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[This is a long one, there is a TLDR at the bottom]
(This isn't just a story of revenge. This is a story of how revenge hurts both parties)
To this day, a good revenge story gives me a warm bubbly feeling inside. I believe it comes from this college experience years ago when I got revenge on my cheating girlfriend and it felt GOOD. I know I'm not suppose to enjoy it but I can't deny how satisfying it feels. Its probably one of my favorite feelings in the world even though I'm ashamed to admit it. So I decided to write my first post about this because I don't tell the story often. It is so extensive and honestly just makes me look bad.
I'm going to try my best to not paint a picture where my X looks as bad as possible and me as innocent as possible. I want to write this accurately as I can, even if it makes me look bad.
[Bit of context and back story]
At the time of this story, I played division 1 NCAA basketball at a school so I traveled a lot (weekly in different cities and states) and my entire life revolved around this.
During the events of this story I was in the early stages of a horrible drug and alcohol habit. Years after this story I ended up getting sober and joined a program whos name you can find at the front of almost any phonebook. I am sure many people reading this are also sober and will understand how we addicts/alcoholics can be. This story is an effort to explain a character defect that manifested from the events in this story that lead me down a very dark path, however, I don't mean this story to come off in a "self pity" kind of way.
Lastly, I was always a good kid, I was never "troubled". My upbringing was very difficult but I was able to keep an overall kindness in my spirit to other people and almost always "did the right thing" or "took the high road". When it came to dating, I knew people cheated in relationships but at the time of this story I always chalked it up to other people "not doing things the way I did". I never really thought it would happen to me.. I always thought that because I was a "5 star boyfriend" and my "amazing choice" in women, infidelity would never be a part of my dating journey. I was a naïve. I really thought highly of myself and also had a real arrogance like any guy in his early 20s I guess.
[The Build Up]
I was in my Jr year in University I had been single for about a year after me and my high school gf finally broke up after 3 years. I checked that relationship off as my "learning experience" and I now knew what to look for in my next girlfriend. The next woman I chose to have a relationship with I would most likely marry and start my future with. (I know I was young and dumb and thought I knew everything LOL)
I had my eye on this girl at my school [we will call her Lisa]. I saw Lisa around the collegiate athletic facility (the university teams training grounds, and locker rooms). Lisa ran for the track team and was damn good. The various athletic teams often had parties and I knew that the first one I saw her at I would introduce myself and try to chat her up a bit and see where it led.
Soon enough I see Lisa at one of these parties and we pass each other on the stairs. We make eye contact and she smiled at me. I sparked a conversation with her and after going back and forth a bit we exchange numbers. We begin the classic American style of flirting where we constantly just hint things back and forth indirectly. We slowly progressed the relationship in this manner for weeks. Sending texts back and forth hinting that we were interested in each other but also playing it cool to not let the other person know we had a crush on them.
At the time, she was on a break with her current boyfriend who was a popular player on the football team. She ended up leaving him completely to date me. This shoulda been a red flag obviously but remember, I had severe hubris. At the time her leaving him to date me just gave me a superiority complex. I was playing good in sport and if she was willing to leave this guy for me then she will never leave me for another guy.
Lmao I was a fucking idiot.
I cant express how much I was into Lisa. I was addictively attracted to her and had that weird feeling of "I cant believe my crush is actually into me to". I really was so drowned and blinded by my crush on her I missed so many red flags but our relationship began progressing really fast. Because of this I didn't really do a proper inventory on why I liked her so much.
[Fast forward like 8 months later.]
We are together officially. Lisa has her own athlete's dorm room but I was a couple years older than her and was working during the summers full time and part time during school / season and had my own apartment near campus and Lisa was basically living with me. She even would stay there when I was out of town which was like 3 or 4 days of every week because we were in season and the team was flying all over the country. Me and Lisa were deeply in love regardless.
At the end of the season I had planned two massive back to back parties. One was for my teammate's birthday (Friday night) and then my birthday (Saturday night). They just happened to be one day after the other and luckily landed on a Friday and Saturday night. Me and Lisa got drunk Friday night and had some unprotected sex.
Lisa kept a period-tracking calendar app on her phone. She was asleep and I drunkenly remembered she always marked down in her calendar when we had unprotected sex so she knew if she should be worried if she missed her period. She missed her period often because she was an athlete. My inebriated brain thought she should put it in her calendar now because we would forget the next day since we were so fucked up. So I woke her up and said "can you put in that calendar that we had unprotected sex". At this point it was like 5am and we were that 5am kinda drunk where you're mostly just tired. She unlocked her phone and opened the app and before she could even do it she fell back asleep. So I took the phone while it was still unlocked and proceeded to try and figure out how to put it in her calendar myself.
[side note] Through our entire relationship, Lisa went through my computer and phone constantly. She was very insecure and always had her suspicions. I didn't care that she was doing this all the time. She never found anything because I never did shady shit, ever.
Again, looking back at this its an obvious red flag I missed. Remember I thought this girl would never cheat on me.
