Official Super Bowl 54 Game Program - H.O. Zimman, Inc.
Official Super Bowl 54 Game Program - H.O. Zimman, Inc.
Here's the Super Bowl Sunday TV schedule on CBS Boston.com
2021 Super Bowl Sunday: When, Where, & More NFL.com
NFL Super Bowl Experience Super Bowl Sunday l NFL.com
A Guide To Super Bowl 54 Events In Miami – CBS Miami
Super Bowl 54 Schedule: Media Day, NFL Honors, Live Stream
Miami Super Bowl LIV 2020 Events - MiamiScapes
SUPER BOWL GAMEDAY SCHEDULE ALL TIMES ARE APPROXIMATE AND ...
Super Bowl LIV Master Event Schedule
super bowl 54 schedule of events
super bowl 54 schedule of events - win
Idea to make college football more fun - non-conference schedule lottery
With the regular season over I have been thinking of ways to make college football more fun. Here goes the "College Football Super Scheduling Lottery" (with match-ups below) (I also know this idea would never happen, but we can dream) Here is a logo schedule after running the lottery, to the details:
Every FBS team has to keep an open date for the 3rd week of September
All 130 FBS teams are split into 13 pods of 10 teams each. CFP rankings are used for top 25, ESPN’s FPI is used to rank the rest of FBS (I would prefer SP+, but full rankings are behind a paywall now via ESPN+ and FPI is the easiest to use that ranks all FBS teams)
The last week of January (dead week of the NFL before Super Bowl goes into full effect) a lottery is held live on TV where every team in each pod is drawn against each other to play on that open date in September.
Even years the higher ranked team in the final rankings is home, odd years the lower ranked team is home (2021 season lower ranked team is home)
Non-Conference match-ups are prioritized unless the conference teams were not scheduled to play that next season, the game would be counted as non-conference in event there are no other options (sorry in advance to the MAC)
Since signing day isn’t only in early February, the live TV event provides a big ratings/relevance boost during a period that is now void of one. You could even split it up into multiple days like the NFL draft
It generates big early season P5 match-ups and opens door for G5 to get a shot at some P5 teams. College football should be fun, this prioritizes fun.
150 Stupid Things To Use A Time Machine For (Or: The Perils Of Working At A Time Machine Rental Service)
Rules Of Time Machine Operation: 1\. No booty calls on famous historical figures. 2\. No visiting the red light district of Paris in the early 19th century and asking around for Fantime, who is a fictional character might I add. 3\. No getting famous historical figures blackout drunk and leaving them extremely confused in the morning when they wake up in their bed, on someone else's roof, wearing nothing but a floral print muumuu and a thong, surrounded by a stolen department store mannequin, a bajillion potatoes, and 600 pounds of those little rubber erasers that come on the tops of pencils. 4\. No setting "Amazing Grace" to a snappy disco beat. 4a\. Or the US national anthem. 4b\. Or anyone else's national anthem. 5\. No trolling random paranoiacs. 6\. No scaring the shit out of James Cameron by suddenly appearing in front of him in full Terminator cosplay before the movie is even released. 7\. No pantsing Adolf Hitler, no matter how much he deserves it. 7a\. No pantsing Joseph Stalin, either. Unless you have a death wish. 7b\. No pantsing Rasputin. Now that you've seen what he's packing, the feelings of inadequacy should be sufficient punishment. 7c\. NO PANTSING HISTORICAL FIGURES, PERIOD 7d\. Or recent ones. I don't care HOW much Bill Clinton was willing to pay, and frankly I don't want to know. 8\. No giving Napoleon a 1980s sports almanac. (I mean, it's not like he'd be able to use it.) 9\. No crashing Jesus' crucifixion to sell merch. 10\. No appearing in the background of every famous photograph in the Louvre and/or the Smithsonian. Especially not while dabbing. 11\. No interfering with the production of Back To The Future. Especially not so that Doc Brown gets a time-traveling Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. I don't care HOW much money you would have made in product placement. 12\. No giving free abortions to the mothers of people you hate. 13\. No giving young Donald Trump a sports almanac. Alternate Hill Valley was bad. Scaling it up to America size is worse. 14\. No giving Stanislav Petrov laxative on 26 September 1983. 14a\. No getting Stanislav Petrov extremely drunk on 25 September 1983. 14b\. STOP SCREWING WITH STANISLAV PETROV ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE 15\. No putting joy buzzers in Nikola Tesla's shoes. Even if he reverse-engineered them and advanced the study of electrical engineering by several decades. 16\. No writing Walter Cronkite a rambling 148-character letter accusing him of liberal bias. 17\. As tempting as it is, no giving Donald Trump's mother an abortion. We do NOT want to repeat the Emperor Gorsuch incident. 18\. No writing Stonewall Jackson a letter composed of the word "Bitch" written once at the top of the page. While his face was hilarious, him killing half his administration in a series of duels was not. 19\. No trolling your past self by telling lies about the future. 20\. No using Tesla coils to impersonate Greek or Norse gods. Especially not in front of ancient Greeks or Vikings. 21\. No trolling drunken turn-of-the-20th-century PIs by bringing them to flying cities in alternate timelines. 22\. No trolling people in ugly sweaters by bringing them to Atlantis. 23\. 1000 tons of cordite + Library of Alexandria = Bad idea. 24\. No impersonating an interior designer solely to change Napoleon's fate. (He didn't even die from that, you fool, he died from stomach cancer.) 25\. No giving FDR a mech suit, as awesome as it would be. 26\. No making "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Al Smith" bumper stickers. 27\. Wall Street is off limits. As is Vegas, Reno, Monte Carlo, and sports betting venues. 28\. No convincing Steve Jobs to put a rotary dial on the IPhone, even if it WOULD be "one simple control". 29\. No giving Isaac Newton copies of Einstein's theories. The 20th century is too early for space empires. (No matter how delicious the spices from Alpha Centauri are. We're looking at you, Fred. Seek help.) 30\. No misusing hazmat equipment and personal music players to troll Asimov, Henlein, or any other science fiction writers. 31\. CREATION OF AI-EQUIPPED BOWLER HATS IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. ANY SUCH ITEMS ARE TO BE DESTROYED ON SIGHT. 32\. No, you may not have a pet T. Rex. They're extremely large and exclusively carnivorous, so what makes you think that'd be a good idea in the slightest? 32a\. However, it turns out velociraptors (the tiny feathered kind), when raised from an egg, make awesome pets, being loyal, obedient, and sweet. 32b\. Never mind, they swarmed Janet's boyfriend and killed him when he hit her. Serves him right, but this behavior is shared by wolves raised in captivity, and velociraptors are clearly not pet material any more than timber wolves are. A long-term breeding program is underway to resolve this issue. 33\. Collecting samples of extinct plants for scientific study is great. Office plants, OK. Trolling paleobotanist friends, not so much. 34\. To the person who sent the baby raptors to Chris Pratt: You're lucky that Universal Studios has leaped on them as their new PR stars. You're doubly lucky that it was love at first sight between them and Raptor Lord. As such, we will let you keep your job. But in light of 32b, if they kill anyone, you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and we will cooperate with the investigators. 35\. No spiking Richard Nixon's drinks with shrooms, LSD, THC, AIDS, H1N1, hydrochloric acid, or COVID-19. Or sodium pentothal, no matter how educational it would be. 36\. No scandalizing Queen Victoria. ESPECIALLY not by streaking through the Buckingham Palace gardens. 36a\. Or Queen Elizabeth I, unless you WANT your head chopped off. And not necessarily the one on your shoulders, either. 37\. No showing dubstep music to Father Coghlin. Even if he likes it. 38\. No traumatizing H.P. Lovecraft with hentai. Especially not if it's fanart of his works. 39\. No prematurely inventing hentai. 40\. No showing hentai to Father Coghlin. While him flying off the chain was funny, the anti-Japanese-American lynch mobs he incited were not. The person responsible no longer works here, and is serving time in prison. 41\. No slipping sodium pentothal to any member of the Borgia family. 42\. No slipping the production staff of Raiders Of The Lost Ark drugs and convincing them to have Indy use a towel instead of a bullwhip. 43\. No convincing Gavro Princip, Richard Nixon, or Keemstar to do something different with their life. (Especially not Keemstar, who's a dictator in many other timelines.) 44\. President Jeffery Dahmer = bad idea. 45\. No giving King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden coke-bottle glasses, even if he needs them. It kind of ruins the effect in paintings. 46\. No giving King Arthur and his knights Harleys. 47\. No giving the biblical David a motorcycle with the muffler removed, even it means that his Triumph would be heard throughout the land. 48\. No appearing in history books. Especially not as the guy in the Carmen Miranda hat T-posing in the background of the famous "V-J Day In Times Square" photo, just behind and to the left of the kissing couple. 49\. No making David Bowie a Roman Emperor and calling him Fablius. Even if he lived up to his name. 50\. No impersonating the court jester in medieval times, before going full Heath Ledger Joker. Nobody has tried this yet, but we want to put it out there anyway. 51\. No streaking at the Somme. Running around naked IN ACTIVE WARZONES tends to be a bad idea. 52\. No doing your best Lucky Luciano impression in the background of the "Abbey Road" cover. 53\. No streaking in the background of the "Abbey Road" cover. 54\. No switching President Theodore Roosevelt's speech commemorating the construction of the Panama Canal with Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "This Day Will Live In Infamy" speech, then plastering his confused face all over every newspaper's front page. 55\. No putting T-Rexes in medieval Europe. It screws with the art historians. 56\. Putting a sloth, a wooly mammoth, and a saber-tooth tiger together in one room was a horrible idea and I'm not sure why you thought it'd be any different. But we're all glad you forgot about the baby. 57\. When Jesus told John The Baptist to send a scroll to Philadelphia (Revelations 1:11), he was talking about the ancient city in the Aegean Sea. Not the modern city in Pennsylvania. 58\. As awesome as the show was, and as touching as it was when they first met, Bill Nye The Science Guy and Mr. Wizard hosting a show together almost broke space-time. Let's not destroy the universe. 59\. No making Undertale or Deltarune classic Nintendo games. I don't care how much you want Sans to be in Smash. 60\. No more bringing teenage versions of famous sci-fi icons like George Takei and Gene Roddenberry to Comic-Con. They were traumatized by the mob of people all trying to touch them. 61\. No selling SOE, OSS, Abe Lincoln's Secret Service, or any other historical spy agencies information you got from a history book. 62\. No using the time machine to alter the course of WWII, WWI, the American Civil War, the English Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, The Thirty Years War, The War Of The Roses, The Hellenic War, The Punic Wars, or any other war. Looking at you, Harry. 63\. No introducing John The Baptist to LSD or any modern hallucinogenic drugs. Even if he offers you sainthood in exchange. 64\. No introducing John The Baptist to cocaine, even if it made him write Revelations in under 2 hours with no change in the content. 65\. No selling anachronistic weaponry. This goes hand in hand with 62. Again, looking at you, Harry. 66\. Stop telling people we travel through time by building de facto speed for 12 hours. That meme is dead and forgotten. 67\. No, the time machine doesn't back up your Mac files. Stop asking. 68\. The Morlocks are fictional and you should stop telling people they aren't. 69\. NO USING THE TIME MACHINE FOR ORGIES. STOP IT CHAD. 70\. As awesome as Bela Luigosi is, he is not the only person who can play Dracula. So stop trying to use the time machine to get him to play Dracula in EVERY movie, radio drama/podcast, and theatrical production since the 1930s. 71\. Don't give radio to the Romans. Or any other historical empire, for that matter. 72\. No rigging up 30 ox carts with speakers and blasting Abba during the Battle of Waterloo. Seriously, you had the smallest machine, so how did you even fit all that? 73\. No making the '73 fuel crisis last for a whole decade, even if it led to the widespread use of electric cars 60 years early. 74\. No using the time machine solely to make fun of bad Marty McFly halloween costumes. 75\. No inventing nitrogen-based fertilizer decades early to avert the Dust Bowl SOLELY to stop you from having to write a book report on Grapes Of Wrath in 6th grade. 76\. No giving George Washington's troops AR-15s. I don't care how awesome it would be. 77\. Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program was a failure for a reason. Let's keep it that way. 78\. You are not the Doctor. Stop telling people otherwise. 78a\. That is a flashlight with a green shard of beer-bottle glass glued on, not a sonic screwdriver. 79\. You aren't the Meddling Monk or the Rani either. And you certainly aren't the Master. 80\. You remember that scene in Time Bandits when the main characters got Napoleon pass-out drunk and robbed him blind? OFF. LIMITS. 81\. Tempting as it is, no killing, aborting, or otherwise preventing the rise to power of history's dictators. Why? Because there's always someone just as evil and twice as competent waiting in the wings. Also, through sheer force of experience, Hitler has become quite good at identifying and killing time travelers. 82\. No, you may not strand your boss in medieval times during the Black Plague. Even if he's an asshole. Just because Michael Crichton did it, doesn't mean you can. 83\. No, you are not trying to stop a mad god from killing half of all life in the galaxy, and it is wrong to tell people in the past otherwise. 84\. No trying to screw with paleontologists by posing dead dinosaurs in dance steps or interspecies coitus. It hasn't worked yet, but better to stop it now than suffer a deluge of angry phone calls. 85\. The G-Man cosplay is high-quality, but super creepy. Please stop. 85a\. The Lutece Twins cosplay is also high-quality, but people are getting frustrated by your lack of non-cryptic answers to any question. 86\. Using future technology to build actual Daleks armed with Nerf guns? Epic. Unleashing them on an unsuspecting 1960s Britain? Not so much. 87\. No trolling the hosts of Candid Cam by doing insane stuff in their presence, causing everyone to look around for the hidden cameras. 88\. No stealing whales from 1980s San Francisco. 89\. In accordance with 7c, no pantsing the Rockefellers. Seriously guys, stop it. 90\. All employees are to pass routine drug tests. Weed is OK under state law. Cocaine toothache drops and original-recipe cocaine Coca-Cola you scored in the 19th century are not. Neither is WWII-era military-issue morphine or heroin. All parties involved are being prosecuted on drug charges, including possession with intent to sell. 91\. No using the time machine to make random people think they're in the Twilight Zone. 92\. No using the time machine to screw with Libyan terrorists. You aren't Doc Brown and likely won't survive their retaliation. 92a\. No using the time machine to screw with the Egyptians either. The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities does not appreciate the lyrics to the King Tut song written in hieroglyphics on the walls of his tomb. 93\. Using the time machine to avert historical tragedies will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Using the time machine to create new ones is verboten. 94\. No rival time machine rental company is run by Vandal Savage. Stop trying to convince people otherwise. Incidentally? The task force you assembled will need to go back where they came from with their memories of the incident erased. Also, HR and the FBI Counterterrorism Unit would like to have a word. 95\. I will not impersonate an investment banker and convince people at the turn of the 20th century to invest in molasses production in Boston, MA. I will especially not use the phrase "Waves of profit" when selling them on the idea. 96\. JFK conspiracy theories are rubbish, and it shouldn't take time travel to debunk them. It especially shouldn't take time travel and manipulation of events to make them seem more likely. Just stop. 97\. Steampunk cosplayers are to be kept away from the time machines. The last thing we need is for the robber barons to return. 97a\. Jeff Bezos doesn't technically count. But efforts are underway to erase him from time nonetheless. 98\. The time machine is not bigger on the inside, but the chassis is modular and can be swapped out for expanded units should the need arise. So stop it with the infinity mirrors. Seriously, that's not how physics works. 99\. No giving WWII spoilers to veterans of The Great War. Our Temporal Psychiatry department is swamped. 99a\. No making fun of Temporal Psychiatry's acronym. 99b\. No convincing Temporal Psychiatry staff to go into quarantine with you during the COVID-19 epidemic of 2020 and then bragging about how much TP you have. 100\. No using the time machine to try and erase fashion trends from existence. I don't care how much you hate grunge. 101\. I don't care how much they suck, no mocking the Byzantine Empire. 102\. If the time machine's reactor fails, standard procedure is to activate the backup reactor. Trying to use a bolt of lightning to restore power results in catastrophe, and this is to be made perfectly clear to customers. Some dumbass tried it and ended up creating the Tunguska Explosion. 103\. No matter how much the National Science Foundation or the private sector offers to pay you, no gathering history's greatest minds in one place. Although the group photo was epic, the resulting temporal backlash from these people being removed from their proper time almost resulted in the Dark Ages continuing into the 19th century. 104\. Do not gaze into the time vortex. Trust me, just don't. 105\. No more using the time machine to screw with the US Government in the 1950s. You are not a UFO. 106\. Contrary to the McFly school of time travel, future brand names make horrible secret identities. Max Pepsi, Ronald McDonald, Micky D., A.D. Das, and Ford Prefect are not acceptable aliases. 107\. Some times and places are off limits to people of certain races and ethnicities. This is not racism, this is an attempt at preventing our valued employees and clients from getting hurt. Incidentally, 1940s Germany is off limits to everyone, corresponding with the late Henry Cohen's attempt at violating #81. 108\. No giving Napoleon a speedboat while he is in exile. 109\. No trolling Robert McCarthy with the wristband communicators and bad Russian accents. 110\. No starting the American Revolution in Germany 150 years ahead of schedule. You are not Eric Flint. 111\. The time machine is not powered by alien space bats. 111a\. Neither is it powered by a hamster in a wheel. 111b\. Or "Narrativium," whatever that is. 112\. Acquiring trilobites for the lobby aquarium is great. Pranking fellow employees with insectophobia is not. 113\. Preston Tucker was a genius for his time, but has no clue how to design a modern automobile. I will inform General Motors of this the next time they ask. 114\. You will not screw with the production of Bond movies to ensure that James Bond drives a Vauxhall Astra. 115\. I am not Pickle Rick. 116\. You will not go back in time to ensure that time travel never gets invented, even if it would be best for humanity. The resulting paradox would destroy all worlds across all timelines. We made this bed, we lie in it. 117\. You will not replace beloved and/or controversial TV show hosts, no matter how epic having Carrol Shelby co-host Top Gear with Clarkson, May, and Hammond would be. 117a\. You will not use the time machine to have historical figures appear on modern TV shows. Even though watching George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams tongue-lash conservatives on Fox And Friends for 45 minutes straight was hilarious, especially the fact that Sean Hannity looked like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The footage will be kept around for entertainment, but a repeat will cost you your job. 118\. You will not use the time machine to arbitrarily change the universal standards for television broadcasting or cinema. Millions watching the moon landing filmed diagonally on a round screen with a camera suspended on bungee cords almost led to the downfall of television as a medium. 119\. You will not beat the Apollo crew to the moon and ask to borrow a cup of sugar. 120\. The Lovecraft mythos is fictional, and it's wrong to tell customers it isn't. 120a\. Incidentally, the practical effects for the shoggoth were quite realistic, and Hollywood would like to have a word. 121\. You will not make a techno remix of the Doctor saying "Wibbly wobbly timey-wimey ball" and convince the 1960s BBC to make it the official Doctor Who theme. 122\. If customers ask to visit the July Revolution of 1832, at least make sure they have a decent singing voice. The rotten vegetable smell still hasn't come out of Larry's clothes. 123\. No changing the order that numbers go in. 124\. No changing the order of the alphabet, either. 125\. The time machine is not to be rented out to art historians. Their fawning just inflates the Renaissance masters' already massive egos. 126\. You will not alter the course of history solely to prevent telemarketing from being invented. 127\. You will not convince young Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison to go into music and call their band AC-DC. Incidentally, a shredding bass viola solo doesn't quite have the same effect. 128\. You will not attempt to troll Simo Hayha, Mad Jack Churchill, Otto Skorzeny, Audie Murphy, or any other famously badass soldier. 129\. Customers are to be reminded that visiting Stalin's USSR will end with a bullet to their brain, visiting Europe during the Black Death will end with them catching it, and visiting the Aztec Empire will end with their hearts being ripped out on a sacrificial altar with a jagged piece of volcanic glass. 130\. The Spanish Inquisition is not a joke. For future reference: Saying "I bet they didn't expect that" at a coworker's funeral is in poor taste, even if they hadn't died by being captured and tortured. 131\. Customers and employees are to refrain from insulting royalty, unless they're impersonating the court jester. Even if medieval royalty are mostly chill with parody, Cleopatra and Caligula are not. 132\. If stopped by police in Blitz-era Britain asking for papers, bribing them with white bread and bananas will likely not work. Even though that one cop looked about an inch from giving into temptation, they started asking a lot of questions about where you got a whole loaf from and what that clear shiny stuff it was wrapped in was. 133\. Customers are to be reminded that they are NOT Diana Prince, and that walking straight into No Man's Land is a colossally bad idea. 134\. No Rick-Rolling Rick Astley as a child. 135\. Although it was funny watching Winston Churchill swear up a storm about Brexit, Britain asks you not to not do it again. 136\. Never put Ettore Bugatti and Enzo Ferrari in the same room, then ask them whose car was better. And especially don't set up a betting ring on the resulting fistfight. 136a\. The same goes for the Renaissance masters and their art. Assholes. 137\. Torchwood is to remain a fictitious agency. 138\. Customers are not to spoil the surprise about which high-ranking member of the Manhattan Project was a spy. The resulting chain of events almost caused WWIII. 139\. Even though the past is a different country, there is a pressing need to blend in. So lose the Hawaiian shirt, Jeff. 140\. Customers are to be reminded that their sense of entitlement as American tourists will likely get them seriously injured or worse. Don't just stand back and let it happen, and especially don't bring popcorn. 141\. If any of your co-workers are little people, it's impolite to make constant Time Bandits references. Wally over in Temporal Backlash Dispersion is getting really sick of your shit. You know who you are. 141a\. And the same goes for customers who are little people. 142\. Whoever keeps putting giant prehistoric insects in unexpected places, clean out your office. You know who you are and so do we. However, the Arthropleura in the loading docks can stay, due to his apparent non-aggressiveness and because the staff there have named him Arthur and declared him their new mascot. 142a\. Arthur's a "he" already, is he? 142b\. Yes he is, and we love him! 142c\. This isn't a message board, guys. 143\. Live Compsognathus (Compsognathii?) are not for pranks. Poor critter almost froze to death in the fridge and Jennifer almost had a heart attack. 144\. Jack...clean out your office. You know what you did. 145\. Scientists are not to use tissue samples of prehistoric life for trying to create the perfect burger. 145a\. I don't know why anyone thought that mammoth Spam was a good idea, but it is surprisingly tasty and production negotiations with Hormel are currently underway. 146\. You are not John Connor or Kyle Reese, and it's wrong to tell people otherwise. 147\. The time machine is not to be used to tell H.G. Wells he got everything wrong about the future, even if he did. 147a\. Jules Verne's "Paris In The 20th Century" is currently under investigation. 148\. Thou shalt not useth thy time machine to messeth with the history or holy scripture of the Abrahamic faiths. 149\. Early warning: No licking the Beelzebufo. You won't get high off them, they don't like being licked, and their defense against predators is to secrete ridiculous quantities of capsaicin. 149a\. The so-called "Beelzebufo Inferno Challenge" is hereby called off due to hospitalization of several employees with severe chemical burns. Seriously, they've got as much capsaicin in one square inch as 6 Naga ghost peppers. 150\. "The Hunt For Red October" is a work of fiction, and it's wrong to try to sell a plot synopsis to the Cold War era US Government as actionable intelligence. 150a\. Concurrent with #61, no selling historical spy agencies fake secrets either.
