make sizable donations, and L could explore a career outside of teaching without freaking about a slight cut in his pay for a few years as he finds his niche. Or - maybe he’ll get into Edtech somehow and we’ll join Resource Generation. Who knows.
12:30 pm: I have a quick break and pull together lunch: half a cheese quesadilla, a big bowl of Smitten Kitchen’s roasted tomato soup, and a LimonCello LaCroix. L is on his planning period and asks me to edit his most recent job application, and I oblige. Since we’re both job hunting, I ask him if I can buy a resume template and guide on Etsy. I have sworn off online shopping for the year to curb my impulse spending, but he says we’ll just count this one as his purchase. Great news because I hate the formatting of my resume from 2016 and don’t want to fix it myself! $9.95
3:30 pm: My Zooms are over, my inbox is at 0, and I put up my out of office message because I’m taking the day off tomorrow to work on my resume and do some things to prep our house for sale. My high-functioning anxiety created an ambitious backwards timeline for this process back in December, and that timeline currently runs my life. I work for a few more minutes to tie up loose ends, and then walk O to a nearby shop to buy my favorite candle, curbside-style. When I get there the owner gives me some percentage off because it’s slightly discolored from the sun. Huzzah! $27.25, marked down from $40
4:45 pm: My angel of a baby sister, J, who lives just a few blocks away and is in a pod with us, comes to hang out with B for an hour so L can rest. I head to my good friend D’s place for my investment overalls appointment. She's going to alter their awkward wide leg into more of a tapered, mom jean shape. I have a capsule wardrobe which means I’ll wear these babies at least once a week, and plus I get to pay my friend, so I’m fine with the extra expense. When I arrive, she and her partner have the fire pit going, and we drink a couple glasses of wine together, yet more than 6 feet apart. I learn they are planning to move to the same new city as us in the next couple of years and legit cry happy tears.
Afterwards, I head out to pick up dinner for tonight. We are getting burgers from L’s favorite place as a treat. On my way, the WOLF MOON appears over the water and my stomach does triple flips. Then I pick up our dinner: a veggie burger with eggplant jam and kale for me; a real-meat burger with mushrooms, bacon, swiss, carmelized onion, and horseradish mayo for L; and an appetizer plate with pretzels, pimento cheese, onion jam, pickles, and chips for B. Delicious and unhealthy. The total is $34.54.
6:30: Home and eating dinner. B loves his meal, especially the “chokes.” He calls pretzels “chokes” because when L first started feeding them to him, I worried aloud that he would choke every time. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how a pretzel almost took out George W. Bush. Turns out our toddler is better at chewing than George W. Bush.
After dinner, L gives B a bubble bath while I do my own, very minimal, bedtime routine. Then L and I lay down with B to put him to sleep. He has a floor bed, which is a Montessori thing I learned about on mom blogs. L is a very hot and talented woodworker, so he took my floor bed dream to the next level by building a lovely house-shaped frame. The top beam is wrapped in twinkle lights and fake ivy. It’s a nice place to sleep, and we pass out here all the time.
10:30 pm: L wakes me up and we wander to our own bed.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 71.74
✨ DAY 2: FRIDAY✨
4:15 am: Wake up and go look at the clock. Decide this is a silly time to get up on a day off, drink some water, and go lay back down. But once in bed all I can think about is how much I want to read the news, organize my resume, and update this money diary. This is the problem with falling asleep at toddler time. So I get up again at 4:45, make my coffee, read a New Yorker article about Biden’s pandemic response on my phone, and sit down to work on this diary.
6:00 am: L wakes up! He works on breakfast for himself and B and I start meal planning for the month. This is one of my best and most recent life hacks. I found that if I chart out our cooking, weekly takeout, and leftovers at the start of the month, we save lots of money and are so much less stressed about the labor that goes into feeding ourselves. I pull out Smitten Kitchen Every Day and use it to inspire the month’s meals. So quaint to cook from an actual BOOK.