So this wasn't one of those stories where I went through her phone looking for something and subsequently finding it. In this case I was innocently trying to navigate this damn period calendar while I was drunk and I was not suspicious at all.
When I looked at the period-calendar app on Lisa's phone, I saw all kinds of little markers on different days of each month. Each marker was a different color so I opened one to see what the color coding meant. I saw that red was obviously symbolling her period and then there was also black markers that showed when she had unprotected sex.
........This is when my heart sank into my stomach......
This fucking calendar was PEPPERED with black markers. It looked like a checker board with only a hand full of red pieces left and ALL the fucking black ones..... There was black markers on dates that I was in a different city playing basketball.... I proceeded to open all of black markers going back for our entire relationship. We did not have unprotected sex very often. MAYBE once or twice a month. She had written the names of the guys she had unprotected sex with in the notes section of the black markers. There was a total of 4 guys through out the entirety of our relationship that she allowed to penetrate her raw. Some months there was almost a dozens of those fucking black markers. Sometimes there was TWO in one day! Looking back on this I wonder if there were more unlisted men that I didn't see because she clearly only kept track of the guys and times she had UNPROTECTED sex.
In almost every story I hear of infidelity, it involves the discovery of text messages, being informed by a friend, or the classic coming home early and catching your partner red handed.
I, on the other hand, discovered a fucking well documented LEDGER of almost every time she cheated and had unprotected sex.
Amongst the 4 guys I discovered, one of them was her X that she originally left to date me. Cheating on me with him was a common occurrence. There was some other unkown guy she was also clearly sleeping with him regularly. The last 2 fellas looked to be just a one time thing but again like I said these markers were just the times she had sex without a condom. So who knows what the true story was there.
I sobered up real quick. I proceeded to look through Lisa's texts and calls and found nothing. However, at the time Android phones had a folder where you can see deleted texts but not the contents of the messages. She had THOUSANDS of deleted texts and calls but I couldn't see what they said but I saw the numbers and did a quick Facebook search and matched one with her X in addition to something like half a dozen other random dudes. The worst part was I found TWO of my teammates... one guy I was actually pretty close with.
I just put the phone down after a few minutes. The evidence was overwhelming. The more it seemed to look at the phone the more my insides began to hurt.
I felt so defeated. I cant fully describe the feeling but I'm sure anyone reading this that caught a significant other cheating knows what I'm talking about. I felt so stupid for trusting her and having no suspicions of her.
I couldn't stop thinking about how I regretted all the times that I had an "opportunity" to cheat and remained faithful to Lisa. I felt like and idiot for not cheating her when I could have. My loyalty felt like a waste. I know it sounds ridiculous and irrelevant to the fact that she was unfaithful. I think I obsessed over that because if I had cheated as well I wouldn't have hurt so much in that moment. All I could think about was about how much I was hurt. I would do anything to not feel the pain and embarrassment anymore.
[Question] Am I the only one who thought this way after catching their partner cheating? I'm curious about this.
I proceeded to leave my apartment and go for a long walk. I had never felt the emotions that were coming up and didn't know how to process them. My ego felt like it was literally dismantled in front of me. I wasn't sure what to do and I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. My sadness quickly turned to anger. I knew I was gunna get my revenge I just didn't know how yet.
I was SEETHING with rage and wanted make sure she never recovered from this.
My roommate/teammate and best friend at the who was sleeping on the couch in my living room [we will call him Bono] (an eastern European kid who stood 7 foot tall and was as Russian in demeanor as it you can imagine. He also had an equally ridiculous RL name hence: Bono) well, Bono called me shortly after I started my walk. I answered and he asked where I was. I asked him to keep this between us, and told him what happened. He stays on the phone and goes into my room and I hear him in his Russian accent yell at her "yo bitch, you cheated on OP?" Then I faintly hear her inaudibly say something in the background and him yelling at her to get out of the apartment. After hearing some scuffling Bono gets back on the line and says "yo! she gone, come back and lets talk"
I head back home and me and Bono go over what had happened. Things don't get sappy because we are both complete alpha males who both come from cultures where "men don't cry" and neither of us really knew what to say or do in this situation. He makes his best attempt to comfort me and says: "tonight is your birthday, we gunna get fucked up and find you some sluts. Fuck her! I never liked her anyway"
.... oh ya, this day was my birthday... forgot about that part ...
Me and Bono go out for breakfast. I am still a little drunk. My phone is blowing up with calls and texts from Lisa. I tell her I saw everything on her phone and I cant stand to speak with her or look at her. She keeps trying to convince me to let her come to my birthday party and I make it clear I don't want her there. She clearly was concerned about exactly what Bono suggested to me earlier when me and him chatted.
Lisa's entire reputation and popularity revolved around the fact that she was dating me. I think most people didn't like her in the first place but put up with her because we were together. She knew that if I acted single at my birthday party and she didn't show up everyone would know something was askew. I think Lisa was more worried about being embarrassed than our relationship.