I am a 32 year old RN making $57,450, living in rural MN and I get a colonoscopy this week
One day early. Buckle up, it's a long one! Trigger warning: digestive & anxiety issues, medical procedures Section One: Assets and Debt Retirement Balance: PERA account $7,389.65 Equity: roughly $45,000 (house and vehicles) Savings account balance: $523 'Secret' cash stash: about $800 between us which we pretend doesn't exist. Checking account balance: $2,318 Credit card debt: $6404.47 🤯 Student loan debt: $30,593.72 for my associate's in nursing and one semester of my BSN which I have no plans to finish. Current clinic bill: $814. I have about $620 left in my flex account from last year that I need to use so I'll probably pay this off this month. Section Two: Income Income progression: It's been pretty straightforward for me. I worked at McDonald's in high school (minimum wage) and came back after one semester of college. I was eventually promoted to shift manager in 2007 (I think $9.50/hr). I got my CNA license in 2008 and started working at a nursing home ($10.65/hr). Gradually increased over the years. When I got my LPN license in 2016, I bumped up to around $16.50/hr. Another bump for my RN license at the end of 2017. I started at $26.50 and now make $28.75 base. I work 12 hour nights so I get $.50 differential from 6p-10p and $1 for 10p-6a. This is considered a joke of a differential btw. We get time and a half on holidays. I do truly love my work but I'm so burnt out. I've been in long term care for so long that I'm not sure how to even do anything else at this point. Main Job Monthly Take Home: ~$2700, more if I work a holiday or pick up a shift Taxes: ~$700 Health insurance: $303 (family plan with high deductible) Retirement contributions: 6.5% of my pay HSA: $192.30 Flex: $46.16 Clinic bill payment: $100 Life/STD insurance: $54.42 Christmas account: $50 Side Gig Monthly Take Home: generally $0. I do sell some craft items on the side but I don't hustle. Child support: supposed to be $531 but I get what I get most of the time. I am married but we do not have a joint account. B's gross is $41,600/year. He recently started a new job and got a $4.50/hr pay increase. He's also a volunteer firefighter and gets paid once a year from that, although last year's check was only $750. He carries dental and vision insurance for us and has a flex set up, about $170/month. Section Three: Expenses Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees: $0. 2 bed 1 bath home we share with my daughter (Z, she's 8) full time and B's stepson (E, he's 14) part time. We own outright. Property tax: $497 this year, B pays. Car registration: $206 this year for my car, goes down a bit every year. Home & car (3) insurance: $237, B pays. We just combined everything a few days ago so we might split this. ETA after getting the first bill, I will pay *$265/6 months* for my car and half of the SUV, about $175/6 months.* Savings contribution: lol, whatever comes from my round up rule Debt payments: CC bills $400, B's pellet grill $35 (was a Christmas present). B has no debt. Electric: fluctuates with the climate, last month was $245!!! We are trying to figure out ways to reduce this. B pays. Gas: $50 now on the yearly plan, B pays. Watesewegarbage: ~$60, B pays. Wifi: $59, I pay. Cellphone: $290, I pay for 5 lines. Babysitter: $180 Student loans: in deferment, not making payments Meds: around $50, paid with flex money. Monthly subscriptions: Hulu, HBO, Pandora, Design Bundles, razors, Netflix, Apple storage, NYT, Cricut Access, Disney+, Amazon subscribe and save items, my entire life, $250. I pay. Amazon Prime: $124/year, I pay. Pet expenses: averages around $100 between food, haircuts, shots and insurance for my youngest pup, I pay. Car payment: $405.27 for my car. We paid cash for our used SUV in December, and B's truck is old and has been paid off for years. Groceries: around $400, B tends to grab things here and there and I get the big hauls. School lunch: free this year! Thanks USDA! Extracurriculars: Z opted out of any extracurriculars this year due to COVID. Regular therapy: nope 1/16 Saturday 3:30 AM: I'm awake but I refuse to get out of bed. Cruise Indeed and Facebook for jobs. I recently put in my 30 day notice so I need to find something ASAP. I've put in probably 6 online applications already. Print out two applications, three copies of my resume, and create two cover letters. Why do I have to fill out all my info on an application when they can find it on a resume? Get a year of a resume and cover letter making site for $24.99 because I'm terrible at both. Buy some new Brumates that I don't need $67.93 and see that my yearly Prime payment has been pulled. Watch YouTube and fall back to sleep around 5. 8:20 AM: B crawls into bed after work and snowblowing basically the entire yard. Cuddle for a while so he can leech my body heat before I go upstairs. I need to wash my hair. Fall into an internet hole of Facebook and NYT while lounging with the dogs. Noon: B comes upstairs. I didn't wash my hair. We need some groceries so decide to drive the hour to the nearest town with a Walmart AND a Menards - it's the 15% off bag sale right now. Throw in some dry shampoo, brush my teeth and get dressed. Change the water jug in our machine (our tap water is sketch), let the dogs out and head out. 1:18 PM: Gas is up to $2.34/gallon. Cringe thinking about filling up the SUV. My car is a hybrid but doesn't like Minnesota winters. B and I debate bringing our cat to the vet during the drive. She has FIV and has been losing weight, but we decide against it as there's not much we can do at this point anyways. She's still happy so 🤷♀️ 2:34: Check out of Menards. $99.15 on a new door lock with keypad, sanding blocks and paper, disposable condiment cups, and Armor All wipes after 15% off and B's $15 return credit that he forgot to use. B gets LED bulbs, grill brushes, motor oil, a door latch for our porch, something for his brother's toilet and a propane tank exchange. Only saw one guy without a mask, so I'd call that a win. 3:05: $15.98 after coupons at Joann's on more tumbler supplies (e-6000 spray, 5 taklon brushes) and one roll of clearance ribbon. Realize I have my Christmas money in my purse and forgot to use it. B goes to Harbor Freight for more tools he doesn't need and a sporting goods store for a gift card for his best friend's birthday. 3:32: We decide to go to Perkin's, hoping they won't be too busy in the off hour. The hostess is wearing her mask under her nose and I'm so annoyed. I have some weird stomach issue going on, so I just get two eggs and toast. B tells me he should be able to get the first COVID shot this week, and I tell him I still haven't changed my mind (we both already had COVID during an outbreak at our workplace). I've been 'not preventing' pregnancy for almost two years. At this point, I'm too anxious to get the vaccine, and there is just not enough data available on pregnant/TTC women to change my mind. My time limit is my birthday, so if I'm not pregnant by then I'll be getting the vaccine in August. $28.87 +$5 tip. 4:47: Check out of Walmart with wet cat food, pop, milk, butter, Mac and cheese, cereal, snacks for the kiddo, chips, ketchup, tator tots, Gatorade, Hawaiian Punch and deli meat. $88.65. Every time I ask B if we need something, he says we have it at home. Also, no grapes? Usually a Walmart trip sends me into an anxiety attack but the store is pretty empty today. 5:09: My favorite stop of the day: the liquor store. The store at home is so crazy expensive so this is a treat. I get Truly Iced Tea and two different kinds of hard coffee to try for $41.91. B picks up three cases of beer. 5:18: B stops for gas ($37 🥴) and we head for home. Buy some vape juice online, $86.59. Yeah yeah, I know. My gut hurts, I'm super bloated and I just want to nap. We talk about our options regarding my medical procedure that is coming up and decide to try and get it done while we're still on my work insurance. I had a positive FIT test so now I have to have a colonoscopy. I'll end up maxing out the deductible but I'll get it half off if we can pay the bill within 30 days. I'll get my PTO paid out at the end of my 30 day notice, so we should be able to swing it. Not really sure we have a great option at this point as B doesn't want me to take on another payment. He is so anti debt, and I have $6500 in CC debt. We are opposites in so many ways. 6:20: Get home and unload the SUV. The dogs are going WILD. I feel like garbage and immediately get into pajamas. Give the cat a can of wet food and she eats a few bites. I still can't find a type she really enjoys. I also hook up the drinking water fountain I bought for her a few days ago. B installs the new door lock and I'm thrilled to have a keypad again. The old one stopped working a few months ago. Pay an invoice for a bulk order of keychain tassels from a wholesale group, $19. Basically do nothing for the rest of the night. 9:45: I'm falling asleep in my recliner. I decide to do my nighttime routine (rinse face, No7 HydraLuminous Gel Cream, Algenist Complete Renewal Eye Balm) and go to bed in hopes of feeling better tomorrow. I skip brushing my teeth because I'm nursing a ginger ale. Watch some YouTube and fall asleep around 10:30. Daily total: $478.07 1/17 Sunday 2:09 AM: I wake up for the second time tonight with nightmares. I rarely have them so I'm annoyed. B isn't in bed to cuddle with either. I go upstairs to use the bathroom and find him in his recliner. Realize I forgot to take my meds last night (antidepressant, probiotic, omeprazole, hair skin & nail vitamin, Lysine supplements, allergy pill) so grab those along with two Goli gummies and a lorazepam to help me calm down. My gut still hurts, and I'm so over this. Browse the internet and watch YouTube again to fall asleep. 3:55: Wake up to stomach cramps and know my colon is going to empty itself out. Park myself in the bathroom for half an hour and try not to pass out. I'm not sure if it's just IBS or something worse going on, but I'm glad I'm getting it checked out. 7:17: Still awake. I am stressed by the potential of not having a job for a few weeks, my health, and the current state of everything else in the world. Decide to compound this by opening my NYT app. I am so hopeful Joe can start turning things around. 12:17 PM: I must have finally fallen asleep because B comes down to ask if I want to go to South Dakota today. We check out local case rates by county and decide we are probably safe. We are about the only ones who wear our masks in public over there. I must admit that going through this pandemic feels much different out here in the boonies than it does in the city. We had a large surge in cases for about 4 weeks in November-December, and now we are back down to about 2-3 new cases a day. Our local businesses work hard to keep us safe, in part because they don't want to be known as the place so-and-so got COVID. Ah, small town gossip. We do our part try to support them as we really can't afford to lose any businesses in our area. I shoot a text to Z's dad to confirm I'm picking her up in the morning. 1:28: I finally get out of bed and wash my hair, which is my least favorite chore. I brush it out before my shower, use some Head and Shoulders 2 in 1 to combat my winter dry scalp, finish it off with SheaMoisture Purple Rice Water conditioner. I decide to heat style it today, so I use two heat protection sprays. To brush, wash, condition, brush again, dry and curl my hair takes 1.5 hours. Now I remember why I never do this. 3:30: We hide in the corner of the bar for the meat raffle. I really love coming here because the money they raise goes to local charities. We also have drinks and supper. I get a BLT chicken wrap, and we win 3 free drink tickets. We head out around 6. $50 + $10 tip, this comes out of my Christmas money. B goes to the drivethru on our way home and gets me a frozen hot chocolate. Yuuuum. 8:45: For some reason I can't keep all the school calendar changes straight. Z was supposed to be off tomorrow, but I just realized she does have school. I message Z's teacher to let her know Z won't be there, since she has her yearly physical tomorrow after being rescheduled 3 times. Do a quick nighttime routine, take my meds and head downstairs for YouTube and sleep. Hoping for a decent night of it! Daily total: $60 1/18 Monday 3:05 AM: I'm awake, but for no particular reason this time. Working the night shift really messes with your sleeping schedule. I must have been snoring because B has gone upstairs to sleep in E's room. I clean the litter box and decide to fire up my laptop and Cricut machine to get some projects done I've been procrastinating. I finish a water bottle for B, a stash jar for a friend, create a couple Valentine's mock ups for my business page and seal some glitter signs. I grab a couple SVGs on Etsy $1.38. My mom sees my Snapchat and we message over the woes of insomnia. 6:20: I have come to the realization that buying craft items and actually using them are two separate hobbies. I lay in bed with the cat and doze. 8:40: Leave the house to go pick up Z. Her dad lives about 25 minutes away. On the way home we stop at Casey's for random snacks, $7.64. The clinic calls and we schedule my colonoscopy for Thursday. I have to get some blood drawn later this morning when I bring Z to her appointment. I also have to have a CT with contrast so I'll figure out when I can get that done as well. I take a quick body shower when we get home. 10:55: Bring Z to her well child check-up. I think they asked us about 100 questions, and some of them were super weird for an 8 year old. She finally gets her flu shot and only spills a few tears. No major issues so that's a win! She does miss a few sounds on her hearing test, but we decide to just watch it for now. I get my blood drawn when we're done with her appointment and talk to the radiologist about my CT. He says my prior authorization hasn't gone through yet and he'll call me when we can get it scheduled. We're both hopeful it can get done tomorrow. Then I talk to the surgical nurse to get my pre-op instructions. Finally leave the clinic around 12:45. Pick up my surgical prep from the drugstore, $52.06 (!!!) from my flex account. Z requests cheese pizza for lunch so I oblige. 1:17 PM: I get a call about a job and set up an interview for Wednesday afternoon. 4:10: I bring Z down to the local salon for a haircut. I can't go in (COVID restrictions) but Z loves the feel of a fresh cut so I don't worry. Her hair dresser is her classmate's mom and my old neighbor. $18 + $7 tip. 6:30: B has a fireman's meeting tonight, so Z and I have mac and cheese per our tradition. B hates it so we usually only eat it when he's gone. I make Z have an apple on the side so we can make at least one good food choice today. The Bachelor is on tonight! I usually hit the Reddit stream but I got a late start tonight so I skip it. 9:05: Make sure Z brushes her teeth and hug her goodnight. 10:20: My oldest (and crankiest) dog just cannot be pleased tonight. She keeps wanting to go outside, but it's cold and snowy and she doesn't like either of those things. Sigh. Do my usual nighttime routine, take my meds and go to bed. Fall asleep around 11. Daily total: $33.99 1/19 Tuesday 6:45 AM: Success! Finally got some sleep. Good thing I woke up though, because I forgot to set an alarm. I wake up a very cranky Z at 7 and make sure she gets ready for school. We are very fortunate that our school district is small, and Z has been going to school in person, full time, all school year. She never complains about wearing her mask either. I drop her off at 8, then B and I bring our SUV to the mechanic. I think B is dropping me off at home but instead we go out for breakfast downtown. I have a pancake, scrambled egg and side of fruit. I hear the regulars (old guys who come in every morning for coffee) talking about signing up for their COVID shots. This is a good sign! B pays, $16.04 + $3.96 tip. 9:01: I get an email that a hospital position I applied for has already been filled. Dang. It's still snowing, so I plan for a lazy day. B goes outside to snowblow. 9:55: The radiologist calls and tells me we can get my CT completed. We decide to do it right away this morning. I run up to the clinic to grab my contrast drink and set a timer so I drink the right amounts during the right time frames. It tastes like flat, flavored water. My stomach doesn't seem to appreciate it much. Hopefully this doesn't become a problem when I'm in the CT machine. 11:00: Get my CT done. I get an IV in my arm and the radiologist pushes Lord knows what into my veins, but it makes me feel like I wet my pants 🤣 He lets me check out the images when we're done. It only takes about 15 minutes and then I head back home. I sit around with B for a while, then I go downstairs to make a few crafty things and fill an order. I put a couple more things on my business page as well. During this time B brings his truck out to the mechanic and brings home the SUV. They put in a 'Minnesota approved' battery, the repair cost was $220. I offer B half but he declines, saying "let's see what the truck costs first." 2:45 PM: I get so distracted crafting that I almost forget to go pick Z up from school. She gets in the car and tells me she had the best day ever! I ask what happened, and she says she didn't get strawberries at lunch. Oh... she was being sarcastic. She picks up her room and puts away her laundry when we get home. We don't do much this afternoon. 7:00: B makes supper tonight, nothing fancy. A chicken patty for me and corn dogs for him and Z. I'm staying away from roughage to make my life easier tomorrow. Z gets ready for bed and I tuck her in at 8:45. Shortly after, B leaves for work. I go downstairs to work on a Valentine's day order. Daily total: $0 1/20 Wednesday 12:45 AM: I have spent far too long organizing files on my computer. I call it a night. I look up my CT report and it doesn't show anything urgent or explain why there's blood in my stool. Sigh. Normal routine and bedtime. 7:05: I'm up. IT'S INAUGURATION DAY! B is already in bed. He tells me he has the chills, is nauseated, and his arm is killing him. I tell him his COVID shot is working and bring him some ibuprofen. I wake up Z and she gets ready for school. While I'm waiting, I take a body shower, let the dogs out and feed them. Drop Z off at school at 8, deliver a Valentine's Day order (+$20!) and go home to watch the inauguration while eating mini wheats. 10:45: I watch Kamala get sworn in and I get tears in my eyes. Such a historic moment. 