6:45 am: B walks out of our room and announces that he drank my water off the side table. He’s so proud! And so ready to eat. While he eats breakfast, I snack on some grapes and, at B’s request, blast 7 Days A Week by They Might Be Giants. This is the consummate children’s song for any household that dreams of a self-determined world. Over the next hour I take B to school; make myself a real breakfast (a soy chorizo and egg taco); and browse TikTok. Eventually I find a series about this Gamestop situation by a smart Irish woman and L and I watch it together. When it’s over we feel like shrewd stock brokers ready to win money, and L gets to work teaching virtually.
I spend the morning painting our front door and our kitchen wall to prep our house to sell, and talking to my (other) little sister on the phone. She’s an HR person with a job that’s taken her far away from our family, and we don’t talk that often. It is so good to catch up on her life. After that I have a fun, day-off Zoom call with longtime bestie and coworker K. We drink coffee and talk about The Future.
12:30 pm: I make lunch (tomato soup with goat cheese on top, and a savory scone on the side) and get a text from another bestie, M, who offers me a little grant writing contract work this week. Yay! I love them and love working with them. Next, I order our groceries for the week. I get baking powder, eggs, cremini mushrooms, vegan sausage patties, oat milk, ginger root, shredded cheddar cheese, plantains, black beans, doggy bags, broccoli, vegan chicken strips, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, capers, ciabatta bread, grits, bananas, avocados, greek yogurt, and on impulse, a pineapple on sale (?!). Maybe B will love it. The total comes to $94.08.
1:15 pm: I do a brief power vinyasa class in B’s room and take a shower. It takes me approximately two Drake songs to shower and dry off, as I don’t have to wash my hair today and I never shave. I work on my resume until L and I leave to pick up B. On the way home we stop at the park to play, and then we all get in the car to pick up groceries.
6:30 pm: We get home later than planned and eat together: leftover tofu ramen for us and veggie lasagna for B, who is so sleepy that he hardly touches his lasagna. L gets him in the bath around 7:15 and I run through my evening routine. There’s a lot going on in the house - preschool lunch and clothes to put up, a mountain of laundry in our room, all of the groceries for the week waiting to be put away, and dinner dishes are languishing in the sink. L starts on chores while I get B dressed.
As I’m dressing B, my mom Facetimes and B shows her several of his board books. While we’re talking my dad texts me a heart emoji - he overheard B and my mom talking from his room. He lives with a disability and a painful illness, so he goes to bed very early. We hang up with my mom and record a video of B making “P” sounds and saying “I love you” to my dad, and send it over. This is the first time B’s ever said “I love you!” Huge news. We read books and fall asleep next to B.
9 pm: I wake up and nudge L but he wants to keep sleeping. I go clean the dinner dishes, put away the food and reorganize the cabinets and fridge, and mop the kitchen floor while I listen to The Daily’s latest reporting on QAnon believers who are at once totally bananagrams and also remind me very much of my aunt. L wakes up at 9:30 because he and Y, my sister’s boyfriend, are gonna game. Cute! He finishes the laundry and I fold a few diapers to help out. Then we lay in bed together until game time, when I fall asleep.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 94.08
✨DAY 3: SATURDAY✨
5:40 am: Wake up at a ~*~weekend hour~*~!! Start my kettle, clean and moisturize my face, pull out the ingredients for waffles, and pick up around the house while I wait for it to boil. I try to read some, but get bored a few pages in. I’m currently reading How to Do Nothing and it’s good enough, but I think I need to chill on the nonfiction and read, like, saucy romance novels with hot bisexual leads. Send me your recs please!
Waffle time! This recipe is my go-to. I recommend whipping the egg whites first. B wakes up around 7:15 and helps me cook which is cute and very messy. He eats his waffle with honey, peanut butter, and grapes. L wakes up after him - he had a late night gaming!