I don't remember much of what happened that night. But one of my friends sent me a little package for my birthday from California filled with some really good weed, hash, moonrocks, some pills and "the devil's dandruff" and I proceeded to do a glorious swan dive into an intoxicated oblivion.
All I remember is sitting on my chair at the pregame for my party. There was two girls sitting on the arms of the chair and I still have a photo of that moment and I remember it vividly. We were preparing to head out. I had a few tables downtown at a popular nightclub. The booze and drugs were the only thing that made me feel normal. I had my sun glasses on and clearly had that happy loaded grin on my face. The longer you look at the photo of me on that chair, you can tell I'm hiding a huge amount of hurt.
Sitting on that chair, the cocktail of drugs start to take effect. This was the first time I ever used substances not to "party" but to feel better. To make me feel normal.
I remember thinking: "I want to feel this way for the rest of my life. I am never going to hurt like that ever again. With drugs, I have control and no one can hurt me again." Oh how ironic that turns out to be years down the line.
I told my teammates and friends that me and Lisa were done when they asked why she wasn't at the party. I didn't tell them why though. I also didn't show them that I was affected by it in anyway and just played it cool. I tried to focus everyone on the party ahead of us.
[The Revenge]
So this is one of those revenge stories where it was only half planned. I knew I wanted to get revenge on Lisa for hurting me so much. But I kind of just improvised as opportunities came up.
My original kind spirit had died at my birthday on that chair. All my morals went out the window. I never cheated in relationships therefore I believed I would never get cheated on. I realize now how dumb that is but that's what I thought at the time.
I didn't care what collateral damage I caused as long as my mission to hurt Lisa as much as possible was accomplished. So continued every day of my life with this new selfish mindset.
I was sitting at my computer later that next week skimming Facebook when I saw the profile of one of her track teammates on my feed. That's when I had my first vengeful idea. I decided I was going to attempt to get her teammates to bite the bait that I was about to cast out into the water. Though, I didn't have proof she hooked up with my teammates, she was clearly trying to hide conversations between them. So I was going to see how many people who are close to here I could "passionately hug". Luckily I had more options than she had when cheating on me. A women's track team is much larger than a men's basketball team. Also much better looking ;)
Lisa's teammate I originally spotted on my Facebook had a boyfriend but I thought: "clearly everyone cheats, lets see if its true". I proceed to do the little flirty social media dance with her. You know, the one where I like a couple of her photos, she likes a couple of mine back. I shoot her a message and BAM! shes at my house in my bed about a week later. I proceed to do something similar to other teammates of hers. All on her 4x4 relay team coincidentally.
2 of the 3 girls I "passionately hugged" had boyfriends and subsequently cheated on them with me which gave me some real mixed emotions. It stroked my broken ego and also made me bitter and sad. Giving me one of those "women aint shit! none of them are loyal" attitudes.
This is such a typical story of while fighting monsters I became a monster.
This actually became my go-to strategy because it accomplished two things in my fucked up mind. It exposed a cheater but more importantly if they were willing to cheat on their boyfriends they would:
A] be more secretive about it which meant the drama that would ensue when it came out would be elevated and
B] it made me feel better about Lisa cheating because it proved it wasn't me that was the problem. It was women that were the problem. (I know its fucked up but that's what I thought back then.)
I started to collect something from every girl that I hooked up with, like a bra, a pair of panties, or some jewelry etc.. (not for some creepy reason, but this is important later and was a part of my plan) Sometimes I didn't even have to try. One girl left a pair of very distinguishable shoes. I knew Lisa would know who's shoes they were. They belonged to the girl that Lisa's X boyfriend rebounded with after Lisa and him broke up which highly upset her because it was her friend. Now it would upset her more because that same girl slept with both of her X boyfriends. I especially tried to collect items if it was something that I knew Lisa could distinguish like a sweater from the women's track team with her teammates name on it. After some time I had collected a boatload of shit.
After a couple months or so, one of the Lisa's teammate's boyfriends found out about me and his girlfriend and it started a big beautiful dramatic explosion of series of events with her and her teammates. This led to all of them finding out about one another's promiscuity. The drama was MASSIVE. Even their coaches had to get involved it got so bad.
This made me feel so powerful in such and evil yet satisfying way. I fell in love with the destruction I was causing. (The most awesome part about all of it was that same week, the Athletics PR team had put massive posters of me all over campus promoting the next game. They were EVERYWHERE. Some of the posters took up the entire side of buildings) So Lisa and her friends had to see me all over campus every day while this drama was erupting all around them. I felt like a triumphant dictator. It was glorious and pathetic at the same time.
Their coach even proceeded to have a "serious" meeting with the compliance department and my team's coaches. My coaches literally laughed at her saying "this seems like and internal issue, but OP hasn't done anything illegal or broken any school policy so there is nothing we can do". This infuriated the women's track coach. Their team had fallen apart. Their national ranking began to plummet. Then Lisa's coach even got in trouble for being caught tearing down some of the smaller posters of me on campus in raging temper tantrum.
I loved all of it.