11:45: I make myself scrambled eggs and drink a Dr. Pepper. After this, it's only clear liquids until tomorrow afternoon. B helps me give my oldest dog a haircut. You'd think we were killing her the way she cries. She's been getting haircuts every 2-3 months her whole life and still can't sit still. 2:00 PM: I have a virtual interview. The job sounds so interesting but it involves a lot of travel, and I'm not sure that would work with my family. I pick up Z from school when I'm done. She tells me "happy Joe Biden day!" when she gets into the car. We talk about the possible new job and she's not into the idea of me being gone. 5:00: B leaves to go work on his brother's house. He's been there on and off all week. He also got the night off for his floating holiday. I take my meds early so they have time to get into my system. I mix up the colonoscopy prep: two packets of powder into one liter of water. I make dinner for Z while I'm in the kitchen. 6:45: COLONOSCOPY PREP IS NASTY. Like, the taste of the drink is so disgusting and it's making me nauseated. I know it's important to keep it down, but it's also important to drink it within the one hour timeframe. Uuggghhhhh. It ends up being one hour and 45 minutes. B comes home around 8:30 and gets Z into bed. 9:00: The best way to describe how I feel is early labor. The cramps come and go and are so intense I have to take deep breaths. It's so exhausting I end up falling asleep. Daily total: $0 1/21 Thursday 12:30 AM: IT'S TIME. 6:00: I slept between bathroom trips, but now it's time to mix up my second liter of prep. Yes, I have to do this to myself all over again. This time, I have to make sure to drink it all within the one hour timeframe. 7:30: Everybody is awake and chaos ensues. Did I mention we only have one bathroom? Z is trying to get ready for school, B wants to shower and I'm, well, you know. I get my entire liter of prep down in 65 minutes. B is still not feeling well from his COVID shot. 8:45: I manage a body shower although I had to get out once for the toilet. I am basically a zombie at this point. B drops me off at the hospital at 9:10. When I get there, they are running behind so I have to wait half an hour before I get into my room. 10:05: My nurse blows my vein and I have a panic attack. We are starting this day off great. A second nurse comes in and gets my IV in right away, thank God. Things move pretty quickly from here. By 10:30, I'm in the OR getting the good drugs. By 11:20, I'm awake enough to remember what's going on and drinking water so they'll pull my IV. The surgeon comes in and tells me they didn't see anything abnormal, but they did take some biopsies so hopefully I get some answers. By 12:05, I'm walking out the door. 12:15 PM: I am absolutely starving. B takes me out for lunch. I have a tuna sandwich and a 7Up. Our total is something around $17. I throw him $5 for the tip. 1:00: We're home. We spend the afternoon watching movies and laying around. My stomach is still pretty upset from all the torture. B picks up Z from school since I'm not supposed to drive yet. When she gets home, she regales me with the tale of getting hit in the face with a hulu hoop in gym. She actually has a fat lip! 5:00: I get a jar of my favorite eye cream on a BST board, $20. 6:00: B heads out to work and I make supper. We have tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches tonight. Comfort food for the win. 9:00: Z has a quarter in her tonight. We play a couple games on her iPad before I stick her in the shower and then in bed. I promptly fall asleep in the living room. Daily total: $25 1/22 Friday 3:30 AM: Move downstairs to our bedroom. 8:00: After work, B picked up E and they come home. The dogs are frantic. I eat a bowl of cereal and hang out with Z, since she doesn't have school today. We make funny drawings of each other and she reads me some knock knock jokes. I also get two more interviews set up for next week. I head back to bed around noon. I have to go back to work tonight. I have a block schedule: 7 off, 3 on, 1 off, 3 on, 4 off, 3 on. Our pay periods are adjusted for the night shift, so if I work the weekend that's my 36 hours for the week. 4:30 PM: I'm up. I take a shower and wash my hair. B makes pizza for the kids, another traditional meal timing in our house. He leaves for work at 5:30. I am dreading work. I have been exhausted after every shift no matter if it was busy or not. I'm not sure if it's my actual job, or just the night shift catching up to me. Either way, I'm looking forward to a new position. Also, getting ready for work is a chore these days. I use Fog Block on my glasses, then put side shields on. I hook my two masks up to my ear savers. Then I find two bottles of hand sanitizer and two pens to put in my pockets because I always lose one somewhere along the way. I pack my bag (water bottle, energy drink, iPad, shoes, snacks and supper) and start my car. I say bye to the kids and head out at 5:45. 6:00: Work is already a shit show and I just clocked in 5 minutes ago. I'm so annoyed and I just don't want to be here. But you better believe I'm going to suck it up and be happy for my residents. They are usually pretty happy to see me after my long stretch off. 11:45: I buckle up for what's going to be a very long shift. Daily total: $0 Weekly total: $597.09 Food + Drink: $177.07 Fun / Entertainment: $60 Home + Health: $203.44 Clothes + Beauty: $45 Transport: $0 Other: $111.58 Reflection: This was a normal week considering its events. Obviously I don't usually buy a new door lock, and I typically only stock up on vape juice every 6 months or so. I'm heavily into my depression spending, but with everything going on in the world I've cut myself some slack. I'm only going to live once! *ETA our cat passed away this evening, 1/25. We are very sad but are happy we got to give her a good life for the last 3 years.
New deaths by county: 59 F Adair, 63 F Ballard, 85 F Bell, 29 F Boone, 79 M Boone, 82 F Boyle, 93 M Boyle, 93 M Breathitt, 72 M Calloway, 72 M Calloway, 51 M Campbell, 82 M Campbell, 87 F Carter, 60 M Casey, 75 F Fayette, 53 M Fayette, 86 M Fayette, 90 F Fleming, 68 M Franklin, 94 M Franklin, 53 M Gallatin, 62 M Gallatin, 85 F Hardin, 88 F Hardin, 81 M Hardin, 89 M Hart, 69 F Hopkins, 86 F Hopkins, 80 F Jefferson, 81 F Jefferson, 80 M Jefferson, 96 M Jefferson, 100 M Jefferson, 79 F Kenton, 77 F Laurel, 54 F McCracken, 65 M McCracken, 69 M McCracken, 63 F Marshall, 77 F Marshall, 71 M Meade, 80 M Meade, 64 F Mercer, 53 M Montgomery, 75 M Nicholas, 90 F Ohio, 88 M Trigg, 93 M Washington, 88 M Wayne, 87 F Whitley, 89 M Whitley
Good News.
1. The agency just reported today that the state's recordable non-fatal occupational injury and illness rate has fallen to the lowest point on record. The total recordable incident rate for all industries has fallen to the lowest level since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording the data in 1996, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Program Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Report. So for 2020, based on 2019 BLS data, we were at 3.2 cases per 100 full time equivalent workers, for comparison that was 8.4 in 1996. What this means is this was the safest year, even in the midst of a pandemic, to be a worker in Kentucky.
3. Today we've announced the reopening of all Kentucky State Police post locations to the public to assist in the fight against the drug epidemic, through the Angel Initiative. KSP’s Angel Initiative is a proactive program designed to help people battle addiction, and it's available throughout the state. Anyone suffering from substance use disorder can visit a KSP post to be paired with a local officer who will assist them locating an appropriate treatment program. <...> KSP posts are open to the public Monday through Friday, 8am to 4:30pm and COVID-19 guidelines must be followed. In addition to seeking treatment, individuals may go to any KSP post to safely dispose of any drugs or contraband they may have in their possession without threat of arrest.
Vaccines: So what you see here is we will begin reporting, and updating on a daily basis, how many unique people have been vaccinated in Kentucky. That, we will show next to the total number of doses, first doses, of vaccine allocated to the state, and then you'll see a utilization percentage there. So the goal here is to show you for all the vaccine we receive, what percentage has been administered as a first dose to Kentuckians.<...> So, in this top chart you can see we've broken down the state program, those are all the allocations that came to us at the state level, and then we distributed out, or allocated out, to hospitals and local health departments predominantly to administer to Kentuckians. <...> Please remember, even though you hear that the quantities have been increased and the federal government said 16% last week, and an additional 5% this week, those are wonderful developments to have more vaccine. However, the doses we're getting are still 68,000 or so doses a week, it's gonna take a while to reach everyone who wants to be immunized. <...> So please, I know when you go to these sites, you make the phone calls, it feels like you're not able to get through. It's probably accurate for many of you, it's because we're only getting so much vaccine and the demand is so great. So please know they are vaccinating, they're using everything they're getting as quickly as they can. It's a matter of needing more vaccine to fulfill the demand right now, which is very large.
What made the state change the requirements to make sure only Kentucky residents are receiving the vaccine? -- We had people who lived and worked in other states coming over and trying to get in priority groups in our state that they didn't qualify for in their state.
Senator Robbie Mills today spoke to the very frustrations that you have mentioned that his constituents in Hopkins and Daviess county saying there's just no vaccines available, but he also said that they have a perception that Indiana is doing better than Kentucky, and that they're very frustrated by that. He also spoke to the need, what he perceived the need to be, more and better communication about vaccine availability from your administration. So I just would like for you to sort of speak to that perception that other states are doing better than us and also to his call for better communication. -- Well, we're a top 10 state for vaccinations, the last four weeks we vaccinated more people than we've received doses. If you go over 100% I think that's pretty good. I think in most statistics, we're ahead of Indiana, but I want Indiana to do well too. [...] And we've been communicating about supply, supply, and supply every day, you all have seen it. On our website we show exactly how many doses we get in and how many go out. Their providers have their amount, which is a public when they receive it, and they put it out. So we're getting it out as fast as we can. It's gone out, we believe, equitably across the state. In fact, in the beginning, rural Kentucky got more than urban Kentucky as we were directing it out towards healthcare workers. I think that there are multiple providers in the area that would say that they think that they are being treated fairly. But listen unfortunately a speech on the senate or house floor right now is in the silly season. I don't think they're going to get up and say anything positive. It's unfortunate but that's where we are but you know this is also a body that I hope will be more thoughtful, moving forward, on what they pass. You know, we had to go to court today to challenge three bills, one I'll give you an example was House Bill 1. It basically said no more the Governor's executive orders, “CDC guidance” is now the law. They didn't say which guidance, there are 174 CDC guidance documents. <brings up a stack of documents to the podium> Now, I guess every business would have to look through all 174 of these, which multiple ones will apply to them and try to figure out what they do or do not have to do. I mean we can't defeat a vaccine with this . What should you do to keep people safe? This . We’ve got to have clear consistent rules, and that's what the Supreme Court said, you know, just a couple months ago. So, whether or not people want to pull authority for me, let's be smart and how we address the virus and not say to our businesses “It's on you now here's all the paperwork”
Good afternoon everybody, good afternoon Rachel. It's four o'clock, on Wednesday, that time we come together to remember that we're gonna get through this, and we're gonna get through it together. I'll start by thanking everybody for allowing me to move yesterday to today, we all struggle at times through this pandemic, and admittedly I just needed a day. But I am back at it, I’m ready, and we are going to defeat this thing together. We have a light at the end of the tunnel, it's a big, bright light, it's going to take us time to get there so continue to mask up, continue to do all those things that protect people and as you'll see, our numbers continue to look better and better with the exception of those that we are losing, which are result of that dramatic increase we experienced.
Let's start with good news, we need good news in our world and let's remember we can, rightfully so, we get caught up thinking all day long about the pandemic but there's still lots of good things going on.
First is worker safety. So I speak often about the importance of Kentucky's workforce, which is the backbone of the middle class, the glue that binds most of our communities together. It's also so many of you, our families, how you put food on the table. My administration is committed to providing well paying opportunities for growth and retirements marked by dignity and security. Above all, we treat all honest work as worthwhile, and we treat our workers with respect. The hard working folks at the Kentucky Labor Cabinet have played a major role in ensuring we're living these values during the pandemic. Most often, I talk about unemployment insurance or those who play a role in keeping us safe by investigating reports of non-compliance to the Kentucky safer hotline. But the cabinet is also responsible for enforcing Occupational Safety and Health Standards (OSHA) at workplaces throughout the Commonwealth. Those are the standards that are supposed to keep us safe, that identify unsafe hazardous or unhealthy environments, that stops practices that pose dangers. And when companies don't live up to those standards, cite them, and help them, and provide them the incentive to ultimately get things right, to make sure all of our Kentuckians are safe on the job. So today we’ve got some really good news to share on that front. The agency just reported today that the state's recordable non-fatal occupational injury and illness rate has fallen to the lowest point on record. The total recordable incident rate for all industries has fallen to the lowest level since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began recording the data in 1996, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Program fiscal year 2020 annual report. So for 2020, based on 2019 BLS data, we were at 3.2 cases per 100 full time equivalent workers, for comparison that was 8.4 in 1996. What this means is this was the safest year, even in the midst of a pandemic, to be a worker in Kentucky. It means that our labor cabinet is doing it right but it means so many of you all are doing it right too. This is what happens when we enforce standards. when we create the right framework to ensure that our folks show up and they're productive, they're enthusiastic, and that they are also safe. So, 2020, having the lowest injury rate since it's been recorded, in 1996, is some pretty good news. It means a lot more people made it home at night to their families, and a lot more people made it home happy and healthy, and that's what we want every day here in the Commonwealth. We have seen a steady decline over time and let's keep it up. Let's get to the point where our workplaces are so safe that no one is ever injured. That sounds like it may be a tough task but I believe both our people and our employers are up for that challenge.
Second piece of good news. The Justice and Public Safety Cabinet today is awarding more than $2M in grant funding from the Federal Violence Against Women Act STOP Formula Grant Program to 28 agencies across our state. This federal funding allows our state to better support the insurmountable work provided by victim advocacy services, law enforcement agencies, and local units of government to victims of violent crime. Funds are received from the Office on Violence Against Women, a component of the United States Department of Justice. The Office on Violence Against Women require state administrative agencies allocate 25% for law enforcement, 25% for prosecutors, 30% for victim services, 5% for state and local courts, and 15% for discretionary distribution. The funding should be used for projects that serve or focus on adults and youth who are victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Some of the programs funded by the grant include, and these are a bunch of great organizations that I had a chance to work with as attorney general, and the work they do is so appreciated and here supported. Chrysalis House has been awarded $51,830 to continue funding a domestic violence therapist to ensure physical and emotional safety is established, prior to treatment for women who have experienced intimate partner violence. Merryman House Domestic Crisis Centers has been awarded $56,264 to increase safety of domestic violence survivors in the Purchase Area Development District by sustaining and improving collaboration efforts with local law enforcement and prosecution. The Nest Center for Women, Children, and Families has been awarded $116,780 which will allow it to continue to hire contract attorneys who will provide legal services at no charge to families, obtaining an order of protection against their perpetrator in 18 different counties. We’ve got to work together to stop the scourge that is domestic violence, to make sure that our people are safe. The long term ramifications go far beyond just the partner, the physical and emotional scars that it leaves on our children is something we all ought to be committed to stopping. I believe in a world without domestic violence, without sexual abuse, without child abuse, and it should be attainable, just takes all of us continuing to work every day. And these $2 million to organizations that earn the money are going to help us to get there.
