Mental Accounting and HSAs

It's open enrollment time for Mrs. Done by Forty and me, a strangely exciting time for a board game geek like me, since open enrollment decisions are like a very nerdy puzzle. One to be noodled over, guessing at how likely certain outcomes will be, weighing costs and tax benefits, and picking the right combination of options between our choices for optimal benefit outcomes.

I think I need to find a new boardgame.

In the meantime, we get to stare at the beautiful puzzle of our combined benefits.

Way Too Transparent: All the Money We Made

Whenever someone asks me how we're able to even consider hitting financial independence or an early retirement by the time I'm forty, I try to be honest. I try to avoid the temptation to tell them it's because we drive a paid off car, that we use our bikes or scooters when we can, or that we budget and watch what we spend on food.

I try not to tell them it's because we travel hack to get cheap travel, or that the things we like to do, like board game nights with some friends and a twelve pack, end up being cheaper than hopping from bar to bar.

Not that those things aren't true. They are, and to some small degree they do save us money. I just think leading with those details of frugality is, well, kind of misleading.

Baby AF in Daycare

Today is the first day of Mrs. Done by Forty's new job, a cool post-doc position that will let her work in her field for a couple of years and let us stay local, all complete with a hardly-believable set of benefits. We're both excited for this opportunity for her to use her PhD in a project that just sounds so cool to me.

I'd tell you about it, but we're weird about keeping our anonymity. Just know that her job is way neater than mine.

It is a little bittersweet though, as that also means Baby AF will be going to daycare for the first time. He's sixteen months old now, and has never spent a day away from Mrs. Done by Forty and me. 

In fact, Baby AF has only been truly babysat by someone...one time. So this might be an adjustment for all of us.

To Jax

It was two days before we flew back from Germany that we got the email.

"Please call when you can, son. It's about Jax."

Due to the time difference there was no answer when we called. We spent the day thinking the worst, but felt relieved when we finally were able to get in touch later that evening. Jax was having trouble walking, but, honestly that is something we've seen before and it's usually just that he sleeps directly on the tile rather than on his bed. He has arthritis in one of his hips but, even still, when it's too hot he prefers the cool tile to a soft bed. 

I told my mom to convince him to sleep on the bed and to turn down the AC a bit, and I bet he'd be walking fine in a day or two.

But then we got another email the day before we were getting on a plane. Jax wasn't eating now.