I continued to add fuel to the fire. Posting photos of me with girls, smiling, being happy every chance I could on Facebook and Instagram. But under it all, I was bitter. I was so deep into my new mindset I had already forgotten the kind hearted naïve kid I use to be. I hated my old self because I let some girl emasculate me. I was so full of self pity looking back it, its depressing. No one really knew though because I played the cool guy attitude in front of people.
There was even a girl on campus on one of the sports teams who claimed that she was pregnant with my kid after I pretended to like her the same way I did with all of the other girls on Lisa's team and soon as we "passionately hugged" I moved on. Its a long story, but it turned out she wasn't pregnant but the news or "press" that came from that further dug the knife deeper into Lisa's side. I left a trail of women I deceived and relationships I destroyed. I feel bad now but at the time I didn't care because they were equally at fault in my eyes since they were cheating on their boyfriends or sleeping with their friends X.
Quickly, girls became weary of me. Plus I was running out of "potential targets" (Fuck I was an awful human being then the way I was thinking) and I was going after girls that weren't even friends or on the track team with Lisa but were just around her in daily life. For example her classmates and as well as her own family. I even flirted with her sister who was married with a kid and I almost succeeded. She was down but her and Lisa's dad found out about it and stepped in and put a stop it all before we could do anything. Her sister was ostracized as the news spread within the family.
I wanted Lisa to know I was everywhere and constantly remind her how she fucked up. In my eyes this was all her fault and she unleashed this fury of chaos upon herself. She should never have fucked with me like that.
Lisa had to take an extended medical leave because of her depression and mental health issues she was experiencing from the whole situation. She was becoming suicidal. She even had to go on medication and lost TONS of weight. She began to look extremely unhealthy. The whole mess was torturing her and the more she hurt the better I felt. At this point I had already inflicted more damage than she did to me but I had become addicted to the feeling of power... I spent 0 time processing my own emotions or moving on from what happened. All I wanted was more revenge and I couldn't stop.
After weeks of ignoring Lisa's texts and calls she finally gets a hold of me by showing up to my apartment unannounced late at night. She was there to pick up some stuff she left from when she lived there to take home. She was actually a local and her parents lived close by. (She was still on her medical leave and no longer staying on campus but rather with her parents) I told her I would bring her stuff to her parents house that weekend but I couldn't let her in because I had "company". Which I did but it wasn't one of her teammates or friends unfortunately.
I then to take all the items I had collected from all the girls over the weeks. There was probably like 8 or 9 things from different girls including her teammates and threw their belongings in along with Lisa's stuff into big black trash bags. I took the bags to her house and then called Lisa's dad. I told him I left her stuff on his porch and to inform his demon daughter. Me and Lisa's dad actually really got along and he even took my side after Lisa and I broke up. But after all these events transpired he obviously had a negative opinion of me.
15 minutes after I get off the phone with her Lisa's dad, I get a call from Lisa. I answer because I want to hear her reaction to having all these other girls shit mixed in with hers. She was sobbing uncontrollably. It sounded like that half crying half mumbling thing people do when they are hysterical. She wasn't even angry, just desperately begging me to point to stop my tyranny.
I just smiled and baked in the glory of hearing her hurt. I responded "why were their other guys in our relationship? you mixed them into our relationship like I mixed other girls shit into your shit. Its perfect little ironic metaphor". I thought it sounded cool at the time and was real proud of myself. (*facepalm*)
I later found out from one of Lisa's friends (who knew she was cheating on me during our relationship) that Lisa was convinced I WAS THE ONE cheating on her because "I was always out of town." This doesn't make sense since I was out of town because of basketball, a very legit excuse. Not just randomly on my own accord. You could literally see my schedule on the school's website. I kept in contact with her constantly when I was gone but obviously when I had practice or team meetings I couldn't be on my phone. But she didn't have the logic in her brain to figure this out I guess. I assume its just an excuse she made to protect her insecurities about the whole fiasco or to keep face with people who knew she was cheating.
[months go by]
Lisa comes back to school from her medical leave and we bump into each other at the physical therapy center in our athlete facility building. I see this as yet another opportunity. It had been a while since I did something that hurt her and I was still hungry for more vengeance. I proceed to pretend like I want to rekindle things with her. She is cautious at first but eventually bites after about a week. We start to mend our "relationship". We proceed for about a month but I wouldn't call this a relationship. I forbid her to have any male friends nor is she allowed to go out and party with her girlfriends. I also need full access to all her accounts and her location at all times. It was more like a hostage situation. It gave me a sense of control.
Meanwhile I'm not being faithful at all. This was my plan all along. Finally, she finds out about me sleeping with a girl in one of her classes and we have a nasty "breakup". I told her that she literally knows what it felt like to be me when we last dated. Yet again, I felt Triumphant. It was just another chance to hurt her and I did.
[After this we don't speak for YEARS.]
