Third Quarter Pennies Review

Three weeks into October, I am finally tallying up the food and household expenses for the third quarter of 2022. When I posted our expenses for the second quarter back in July, I noted that I was caught off guard with how much food prices had been rising. Third quarter was less of a shock for two reasons. First, I was now acutely aware of how much food prices had been rising. Second, because of that awareness, I tried to be more deliberate in our purchases.

So how did we do?

Our grocery (food) expenditures in the third quarter came to $709.36. Household expenditures, such as tissues, detergent, and toilet paper, were another $22.40, for a total of $731.76. Year to date, we are averaging $242.57 a month. Looking back at where we were after two quarters, that is only 68¢ more than where we were halfway through the year. That is a minuscule increase.

As before, I have been keeping an eye on price increases. The one that caught my attention the most was that a 42 ounce container of old fashioned oats jumped from $2.49 to $3.49 at Aldi, which has the lowest price on oatmeal of our local stores. It has not increased since then. Eggs have gone up quite a bit in the stores; fortunately, I get great coupons from Kroger and Meijer for eggs, so I have not winced too much. Milk, after hovering near $3.50/gallon for much of the summer, is starting to drop. 

Three weeks into the final quarter of 2023, I am strategizing on how to keep our food purchases flat line or, I hope, lower for the rest of the year. Both Warren and I try (and often succeed) at keeping food waste to a minimum, and frequently have none whatsoever in any given week. Whenever I have an opportunity to buy butter for $2.50 or less a pound, I buy what I can (often the stores limit you to five pounds) and freeze it, looking ahead to winter baking. With the onset of fall, bringing with it the change in sunlight and the cooler temperatures, the remaining tomatoes and peppers in the garden were not maturing, so last Sunday I picked them all and am seeing how many I can ripen indoors to cutting/freezing stage (the peppers) or to eating stage (the tomatoes). I am hopeful that this will give me a few more weeks of garden tomatoes as those will be the last tomatoes I will eat at home until next summer. (I refuse to buy tomatoes at the store.) 

A few days ago, I shared some thoughts on money and rising costs with my close friend Cindy. I said I was watching the food dollars and the heating costs (we turned our furnace on for the winter on October 4, which is earlier than usual, because of the temperatures) and that I was okay financially, but very penny conscious. (I say "I" and not "we" because while Warren is equally frugal, he and I have always had separate accounts, including for groceries. The figures above are our dollars, not "his" or "my" dollars, but I am reflecting on how the dollars impact my bank account.) Perhaps I feel that more so than usual, in part, because I am no longer employed and right now drawing only a small public employees pension (I am deferring drawing social security for several reasons, at least for now). But I am also feeling that way, and think I would even if I were still working for pay, because of what I see in the stores, at the gas pump, and in the utility bills. I am not panicking, mind you, but I am wary.

Food insecurity is on the rise in our community, as it is everywhere else in this country. The lone remaining ham I noted last time? I ended up taking it to someone whose family was in deep need because of a temporary crisis; they needed it more than we did. When hunger is that close and personal, the reality of food costs and too few pennies hits hard. 

I remain grateful that our table continues to feed this household well. 

Second Quarter Pennies Review

 

Back in April, I wrote about our household expenses, especially groceries, and made some projections for where prices were going. In retrospect, even though I was aware of rising food prices, I did not take into account just how much food prices were rising. Tallying our grocery purchases for the second quarter of 2022 drove that point home.

At the end of the first quarter, our monthly grocery expenditures averaged $206.03. That is both food and common household items such as toilet paper, dish soap, and so on. 

I recently totaled our expenditures for the second quarter of 2022. Our household purchases have remained low, less than $20 a month. But our food? Oh yeah, it has gone up. In two of those three months, food purchases came in just under $300.00. I can make some excuses, such as "Well, we did have a guest artist stay with us in May and then one in June, and so I bought extra," but that doesn't entirely explain the figure. It's not like I was buying lobster and champagne. (Frozen lobster tails right now are running about $43.50 a pound locally.) And there was the half gallon of skim milk that I had to buy in downtown Rochester because I forgot to buy it at Kwik Trip before going to our hotel. That lapse, sending me to an in-walking-distance small store near the Mayo Clinic, cost me $3.89. But again, those little lapses do not explain the overall rise in our groceries.