Alright, one other piece of good news, which is our Kentucky State Police Angel Initiative. Today we've announced the reopening of all Kentucky State Police post locations to the public to assist in the fight against the drug epidemic, through the Angel Initiative. KSP’s Angel Initiative is a proactive program designed to help people battle addiction, and it's available throughout the state. Anyone suffering from substance use disorder can visit a KSP post to be paired with a local officer who will assist them locating an appropriate treatment program. KSP launched the Angel Initiative in 2016, this was done by the previous administration, through funding from the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. I committed that when I became governor we do the right things, and the right programs we build on. We wouldn't simply eliminate things or take action out of spite and we've lived up to that promise. The Angel Initiative was a good initiative created by our last commissioner of the state police and by our last governor. Reopening it to the public is the right thing to do and it's going to help people. KSP posts are open to the public Monday through Friday, 8am to 4:30pm and COVID-19 guidelines must be followed. In addition to seeking treatment, individuals may go to any KSP post to safely dispose of any drugs or contraband they may have in their possession without threat of arrest. One more program we can use to help those who are suffering.
So that's all good news. Aside from what we deal with every day in the pandemic there are lots of beacons of light out there, lots of people continuing to do good work even in challenging circumstances, and there's lots of people doing good work in working to defeat this virus. Our vaccination efforts right now are exciting to see. You walk into one of our vaccination centers and you see a workforce that is inspired and is moving. You see people clearly walking around with purpose. You see faith in action, and protecting other people. And you see people who've worked long shifts who are still smiling when that next person sits down because they're going to get their vaccine. We’ve got a short video here that recaps yesterday's opening of our first regional vaccination site at the Kentucky horse park, outside of Lexington and Scott County. Take a look, it's pretty special.
<VIDEO> This is an exciting day for Kentucky. Through this new and growing partnership with Kroger health, we will be able to vaccinate more Kentuckians as we received more supply from the federal government. We are here inside the Kentucky Horse Park’s Alltech Arena in Lexington, where Kroger health is launching the first regional vaccination site in the state. Across the Commonwealth we are seeing efficiency pick up and pick up every single week. We are getting better and better at vaccinating people, which means for every Kentucky in your time is coming sooner rather than later. The last four weeks we've vaccinated more people than we've received doses from the federal government, meaning our only limitation at this point is supply supply and supply. But we can't simply sit back, we have to continue to grow our capacity so when we have those additional vaccines, when the manufacturing picks up, when we have a flood of these life saving shots of hope, that we are ready to get them out there and get them in people's arms as quickly as humanly possible. So let's continue to mask up, let's continue to engage in social distancing, and when it's your turn and your time, let's roll up our sleeves and get this shot of hope.
The individual you saw getting vaccinated there is one of our veterans. He has several health conditions, but wanted to step up and to be an example. We were all excited, we were all moved to see him get that vaccine. On vaccines, today we've got Dr Stack, he's going to talk through how we're gonna change our reporting, what you see online, each and every day to be a better indicator of how quickly we are getting the vaccine to new people, because that's really what we want to focus on. Some look at doses out there but when you get a second dose it's got to go to a specific person. What we are focused on is how quickly we can get people that first part of their vaccination as efficiency. Now, I will remind you that we get these doses primarily on Tuesday-ish, late Monday, early Tuesday. So, Tuesday, Wednesday, there's always going to be the biggest difference between our supply and how many people were vaccinated. But what you'll see from the reporting is by the time we get through that next Monday, seven days after it, we're vaccinating more people every week of the past four weeks, then we get supply. We're not gonna be able to do that much longer, it's from extra from the first couple of weeks as we were ramping up and that is very quickly being used up. Thankfully, we're gonna receive, or we're now receiving, about 21-22% more vaccine. This next week will be the first week we reached that full increase since the new administration took over in Washington. Dr Stack?
You can all relate to this, this is a video conference world-- I had three screens open and I couldn't get to it. So Governor, thank you very much. I have two topics that the governor would like me to speak about tonight. And then I'll walk us through that.
So, on our website we're going to change, and this should be updated tonight, we're going to change how we report the vaccines that are administered. Remember the single most important metric is how many people have been vaccinated, how many unique people have been vaccinated, because those are the persons who are on the road to protection from the vaccine. So what you see here is we will begin reporting, and updating on a daily basis, how many unique people have been vaccinated in Kentucky. That, we will show next to the total number of doses, first doses, of vaccine allocated to the state, and then you'll see a utilization percentage there. So the goal here is to show you for all the vaccine we receive, what percentage has been administered as a first dose to Kentuckians. Now, the other way to do this is to show all the doses, which include first dose and second dose, but we're committed to giving the second dose to everyone who gets the first dose-- that should happen as a matter of routine course. So the most important metric is who has started this journey, and received a first dose, which means they will be part of a two-dose immunization program and when they complete that they'll have the full benefit of the protection from the vaccine. And remember, if the third vaccine gets approved, if the Johnson and Johnson vaccine gets approved, and we're all cautiously hopeful that will happen later this month, that is only a one-dose vaccine. So again, in this paradigm that will be the metric that matters the most, is how many people have received their first dose, and therefore are on the path towards protective immunity from this disease. So, in this top chart you can see we've broken down the state program, those are all the allocations that came to us at the state level, and then we distributed out, or allocated out, to hospitals and local health departments predominantly to administer to Kentuckians. There's also the federal Long Term Care program, and so that's listed here is the LTCF Program, that was the partnership between the federal government and CVS and Walgreens to vaccinate licensed long term care facilities and assisted living facilities. Now, in this, you'll see 80,925 first doses, we had recaptured 13 trays of Pfizer, about 12,675 doses, back to the state program and reallocated it. And you’ll see the remaining doses in that program, they are working to do their second doses, and we'll go back for a third visit to finish up all of those nursing homes, and then they will use the remaining inventory to reach other populations and use up all of that. So, eventually, that will reach 100%, and then it will all be the state program going forward. You can also see in the lower table there that we will report to you on a week by week basis how many new vaccines we were allocated and how many unique persons were immunized that week. And the governor has already drawn attention to this, if you look down there at the week of January 12th, you can see we immunized 143% relative to the first doses. What that means is that backlog, that inventory that we did not use the first few weeks of the program in December, we used up very quickly once we swung into increased productivity in the month of January. Remember, I've said for a while, December was always going to be a challenge for a number of reasons. January was about bringing order to disorder. And now February is moving solidly into consistent, effective production and administration of vaccine and building a system that gives you confidence that you can sign up and get some clarity about when you may be able to be vaccinated, and then have certainty you will be vaccinated in a phased manner, which is what is necessary because of the quantities of vaccines we receive.
Please remember, even though you hear that the quantities have been increased and the federal government said 16% last week, and an additional 5% this week, those are wonderful developments to have more vaccine. However, the doses we're getting are still 68,000 or so doses a week, it's gonna take a while to reach everyone who wants to be immunized. And we have plenty of stories now, when health departments or vaccine sites turn on their scheduling, we find that, for example in one of the regions in the first hour that their phone lines were open they had 51,000 phone calls trying to schedule for the 700 doses they were given. In the first two and a half hours their phone lines were open 110,000 phone calls came in to try to access that 700 vaccines. So please, I know when you go to these sites, you make the phone calls, it feels like you're not able to get through. It's probably accurate for many of you, it's because we're only getting so much vaccine and the demand is so great. So please know they are vaccinating, they're using everything they're getting as quickly as they can. It's a matter of needing more vaccine to fulfill the demand right now, which is very large. And then I hope those who are maybe hesitant to receive the vaccine see how effective it is and how the others tolerate the vaccine so well, that other people will also want to follow along in the months ahead.
Last topic I want to talk about, . There's a small sporting event happening this weekend, the Chiefs and the Bucks should be playing with each other on the football field. Well you enjoy that game, for those of you who will enjoy, I need to ask you, please, please, please this is just like any other holiday or social event. You have to practice social distancing, you have to wear your masks, please. When people get together in private residences, in close proximity, that is one of the single most effective ways to spread this disease. We can't afford to have the disease spread now. With these mutations and these variants, every time we allow it to infect more people, it gives the virus the opportunity to mutate. It gives the virus the opportunity to learn how to defeat the antibodies that our bodies are forming based on the vaccines, or the natural infection. We just can't afford to have that. It dangers us all and could undermine the success we're also optimistic we're going to see in the months ahead as more people get vaccinated. So please don't hold any large gatherings.
Remember the current guideline was two households max and eight people or less. That was the current recommendation for the recent holidays and that still holds true now. It's good advice and I'd ask you to please follow it.
Six feet of distance or more between people.
Wear your masks at all times. It's difficult when you have parties because people eat and drink and you take your mask off and that's exactly what makes the infection easily spread. Please don't do that.
Have virtual Super Bowl parties. Enjoy the Super Bowl in the privacy of your own home. We're hopefully getting to the light at the end of the tunnel for this pandemic but if we take our eye off the ball, we can have more super spreader events and have more problems with more of these mutations and more spread of the disease.
So enjoy the Super Bowl this weekend. I'm not going to tell you who I would prefer to win, you can have your own favorites in that, but enjoy the game and do it safely. And please, there's a lot of wonderful stories out there. What I hear from folks go into these vaccine sites, there are smiles, there is clear, just unbridled happiness, in a way, perhaps, people haven't seen in a while because I think people feel empowered. They feel like they're able to take action, rather than feel like they're a passive victim of this disease, and that they're taking a positive step to bring it to an end. That's what we want to celebrate on and focus on-- is the optimism, the hope, the caring, and the kindness to all the good things about humanity. We could focus on all the negative sides too but ultimately, it doesn't help advance our cause and it doesn't help us rally together as a state, and as a community. So please, be good to each other, be kind, and we're working as hard as we can to get you vaccinated, and we'll do so as quickly as the vaccine qualities allow us. Governor, back to you. Thank you.
Thanks to Dr Stack, and everybody tune in tomorrow where we'll be announcing additional regional centers across Kentucky, building out our map as we go. We'll also be talking about local health departments, all of which are going to be getting a consistent supply for at least the next three weeks. Though that supply, remember, is limited and it's going to be dwarfed by the amount of calls, and interest. Again, that is a good thing. It means that we don't have the level of vaccine hesitancy we were worried about. We do have it in certain populations and we're going to work on that as we go in real time.
Positive cases today: 2,592 - That was about 100 cases more than this time last week, but significantly less than the two weeks before. Again, that is positive, in that we have significantly less virus than three weeks ago and we hope that this will be the first time by the end of this week that we have had four straight weeks, one month, of declining cases. Right now it looks possible at the very worst we think it will be close to what we had last week.
Probable cases: 861
Total confirmed cases: 369,519
Children Under 18: 416
We only have 106 red counties. Right now that's the fewest we've had in a while. We obviously need to decrease that.
Total tests conducted: 4,111,126 (PCR: 3,635,689, Serology: 108,611)
Positivity Rate: 8.53% - Shows you that this is real, it's not just a result of how many tests there are, we're seeing a decrease in the virus
Our hospitalization, ICU, and ventilator numbers are all really stable too. One’s up five, one’s down five, but again, we were able to take the steps we needed to, at a time when our healthcare capacity could have been overrun, like happened in so many other states-- we avoided that and now we've seen decrease.
Total hospitalized: 17,010
Currently hospitalized: 1,340
Total in ICU: 3,618
Currently in ICU: 368
On a ventilator: 171
Total recovered: 44,073
New deaths today: 51 - But the tough part about our days right now is the number of deaths. January was rough, it was our worst month, and February is going to be tough too. Today we're announcing 51 new deaths related to COVID-19, seven, or individuals 60 years or younger.
Total Deaths: 3,863
New deaths by county: 59 F Adair, 63 F Ballard, 85 F Bell, 29 F Boone, 79 M Boone, 82 F Boyle, 93 M Boyle, 93 M Breathitt, 72 M Calloway, 72 M Calloway, 51 M Campbell, 82 M Campbell, 87 F Carter, 60 M Casey, 75 F Fayette, 53 M Fayette, 86 M Fayette, 90 F Fleming, 68 M Franklin, 94 M Franklin, 53 M Gallatin, 62 M Gallatin, 85 F Hardin, 88 F Hardin, 81 M Hardin, 89 M Hart, 69 F Hopkins, 86 F Hopkins, 80 F Jefferson, 81 F Jefferson, 80 M Jefferson, 96 M Jefferson, 100 M Jefferson, 79 F Kenton, 77 F Laurel, 54 F McCracken, 65 M McCracken, 69 M McCracken, 63 F Marshall, 77 F Marshall, 71 M Meade, 80 M Meade, 64 F Mercer, 53 M Montgomery, 75 M Nicholas, 90 F Ohio, 88 M Trigg, 93 M Washington, 88 M Wayne, 87 F Whitley, 89 M Whitley
All losses are a loss for Kentucky. Let’s light those houses up green and let’s ring those bells at 10am. This is a reminder that we are thinking of the Kentuckians we’ve lost, their families, and their communities. It’s the color of compassion and renewal as their souls move from their bodies to a better place.
Racial breakdown of all cases: 85% White, 8.5% Black, 5% Multiracial, 1.2% Asian, 0.3% American Indian, 0.1% Pacific Islander
Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 94.3% Non-Hispanic, 5.7% Hispanic
Racial breakdown of all deaths: 87.9% White, 8.7% Black, 2.7% Multiracial, 0.6% Asian, 0.1% American Indian
Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 98.1% Non-Hispanic, 1.9% Hispanic
I am 30 years old, make $135,000 a year, live outside NYC and work as a Senior Data Analyst.
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: $84,000 This is based on combined balances in my IRA accounts (Roth + Rollover). My current company, which I’ve been working at for 6 months, doesn't offer 401(k) matching until after the first year of work - so I’m waiting for that year mark to start contributing to one.
Equity: ~$550,000 This is the current market value estimate of my home, a small 2 BR condo just outside of Manhattan, from Zillow. I purchased my home in summer of 2015 at a closing price of $484K. I put down $284K for the down payment (from my savings and investments which I had slowly accumulated since I was 15. My dad helped me open my first brokerage account at the time and encouraged me to keep investing and diversifying my portfolio as I grew older; this proved invaluable when it came to having the funds for my down payment a decade later) and took on a 20 year mortgage for the remaining $200K. Just last summer (June of 2019), I paid off the remainder of the mortgage balance and am now debt-free. The timing of the payoff was mostly motivated by a city-wide property revaluation assessment last year which bumped up my property tax payment to almost 3X the previous amount.
Savings account balance: $139,000 I have this in cash in an online savings account with Ally. I normally would have invested some of this, but ever since March and with the ongoing uncertainty with the virus, the presidency, etc. I haven’t felt comfortable doing so. I am also considering buying a second condominium near where I am now that I could either rent out in the future, or move into myself and rent out my current place instead for rental income, so I want to keep funds liquid for the time being.
Checking account balance: $3,500 This amount is split across two banks - one with Ally and the other with Chase. I keep above the $1,500 minimum at Chase to avoid any fees to ensure I can withdraw cash at one of their ATMs if needed.
Credit card debt: $0 I place almost all of my purchases on one of two credit cards, but pay them off in full every month (and make sure to redeem the bonus points for cash back!) The total I’ll have charged across my two cards at any point in time usually ranges from $0 to $600 dollars.
Student loan debt (for what degree): $0 I have an undergraduate econ/business degree from an Ivy League that I’m so grateful my parents were able to help me achieve without having to worry about accumulating a huge student loan for. They started a 529 account for me a little later than ideal (when I was in middle school - I’ll go into more detail in the next paragraph) but saved aggressively leading up to when I graduated high school. They were able to cover the majority of my tuition + room and board this way, and I helped cover the rest through several scholarships and working on campus.
Mortgage: $0 Paid off last year! This was definitely one of my proudest recent accomplishments. I’ve always lived fairly frugally, due mostly to my childhood experiences and background. If there’s anything I could have done differently, it would have been to get a mortgage for a shorter term (versus the original 20 years) so that I could have gotten a lower rate and paid less in mortgage interest.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: My first job was at McDonald’s when I was 15, and I started with the minimum wage rate of $5.25/hour. In high school, I switched to working retail at Kmart and then every summer of college, worked at various paid internships for the full summer in addition to working on campus at various jobs (from cashier to research assistant). My junior year summer internship was at a firm that I would eventually return to full time after I graduated. I've been working full time for 8 years now, and my starting salary was ~$60,000. I started off working in analytics for a financial service firm in NYC and have changed jobs every 2-3 years since then. I primarily stayed in finance up until last year, working my way through steady salary increases each year and with each job change. I had begun looking for a new job and industry right before the pandemic hit in March as I was getting bored and frustrated with my role at the time; I had actually interviewed for my current role right when interviews were all being changed to virtual and didn’t hear back until May as the company was dealing with the big shift to work from home and figuring out headcount for the future. Thankfully my role was kept and I officially started working at my current company in the media/tech space in mid-May. My current annual base salary is $110,000 with a 10% annual bonus ($121,000 all-in).
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $5,800 This is my final take home, which is paid out bi-weekly (my average paycheck amount is around $2,900). This is after deductions for health insurance (dental+vision), a healthcare HSA ($100 a month), and a pre-tax transit account ($100 a month). Retirement contributions are currently on pause until I hit my one year mark next May and qualify for matching contributions to a 401(k).
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: ~$890 I have a couple sources of income from Instagram, one of which is my dedicated food account (75K+ followers). For this account, I don’t have a steady stream of income but reap the benefits in various invitations to restaurants in NYC - I’m invited in for a meal (usually with a guest), and for posting photos and stories featuring the restaurants and dishes, have the cost of the meal covered. For sit down meals, however, my guest and I make sure to cover the tip for the service. I’m occasionally shipped food/drink items to share as well. If I do make any income, this is from infrequent brand or restaurant campaigns that I’m contacted for; depending on what’s required in deliverables, these can range anywhere from $300-$3,000. The pandemic definitely impacted this year, but for 2020, I’m on track to have earned ~$6,500 from these. I am also helping 2 friends of mine who started a small business in July with some photography and social media. I post on their social channels and do larger product shoots 1-2x a month, and get $350 a month for this work.