8 am: I open yesterday’s mail and find an anti-abortion DVD from L’s grandma. It’s Abby Johnson’s “memoir.” Abby Johnson is an opportunistic right winger and documented liar who once moonlighted as a Planned Parenthood clinic manager. L is a preacher’s kid, so we’re not surprised to receive this from his grandma. For example: 10 years ago, when L and I were a couple years into our relationship, her Christmas gift to me was a book about how one can recover from being a slut by getting married and finding Jesus. This particular package really sends me over the edge, though. I decide to write them a short note later that states my own experience with abortion and sets a clear boundary on this kind of propaganda, and includes an article about Abby Johnson’s bullshit life. It’s unlikely this will change their minds - they are septuagenarian Southern Baptists, after all - but at least I’ll be in my integrity.
In the meantime, I group text L’s siblings, and they commiserate with us. His one sibling who is transitioning shares that grandma recently sent them a book about how to tell your gay friends they’re sinning. We agree that’s hilariously dense (and fucking rude) of her, and talk about how everyone under forty is a gay slut living their best life, so really it’s grandma’s loss. During this time I clean the kitchen, finish the waffles, and freeze them for B’s weekday breakfasts.
9:30 am: B asks to use the potty and does a great job peeing on his own! He’s geeked about it and is especially excited to have my parents on Facetime cheering him on. After that we head out on our morning walk. L takes B to the playground and I take O to the dog park nearby. She gets tired pretty quick and we all head to the thrift store. We need chairs for our hand-me-down kitchen table. The ones that came with it are awkwardly wide. L spots two sturdy ones that are just $5 each. Score! $10
11:30 am: B and L are both wiped out once we get home. They eat lunch and go to sleep. I clean up the kitchen, repot one of my plants, water our porch plants, and eat some leftover ramen for lunch. The Marie Antoinette episode of You’re Wrong About keeps me company all the while. 10/10 would recommend.
2 pm: B wakes up and eats some lunch. We watercolor together for a while (he on his big paper, I in my bullet journal), then walk down the street to the local high school while L preps potatoes for our fondue. The high school grounds are open on the weekends, and there’s an amphitheatre on site. B loves the echo in there.
4:30 pm: L joins us in the amphitheatre and together we drag B two blocks back home. I prep the fondue: brie, gouda, and more gouda with white wine. It ends up being a little clumpy but so delicious. My sister, J, and her boyfriend, Y arrive while I’m cooking. Y brings yummy baguettes from his bakery job for the dipping and we prep broccoli, green beans, and tempeh too. We sit down in our new chairs to eat and for the zillionth time I am so thankful we’ve been able to make a pod together this year. Fondue would be a terrifying proposition with anyone else, really.
While we eat, Y tells us he put in his two weeks at the bakery because their COVID protocols aren’t so tight and his coworkers are continuing to go to bars and out to eat. His plan for now is to get back on unemployment and find a virtual job sometime soon. Both he and my sister have worked food service their whole adult lives so the pandemic has been tough on them. Besides the fact that they’re delightful and perfect, this is one key reason we’re planning to move with them to our new city this summer: L and I will be able to easily afford the majority of the rent, deposits, and utilities on a pretty big, and centrally located, house. Living together will allow us to grow our savings and take our time looking for a Forever Home, and will allow J and Y to pay really low rent as my sister goes back to school full time and Y looks for a full-time job. I’m really looking forward to living with them and know it’ll be good for B, too. They leave around 7 pm and we put B to bed, this time without falling asleep ourselves!
8:30 pm: Turn on How I Met Your Mother in bed and the episodes are baaaaad bad. One entire episode casts sex workers as a punch line. Ick. L and I agree to find a new show, and fall asleep around 10.