But other things do. I have been tracking a few items, one we buy frequently. A gallon of milk? $2.99 all spring, then jumped to $3.49 or thereabouts in the first week of May. Flour (5 pound bag, unbleached, all purpose white) took a 50¢ raise from April to June. (White wheat flour took an even greater leap.) Bread has gone up across all the stores by 25¢ or more. Sometimes the leaps are huge, sometimes they are small, but so far of the items I am tracking, very few have held steady. So start adding pennies, dimes, quarters, and more to your shopping list items, and the rise is there. 

So what did we spend in the second quarter of 2022? In food alone, we spent an average of $266.00 a month. ($265.99, to be exact.) With the household items added in, our monthly average groceries came to $277.75 for the second quarter, which raised our year-to-date average to $241.89.  

Yeah. $241.89.

It is not just us, of course. In a long conversation with a good friend past weekend, he commented that he budgeted $50 a month for household items such as laundry detergent, toilet paper, and the like. "And that is no longer enough!" he exclaimed. That friend is a household of one; I didn't comment on our average expenditures for such items ($11.65/month through the first half of 2022) in our household of two.

Looking ahead into the third quarter, there are some bright spots. We are halfway through July and have spent less than $60.00 on groceries. Our food waste is almost zero in this house, so we're making the most of what we have. And all those hams we bought back in April? We have been carving them up and enjoying ham sandwiches and other ham meals steadily. Our June guest enjoyed the sliced ham, as did my dad (who I sent home with ham slices both to eat and to freeze for later). Only one ham remains intact out of the six; it may make an appearance as a whole ham much later this year. And the garden is coming on; I have yet to see zucchini, but my hopes remain high. 

I am grateful that our household continues to run smoothly on the money front. From my volunteer work with our Legal Clinic, and in talking with friends and colleagues active in the food world (food banks, summer lunches, and such), I know that there are many who do not have that luxury in these times.

First Quarter Pennies Review

In early January, I wrote about this household's money issues for 2022, noting that with my retirement a few weeks earlier, my income had shifted dramatically. Now that the first quarter of 2022 is over, I am looking at where things stand.

The biggest shared cost in this household is groceries (which includes some household items such as dish soap and toilet paper). I see that in my early January post I noted that "food costs have risen." Well, that was a flaming understatement. (Question: Can understatements even be flaming, given that they are meant to be presented as being less important?) 

Around here, food costs have risen steeply for some products. Let's just say I never thought I'd be glad that Warren doesn't like to eat beef. Costs have risen across the board in all the stores. Our overall grocery expenditures have ticked upwards. In January, I said I hoped to come in under $200/month for the year. At the end of the first quarter, we have averaged $206.03 a month. Close but not there. (I would also note that supply shortages are an ever present issue as well, adding to the uncertainty of any visit to the grocery store.)

I am planning to spend most of April using what we already have at hand in the freezer or pantry when I cook, so April might be a lower cost month. Might. We did buy six (yes, six) smoked hams today for the freezer. With Easter coming up, both Aldi and Meijer used hams as their loss leaders in this week's ads and we took advantage of the deals. That's ham for a year in this household. Storage will not be a problem. We have a freezer in our basement, as does my dad. Some of those hams will reside with him until later in 2022 but right now they are still hanging out here. 

As I wrote in my earlier post, I had set aside enough money from my 2021 income that my insurance premiums (Medicare and all the rest) for 2022 are all covered. At the start of the year, attending a webinar on myeloma put on by the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, I learned that the LLS has patient co-pay assistance programs for various cancers, including myeloma. These programs cover cancer-related costs (treatment and doctors) and insurance premiums. Insurance premiums! I applied, received an award, and have begun submitting my 2022 premiums. Processing is slow and I have not seen any reimbursements show up yet, but that will help build the 2023 reserves. 

At the end of the first quarter, all is smooth on the money front in our home. Given the state of things all over the world, I am grateful. And privileged. 