Any Other Monthly Income: $300 My property also has a gated parking spot included with the deed; so even though I don’t have a car, I’ve found a “tenant” for the spot since I bought my place five years ago. We sign an annual lease every October for $3,600 for the upcoming year, which comes to $300/month.
Section Three: Expenses
Property Tax: $767 (paid quarterly at ~$2,300, this amount changes quarter to quarter, so I’m using an average for the past year)
Homeowners Association (HOA) Fees: $434 (this covers water, garbage, and some building insurance)
Condominium Insurance: $54 (paid annually at $650, my HOA fees cover some initial property insurance, so this is specific to my unit).
Retirement Contribution: On pause for now as I wait to hit the year mark at my current job to get matching 401(k) contributions. I also want to keep some earnings liquid for a potential future real estate investment.
Debt payments: $0, aside from paying off my monthly CC balance
Electricity/Gas: ~$70 (depends on the season, spring and fall are in the low $40s while summer and winter can be in the high $90s)
WiFi: $40 (recently signed up for the introductory offer at Comcast)
Cellphone: $50 (I’m on the family plan still, but transfer this amount to my dad each month)
Credit Card Fee: $8.33 ($200 annual fees across the 2 cards I currently have. Next year I will cancel/downgrade from the Chase Sapphire Preferred as the benefits for Travel and Dining are pretty much moot.)
Subscriptions: Amazon Prime: $10 (annual subscription, I share with my family) Netflix: $0 (my parents cover this one) Hulu/Spotify: $11 Adobe Creative Cloud: $11 Apple Cloud: $1 OneDrive: $2 Causebox: $17 (quarterly subscription box that I pay the $200 annual cost for)
Donations: I don’t have a recurring donation organization or amount, but will donate where and when I see the need. So far this year, I’ve donated $500 to my local hospital, the NAACP, and City Harvest.
Savings Contribution: I will pretty much just transfer over money from my checking account to my savings account whenever it gets above the $1k or $1.5k threshold (I’ll keep more if it’s around the end of the month and monthly payments are coming up). I’m typically able to transfer over $2.5-3K each month, unless it happens to be one where quarterly property taxes are due.
Weekly Expenses: Food + Drink: $78.70 (including tip) Fun / Entertainment: $0 Home + Health: $72.33 Clothes + Beauty: $0 Transport: $0 Other: $189.24 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Day One (Monday) 8:45am: My alarm goes off and I hit snooze. One of the worst parts about the whole WFH situation has been how bad I’ve become with getting up on time, knowing that I can be at “work” in less than 15 steps. I scroll through social media a bit and catch up on some posts before getting out of bed. 9:15am: I’ve brushed my teeth, washed my face, and put on my skincare (toner, serums, and moisturizer) and am booting up my laptop. I changed jobs 6 months ago in the midst of the pandemic, leaving my previous role in financial services for a position in a large media/tech company, which has been a little crazy. It’s been tough doing everything remotely, and learning the new industry and programming/software has been especially difficult, but I feel like I’m getting my bearings. I start brewing some coffee. 9:30am: I hop on a Zoom for our weekly department huddle and listen as the different teams give updates on various initiatives as well as some background on company-wide kick offs and projects. Some of the projects I’m working on get brought up and it feels good to be doing what feels like actual work. After the call, I get to work on tackling work for some of the larger projects I have, which include scoping out source/logic details on a production report that we want to integrate in a new platform and QAing a table that I’m working on with data science. 12pm: I take a break to refill my coffee mug and make IG posts for my friends’ small business account and my own account (a food IG with 75K+ followers). I took on the first gig a few months ago when my friends, a couple in Brooklyn, launched their hand-crafted drinks business. I started the second, my personal account, over 3 years ago with a focus on restaurants in NYC. It stalled quite a bit over the last few months with the pandemic, but I’ve been dining out infrequently these days, and have limited myself to dining with only one friend at a time (out of a total of 3 friends since June, all of whom I know have tested negative and have been taking precautions since March). 3pm: I’ve wrapped up a touch base with a manager and a semi-stressful meeting where I had to present to some senior executives a dashboard we've been working on over the last few months. They have a few (mostly minor) tweaks that I note in a JIRA ticket before I grab my mask and take a quick break to stop by a local ice cream shop that’s invited me in to try their latest dessert special. There’s thankfully no one else there aside from one of the co-owners who recognizes me and gets my treats ready. I photograph them, thank her, and leave a $3 tip. $3 3:30pm: Back home, I get back to some Slack messages and try to prepare for another stressful call at 4:30pm that I have to lead. I finish eating the ice cream and call it lunch - but hey, that’s #adulting for you. 6pm: Wrap up some notes from the call and text my dad the address that I’m heading out to. I saw a 1BR condo listing pop up on Zillow over the weekend that looked promising, so I’m getting an in-person tour of it this evening. I get my mask on again and make the 5 minute walk to the building where the realtor is outside to meet me. We go inside to look at the condo for sale - the space definitely looks smaller in person than in the photos, and I note that a number of things need to be replaced or upgraded. I thank the realtor after the tour and give a call to my dad to let him know I’m okay and to give him my initial impressions of the space. 7pm: Back home! I wash my hands and change my clothes and get started on dinner; I’ve been craving soup these days so make a quick hot and sour soup on the stove with mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tofu, and some corn I have in the fridge. While I eat, I edit the photos from my DSLR from this afternoon, and check my IG account email to reply to about 7 emails that came in today about campaigns and invitations to restaurants; one of these includes signing a contract with a new app that’s offering a generous sign on payment and potential future income. I catch up on IG posts and comments and text a few friends. 11pm: I spend the rest of the evening catching up on some news, watching the latest episode of the Korean drama Start Up, and finally take a shower. While my hair is still drying in a hair tower, I do a quick Chloe Ting workout; I started doing some of her workouts a few months ago and while I’m not doing them super seriously, I’ve definitely noticed a difference in my abs and feel stronger overall. My Google Home plays some news snippets for me afterwards, and I roll my eyes at the continued attempts of our current president to try and derail the election results. On the plus side - the initial vaccine results from 2 firms have been super promising! 1am: I remember to take my daily multivitamins and then read a bit on my Kindle (I just finished Sex and Vanity, and start on Me Before You - another thing I picked up during quarantine, and I’ve already read over 30 books since March!). I then proceed to spend too much time on Instagram and reddit before turning out the lights. Day One Total: $3 Day Two (Tuesday) 8:45am: Alarm goes off on the dot and I, the perpetual sleep procrastinator, snooze one too many times. I barely manage to make it out of bed in time to brush my teeth, wash my face, and chug some water before a 9:15am call. It’s a quick check in on projects within my business area so I summarize the work that’s been done and am grateful I don’t have to have my webcam on for this. 12pm: Unfortunately I need my webcam on for the next two meetings, so try to make myself look semi-presentable by combing through my hair and putting on a sweater, instead of my default hoodie. I get a little more clarification on some metrics and data sources in this upcoming platform integration and discussing my upcoming sprint priorities with my manager. At noon, I make a new post on my food IG and go through my feed. I pour my second mug of coffee and drink more water in preparation for the next batch of afternoon meetings. 3pm: Talk through more Zoom calls to the point that my throat is starting to hurt. I’m especially frustrated after the team huddle that just ended where one of the managers tells me my approach to building out the proposed data architecture is too limited in scope, and I should be more imaginative and proactive. The entire work from home situation has made it difficult to understand how to work with and collaborate with different people, so I try not to get too frustrated. I spend the rest of the afternoon making some minor adjustments to existing production reports and updating JIRA tickets. 5pm: I email over my dad a few of the more promising Zillow listings that landed in my inbox this morning. He jokingly complains that there’s too much to read and the words are too small before I realize that he’s been doing a lot of work on his laptop lately as he’s been WFH more. I take a look at a few computer monitors and opt for a larger (24”) version of what I currently have as it’s been working well for me for the last 6 months. I make sure it includes a HDMI cable and have it shipped my dad. $179.24 5:50pm: I grab my mask, bag, and camera and text my friend to let her know I’m en route to dinner; she’s one of the few friends I’ve seen in person since March and is also a food blogger with a separate full time job. She’s been quarantining in Long Island since the start of everything, and texts me that she’s driving in from her home, I head out to the PATH station, swipe in using my prepaid Smartlink card, and hop onto the next train. 6:35pm: I’m a few minutes late but make sure my friend knows I’m walking over, and meet her outside the restaurant. We get checked in, fill out our contact information on our phones, and get our temperatures taken; thankfully there’s only 2 other groups seated and the windows are open. Tonight’s dinner was an invitation that I already confirmed with the PR team, so the staff are expecting us and understand we’ll both be taking photos. We order a few apps and two mains, and spend the rest of the evening doing some quick photos and catching up on our lives, her plans to move into Manhattan or JC, and complaining about the ongoing election drama. 8:30pm: Dinner is done, and I realize I forgot to stop at an ATM and only have a dollar bill on me so ask if I can Venmo my friend my part of the gratuity. Thankfully she has $20 on her so I quickly Venmo her $10, making sure to use the adorable fries sticker to represent the copious amount that we ate tonight. $10 8:45pm: My friend and I walk out with our masks on, and I bid her goodbye and a happy Thanksgiving before stopping at the ATM to take out some cash, making sure to sanitize my hands after, and then head to my train. As I wait, I make some quick edits to the photos I took on my iPhone and add them with a few captions and tags to my IG stories; I manage to get through them all by the time the next train pulls up and leaves. 9:20pm: It’s always so nice to get back home! I wash my hands, change my clothes, and get started with transferring over the photos from my DSLR to my computer. I spend the next 20 or so minutes editing and saving the final versions in Adobe Lightroom and make sure to chug a glass of water to help balance out all the sodium I had. I check my messages and see that a restaurant in NJ confirmed a lunch delivery for tomorrow and see another contract in my inbox; I read the deliverables and ask the account manager if she can take out the clause requiring a Tiktok post because I don’t have an account. 11:30pm: I shower and put on my evening skincare, take my multivitamins, and do a quick ab workout with Chloe Ting (it still hurts lol). I take a look at my work calendar tomorrow and see that my first meeting starts at 9am, so I update my alarm to 15 minutes earlier. I take my vitamins and spend the rest of the evening catching up on some news, reddit, and IG. 1:30am: I blame Youtube vlogs for this one. Finally turn out the lights. Day Two Total: $189.24 Day Three (Wednesday) 8:30am: Alarm goes off and I manage to get myself out of bed in a semi-reasonable fashion. Do my typical routine (brushing teeth, washing face, getting water and coffee ready) and log into my work laptop so I’m on the Zoom right at 9am. This is a belated overview session for one of the larger projects that I started working on quite late in the process, so it’s a useful business and data update that gives me a better understanding of the end goals. 12pm: Sit through one other department meeting where I don’t fully pay attention because I look into some minor report and code checks (oops). Once those wrap up, I’m able to take a break to do a post and stories for my friends’ business account and then make a post on my food account. I notice an email come in from a PR company about a new location opening for one of my favorite restaurants, so I check with one of my friends if he’s able to make the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and reply back to the email requesting it. 1:30pm: While I listen in on a company-wide speaker event on the topic of gender sensitivity and awareness, I also click through a recently assigned digital training course on sexual harassment and discrimination. I understand that the latter is a legally mandated item, but find it a bit sad (especially in the current day and age) that these are things that have to be spelled out for people. After I finish, I get a call for my lunch delivery; I grab my mask, keys, and wallet and meet the deliveryperson downstairs. I give him a $6 tip and take some photos of the items, which include chicken wings and a chicken sandwich. After I’m done with photos, I scarf down the food so I can make my next call which requires me to talk and have my webcam on. $6 4:30pm: I have a 1 on 1 with my manager and then a call with a business partner to scope out requirements for a new report. So glad to be done with calls! I get started putting together a project plan/roadmap for one of my projects and Slack one of the recently hired data engineers, who I found out grew up near me in suburban Philadelphia! 6pm: Get the shipping notification email that my dad’s monitor has shipped! I call it a day and close my work laptop and get started on my weekly apartment clean. I call my dad while I do so and let him know that his monitor should arrive on Friday; he thanks me and we catch up on work, COVID, and my potential future real estate investment. While I talk, I notice an alert from Mint that a large charge from Amazon hit my credit card; I’m a little worried until I log into my account and see that the annual prime membership has been renewed. Also tell my dad this as he heard me flip out thinking that someone had been making fraudulent charges on my card, as he and my mom are part of my “Prime household”. ($127, noted in my monthly expenses) 7pm: I’m done vacuuming and taking out the trash and am officially hungry. I make a quick tomato and egg soup with orzo and eat an apple while I wait for the orzo to cook. I wrap up some IG emails while I eat, including signing the updated contract with the Tiktok clause removed and politely declining some invitations to places that I’m not able to physically go to. 10pm: Wash the dishes, take a shower, brush my teeth and put on a clay face mask; while it dries, I do a quick 15 min workout on the mat and then wash off the clay mask before doing my skincare. I make sure to drink some more water and take my vitamins, and spend the rest of the evening in bed on my phone and working my way through Me Before You - it’s a slow start, but I’m starting to warm up to the protagonist. 1am: Lights out! Day Three Total: $6 Day Four (Thursday) 8:30am: Forgot to change my weekday alarm back; oh well, I’ll survive. Crawl out of bed, and get ready for the day (you know the drill), and make sure I have plenty of coffee on hand. My period also just started, which is never a good sign. 12pm: The morning has just felt like an onslaught of meetings; followed by some impromptu Zoom calls. I’m starting to feel frazzled as various timelines and deliverables seem to have been shifted up and try to work with one of the other data engineers to specify possible business user requirements. This unintentionally gets shared with one of the project managers who sends an email en masse to the business users asking for sign off on this initial list. I don’t think it’s a big deal, but... 12:30pm: Make the post and stories on the small business account and my own account, finish the remainder of today’s coffee while I go through emails and minor JIRA tasks. I hop onto a share screen with one of my coworkers to transition over a project I’d been working on; I had built out a new dashboard and now that it’s “QA” state has been approved, he will now take over the more formal production process and maintenance. 3:30pm: During our second team stand up, I give my manager project updates and he immediately tells me I shouldn’t have let my list be shared with business users and other involved teams. I don’t fully get why; but after our team call he asks me to hop onto an impromptu Zoom with him where he tries to explain some of the complexities of company and team politics and how I should be very careful to give my stamp of approval, however formal or informal, unless I fully stand behind it. The conversation is a bit long, but I get a better sense of what's going on between teams and managers, and try not to cry as my manager tries to tell me it's not anything I did, but I need to be careful of my actions. 6pm: I manage to collect myself in time to meet a friend for the first time in months at an outdoor dine a few blocks away. He (and his girlfriend) was just recently re-tested as negative, which is always reassuring. While I get my belongings and my mask, my coworker Slacks me asking if I’m okay, apologizing for not messing earlier as she was on an afternoon call. She reassures me the same thing has happened to everyone else on the team, that a lot of these nuances I’m not aware of because I’ve never been in the office, and suggests putting on a one hour venting session with the other engineers in the team next week. I happily do so, and tell her I’ll catch up with her next week as I have off tomorrow. 6:30pm: My friend and I are seated near one of the heat lamps, and it’s so good to catch up with him after so long! He gives me some life updates, including the fact that he and his girlfriend are moving into a house they are waiting to close on, and the fact that he just put down a deposit for an engagement ring!! I’m so excited and barrage him with questions on timing, his plans, etc. and almost forget that we need to order food. 8pm: We have a delicious meal that includes burgers and a lobster roll (all of which I photograph) and he gets a few cocktails (I don’t drink). I leave a $10 tip, and my friend puts down $15 for his share, factoring in the alcohol. We mask up before heading out, and I tell him I want updates on everything for the next month as he goes through all those major life events! $10 8:30pm: After my short trip home, I wash my hands, change, and get started on editing photos from tonight. I definitely feel much better after the work “event” and take a longer shower tonight to decompress. 11pm: Decide to skip the workout tonight because I feel like it, and sit in bed doing some more administrative/scheduling tasks on my iPad in bed. I see a few updates from some of the team in India (yay international time zones - not) and debate if I should handle these tonight. Since I’m out tomorrow, I know it’ll be better if I do, so hop back onto the work laptop to wrap up some last minute code edits and JIRA updates. Once I’m done, I make sure my OOO notice and status in Slack are updated and eat a yogurt cup with some grapes because, yes, I’m hungry-ish again. 1am: Hair is dry, vitamins are taken, and it’s time for bed... or not? I’m already past the halfway point of Me Before You and cannot stop reading - it’s at the point where I’m now seriously invested in the relationship between the female and male protagonist and have to know how it ends (even though I already have my guesses). I speed through the rest of the book and shed a couple tears when I finish, which is past 3am. Thankfully I’m not working the next day! I make sure to set my alarm for later and finally go to bed. Day Four Total: $10 Day Five (Friday) 11am: My alarm goes off and I actually feel semi-decent upon waking up - I don’t think I will ever not be a night owl! I get dressed and get ready to head out to try and get a COVID test; I last took one in June so want to have a more up-to-date status, especially as I’m potentially going home the next week for Thanksgiving. I haven’t seen my parents for over a year at this point and my dad has offered to drive down from Boston to pick me and my sister (in college, who is tested every week) up, but I’m still not feeling great about it given the fact that my parents are in their 60s. At the very least, I want to get a test to have more information before making any final decisions. I drink some water so I’m at least hydrated. 11:30am: I grab my Kindle, mask, and sanitizer and head out to the nearby mobile testing center that was set up. The line is about 15 people long - not terrible, especially as everyone is spacing out 6+ feet between each other - so I head to the end and spend the 2 hours or so in between my phone (making my daily IG post) and my Kindle (next up: Olive, Again) While I wait, I get an email about one of the campaigns I’ve been ironing out, and confirm I’m planning on visiting this weekend to get photos so I can send the content draft over for approval afterwards. 