11 pm - 2 am: B is up and between our two beds. Wahhhh.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 10
✨DAY 4: SUNDAY✨
6 am: Up and at ‘em! Discover I’m out of my fancy coffee and don’t want to emphasize the flavor of our grocery store beans with a slow pour, so make a french press instead. B wakes up too early so we watch toddlers together on TikTok while I drink my coffee, then read books while L makes us all eggs for breakfast. We head out for our morning walk around 9 am and stop at a coffee shop a few blocks away. I pick up Counter Culture’s Iridescent beans, buy an espresso brownie on a whim, and tip the cashier because she’s so sweet and tipping is good. The total is 23.03. L takes B to the playground and I drop my purchases and O back at the house before I head out for a run.
9:45 am: It’s 65 degrees and my run is glorious. I run to the water and pause Lil Yachty for a minute to take it all in. Once home I shower and put on a black LA Apparel catsuit and a marled black and white cocoon sweater from AA of the past (I like what I like!). We feed B lunch and then L puts him down while I clean up.
Around 11:30, J comes over after to watch B while we remove the storm windows from our whole house and clean the windows underneath as part of our work to prep the house for sale. We’re a solid team: L removes the storm windows and caulks all the gaps in the wood while I follow behind him and wash the windows inside and out. Our sweet neighbor catches us cleaning and offers to let us use her power washer for free next weekend to clean up the front of the house. I resolve to bake them some cookies.
2:30 pm: We are done with the window operation and it’s time for me to water all 57 plants in the house. Along the way, discover that I overwatered B’s hoya last week and it’s rotting. Noooo! I unpot it on the porch to dry the roots, but it’s raining so this might not work. There’s only one surefire solution: buy a replacement plant! I try to convince L we should go to the nursery, but he’s not so into it. I walk around dejectedly with a towel to clean up all the water I spilled, and Zelle J $70 for babysitting even though she insists she would do it for free. Next B, L, and I share a snack: crackers with goat cheese and harissa. Mmm. B skips the harissa but loves the goat cheese. Meanwhile I begin to stress about making dinner. We’d planned goddess bowls but L and I just aren’t feeling it after our marathon of house work. L requests Chinese and is suddenly more amenable to visiting the nursery, which is near our favorite Chinese takeout spot. Score!
5:00 pm: We leave the plant shop with a heartleaf philodendron for B’s room and a giant, lovely, perfect monstera deliciosa just because. The total comes to $53.24. Then we pick up our food: $33.08 including the tip. L ordered a large veggie lo mein to share with B and General Tso’s chicken, and I got family style tofu and vegetables. We start B’s bedtime routine at 6:30 and he’s out by 7:00 - early for him!
After he’s down, L preps his breakfast sandwiches for the week and I do some dishes. Then we take mutual advantage of the extra hour we have together. Even after 12 years it’s always so good with L. I fall asleep around 10 pm feeling blessed.
🌿 Daily total: 179.32
✨DAY 5: MONDAY✨
5 am: I make my pour over and get started on work first thing. I have a couple of deadlines this week and the side gig to balance so I’m already feeling pressed for time! I wrap up an entire grant report before 6 am and feel very accomplished. Then I pause work to start our breakfast, which is all pre-prepped, hallelujah. While L and B eat breakfast, I get dressed in a black turtleneck minidress, busted old tights, black ankle socks, and my Doc Martens.
I help L load up the car with B and all his gear, and tell L to be careful. Today is L’s first day back teaching in person since December, and we’re both nervous since COVID is still running wild in our red state. On the way to work he fills up his car for $18.33.
2:30 pm: After another grant report, seventy gajillion emails, forty Slack messages, and several hours of Zoom calls, I’m ready for a break. I finish eating the quinoa salad I prepped during Zoom call #2 and then eat a pear too. I see our Misfits box has been delivered. It’s $30 a week, and is included in our monthly expenses. I unpack it, clean the counters, wipe down the bathroom sinks, take O for a walk, and sit down to work on my side gig grant report, which is due Wednesday. I set a 30 minute timer because I don’t want to be too late picking up B.