Looking After the Pennies

I am now through two entire weeks of being retired from paid employment. I always add the "paid employment," even to my PCP yesterday, because I continue to give my time and passion to the Legal Clinic. (But that is different, and not merely because it is unpaid work.)

And now that I am two weeks into this new experience, and now that the dust (well, some of it) has cleared, I am ready to look more closely at my finances for 2022. 

I am not drawing yet social security for two reasons. The first is that I am not yet at my birth year's full retirement age (FRA) of 66 years and four months, which I will hit later this year. The second is that, given my overarching health situation and some other dynamics in this household (age and earnings over lifetime), when I die Warren can elect to take my benefit, which exceeds his. If I delay taking mine and he waits to switch to mine, he will get the boost of my age 70 social security payment. The gray area is between my FRA and that mystical age 70 boundary. If my need for income increases, I will likely apply to start receiving my payments. That is a bridge down the road that honestly I may never get to, not because I am flush with dollars, but because I am realistic about my longevity. 

So, what am I doing for income in the meantime?

Because my last decade of work was as a county employee, I paid into our Ohio public employees retirement system (PERS) and not into social security. As a result, I have a small monthly pension that just started this month. How small? About one-third of my monthly take home while still a paid employee. That amount will increase slightly when an even smaller amount, the result of my (very) limited time as a school employee way back when while managing the middle school Destination Imagination program, transfers over to PERS, but trust me, we're not talking huge sums here.

But here's the sweet spot. The income hit is, at least for now, negligible. Having spent some time recently scrabbling through my expenses and spending for the past two years, I know I can make it. 

Can make it? I think I can still save on the reduced income. 

Part of the reason has nothing to do with my personal habits. I was privileged beyond privileged to have clients long ago, a husband and wife, whose deaths (one long ago, one last year) resulted in some unexpected money coming to me: one as a gift, the other earned winding down a trust. The former went into a separate account; the latter was large enough to pay for a major insurance premium for all of 2022. 

So that was a gift, no matter how you look at it.

The other reason I can make it on the greatly reduced income has to do with my own spending habits (and indeed, the habits of this household). As I have often noted, usually poking fun at myself, I don't shop. I don't go to stores, I don't buy online. The Covid shutdowns only underscored and intensified that habit. My personal purchases since March 2020? Ummmmm...less than $75.00? I don't even buy books anymore (but did save $3500+ by checking out all my reading at the library; our checkout receipts totals the amount you save by using the library). I did buy a new pair of walking shoes ("tennis shoes," folks) because I walk so much I had worn through my last pair. I think they came out to $36.00 or so, on a markdown of a markdown.

On the "eating out" front, realize Warren and I did not eat out a lot even before Covid. Covid only intensified that habit. For safety reasons, I cannot eat in a restaurant, period. We've done takeout, we think, maybe five times since March 2020, not counting when we have traveled to Mayo or when we traveled this summer to see my family. (For the record, we only did takeout, if even that, those times as well.) With Omicron variant cases surging off the charts and my oncologists and PCP saying, "you need to be extra careful again, still, always," I'm not going to change in that regard either. 

Heck, I don't even own a car anymore. Once I knew that I was retiring in 2021 and would not be returning to the schools in person before I retired, I no longer needed a car. My dad needed something more reliable; I gifted it to him midyear last year. No more gasoline, no oil changes, and our car insurance dropped. 

So with all those non-expenses, I was able to save a large portion of my biweekly paycheck. Enough that all of my health insurance premiums (Medicare Part B, Medicare Supplemental Plan G, drug Plan D, my dentist's in-house plan, and a vision plan through PERS) are set aside for all of 2022. 

Taking all that into account, my pension check will pay the monthly household bills that I am responsible for (we do not have shared bank accounts in this home) and my share of the groceries (the same), and I will still have money left in my checking account.

For someone who went through a full bankruptcy in 2005 because of the fallout from my cancer diagnosis, and then who lived paycheck to paycheck (and sometimes not even that) for a long, long, long time after, that means a lot. I look back at old posts and see where I was trying, dime to dime, to get even, let alone get ahead. It wasn't that long ago.