1:30pm: The process is pretty seamless; I fill out my information through my phone, upload a photo of my insurance card, and get my temperature and blood pressure taken before the nasal swab. It’s not that bad, I guess, but having anything put uncomfortably deep into your nasal passages is not fun. The doctor tells me I should get my results by the following Tuesday through the online patient portal; I thank him and head back out with my mask on. 2pm: Home and officially hungry, so after washing my hands and changing, I bowl a pot of water and put in a block of Shin Ramyun. I make it a little less like what I ate back in college by adding in some frozen corn, spinach, and an egg. I also eat an apple and catch up on some emails and go through IG before taking a fat nap. 6pm: I’m woken up by a text from my dad; it’s a picture of his new computer set up at home, and I’m glad to see everything’s working and should hopefully help his eyes. I take a second look at the photo and see that he’s using a tiny USB wire mouse - which he probably got as a work freebie. I sigh and find a wireless mouse on Amazon to have delivered to him the next day; I send him a text to watch out for that delivery as well tomorrow. $10 7pm: Time to head to the grocery store! I have a few options within walking distance of me, but like going to the Asian grocery store just given how unique and sometimes hard-to-find their selection is. I’m doing a virtual dinner swap with a friend tomorrow so I need to get ingredients for that, as well as my weekly grocery shop. I make sure I have my mask and reusable bag, and stock up on tofu, zucchini, mushrooms, bok choy, more apples (Fuji, but Honeycrisp is also a fav, ground pork, and some snacks, noodles, and yogurt. I struggle a bit to carry it home. #smallpeopleproblems $33.31 8pm: Once home, I unpack everything and get started on a (very butchered) version of soondubu with Napa cabbage, zucchini, and mushrooms with a spicy soup base (dwenjaeng paste, gochujang, soy sauce, gochugaru). I cook some rice on the side. While I eat, I load up Netflix and decide to start on The Queen’s Gambit. 11pm: Shower, skincare, and vitamins - and I end the evening with another quick mat workout. After I blow dry by hair, I climb into bed and spend far too much time on the phone as my brain wanders and gets in knots about Thanksgiving next week; my parents and I agreed not to make any decisions until I got my results back, but even if it’s negative, I know there’s still a risk if I were to let my dad pick me up and take me home. I know he and my mom really want to see me though, which makes me feel even more conflicted. I tell myself to stop thinking about it until next week and double check my schedule for tomorrow before opening up my Kindle to read. 2am: Finally decide to sleep after getting distracted by Youtube, again. Oops. Day Five Total: $43.31 Day Six (Saturday) 10:40am: My weekly Saturday alarm goes off; my friends behind the small business and I have our recurring call every Saturday morning and while I would like to sleep in, I force myself to get up, brush my teeth, and do a quick face wash. 11am: I drink some water as we catch up on today’s agendas and tasks; we’re finalizing a seasonal holiday drink to be rolled out after Thanksgiving, so we go over the ingredients and timing, and figure out when I’ll be able to visit them in Brooklyn next month to get the photos for future posts and website updates. They also tell me they’d like to grab some photos of their new house (that they’ll be closing on soon) while I’m there, and I’m happy to do so. My friend tries to tell me that they’ll pay me extra for this, but I laugh and tell her she can just feed me. 12pm: Grab my mask, keys, and camera - Time to head out today! I have two stops near me to get photos for upcoming posts; one is for a bakery chain releasing a seasonal cake flavor and the other is for a newly opened location of a pizza franchise. My pick up order for the bakery was made in advance, so I stop inside, give them my name for the order, and after a little confusion that leads to them calling a manager, I have my cake ready to go. I take it outside to photograph; this campaign is offering a small payment but thankfully doesn’t need to review the content before I post. 12:30pm: I load up the app for the pizza place on my phone and use the pre-loaded credits to place my order in advance so it’ll be ready for pick up once I arrive. It’s a 15 minute walk or so over, but the pies are ready for me when I get there. The staff is nice enough to put them in a bag for me (they’re personal pies, so thankfully small enough) and I walk over to the waterfront to take some photos out there. I add some photos to my stories and walk home with my goodies; I’ll need to write up and submit the content for approval before posting, but this campaign is also offering a small payment. 1:30pm: Finally home! I wash up, transfer my photos to my laptop, and get started editing. In between, I make a post to my food account and the small business account, catch up on comments and friends’ posts, and try not to make a mess while eating some pizza and a slice of cake. 3:00pm: After putting the leftovers in the fridge, I’m ready for a nap. I set an alarm for 5pm just in case I oversleep since I need to make dinner late for my dinner swap! 5:00pm: Alarm goes off, and I struggle to get out of bed. I know I want as much time as possible to cook though, especially as bad things happen when I rush. I prep the food in advance by washing the bok choy, slicing the mushrooms, and mincing garlic and ginger. I do a bok choy and mushroom stir fry, and make mapo tofu and rice. I barely finish in time to package half of the meal into to-go containers for my friend, and text him; he tells me not to rush and that it’s cold enough so that the dessert won’t melt (lol). 6:40pm: I meet my friend outside halfway between our apartments outside of City Hall; of course we’re both masked. We do our meal swap; I give him the savory items I made while he hands over 2 small containers - and we both head to our separate homes. When I get back, I find out one has tiramisu and the other has a matcha oreo ice cream! I log onto Zoom for our virtual dinner hangout. Even though my friend is so close, he sees his parents regularly as well, so has been doing his best to be extra cautious. We’ve come up with this set up where we’ll each swap items for dinner (usually I’ll cook the savory and he’ll order dessert) and exchange them before enjoying dinner over Zoom later. 8:30pm: Call is over, so now it’s time to clean the kitchen - and it’s definitely a mess, especially as I was a bit frazzled. I wash the many utensils and pans I went through and do my best to dry them; washing up is definitely the least fun part of cooking. 11pm: Spend the rest of the night killing time between my phone, Netflix, and emails. I ask one of my friends (whom I saw earlier in the week) about some potential dates and places over the next few weeks, and send over calendar blocks while I wait to get reservations confirmed. 1am: By this point, I’ve showered, taken my vitamins, and am ready for bed. Read a little, watch some more videos, and eventually fall asleep sometime later. Day Six Total: $0 Day Seven (Sunday) 12:30pm: It’s the one day this week that I don’t have an alarm, so I let myself sleep in for as long as I want to - which means that yes, I will sleep through the morning and into the afternoon. I dawdle in bed, posting on my food account and catching up on my feed, and just scrolling through various news articles and reddit threads. 1:30pm: After finally washing up and drinking some coffee, I grab my mask and bag to round out a few more groceries for the week; even though the Asian grocery store is great, they don’t have some staples so I’m heading to one of the more traditional stores near me today. I pick up some pasta, tomato sauce, oatmeal, peanut butter, and some more produce. $16.39 2:30pm: Once I’m back home and put everything away, I make a late lunch of oatmeal and apples with some Annie’s Mac & Cheese. While I eat, I start putting together the post and story captions, tags, and links for the pizza campaign, and submit them to the account managers for approval. 5:00pm: After some more dawdling on my phone and getting through more of The Queen’s Gambit (so good!), I hop onto a weekly Zoom with two of my good friends. We’ve known each other for over 8 years and while I do see one of them semi-regularly, the other has some health complications. We’ve kept this weekly Zoom call since mid-March and it helped me get through the rougher months. 7pm: After the call is over, I check my Amazon cart and take a look at anything that’s accumulated over the prior week. For non-essentials, I’ll add them to my cart and take a few days to think through if it’s something I really want/need and I’m usually able to pare down that list when I get back to it later. I decide to keep a saucepan and bath towels and order them for next week. $72.33 8pm: For dinner, I default to my tomato & egg soup with rice, and add in some zucchini for some more vegetables. I eat an apple and finish off the ice cream from yesterday as well. 11pm: Shower, do my skincare, and plop myself into bed. I continue binge-watching The Queen’s Gambit until the end - such a satisfying ending! 1am: Make sure my alarm is set for work before turning out the light. Day Seven Total: $88.72
Before every Bills’ game I spend some time, probably too much time, digging into how the Bills roster stacks up against their opponent’s. While doing this I specifically look at 5 matchups; Bills’ Pass Offense vs. Opponent’s Pass Defense, Bills’ Rush Offense vs. Opponent’s Rush Defense, Bills’ Pass Defense vs. Opponent’s Pass Offense, Bills’ Rush Defense vs. Opponent’s Rush Offense, Bills’ Special Teams vs. Opponent’s Special Teams. After doing all of this I try to come up with reasons “Why We Will Lose” and “Why We Will Win” ultimately leading to a prediction. Below I present 2020’s 11th iteration of this analysis for the Bills upcoming home game against the Chargers. Included is a scale to rank the advantage in each matchup from 👏👏👏👏👏 (Massive Advantage) to 👏 (Minimal Advantage). Bills’ Passing Offense vs. Chargers’ Passing Defense According to DraftKings Josh Allen is currently +2500 (#5) to win MVP, Stefon Diggs is +450 (#2) & Cole Beasley is +10000 (#19) to lead the league in receiving yards, and the Buffalo Bills are +2200 (#10) to win the Super Bowl. All of this represents a stunning turn of events for a team that has not finished top-10 in Passing Offense since 2002 and just a few years back was dealing with a 17-year playoff drought. With a remaining schedule consisting of teams with a combined record of 31-29 (.517) and an average Pass Defense DVOA of 4.0% (~ #13) it’s looking good for the Bills to win their first division title since 1995 led by one of the best passing attacks in the NFL. This week the Bills will play the Los Angeles Chargers who currently rank 17th (10.1%) in Pass Defense DVOA. Looking at the Chargers depth chart and one could ponder why this team is in the bottom half of the league instead of closer to the top of it. Underperforming. It starts up front with a duo of DEs in Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram who between 2016 and 2019 combined for 72.5 sacks & 5 Pro Bowls. When healthy and in form these two have the ability to completely disrupt opposing passing attacks but thus far in 2020 have combined for just 4.5 sacks. It ends in a secondary with a core group of Michael Davis (CB), Casey Hayward (CB), Rayshawn Jenkins (SS), and Nasir Adderley (FS). Just a few years back Hayward would have headlined this group as a ball hawk, shutdown corner, but at 31 seems to have lost a step in 2020. This means that the focus may be on CB2, Michael Davis, who is quietly supplanting Hayward as the #1 CB. Still, whatever way you slice it this once dangerous secondary no longer is deserving of such a moniker. If this game does turn into a shootout the Bills look to be playing the inferior pass defense. Diggs quickness and speed are something that Hayward should not be able to match. The best WR2 the Chargers have played is Robby Anderson, who still managed 5 catches for 55 yards on 5 targets, which means one of Cole Beasley, John Brown, or Gabe Davis should find success throughout Sunday. Of course, this is all dependent on the Bills pass block protecting the edge and giving Allen time to throw. Doing that will require slowing down a pass rush that is getting to the Quarterback among the best in the league at a 11.1% (#7) Hurry Rate and an 8.5% (#13) but struggling to bring QBs down with just 17 (#24) sacks. EDGE: Bills 👏 👏 👏 👏 Bills’ Rushing Offense vs. Chargers’ Rushing Defense While the Bills have seen a massive increase in Passing Offense, they have also seen a gigantic reduction in ability to run the ball. Ranking 27th in the NFL with just 97.6 rushing Y/G the Bills are averaging nearly 40 less yards on the ground per game this season compared to 2019. HC Sean McDermott is even quoted as saying, about the Bills’ run game, “It’s a legitimate concern. We’ve got to get it figured out”. This has resulted in some odd moves including the possible benching of Mitch Morse who by all measures has been playing at a Pro-Bowl caliber this season. Still, something is not quite right with the rushing attack with the root cause more correlated to the OL than the RBs. We’ve already covered the DEs in the passing section of this post but the rest of the front seven does have some talent sprinkled throughout it. In the middle of the DL the Chargers use a 3-man rotation of 32-year-old Linval Joseph, 3rd year pro Justin Jones, and 2019 1st round pick Jerry Tillery. These 3 behemoths consistently plug the interior of the line for the #15 ranked rush defense that is currently giving up 115.3 yard per game. Rookie Kenneth Murray stars in the middle for the Chargers where in his first season he is on pace for 99 tackles. Next to him is Kyzir White who is currently on COVID IR and questionable for Sunday’s game. Losing Kyzir would be a massive blow for an already thin LB group. McDermott and Daboll insist that they have a good plan moving forward to get the running game back on track. Does this mean more Josh Allen runs? Could this mean more traditional ISO instead of zone reads? Could this mean they are about to flip the OL upside down? Frankly I have no idea what the plan is but if I am going to speculate here is a little “out there” prediction. Josh Allen under center, Reggie Gilliam at FB, and Moss/Singletary at HB. The problem to me seems to be the RBs getting hit in the backfield prior to getting past the LOS. With Gilliam in the backfield, who initially was meant as a FB replacement for Patrick DiMarco, the expectation would be that he takes the initial attacker and give a player like Singletary the extra step needed to move to the next level. Will this happen? Who knows? Regardless it will be interesting to see where the Bills go with the run game on Sunday. EDGE: Chargers 👏 👏 Bills’ Passing Defense vs. Chargers’ Passing Offense Coming off the Bye Week the Sean McDermott led Bills are 3-0 but are giving up 387 yards and 23 points per game to their opposition. The hope coming out of this bye week is that improved health can help the Bills further improve their defense who have played better over recent weeks but are still a shadow of their 2019 selves. The Bills should get back DBs Levi Wallace (CB), Josh Norman (CB), and Dean Marlowe (S) suring up a secondary which has struggled to stay healthy and stop opposing passing attacks all season long. In just 10 games this season the Bills have given up more than 295 passing yards 4 times, compared that to a group that from 2017-2019 only had 5 such games and there isn’t much more that needs to be said about the Bills play against the pass in 2020. And it won’t be easy to correct it this week with a rookie QB named Justin Herbert, who is lighting up the league, coming to Buffalo. In Herbert’s first 9 starts he has just one game throwing for under 260 yards. That one game came against the Miami Dolphins where Herbert threw for just 187 yards and was picked off by Xavien Howard when Herbert tried to fit a pass into double coverage nearly 20 yards down field. Herbert is extremely talented but still makes rookie mistakes, as a rookie, from time to time. He is obviously helped by a talented trio in Mike Williams (WR), Hunter Henry (TE), and Keenan Allen (WR). Mike Williams was the #7 overall pick in 2017, Hunter Henry has been groomed since 2016 as the heir apparent to Antonio Gates, and Keenan Allen may just be the most underrated WR in the NFL. Yes, the most underrated by far, and possibly the most underrated player in the entire NFL. Allen leads the NFL in receptions through 10 games reeling in an incredible 81 passes, on pace for 130 through the end of the season. He is also far, and away Herbert’s go to target as he has targeted Allen an astounding 104 times in 9 games, where no other receiver has been targets more than 60 times. This is the key to the entire matchup, if Buffalo can find a way to shutdown Keenan Allen, whether through consistent double teams, pressure at the line, or even having Tre White follow hum, it should make Herbert uncomfortable enough to a point where the Bills may actually have a chance of winning this matchup. EDGE: Chargers 👏 👏 Bills’ Rushing Defense vs. Chargers’ Rushing Offense While it did take a Hail Mary for the Cardinals to beat the Bills that’s not the main cause of the loss. When as a team you give up 217 rushing yards on just 35 attempts with a long of only 28 yards it means you are getting gashed consistently play after play by all different players. It’s the consistency of running that is the biggest concern as Cardinals RBs rushed for 5+ yards on 15 out of their 24 carries. The Next Gen charts are telling of the issue, both Drake and Edmonds found nearly all of their success when attacking the C gaps. This means one of two things, either the DEs are driving to far up field or the LBs are not breaking down and making plays at the LOS. Or the problem is both. But whatever is going on the Bills need to figure this out sooner than later or any hope of a deep run in the playoffs will be stopped short. Injuries for the Chargers may end up helping the Bills correct their run defense woes. RB1 Austin Ekeler, likely not playing. RB2 Justin Jackson, on injured reserve with a knee injury. RB3 Kalen Ballage, questionable with an ankle injury. All of this could leave the Chargers with just 2020 4th round pick Joshua Kelly and career journeyman Troymaine Pope, who has only 36 career carries, as the lone healthy RBs on the roster. None of these RBs should strike fear into the hearts of the Bills defense but with the likes of Darrell Henderson (LAR), Frank Gore (NYJ), and Damien Harris (NE) all having success against Buffalo who knows what to expect from this group. This means the key to this matchup is not the RBs but the trenches where Bills, whichever rotation they choose to use, will need to compete with a solid OL. 3-year starter Sam Tevi is at LT, injury riddled but highly touted Forrest Lamp is at LG, Guard Dan Feeney fills in for injured Center Mike Pouncey, Ex Bills-South and 5-time Pro Bowler Trai Turner stands in at RG, and longtime GB RT Bryan Bulaga covers the right side. These well known names make for a solid OL, that has been playing well in 2020, meaning that if the Bills are not prepared for a rushing attack on Sunday HC Anthony Lynn may surprisingly choose to use what appears to be his offenses biggest weakness, as a strength. EDGE: Wash Bills’ Special Teams vs. Chargers’ Special Teams Andre Roberts leads Pro Bowl voting for return specialists. Makes sense for a player that is 4th in both kick and punt Y/R and has consistently flipped the field for the Bills in 2020. Corey Bojorquez will continue with punting duties and is having a solid campaign even though he has had a handful of bad punts. Perfect example is the Cardinals game where Bojo had punts of 60, 61, and 53 but also had a 12 yarder which resulted in 3 points for the Cardinals. At kicker Tyler Bass is rounding into form as a professional punter and just drilled 54, 55, and 58-yard field goals against the Cardinals. Even future HOF Justin Tucker would struggle if called upon to do that, dare I say impressive? For the Chargers, two players handle returns. Rookie Joe Reed handles KR where he is averaging 22.1 Y/R this season. Reed has good speed with a 4.47 40 which is even more impressive seeing as though he dials in at 224 lb. For punt returns rookie K.J. Hill is averaging 7.2 Y/R after taking over return roles from Desmond King in early 2020. Ty Long who kicked some and punted some for the Chargers in 2019 handles the punting duties in 2020 where he is having a solid campaign but has been blocked an astounding 3 times. Last is Michael Badgley who kicks for the Chargers where he has missed 5 FGs, 3 in the 40-49-yard range, and 2 XPs. EDGE: Bills 👏 👏 👏 👏 Why We Will Lose The Bills are coming off a bye week which means they should have the advantage over the Chargers going into Sunday. But let’s assume that Bye week is akin to halftime and is it possible that the Bills could come out slow and sluggish like they have done for the most part in the 3rd quarter in 2020? The offense should have a good script for the first couple series but if they are even a tad rusty this underperforming defense does have the tools to force a turnover or two. Broken record I know, but turnovers prove to be the difference time and time again in Bills’ losses. On the other side of the ball the Charger’s QB, Justin Herbert, is improving week by week. More complete as a prospect Herbert is currently playing somewhere between 2019 Josh and 2020 Josh making him one of the more dangerous QBs in the league. He has weapons across the field, but Keenan Allen is the one to watch, as is tradition, as he tends to bully DBs and then make plays on the ball with exceptional hands. The run game may be inconsequential Sunday but if the Chargers find any consistent success on the ground all that will result in is more open lanes for Herbert to shred the Bills’ secondary. Why We Will Win Sean McDermott does not lose coming out of the Bye. I think we all view McDermott as a good balance between the militaristic style coach and the players champion, but when push comes to shove, I expect him to drill into his team. I also think when McDermott has 2 weeks to do just that, he has an innate ability to correct deficiencies that have been plaguing his team all season. What does this mean on the defense? Expect the Bills to look different when it comes to fundamentals on Sunday. Better form tackles, tighter Palms defense, and better containment could all mean that the Bills average 2020 defense rounds into a good one. If that happens, they will be paired with one of the best offenses in the NFL, that has been unable to run the ball. If McDermott and Co can fix the defense it would be a boon for the entire team, if they can fix the run offense the Bills quickly rise up the board of Super Bowl hopefuls. But this week, regardless of what happens to the run, the Bills passing attack should be able to carry the load. Consistent first downs all game should be found by the Bills abusing a weakened secondary with their stable of highly talented pass catchers. The Bills do this, they could run away with this one. Prediction:Bills 28 – Chargers 24 The Chargers record is not demonstrative of their level of play. At 3-7 with losses of 3, 5, 7, 3, 1, 5, and 8 the Chargers have competed in every single game against some of the top teams in the NFL. They can beat the Bills on Sunday. But with 2 weeks to plan and a team that does have more talent, this is a game the Bills should win, and could win by double digits. Sill, I look for a close game here that is ultimately decided by one score meaning Bills Mafia may need to wear their heart monitors to make sure their gravy laden hearts don’t beat out of their chests.