I graduate university and move to Central America. She messages me while I'm there about a year after I moved and about 2 years after we last spoke. At this point my life has become that of a real degenerate. I was doing copious amounts of drugs on a daily basis and about 75% of my life was involved in some sort of illegal or nefarious activities. But I still blame her for me becoming the dark soul that I was and taking no responsibility for bitter immoral nature. I hadn't had another relationship since her and always had trouble because I couldn't trust a women in any capacity anymore. Even after years had passed, I saw this instance of her messaging me as yet another opportunity to hurt her.
We begin to talk as friends and even getting flirty with each other over Facebook messenger. Mind you there is literally many countries, states and an ocean between us at this point. I was planning a trip back to my old university to visit some friends. However I told her was different: I explained to her I was moving back to the city for a new job I was just offered. We decide to meet up when I get back and see if there is anything worth saving between us. I had put on my best acting hat and try to seem like I've put our past behind us. However I'm just as vengeful now as I was years ago. She's finishing up her last year at University and I make the trip back to the USA.
I meet Lisa at a coffee shop when I arrive.. We spend the entire night together. From her point of view it really looks like we had moved past our differences and what happened. We could actually work things out.
However I'm not moving back obviously like I told her. I am only stay 2 nights. She doesn't know this. After hooking up a few times and spending 2 days together, without mentioning anything to her about me leaving, I pack my things and get back on a plane back to Central America.
I blocked her on all my social media and communication outlets. This time I could only fantasize about what happened to her when I disappeared after she thought I had moved back and supposedly was ready to give our relationship another try. This time however it wasn't as satisfying as my previous plots of revenge.
My drug habit and lifestyle only got worse every year. 3 years later I was hospitalized and almost died because of my extended drug use. I was never sober a full 24 hours after that day that went through that fucking period calendar.
[Looking back]
As much pain as I might have caused her with my vengeful life, my new identity that consumed my old one was so tainted with a dark spirit at heart. I think I honestly did more harm to myself with my actions and led me to down the road where I had no morals anymore. Though I spent the entirety of this story telling everyone of how I kept getting revenge at my X for cheating on me, as satisfying as it was, I wish I would have spent an equal amount of energy healing myself from the incident. If anyone reading this is experiencing the pain that comes with cheating, a good revenge story can bring you some satisfaction but I hope you don't make the same mistake I did. Rather spend MORE time healing yourself from the hurt and moving past it. The revenge wont heal you. It will be a separate journey but could distract you from putting yourself back together.
Luckily I got sober and am sober now 4+ years. I even had another girl friend of 2 years cheat on me before I got sober but this time I didn't take revenge. I spent my time healing. I changed and only focused on myself and that was way more satisfying than the revenge I got on Lisa for cheating on me.
Now I'm married almost 2 years to a woman who is sober and man do I have a good life. I have a dream job and a dream marriage. Thank you everyone who read this. Sorry if it wasn't well written I never write like this but I have never told the full story in detail before and I got a lot out of writing it.
Mostly what I hope to get from this is to share my experiences doing horrible things but feeling an immense satisfying feel from it where its almost addictive. And morphing from generally a good person to a relatively dark evil one.. Obviously people have dark moments but I feel like my personality and psyche has never been the same since that experience. I'm looking forward to any responses to the people willing to read this shit.
[written by commenter] TLDR: OP dated a woman a few years younger than him in college, Lisa. Lisa kept a period tracker and kept when she had unprotected sex, while documenting their sex for gf who had fallen asleep, OP saw she had been having unprotected sex with at least 4 dudes since they had been dating. OPs roommate kicked her out. OP decided to get revenge. This started with fucking all 3 of her relay partners (track team) which eventually led to the team crashing. They also had bfs, so OP used this as fuel to say that women are the problem, not him. At this time OP starts going down the rabbit hole with drugs and alcohol. This continued on for a long time, and OP started keeping an item from women that would be identifiable to Lisa for his plan. He would purposely “target” (own words) girls close to Lisa so drama would be worse, and he would have more ammunition to hurt her. Lisa took a mental health break from depression, and came to OPs house asking for her stuff back. He brought it to her parents and put all the items he had been collecting. She called him crying and he reveled in it. Months later, they run into each other at PT and he convinces her to give it another shot, knowing its a game. Knowingly holds her “hostage,” no guy friends, no parties, no going out, all while cheating. They eventually break up. Years later, OP is contacted by Lisa and says hes moving back to their country for a job. (IRL hes going for a 2 day visit) and basically catfishes her into trying to date him again, they meet up and hang out the whole time. He then packs up and leaves without a word to hurt her again. After this OP goes down a bad road with drugs and alcohol, ends up in the hospital, and has another Gf cheat on him. He did not take revenge on her. OP is now married, and has a good job and has (presumably) been clean. He is also aware of how toxic it all is. I think that’s everything

Section Zero: Thank you in advance for reading! I love Money Diaries and I've written them before but this is my first time submitting/posting. Sorry it's kinda long, but I'm personally nosey so I included details that I would want to know as a reader. Maybe I went overboard tho lol. Also this is a throwaway for the MD subreddit.