The biggest unknown heading into 2022 is the cost of groceries. I kept track of our grocery spending through 2021. Food: $2131.73. Household items such as detergent, toilet paper, trash bags: $201.05. Combined total: $2332.78. Monthly average: $194.40. That was higher than I had hoped for the year (and yes, food costs have risen) but lower than I had feared. Our goal for 2022? Come in under $200.00/month again. 

Found money, 2021

And one last thing. Along with the Non-Consumer Advocate and others, we drop any money found in the parking lots, sidewalks, and such into a container for the year, then see what we have December 31. 2021's haul? A whopping $1.39. (Clearly people aren't carrying as much money as they used to; I know I don't.)

Maybe this is a longwinded way of saying I'm okay and, indeed, this household is okay on the financial front. That is a huge privilege. And a huge relief. 

I am still working on my 2022 financial goals, which is different from budgeting. What do I need to accomplish financially this year? What do I want to accomplish? And how do I pay for it? 

Time will tell. And in the meantime, I will continue to keep an eye on those pennies. 

And All at Once, It Was Over

No, this post is not about gardening. Yet. 

I am not talking about the end of the year 2021, although that too ended in a second when the clock hit 12:00 a.m. on January 1.

I am talking instead about my (finally, finally) last day of "paid government employment," as my erstwhile boss, colleague, friend, and neighbor Dave announced to our local Bar at the December meeting. After some 43 years of employment in the legal field, I ended my career (careers) on December 24.

I had noted that my job end was coming in my post last July.  What I did not realize back then was how much it would take for me to get from there to that last day. Much of that was the work itself: finishing projects (a very few), getting projects into good shape to be handed off (all the rest). Some of that was physical. My progressive, incurable cancer is always a factor and it did not take a break for me to wrap up my job.

And it's not like my daily life came to a halt while I wound down the job. Our home life continued, my treatment continued, the Legal Clinic continued, the garden continued. We even slid in a long-hoped-for trip to Washington and Oregon, driving every inch of the way, in mid-August when my Mayo oncologist listened to the precautions we would take, asked when Ramona would resume school (two days after we planned on leaving), then closed his eyes and said, "Go right now. That door is about to shut."

To bring it back to the present, my first whole week of not working just concluded. It was freeing, relieving, and bittersweet. 

It has been a mashup. Or a smashup. Or anything else that goes with "up." In random fits of energy, I am clearing away the detritus and chaff of the last few years from my office. What a mess. And I am walking. A lot. A whole lot. Walking to think, walking to sort things out in my head, walking to just walk.

I don't make resolutions for the New Year, but I have been thinking about goals.  Financial goals (especially now that my income has shrunk considerably). Gardening goals (last year's gardening experience was a mixed bag, to say the least). 

And writing goals. As I shared with my friend Tani, for the first time in a long, long, time, I am feeling the need to write, too long submerged, starting to stir within me. Hence my photo above from a long ago seed spouting. My desire to write is finally breaking through and lifting its head.

May 2022 hold kindness for us all. It's good to be back.

The More Things Stay the Same, the More They Change

 It was Madeleine L'Engle who first enlightened me to the value of turning adages inside out for new insights. Which is why instead of echoing Jean-Baptiste Alphone Karr's pronouncement that the more things change, the more they stay the same, I have come to realize that in my life, it is just the opposite.

I have been silent on this site for months. This will only be my seventh post for 2021, a number that no amount of polishing can make shine. That will likely not change until the fall for many reasons, none of them good, all of them good. Looking back at my last post, an embarrassing 58 days ago, I am already noting what has gone awry, amiss, on the lam, or, frankly, despite the sameness, changed radically.

I indeed went to Mayo in early June, as I noted in that long ago post. It was more than wonderful to see my oncologist in person; I was in tears. And while everything on paper stayed the same, we three (Dr. Leung, Warren, and I) suspect there may be deep-seated changes afoot. We head back to Mayo in mid-August for a long day of testing and then a meeting with my doctor. 

I am still working. That stayed the same. Only it didn't. I'm working through the rest of the calendar year, albeit on different terms.  I will not be mediating come the new school year (which starts in mid-August); I'm already several weeks into other projects. I now know just how Charlie Bucket felt when he found the Golden Ticket. 