I am 33 years old making a combined income of $147,000 in Fairfax, VA and work as an HR Analyst
My husband, R, and I combined our finances shortly before our daughter, E, was born. We still maintain separate accounts but basically just Venmo money back and forth. Please be gentle with me, this is my first post! (Edited to add: I just realized how obnoxiously long this post is 😬 apologies in advance!) Section One: Assets and Debt RETIREMENT: Me:
IRA - $6,100
401(a) - $39,600 ($36,350 vested)
457 - $10,045
Pension: $12,620
I didn’t start saving for retirement until about 2013 when I was promoted to a full-time position with benefits. I put a small amount every paycheck into a 401k. My employer was putting contributions into a pension plan for me, which I didn’t realize. After I switched jobs, I rolled everything over to my current employer. Since then I’ve been putting 4% into an employer pension (required) and 3% into voluntary pre- and post-tax accounts. At the end of 2019, I opened an IRA and put $6,000 into the account. My plan is to max out the IRA at the end of each year - though with the way 2020 is going, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen this year. R:
401(a) - $1,692.88 (not vested)
457 - $1,044.47
Pension - $1,320
Old retirement account from previous employer to be rolled over - $10,560
My husband saved and cashed out his 401k every time he switched employers, which was dumb. When he landed a public position in 2018, he was required to contribute to a pension plan, which is how he built up his savings. Since then, he’s found a new job and now we work for the same organization. His retirement allocations now match mine. INVESTMENTS:
TD Ameritrade (inherited): $52,000
Schwab (for E): $3,200
Inherited IRA: $90,000
Inherited Annuity: $110,000
EQUITY:
Current home: I inherited this home from my mom with half the loan paid off. Originally the home was a rental property for her. We now use it as our primary residence. The remaining loan balance is about $130,000.
Rental condo: My mom gave me about $89,000 as a down payment for this condo, which I lived in for 5 years. I changed the condo to a rental unit when my daughter, E, was born. The remaining loan balance is $95,000.
Rental townhouse: My sister and I inherited this townhouse, another rental property, when my mom passed so we both co-own it. My mom paid for the house in cash so there’s no mortgage. I lived in this townhouse for two years after my daughter was born and turned it back into a rental property a few months ago.
SAVINGS ACCOUNT BALANCE: $67,800 in a HYSAMost of it is earmarked for upcoming monthly expenses like paying the mortgages and daycare. $65,000 is cash I withdrew from my brokerage account after it was inherited. Since it was from my mom, I try to be very conscientious about how I spend it. My mom was really financially savvy and I hope to follow in those steps. Once my husband and I finish remodeling our current home, we’re hoping to squirrel away enough money for a down payment on another investment property. CHECKING ACCOUNT BALANCE: $2,460 CREDIT CARD DEBT: $402 spread across 5 cards. My husband and I use out credit cards to pay for almost every purchase. We pay our balances in full at the end of every month. STUDENT LOAN DEBT: $0 (majored in Communication)I was very lucky to have my mom support me through college. She paid the majority of my tuition and I took out a $12,000 loan to cover the remainder. I paid the minimum amount due after college for about 6 years. After my mom passed, I used my inheritance to pay the balance off. Section Two: Income INCOME PROGRESSION: I've been working in my field for 8 years. My first real job was right out of college in 2012 (finished school later than normal thanks to a late teenage rebellion). My friend from college hooked me up with the company she was working at and I started as a temporary HR assistant making $17 an hour. Shortly after I started, I learned there would be layoffs. I was scheduled to be laid off but I applied and got a new position in the company’s payroll department making $40,000 a year. About a year later, the systems specialist on my team got a position within another department. I was offered her position, and with that my salary increased to $48,000. Through annual salary increases over the next two years, I was earning about $54,000 with an annual bonus of about $1,000. Tired of the constant mergers and threat of layoffs, I applied to a job as a Benefits Analyst for the public sector on a whim. I landed the job somehow with no experience and started at $60,000 in 2016. I was so surprised that the public sector paid very well. In the private sector, I was used to 2-3% annual increases. I was stunned when my first annual increase at my new job was 4.5%. After a while, the senior analyst on our team was let go. I was encouraged to apply for her position by my manager. I got the promotion and my salary increased to $72,000. After a few on- and off-cycle increases, my salary rose to $86,000. Shortly after I had E in 2018, I expressed a desire to work less hours so I could spend more time with her. I reduced my schedule to 80% (32 hours a week) and I’ve kept it that way ever since. I’ve gotten a few increases since then so my current salary is about $69,000 due to the reduced schedule. I anticipate staying in my current job for at least the next 6 months when I will be fully vested in the pension program. MAIN JOB MONTHLY TAKE HOME: Me: $3,326R: $3,860 We both put 4% into the employer pension (mandatory) and another 3% into other retirement accounts (voluntary). Since R and I have the same employer, we did the math and found it’s cheaper to have us enrolled on separate health insurance plans versus a family plan. R covers himself and my daughter on medical and dental insurance ($272) and I cover myself on my own health insurance ($164) since I want an upgraded dental plan. R and I both contribute $115 into a Healthcare FSA and $192 into a Dependent Care FSA. We split up the Dependent Care FSA to take advantage of an employer reimbursement benefit. Because we both contribute, we each get an extra $38 added to our paychecks each pay period. We also both signed up for our own supplemental life insurance and disability insurance plans, about $30 a month. I cover E on a child life insurance plan for $0.74. OTHER MONTHLY INCOME: R and I receive a monthly reimbursement of $384 from a Dependent Care FSA. From the rentals, I net about $1,380 a month in income. Semi-annually I receive a beneficiary disbursement from my mother’s inherited IRA and annuity. They usually come to about $700-$900 per disbursement. We usually set this aside to help cover property/auto taxes and for Christmas presents. Section Three: Expenses Mortgages (and other fees):
Our home: $2,150 - R and I split this evenly. We budget half the monthly mortgage from each paycheck.
Rental condo: $805
Rental Condo HOA: $305
Rental townhouse: $400 for HOA and country club fees (the club fees are required since the property is within a country club development. The townhouse was fully paid for so no mortgage)
Renters / home insurance: most of the insurances are covered in the mortgage but I pay my sister $240 annually for landlord insurance premiums for the townhouse. Savings:
$1,800 from our paychecks goes into a general savings bucket. We’re currently using this to fix up our new home and hopefully we’ll eventually use this as a down payment for another rental home.
$100 into a savings account for E. We started saving for her right when she was born to anticipate bigger expenses (like a car) for when she’s older. I recently moved $3,100 into an investment account for her. As I build up her savings, I intend to move some into her investment account. I’m just an investing newbie so I’m never quite sure what to do.
$250 into a 529 account for E
Debt payments: as needed for monthly credit card balances Donations: as often as I see a worthwhile donation. Lately I’ve been donating more to election campaigns (register to vote, people!). In the past I’ve primarily donated to Planned Parenthood, BLM organizations, and a local museum, and some Gofundmes. Electric: $150-$200 (it was a hot summer). I budget $150 to go into a savings bucket for this each month so I have enough to cover a few months in the event someone is out of work. I also cover the electric bill for my rental condo. It varies between $15-$30 a month. Gas: $20 Wifi/Cable/Landline: $75 for wifi Cellphone: $125 for two lines Subscriptions:
Peloton: $38
Kid subscriptions: $15
Hulu: $11
Spotify: $12
Our cell phone company pays for our Netflix and the internet company covers Disney+
Pet expenses: $50 for food and treats. $90 for haircuts - the dog is on a better grooming schedule than we are. Annually we spend about $1,200 for checkups and teeth cleaning. Car payment / insurance: $110 auto insurance for two cars. Both cars were paid for in cash. Regular therapy: about $11 every couple months. I started medication after I had E to help with PPD and cope with the grief from losing my mom. I’m happy to say I’m in a great place two years later and we’re working on tapering off my meds. Daycare: $1,814 Diapers/misc E purchases: $50 Christmas: $100 (I got in the habit of budgeting for Christmas when I was in college and had like no money, and I’ve just kept it going. Recently we’ve paused on this because of house/moving expenses) Groceries: $800 (I know, it’s a lot) DIARY: Day 1: Friday 6:45 AM: The alarm goes off and I ask R to walk the dog so I can sneak in a few more minutes of sleep, but of course E has other ideas in mind and accidentally head butts me in the mouth. We all make our way downstairs and R grabs E a freeze-dried yogurt snack and makes me coffee. Afterwards, we chill on the couch and I let E watch a little bit of TV. 8 AM: I set out E’s clothes for daycare and finish my coffee while R gets her ready for school. They leave and I head down to the basement to take a shower. We’re currently renovating our master bathroom so R and I have been using the guest room bathroom in the meantime. I’m about to hop in when a huge centipede crawls towards me. I’m not sure if centipedes can hear screaming but I seem to have startled this one when I screamed. Instead of scurrying out of the bathroom, it just hangs out on the wall staring at me. Bugs are strictly R’s responsibility around here because I can’t deal. I text R and leave the bathroom ASAP. 8:30 AM: After the whole centipede situation, I have about an hour to kill before I need to log on for work. I’ve been teleworking since March and haven’t looked back. The schedule and “commute” (lol) have been amazing. With my free time, I contemplate laying back down in bed but decide to be more productive and opt for a 20-minute spin class on my Peloton. I drank the Peloton kool-aid last November and I am so into it. Having both the bike and a space to do floor exercises has kept me sane during the pandemic. 9 AM: R comes home after drop-off and, of course, the centipede is nowhere to be found. He promises he looked all around the bathroom and it’s clear so I hop in the shower. I make my way into my office and log on for work. I spend all morning reviewing a tool we’re using for an upcoming Open Enrollment season. R makes me another coffee and a scrambled egg sandwich for breakfast. 12 PM: The morning flew by and R tells me that the junk removers we hired are here. Since we’re renovating the bathroom, a lot of trash has built up in our garage. The junk removal company tells us because we’re getting rid of heavier items like floor tile and a bathtub, the total cost is a bit higher than the quote. R puts it on a credit card. It’s expensive but we have our garage back! $425 4:15 PM: I log off and head upstairs to see how R has done on the bathroom today. R started his new job back in March when COVID lockdowns started. He’s technically “teleworking” but without enough work to do, and since his job responsibilities are primarily on-site and we’re all supposed to telework if possible, his work days are spent listening to teleconferences and working on the bathroom. We got lucky that his team is understanding of how he’s filling his free time during the workday. 4:45 PM: The bathroom is looking great and we’re so close to being done. Before R leaves to pick up E from daycare, I pack her a little snack with crackers, cheese, and water. I realize I’m starving and I munch on a few crackers. After R leaves, I order groceries. Sometimes I split up our orders between delivery and pick-up if I’m stocking up (damn 50 item cart limit, Amazon) or if the store itself doesn’t have what I’m looking for. It turns out even online grocery shopping while you’re hungry is a bad idea. I end up with 3 separate orders. Two are scheduled for tomorrow and one order of just ice cream and chocolate is being delivered later. I’m in the midst of PMS and the cravings are real. I also stock up on extra meat and snacks since R’s sister is coming to visit next week. $370 7 PM: Groceries are delivered! R and I make dinner while E hangs out in the living room. R makes pork meatballs and cuts up zucchini and yellow squash to roast in the oven while I boil Cavatappi pasta. When the pasta is done, I mix in mascarpone, parmesan, and the zucchini. R takes one meatball and minces it. E is an unintentional vegetarian so we try to hide some of her proteins so she can at least get a couple bites in. 8 PM: Dinner is done and I promised E we would play hide and seek after. I offer E a strawberry mochi. She loves it but I’m kicking myself for giving to her so close to bedtime. We have E run laps around the kitchen as many times as she can to try to burn off some energy. I check my email and our CPA says that our tax return is finished. We didn’t use to use a CPA but ever since I got these rental properties, it made sense to use one to help out. We’re getting a return of $4,100 and I’m thrilled! 10 PM: E is finally in her room and ready for bed. It’s R’s turn to put her down. I read her 3 books and she’s finally starting to look sleepy. 12 AM: E woke up crying for us and we’re trying our hardest to see if she’ll go back to sleep. We can only stand 5 minutes of crying (it sounds so sad) before R goes in to soothe her and I decide to go to sleep too. (Daily Total: $795) Day 2: Saturday 7 AM: I wake up with a toddler foot in my face. We’re knee-deep into a sleep regression and I’ve been waking up more often than not with E, R, and pup all piled up into the bed. I’m thankful we sprung for a king-size shortly after E was born. I check my phone and I see my sister has sent me a Venmo request for $88. After my mom passed, we took over making payments for my dad’s life insurance policy and the premiums are due. After I send the Venmo, I browse Instagram and I see a post about Lindsey Graham asking for campaign donations. I send $10 to his opponent. $98 R makes me a coffee and I get a banana for E. We make her a “coffee” too (warm milk). Afterwards we veg out on the couch and watch E’s latest favorite, “A Nightmare Before Christmas.” It’s spooky season and we’re going hard - especially since I’m not sure how any of the normal Halloween events are going to work, if at all, during this pandemic. I figure I can at least make it extra fun at home. I realize the second grocery delivery already came and I grab the groceries from the front door. 9:00 AM: R makes E oatmeal for breakfast while I do a 30-minute workout using the Peloton app. I’m a sweaty mess after the workout. I’m dying to take a shower but I remember R needs to go pick up the rest of the groceries by 10:00. R heads to the store and I’m on toddler duty. Once he gets pack, we all put groceries away. 11 AM: I’m starving since I skipped breakfast. I ask R to heat up shrimp scampi leftovers and make me another coffee. While I eat, R and E head down to the basement. We ordered a new bed to refresh our guest room. We moved back in July and there’s still boxes everywhere. R moves the boxes from the guest room to the newly empty garage while I play with E. 12 PM: I bring E upstairs for lunch. I heat up leftover pasta from last night. While she eats, I cut a watermelon for E to eat with lunch while I snack on the cold leftovers. 1:30 PM: R gets E down for a nap and goes to pick up weed. We usually get a large amount every few months from DC. I contemplate getting an ounce or a half ounce. The discount for getting the ounce is good but I don’t feel like shelling out that much so I settle on a half. $195 2:30 PM: Shit. I can hear E crying. I check the camera in her room and she’s standing in her crib, which means nap time is shot. I pick her up and try to soothe her back to sleep but it’s not happening. I bring her downstairs and let her watch Moana until R gets home. Once R gets home I hop in the shower. I throw on some Soolantra (I was recently diagnosed with rosacea, boo) and my Dr. Jart moisturizer making a mental note to grab some more soon. I slap on eyeliner, mascara, and Glossier cloud paint. The nice thing about having to wear a mask when I go out is I don’t feel a need to wear foundation anymore. 4 PM: Somehow we all manage to get dressed and leave the house in 20 minutes. I swear you have to add 20 minutes to anything you do with a toddler. We head to an outdoor shopping center to find more masks for E. It’s been a struggle finding a mask E will wear for an extended period. Our state only requires masks for children 10 and up, but I figure if I can get E to get used to them now, it’ll be that much easier if she’s in a place where she has to wear one. Luckily we found a place with a mask she enjoys wearing. I buy two. $30 I didn’t bring E a snack since she hasn’t been interested lately. Of course today she wants one. We’ve been offering her a special treat if she does a good job keeping her mask on so I stop by a coffee stop and pick up two cookies for us to eat outside. $6 I’m trying to plan out a gallery wall for our new house so I’m always on the hunt for frames. I find a clearance frame for $14 at West Elm and also grab a spoon rest to keep by our coffee maker since R won’t stop setting used coffee spoons on the counter. $20 5:25 PM: Eek! I’m late for a threading appointment. I meet with my favorite threader. She’s the best and it feels like we’re old friends. I’ve been seeing her for years. The threading costs $10. I tip the same amount since I know they had to shut down for a couple months earlier. $20 7 PM: E helps me make dinner. Tonight we’re having breakfast for dinner since E loves pancakes. We make a spinach pancake blender batter (yay for sneaky veggies!). R takes over and makes the pancakes, eggs, and bacon while E and I veg out on the couch. After dinner I play with E in the basement while R gets the new guest bed set up. 10:15: R offers to put E to bed tonight and I’m not going to argue. I hang out in the bedroom browsing Pinterest. We still need a coffee table for the house, but I end up browsing night stands instead. (Daily Total: $369) Day 3: Sunday 12:30 AM: E woke up crying for us again. I go in and cuddle her until she falls back asleep. I’m feeling pretty accomplished because R is usually the one to soothe her at night. E views me as the fun one so I have a tendency to rile her up. 7:30 AM: I force us all out of bed. At some point E woke up again and R brought her into our bed. R makes me a coffee and I cut up a mango for E, which she wanted at first and then didn’t but ends up eating it. We spend the morning picking up the house and doing laundry. 12 PM: R feeds E leftover spinach pancakes for lunch while I hop in the shower. After lunch, R takes E to her room for nap time. I cuddle with the pup in our bedroom. I’m still searching for the perfect (and perfectly priced) nightstands to go in our guest room. I think about packing a bowl because, fuck if, it’s the weekend. I ask R if he’s interested. When he doesn’t reply, I check E’s camera and I see he’s fallen asleep with her - typical. I decide to wait until the evening. 