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: ~$23k. I’ve never not contributed to my 401k, but in the past my nominations were way smaller (3-4%) and my previous employers didn’t match as generously. This job is the first time I’ve contributed double digits (specific figures noted below).
Equity if you're a homeowner: None yet; planning to move to the East Coast and buy there in 2 years.
HYSA: $17k (emergency fund)
Acorns: $5.5k
Twine: $20k (this is a shared account with my BF where we both contribute; this balance is mostly his and will go towards a combo of our engagement + wedding)
Brokerage: $260k (inheritance)
Coinbase: $2.1k; I loosely keep up with the crypto world and keep a few long term investments in here.
Checking account balance: ~$2k at any given time for recurring payments. I usually pay for everything else through my credit card (Chase Sapphire) to get dem points!
Credit card debt: $0, pay off each month
Student loan debt: $0, paid off. I graduated with ~$24k in loans for a Bachelors in PMarketing from a private university. I had about half of my tuition covered by scholarships and grants, my parents paid what they could, and I took out loans for the rest. For two years I paid the loans off monthly, then my family received an inheritance which my parents gave me a part of to pay off the loans.
Section Two: Income
\*I don’t combine finances with my bf but we live together (going on 2.5 years now) which definitely impacts my expenses. He makes* $82k per year. Other than rent, we don’t split anything evenly. He’ll pay a few times, then I will. You’ll see this in my diary.\**
Income Progression (post college only): I've been working for 4 years & my starting salary was $45k. I worked in social media for 3 years, then switched to ops in January 2020.
2016 - Social Media Coordinator, Midwest: $45k + OT, brought me to $50k ish
Industry: corporate retail
2017 - Account Executive, California: $58k
Industry: social media/consumer tech (agency)
2018 - Social Media Specialist, Midwest: $55k
Industry: corporate retail
2020 - Marketing Ops Analyst, Midwest: $80k + bonus
Industry: tech
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $3930/mo
Monthly Deductions
401k: $1332/mo (13% + 6% match)
Health insurance (medical & dental): $97; this is going to go down a bit in the new year because I just switched plans. Vision is covered by my employer.
FSA: $79.14; also going to go down, switching to an HSA where my company contributes $750 so I won’t be adding as much of my own money
ESPP: $266.68
Disability: $7.56
Side Gig Monthly Take Home
$0. This is actually the first time in awhile that I’m not freelancing on the side. I’ve held a mix of social media/digital marketing side gigs throughout the years, but since I’ve transitioned into operations that isn’t my strength or focus area right now. In the beginning of the year (Jan-March) I was freelancing for my previous employer until they filled my role, at a rate of $75/hr, so that will go on my taxes but I didn’t include it in my income figure because it isn’t current… maybe I should though? Haha. I made a few grand and put it all in savings
Any Other Income Here
My paternal side of the family is selling property overseas, and when the sale is complete I will receive ~$50k from the proceeds. This will go into investments/long term savings.
I also receive a lot of random gifts, bonuses and reimbursements through work, some with monetary value and some without. I don’t really consider it “income” but it counts for something I suppose… not sure where else to add it. We don’t typically receive notice of these in advance so there’s no way to really plan for it, but over the past year I’ve received:
$540 for holiday-time meals
$100 for family meal when the pandemic hit
$500 to create a home office
$250 for noise cancelling headphones
Random gift cards (Uber eats, Starbucks, Visa etc)
Holiday gift packages
I also received roughly ~$1100 in payout of my accrued PTO when my company switched to unlimited earlier this year. I had only been with the company for a few months at that point so didn’t have a ton saved up.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees: $850/month. T pays $950, because he pays for the parking spot. Our rent + parking is $1800 total, for a 2 bed 1 bath in the Lakeview area (~1200 sq ft). No washedryer in unit but it is free in the basement. Small porch and backyard. It’s not the most updated place ever but the second bedroom allows me to have my own office and overall gets the job done lol.
Renters / home insurance: $7.50/mo ($15/mo through Lemonade; my bf pays and I reimburse him for my share every 6 months)
Savings contribution: Whatever is leftover at the end of the month goes to a HYSA or Acorns/other investment apps.
Donations: I don’t donate regularly on a monthly basis, but I have donated ~$750 this year to various causes (Lebanese Red Cross, my alma mater for giving day, animal shelters I’ve adopted from, etc). My company matches up to $5k in donations, so I’ve been able to double my impact which is nice. My company also gives time off to volunteer, and I’ve logged 60 hours of volunteer time since January.
Electric/Wifi/Cable/Landline: T pays
Cellphone: on my mom’s family plan
Subscriptions
Book of the Month: $14.99/mo
Netflix/Hulu/HBO Max: We have profiles via T’s dad’s account.
Amazon: Use my mom’s account when I need to, which isn’t often.
Spotify: $9.99/month
Gym membership: Work pays; Melissa Wood Health ($9.99/mo) and Peloton app ($12.99/mo)
Pet expenses: ~$100/mo for my share for 3 animals (one dog, two cats). Some months are higher than others, like when they get their annual shots, but I would guess it evens out to about this much. My dog just went on a new medication which is $37/month. We’re in the process of switching all pets over to raw food, which increases their food expense.