4:25 pm: Worked longer than I meant to! Pack some snacks and pick up B. On the way home we get a giant bag of potting soil so I can repot those plants. It’s $18.52. Come home and engage in B’s favorite winter activity: pressing all the buttons in the turned-off car. Meanwhile, in another car across town, L picks up a big bag of Purina One, butter, maple syrup, and applesauce. That total is $28.64.
5:30 pm: The whole family is home and we kick it inside until it starts to get dark. L and I gather all the things and take the creatures out for a walk even though there’s a light, but very cold, rain happening. B is cranky and so are we, so the walk is quick.
We eat leftover Chinese food around 7 and start B’s bedtime routine. B falls asleep at 8 and I update this diary for a while, then go watch Ted Lasso in bed with L til about 9:30. It’s much better than How I Met Your Mother, for the record.
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 65.51
✨Day 6: TUESDAY✨
3 am: B wakes up and needs a diaper change. I have the hardest time falling back asleep after: I can’t stop thinking about how I left B’s hoya out in the cold with its roots exposed most of the day yesterday and into tonight. But it’s too cold for me to get up again and pull it inside! So instead I toss and turn and hope it’s not dead yet.
6 am: L’s alarm wakes me up! No early morning reading and writing time for me. I get right up, make a giant pour over, and get breakfast together while L wakes up B. Then I actually sit down with them to eat: B and I both eat boiled eggs with everything but the bagel seasoning and some coconut milk yogurt, and L sips his coffee while his breakfast sandwich heats in the oven. I get dressed in my workout gear and walk the dog while L gets B ready for school. They leave, and I finally bring the hoya in, and start work, around 7:30. L buys coffee and snacks from the gas station on his way to work: $6.88.
9:30 am: I grab some crackers and peanut butter from the kitchen and notice a DMV bill on the fridge I’ve been meaning to pay, but don’t totally understand. I call them up and respond to emails while I sit on hold. Turns out I owe the DMV $10 for paying my Dad’s van insurance late. With the “processing fee” it comes to $11.17.
1:30 pm: Been on Zoom calls all morning, and decide to switch over to the side gig work for a bit. Meanwhile I eat that quinoa salad I prepped yesterday. At 2 pm, my longtime bestie and neighbor F comes over and we take O for a walk in the park together and have such a good conversation. While the context is (very) different, I’m reminded of the Toni Morrison quote when I think of F: “She’s a friend of my mind.” Such a gem, and such a smartie. At 3:30 I start a HIIT yoga class and it kicks my butt even though it’s only 20 minutes long. Afterwards, I shower and pick up B.
5:00 pm: L arrives home while B and I are playing, and we get in the car once more to check out a cute couch L scoped out on Facebook marketplace. It’s a sweet vintage brown velvet actually-for-real midcentury situation. Unfortunately we discover it’s also small and very uncomfortable. $200 not spent. Once home, my family goes for a walk and I make dinner - this grits and beans recipe from NYT cooking. It’s blessedly quick to pull together. Meanwhile D texts me and says my overalls are ready! YAY! She’s gonna drop them off in a couple of days. She says the total is $30. I include a tip and Venmo her $40.
7:00 pm: At bedtime, B cannot get enough of his books and we read All The World several times. He finally falls asleep around 8:20 and L and I eat dinner on the couch, with Ted Lasso. I drink a glass of red wine, which is a mistake: my anxiety spikes right after, my stomach hurts, and I can’t sleep. This is very upsetting as I want very much to be a wine mom. Does this happen to anyone else?
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 58.05
✨DAY 7: WEDNESDAY✨
5:45 am: Wake up with B cuddled into my back - L moved him to our bed in the middle of the night after his second wake up. Get my coffee and breakfast together and sit down at my computer to work on the side gig grant while everyone's asleep. Then L and I manage the morning rush together. I eat sourdough toast, two scrambled eggs, and some pineapple along the way.