2 PM: I realize I missed breakfast and I’m starving! I heat up leftover noodles from Friday and eat while browsing my phone. 4 PM: I’m supposed to go to my dad’s so R can help install a new faucet. On the way there we stop by a home decor store. I get E a little toy. We also pick up a couple Halloween decorations. $30 7:30 PM: My dad made us dinner to take home in exchange for installing the faucets. It’s a nice gesture and one he definitely doesn’t have to do, but I think he enjoys it. We eat the food my dad made and it’s a hit even with E. I grew up eating my dad’s cooking so it’s always a comfort food for me. 9 PM: I get E in the bath. It’s my turn to put her to sleep. R reads to her after her bath and I take over when he’s done. It’s hard for E to settle but I manage to seal the deal! R and I celebrate with ice cream. (Daily total: $30) Day 4: Monday 4 AM: E wakes up and R brings her into bed with us. She cuddles with me for the next few hours. 7:30 AM: I’m finally done snoozing my alarms. I wake up and find myself sleeping on the edge of the bed. E is next to me totally horizontal. R makes coffee for me and a snack for E. We hang out until it’s time to get ready for daycare. 8:30 AM: R leaves to drop E off and I have an hour before work. He stops to get gas on the way home. I had thought about working out but fuck it. I lay in bed and browse my phone. When R comes back he offers to make me breakfast, but I grab a banana and string cheese instead. $33 10:30 AM: I should’ve opted for breakfast because I’m still hungry. I grab some crackers to munch on. I get a message from a coworker following up on whether I can do a presentation at the end of October. I have a habit of stretching myself thin because I can’t say no - it’s something I’m trying to work on. But I have a lot coming up and I know I’ll be swamped during that time. I’m nervous about it but I say I can’t do it. Thankfully my coworker is very understanding and I’m happy I was actually able to say no to someone. 1:00 PM: I take a break from work to munch on some chips my dad gave me from yesterday. R runs out to grab vape juice from a nearby shop. $88 2:30 PM: I get a notice my checking account is overdrawn because I made a bunch of credit card payments last week. This happens pretty regularly since I move everything into savings after each pay day. My bank doesn’t charge any fees for this. I move over some money from my savings account. Since it’s a HYSA with limited transfers, I lump together the overdraft amount from my checking account along with other upcoming payments I have scheduled in the next few days ($2,500). 3:00 PM: I find two nightstands for the guest room that can be delivered before the end of the week. The day is almost over for me and I’m totally checked out - one of the downsides of teleworking is how much easier it is to just space out without anyone watching or caring. I spend the rest of the workday browsing coffee tables. $200 4:30 PM: Work is done! I log off and switch into gym clothes. I hop on the Peloton for a 30 minute class. R heads out to pick E up from daycare. When the class is over, I grab a shower before E comes home. 6:00 PM: R gets home with E. We wash her hands, change her diaper, and play in her room for a bit. We recently started packing an after school snack for E but of course I forgot today. I feed E a couple crackers while she sits on the kitchen counter. R takes E and the pup for a walk while I water my plants. My New Year’s resolution was to keep a plant alive this year and I’ve done it! I got a solidly brownish-green thumb now. 7:00 PM: R makes dinner, shrimp scampi, while E and I cuddle on the couch to watch a movie. I browse coffee tables. After dinner, we FaceTime with my MIL so she can get her E fix. 10:00 PM: it’s R’s turn to put E to put down for bed. While R walks the pup, I read to E. Once he gets back, we switch. I chat with a friend who’s also a newish mom before bed. She recently got an au pair and I’m so curious. While I’d love E to stay at home to keep her safe, she loves being able to play with other kids and she got a little stir-crazy during our state’s lockdown. Since being back at daycare, she’s learning so much and having a great time. I find out you have to provide room and board to the au pair, too, which I’m iffy about just because I really enjoy my privacy and walking around without pants on. (Daily total: $321) Day 5: Tuesday 7:15 AM: E’s still asleep in her room - it’s a miracle! I go to her room to grab her and we all head downstairs. E gets cereal and a banana and R makes me an iced coffee. Once E’s done, we watch an animated book (I know that sounds weird. It’s basically this app that reads books and they’re animated) while R walks the pup. I check my email and see my autopay for the internet bill has processed. I also see an email from E’s daycare. The state I’m in has lifted restrictions for daycares and now it’s suggested that children over 2 wear a mask all day. The daycare isn’t requiring masks but they are suggesting them for E’s class. I’m not thrilled about it, but I get it. I pack a mask for E in her backpack. $75 9:30 AM: I grab some string cheese, hard boiled eggs, a banana, and a couple crackers to munch on while I get logged into work. R grabs the mail and I see there’s an escrow statement for my house. The escrow account is short. I opt to take the shortage in my monthly mortgage payments since it only increases the amount by $30 a month. I use a spreadsheet to track my budget and make sure to update the amount there and in my bank’s online bill pay. 12:30 PM: I have a telehealth appointment with my therapist. We talk about current stressors I have going on and my medication. I’ve been working on tapering down my medication but I know I have a lot of projects coming up. We discuss revisiting stopping the medication once things have calmed down. After, I check my personal email and realize my checking again is overdrawn again and I didn’t transfer the right amount. I log into my banking app and transfer the overdrawn amount. I check all my accounts against my budget and I start to feel a little panicky with all the spending that’s been going on lately since it’s been a lot towards house items and we recently replaced all the big appliances too. 3:00 PM: I’m hungry but it’s too late in the day for a full lunch. I heat up leftover scampi and mostly eat the shrimp out of it. While I’m eating, I remember the tax refund we have coming and I feel so much better about my recent spending. We usually do pretty well on our budget but the recent move and reno ended up costing way more than anticipated. 4:30 PM: I finally log off from work about 30 minutes after my usual time. My boss is on vacation so I’m covering for her this week, and there’s a lot going on. I check out the progress R has made in the bathroom today. The flooring is almost finished! When he leaves to pick up E, I also ask him to grab the prescription my therapist sent to the pharmacy. I hop on the Peloton for a 15-minute HIIT ride to warm up and finish off with a 30-minute upper body strength class. I’m trying to up my weights but it’s brutal. $10 5:30 PM: I’m about to take a shower when I notice the pup looking pretty guilty. I peek around and see that he’s thrown up in my office. I clean it up and spray the area with bleach. Luckily we have wood floors, which makes cleaning it up a lot easier. 7:30 PM: Dinner time and I’m starving! R makes us turkey cauliflower tacos. He started adding cauliflower so we had more leftovers awhile back when we were both going into the office and eating lunch. We’ve kept it up because you don’t even notice the cauliflower and we’re getting more veggies in - win win! E gets a quesadilla with tomatoes and avocado since she’s still an unintentional vegetarian. 9:00 PM: E and I FaceTime my SIL while R walks the pup. R offers to put E to bed tonight, which is awesome. I try watching some of the debate but it’s just unwatchable. R comes back from putting E down and we snack on some ice cream before getting ready for bed. (Daily total: $85) Day 6: Wednesday 12 AM: I think I had coffee too late in the day because I’m still wide awake. I make a list of the remaining furniture and decor we need for the new house so I can keep our spending in check and see where we can make concessions. I also make a list of bigger home improvements and estimate the cost. When my mom passed, I kept making mortgage payments on this property instead of fully taking over the loan. It was a chaotic time and my daughter was born just a few months later, so I felt completely overwhelmed. We’re finally in a good place to begin changing the mortgage to my name. Because of the low interest rates currently, we’re also refinancing and taking cash out. The house is about 20 years old and all the windows need to be replaced so we’re anticipating pulling enough cash out to cover that. I figure we might as well tack on the other home improvement projects we’re anticipating. 4:45 AM: I wake up with E kicking me. What is it with toddlers where they can’t stop moving their legs even when they're asleep? I guess she woke up crying and R brought her into bed with us. I try to roll her over to R but she rolls back over onto me - oh well. 6:45 AM: We’re up early because R has a few on-site meetings today. He gets up to walk the pup while E and I get a few more snuggles in. We head to the kitchen. E gets cereal and a banana. R eats with her while I drink coffee. I check my email and realize I donated to the Biden campaign last night after the debate, whoops. I didn’t mean to - I must’ve just clicked something in the email - but I don’t really mind. $30 7:30 AM: I get E ready for school while R gets dressed. It’s really starting to feel like fall so I put her in a tiny turtleneck. She requests her space buns for her hair today. The whole look is so cute, I can’t stand it. She’s looking like such a little girl now instead of a baby and it’s so bittersweet. R and E rush out and I have a whole 90 minutes to veg out. 9:30 AM: I make myself another cup of coffee before I log onto work. Since I’m home alone today, R’s not around to make me breakfast (cue the tiniest violin ever) so I grab a banana and some string cheese to hold me over. 12:30 PM: It’s been a busy morning and I’m feeling peckish again and just totally spaced out. R’s back from his meetings. He heats up leftover tacos from yesterday. I eat mine taco salad style without the tortilla. 4:00 PM: Quitting time! After I log off, R shows me the light fixtures he put in the guest room today. The lights look awesome. He installed a swing arm sconces by each side of the bed. I remember that I need to grab some Edison bulbs so whoever is here isn’t blinded when they’re laying in bed. R leaves to pick up E and I hop on the Peloton for a 5-minute warm-up before I do a 20-minute lower body class. 5:00 PM: Okay, whoever thought programming lunge jumps followed by squat jumps is just sadistic. That was rough. I take a shower and say hi to E when she gets home. R takes her and pup to the playground. I check my email and see the electric bill for the rental condo came in, which I pay. $17 6:30 PM: We play with E in her room for a bit. I see the new Google Chromecast is available to order. I’ve been waiting to get one from Best Buy because I have a $45 reward credit from when I purchased appliances a month ago. I use my credit to buy the Chromecast and the total comes to $5. After I order the Chromecast, we make dinner. We’re having pizza tonight. R rolls out the dough. E and I help spread the sauce sauce and sprinkle on cheese, pepperoni, mushrooms, and green peppers (on my half only because R hates like all vegetables). $5 8:00 PM: Once E finishes dinner, I give her a bath. R gets her ready for bed and reads to her while I sneak into the Halloween candy. I told R (and myself) I was totally getting candy just in case Halloween was still happening but we both knew that was a lie. I’m honestly surprised it’s taken this long for me to open it. After bath time, I try to get E settled for bed. She’s super rowdy and I tap out. R switches with me and gets her put down. (Daily total: $52) Day 7: Thursday 6:30 AM: Up early again. R has an early on-site meeting today. He gets up to walk the pup and he feeds E some yogurt. After R leaves, E and I hang out on the couch for a bit before I get her ready for daycare. I check my email and see that R used the toll road yesterday and triggered a $35 reload on my EZ-Pass. I also check and confirm the HOA payment for my rental condo went through. $340 I browse Instagram and see news that just puts me in a funk for the rest of the day. The dreary weather doesn’t help either. 9:30 AM: When I dropped E off, I got to meet her new teacher, who I haven’t met before. With COVID rules, we aren’t allowed inside the daycare facility so I’ve felt disconnected from what E’s doing and what her class is like. E’s teacher tells me she’s doing wonderfully in her class and it’s a nice reassurance. I get back in time to make a coffee and let the pup out in the backward for a potty break before logging into work. 11:00 AM: R gets home from his meetings and tells me the nightstands I ordered came. They’re smaller than expected but fit really well. I’m a glutton for punishment and I do some cost comparison once I see the brand name on the box and I think I overpaid. Oh well. R asks if I want him to make me any food but I grab some string cheese and a banana instead. 3:00 PM: I finish a meeting with someone that was really needy and had a lot of questions. I’m exhausted. I grab some chips and chocolate to eat. I peek in on the bathroom progress, but not much has changed. I get through the last hour at work. Once I log off, R and I put our Halloween decorations outside. I got them a few weeks ago, but R said I had to wait until at least October 1 to put them out. I can’t help it, I love Halloween! 4:30 PM: R leaves to pick up E. I decide to take a day off from working out since I’m pretty sore and lounge around on my phone instead. The CPA emailed and our returns are ready! I pay my invoice, which comes to $900 (total of $1,100 minus a $200 retainer I paid earlier in the year). Ouch! I wonder if this is just a lot to be paying? This is the first time CPA I’ve ever used and it just seems pretty expensive. I double-check my accounts to make sure I have enough of a balance in my checking account. I notice my other first of the month payments has hit - $1,814 for October’s daycare tuition and $250 into E’s 529. $2,964 6:00 PM: R gets home with E and tells me that she’s been telling everyone she’s having ghost pancakes because it’s almost Halloween. Apparently all the other kids wouldn’t stop talking about ghost pancakes all day. Oops! We hang out with E for a while. Her newest thing is pretending she’s sleeping in her bed, which I am totally down with. R walks the pup and once he gets back, he makes chicken sandwiches for dinner. While he cooks, I hang out with E and add things to my Amazon cart. I’m planning on making Halloween cupcakes with E but there’s a few baking supplies I need. I throw in some Halloween books and a toy for E along with a tracing activity book. I also add in some drawer dividers since I still haven’t unpacked all my clothes after we moved. Our old place had Elfa closets to store all my things so I never used our dresser. But now it’s a mess and I want to be able to better sort my underwear drawer rather than just throwing everything in. What is it with Amazon carts? Mine just get bigger and bigger until I realize maybe I don’t need three different sizes of edible eyes or tea light candles shaped like cactuses and I finally pare down. I can’t bear to hit purchase just yet so I leave the cart. 10:00 PM: R puts E to bed tonight. After I say good night to her, I browse nosleep. Not sure why but reading the stories on there always ends up putting me to sleep. I get sidetracked looking at recipes on Pinterest. Since we’re more than likely foregoing any trick or treating this year, I want to make sure E still has a fun Halloween. I try to distract myself as much as possible on Halloween because that’s the day my mom passed away. Having E around and really getting into the holiday helps. After awhile, I turn everything off so I can get some sleep. (Daily total: $3,304) WEEKLY TOTAL:
Food + Drink: $376
Fun / Entertainment: $195
Home + Health: $265
Clothes + Beauty: $50
Transport: $68
Other: $3,577
REFLECTION: Lately, with the move and all the house reno work on top of our regular financial obligations, I’ve been feeling like I’m hemorrhaging money. Looking back on my spending for the week confirms it. I know it’s temporary and we’ll be back to a more regular budget once we’re done with all the house stuff, but it still feels stressful in the meantime. I think this week has been eye-opening in that I need to budget out future home expenses in more detail than I’ve been doing since there’s a comfort in knowing what kinds of costs to expect. I’m also realizing that when we finally refinance the mortgage here, I’m going to pull additional cash out to finance our other improvement costs.
Official Super Bowl 54 Game Program - H.O. Zimman, Inc. Before Super Bowl 54 arrives in the Magic City, there are plenty of parties, events, and concerts happening in Miami before the Big Game. Here's a list to help you navigate the Super Bowl party scene. Super Bowl LIV Master Event Schedule *Note: All events, times and date are tentative and subject to change* Saturday, January 25 10:00AM – 10:00PM Super Bowl Experience presented by Lowe’s Location: Miami Beach Convention Center 10:00AM-10:00PM NFL Shop at Super Bowl presented by VISA Location: Miami Beach Convention Center The home of NFL Super Bowl 2021 news, ticket, apparel & event info. Get Super Bowl Sunday info about the National Football League's championship game. The home of the NFL Super Bowl Experience -news, ticket, apparel & event info. Get Super Bowl Sunday info about the National Football League's annual championship game. Super Bowl 2020 is set as the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs will meet at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, FL to decide who is the new king of the NFL. Super Bowl 54 Schedule: Media Day ... The Super Bowl comes to Miami in 2020 and beyond the big game, there is an entire week of events planned for the occasion, a fan village, concerts, tailgating, family activities, music festivals, and of course mega parties. Here's what's happening and when. SUPER BOWL GAMEDAY SCHEDULE ALL TIMES ARE APPROXIMATE AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE BY THE NFL IN ITS SOLE DISCRETION. ... Guests inquiring about lost items at previous events should call the Reception Desk at 305-943-8000 for information or notify us via email at . Here’s the full schedule (all times Eastern): 11:30 a.m. “That Other Pregame Show,” a preview of the teams, players, and storylines surrounding the game. Noon “Road to the Super Bowl,” a ...
Super Bowl 54 Highlights Kansas City Chiefs vs San ...
#SuperBowl54 #NFLPlayoffs #PatrickMahomesIf you're new, Subscribe! → http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-TPSAnother regular season is in the books, and it’s time for ... super bowl 54 fan viewsuper bowl 54 halftime show footagesuper bowl 54 halftime show inside viewsuper bowl 54 halftime show#Jlo #shakira #superbowl54Credit :... Karli Barnett reports planning is already underway for Miami to host the Super Bowl next year. The NFL's agenda was clear from the beginning of the 2019 Season. Make the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Bowl LIV Champions, and make Patrick Mahomes Super B... Super Bowl 54 HighlightsKansas City Chiefs vs San Francisco 49ersSuper Bowl LIV, the 54th Super Bowl and the 50th modern-era National Football League champio... Hard Rock StadiumMiami Gardens, FL The Super Bowl Halftime show featuring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez!All credit for footage goes to the NFL. CBS4's Joan Murray reports on the upgrades the stadium is getting ahead of the Big Game.