Car payment / insurance: None, don’t have a car.
Regular therapy: None right now, BUT this is something I need to get serious about in 2021. I had a few sessions with a therapist earlier in the year but she was just not my vibe, and the thought of having to repeat and unload my traumas multiple times until I found the right therapist put me off the whole process. If you have any recs in Chicago on the north side lmk!
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Day 1 (Sunday)
9:55 am: Good morning, world! Roll out of bed, put on a pot of coffee and join my boyfriend T on the couch. He’s playing video games so I scroll through social media and my email. I see that Overtone is running a 20% off promo, so I get a dark red coloring conditioner for my hair. I love this brand for non-permanent hair color that doesn’t strip or dry out my hair like salon coloring does, and it’s fun to play around with different shades. With tax and shipping it comes to $34.63.
11 am: We really want pancakes but don’t have ingredients so we take a walk to Whole Foods for mix. It comes out to $3.86 but T pays. We get home and I do a quick 18 minute Melissa Wood video while T prepares the pancakes. When I get out of the shower, the pancakes are ready - perfect timing!
1 pm: We dial into a Zoom birthday celebration for T’s grandmother, who is turning 90! She is in a nursing home on the east coast (where he is from) and the family has only been able to do 20 minute drive-by visits due to the pandemic, so this means a lot to her. We spend about an hour on the call, then start our Sunday chores. I clean the bathroom and do the dishes while T vacuums. Then I grab my laptop to get a jump start on work for the week, with Red Zone on in the background so I can keep tabs on my Fantasy players.
4 pm: Wrap up my work for the afternoon, heat up some food (leftovers from Persian takeout the other night. If you like Greek/mediterranean food, I highly suggest you try Persian!!) and watch a Her Atlas YouTube video while I eat. I have wanted to visit Japan for years, and that’s going to be mine and T’s big, yearly international trip once it’s safe to travel again. Last year we did Spain.
7 pm: The rest of the afternoon is spent relaxing, reading (I’m currently on Obama’s new book), snacking and watching Gilmore Girls...aka my favorite type of Sunday. My mom got us the Bonne Maman advent calendar this year and we’ve been doing a cheese and cracker appetizer with each day’s jam. Today’s is a pineapple preserve. T and I spend some time looking up recipes to make for the week and decide on two Half Baked Harvest recipes. T places a Whole Foods delivery order for the items we need; it comes out to $45 and he pays. Head to bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $34.63
Day 2 (Monday)
7:45 am: Top of the morning! I wouldn’t usually be excited for a Monday, but this is my last full 5-day work week of 2020 - woo hoo! I fix my coffee, feed the cats and get started on my morning routine. I wash my face with Cerave cleanser, followed by Klairs toner, Melano CC spot treatment and Supergoop sunscreen. My company has a very meeting-heavy culture and I’m on camera all day long, so I typically do a light makeup routine of tinted moisturizer, blush, eyebrow gel and mascara. Even though we’re working from home, it does wonders for my confidence to feel put together on camera. Not everyone’s vibe, but it works for me. Leggings forever, though!
12:15 pm: Quick break for lunch after a busy morning of meetings, spreadsheet work and deck building. I was supposed to have my quarterly skip level this morning but it got moved to Thursday, which is fine cus it gives me more time to prep. Lunch is a “harvest bowl”: roasted brussels sprouts and butternut squash, sauerkraut, avocado scrambled eggs and furikake seasoning on top. We’re running low on the seasoning so I add it to mine and T’s shared iCloud note for Trader Joe’s items.
5 pm: Now that it’s pitch black and I’m tired and cold, I decide to take my last bit of work from the couch under a blanket. My mom calls me and we chat for a bit. Wrap up around 6:30 and opt to skip working out. Daylight savings zaps my motivation.
7 pm: Dinner is our Bonne Maman jam app (strawberry rhubarb) with crackers, leftover butternut squash gnocchi soup that we made late last week, and Trader Joe’s chocolate covered banana slices for dessert. Watch Gilmore Girls then move to bed to read Obama. Lights out around 10:15.
Daily total: $0
Day 3 (Tuesday)
8:15 am: I had horrible insomnia last night so I sleep in a bit. I tried melatonin, CBD, meditation...nothing worked. I know it’s because of my stressful work projects coming up. I get up, put on coffee and pray these next 8 working days go by fast! Repeat the same morning routine.
9:30 am: Get an email from our team EA with information on our Adopt-a-Family for this year and donation options. I venmo her $50.
10 am: Breakfast time! I make a green “juice” in my Vitamix (water blended with apple, pear, cucumber, lemon, spinach, and ginger), more coffee and some Seven Sundays muesli with coconut milk.
1 pm: Lunch break; I make the same harvest bowl as yesterday and use up all the roasted veggies, which makes me happy cus I love getting rid of leftovers and freeing up fridge space. I also make a chocolate macaroon David’s Tea.