7:30 am: Take O out for a walk and on a whim decide to listen to one of my favorite easy-listening pods: A Beautiful Mess. Normally the two sisters and co-hosts, Elsie and Emma, chat about things like home decor or craft making or how to balance kids and work. This episode is about the host’s evangelical upbringing, though, and is a real raw and honest tear jerker. Pair it with this, one of my top reads of 2020: “What Does the White Evangelical Want?” It gets me thinking about L’s upbringing in the church. He and all his siblings are all agnostic now.
Finally sit down at my desk and debate taking Adderall. I used it regularly in college and for a few years after in order to Do All The Things. I try to stay away from it now - I’m not trying to live an impossible life any more - but I also really want to pick B up earlier than normal today, and that means I need to meet all my deadlines and make it through two Zoom calls with my direct reports by 3 pm. I decide to take 4 mg. Right after I take it, three different friends text me at once and then, suddenly, I’ve spent an hour catching up via text. Get to work for real around 9 am.
3:00 pm: Wrapped all my calls, answered all my emails, washed all the dishes, ate some lunch, and finished the side gig work! OK Adderall, you beautiful bitch. Spend a few more minutes tying up loose ends and then gather my things to pick B up from school. The plan today is to go “play basketball” in the park near his school because he is OBSESSED with balls, and I’m trying to do more magical things every day with him. It’s cold but I’m ready to brave it on his precious, curly-headed behalf.
At 4 pm J calls and asks to go pick him up with me. Hooray, things just got even more magical! We head to a different-than-usual park together and run around until B sits in, and then drinks from, a puddle. We panic and J googles “What happens if my baby drinks from a puddle?” The search returns lots of stories of babies eating muddy rocks and surviving, so we decide it’s ok.
5:00 pm Head home and L is back from work! We take the smols on a walk and I tell L that I think nighttime screentime is making me anxious. I’m a sensitive creature and I really don’t want to blame the wine. He’s very perfect so he helps me think through an alternate plan for this evening: hot tea and book reading in bed, and maybe sex, too! Fun.
Next, I head home with O to pot the plants we bought the other day, and L takes B to the playground. They get back around 6:30 and I am very excited to reveal my new plant placements. Everyone feigns interest except O. Then we eat leftovers together and B gets in bed around 7:30. L and I promptly fall asleep next to him and don’t wake up again til 11 pm. Guess our new nighttime routine will have to wait til tomorrow!
🌿 DAILY TOTAL: 0
❤️ Section 5: TOTALS
Total Expenses: $478.71
Food & Drink: $220.25
Fun & Entertainment: $0
Home & Health: $109.01
Clothes & Beauty: $40
Transport: $29.50
Other: $79.95
❤️ Section 6: REFLECTION
This week reflects a new normal for us, I think! We just set the goal of saving up for another down payment in December, and that’s when I swore off online shopping both to save money and to stop lining the pockets of evil billionaires like Bezos (no shade to anyone who uses Amazon, this is purely a personal goal & I’m not sure I can meet it). This self-imposed rule is helping me reign in my discretionary spending overall. L and I have only been living a two-income, middle class life for a few years, and my lifestyle creep was a little out of control in 2020. That said, I can and do still regularly justify spending money on things that make life more luxurious and beautiful - like a $40 candle or a totally unnecessary but very lovely plant.
There are a couple of things not reflected in this diary that we regularly spend on: gifts (my achilles heel - for example, we spent three! thousand! dollars! on Christmas gifts in December), and medical bills. Both B and I had to visit the emergency room in 2020 and we are still getting random bills in the mail as our insurance company and the hospital duke it out. As I was editing this diary on Thursday, I received one for $787. Wahhhh. I think I’m gonna get on a payment plan, but even so that it will be over $200 a month.
Last thought: this process got me thinking in some detail about the contradiction of organizing for the fall of capitalism (and the rise of a more gentle and just economic system), yet believing everyone - including ourselves and our own families - deserve to live full and abundant lives. This means I compromise my own anti-capitalist values and beliefs every day, in big and small ways. Discuss?