My dear, close friends did come in June. We had a wonderful evening of glorious talk and laughter and tears and good food. It was one of those evenings where everything just shimmered. 

And my gardens. They need more than a few sentences, so I will share a few photos down below.

See you down the road.

The very first tomato (yes, there have been more)

The very first zucchini (not a success story, yet)

Broccoli (one of three)

The first (but not last) cabbages

Even a tiny batch of basil for pesto (another ongoing saga)

Emerging from the Dark Woods

No, I am not talking about the Brood X cicadas, which are emerging and making their presence known in our community. Cicadas are edible, incidentally, and I am somewhat (somewhat) intrigued by that culinary possibility. Cicadas are not kosher, but I don't keep kosher, so that alone is not a bar. 

No, the woods I am emerging from are more along the lines of Dante's opening lines to The Divine Comedy: 

        Midway through the journey of our life 

        I found myself within a forest dark, 

        For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

My woods were not the woods of midlife (or, truthfully), but the dark forest of a hard, heavy school year and holding attendance mediations in a pandemic school environment. I'm not talking about personal safety. My meetings were held all by Zoom and I have been able to work from home since March 12, 2020. So it's not about me. 

I am talking about the devastation to students and their families that came up in mediation after mediation. Covid-19 illnesses, Covid-19 deaths, job loss, job cuts, hunger, eviction, foreclosure, children sent to other relatives living elsewhere to keep them safe, students working to help pay utilities and rent, students babysitting younger siblings so parents could work, technology barriers, transportation, anxiety, depression...the list is endless. And all true. All of us on our Court school team felt it, lived it, breathed it for weeks on end. There were meetings in which I or my colleagues held back tears. There were meetings after which school staff and I debriefed and cried. Or raged. Or asked "Are you okay?" before exiting the Zoom meeting.  In the end, we held more attendance meetings than in any other school year in the last decade. 

That unusual workload is why I have not written anything—a post, a poem, an article—in weeks. Weeks. I did write letters to friends; those were critical for my mental well-being. But otherwise, nothing. Nothing. By the time I reached the end of a workday, let alone the end of a week, there was nothing left in me. And it wasn't just the writing. It was everything. I bake some, I've read a lot (a lot), and I walk almost daily, but otherwise...yeah. Even my hopeful reengagement with my middle school novel and photography came to a halt in that dark forest. 

All of us on the Court school teamed reached the end of the school year, which officially ended May 27, exhausted. (We were exhausted when we reached Spring Break.) I had the privilege of reaching the year's end exhausted and ill. Not ill ill, as in "Covid-19" or "random virus" or anything that would send me to a clinic. No, cancer ill, as in the night brigade has continued without pause to take down the perimeter defenses. (Thank you, Atul Gawande, for that priceless description, which serves me well.) 

So I am emerging from the dark forest, from the woods, from the hard school year, with that straightforward pathway now very clear. After saying I would be retiring this year (something I think I first mentioned in a post in August 2020), now retirement is real. To borrow from Paul Kalanithi, before this school year, I knew I would be retiring. Now I acutely know it. I love this job. I am no longer well enough to do it. 

My last day will be in mid-August. Between now and then, I will winding up projects, clearing out files, covering for my fellow mediators when they take vacation, and doing whatever the Court calls upon me to do. Warren and I head to Mayo Clinic next Monday, our first time there since January 2020, so that my specialist can see me in person, so I can see him in person, and so we can talk about treatment and other key topics, including what continuing limitations I face because of my myeloma and ongoing treatment. (For the record, I am fully vaccinated, but the myeloma medical community does not have the answers yet as to whether vaccination protects people like me. We don't do restaurants; I don't meet friends for coffee in our local coffee shops. Those things will not change.)

I have a lot to write about. I have been tracking our grocery expenses in 2021; our approach to what we buy and what we eat continues to evolve. My 2021 gardens are either in (the kitchen garden) or in the works (the Hej garden). There may be some personal travel this summer, although I am not allowed on planes or trains. Dear, close friends are coming to Ohio later in June. And the tomatoes have flowers just starting to form.

I can't wait.