2 pm: Check my personal email and see a 20% off coupon from Bombas, so I order merino wool socks for T and my mom as stocking stuffers. After shipping and tax it comes to $34.80. I also receive some forms from the DC embassy of the country where my relatives are selling property, but it’s all in the local language so I forward them the email so they can translate it for me.
5 pm: Spend the afternoon working on an audit project and presenting a new process I created to one of our teams. I serve as an admin for an external software we use in marketing, and one aspect of my role is optimizing how teams use that software and establishing infrastructure to scale. The presentation goes really well! Also get an email from HR saying everyone is getting a $50 giftcard of their choice for the holidays; I browse the options and choose Nordstrom.
5:45 pm: Quick abs and arms Melissa Wood workout, shower, then back to work...on the couch this time, though. My alma mater has a basketball game tonight so I turn that on in the background. They are stomping on the competition, so I don’t have to pay attention too closely. I love non stressful, easy-win games lol.
6:30 pm: A random Amazon package shows up, and I can’t for the life of me remember ordering anything. I open it up to find a ring light as a holiday gift from our team’s VP! This is actually perfect bc it’s going to be gray and gloomy in Chicago for the foreseeable future. I set it to charge so I can use it for tomorrow’s video calls.
7:30 pm: Dinner time! T made a Half Baked Harvest Asian noodles recipe. I wrap up work and we turn on Gilmore Girls. After an episode, I do my night routine and move to bed to read Obama. Night routine consists of Simple micellar water, Cerave cleanser, Klairs toner, prescription retinol (0.05% tretinoin), Cosrx moisturizer and The Ordinary squalane oil as the cherry on top. Lights off at 10 pm ish.
Daily total: $84.80
Day 4 (Wednesday)
8 am: Made it halfway through the week! I’m woken up by Karen, our Roomba vacuum. My insomnia was a bit more mellow last night. I couldn’t fall asleep for awhile but I think I ended up getting a solid 6 hours or so of shuteye, which is more than I can say for the night before. I’ll take it!
9 am: Today is going to be spent on my audit project, working in a spreadsheet all day…. Ugh. But on the bright side, my boss messages our team saying we have permission to expense lunch or wine for extra motivation! Wine for me, please.
12:30 pm: I’m making better progress on my audit project than I thought I would, so I decide to run a couple lunch errands with T. It feels so nice to get outside and step away from my screens for a bit. It’s also 50 degrees and sunny (this is cause for celebration in Chicago in December)! First we stop by the vet to pick up a refill of the dog’s meds. The med price recently went up so I make a mental note to call CVS to see if they can fill a generic for cheaper. Next stop is Whole Foods for my motivation wine, and also a few items we forgot in T’s order from earlier in the week. We get salmon, feta cheese, beets, coffee creamer, eggs, pepper jack and Olly sleep gummies. It comes to $61.80 and I pay. I also get my wine which comes to $22.15 but that goes on my company card.
4:30 pm: I finish my audit work! Another coworker on the project is a bit behind on her portion though so I offer to help...not out of the woods yet. I decide I deserve a spreadsheet break and have a bit of time before a call with colleagues in Singapore, so I do a 20 minute Melissa Wood workout. I was really skeptical of home exercise when lockdown first started, but I’ve grown to love it! It’s nice being able to squeeze movement in without having to schlep to the gym. After the workout, it’s back to my office to get some audit work done before my call.
6:30 pm: Call is over so it’s Motivation Wine time! I pop open the bottle to breathe while I shower, then pour a glass for more audit work. T prepares dinner, which is a Half Baked Harvest artichoke salmon recipe. If you’re thinking “this chick never cooks,” you thought right lol. T does most of the cooking and I do most of the cleaning. He also tends to do more of the dog duties, while I handle the cats. We find our balance.
9 pm: T and I finish Gilmore Girls! This was my third time watching the entire series; we chat about the ending and his thoughts. I tell him we have to watch the Netflix revival next, even though it sucks. We head to bed around 10:30.
Daily total: $61.80
Day 5 (Thursday)
8 am: No insomnia last night!! I knocked right out and slept a solid 10 hours, so I’m feeling GOOD. Coffee, feed cats, skincare, muesli, the usual.
9 am: I dial into our Chicago office winter town hall meeting and keep it on in the background while catching up on email. A local nonprofit founder is the guest speaker, and during the call he makes an announcement that the Chicago office will be receiving free copies of his new book! I’ve actually done a lot of volunteer work with this nonprofit and the founder has an awesome backstory, so I’m excited to read the book.
11:30 am: Coming up for air from a very productive morning! I had my rescheduled skip level chat - my VP confirmed I’ll go up for promotion in the next round and said I’m all around #killingit, which is always nice to hear. I also had a session with my mentee who is a college student interning at my company; we did a LinkedIn workshop and got her profile to the All Star level! Being a mentor is new for me and it’s harder than I thought, but she was more engaged than usual so I’m happy with today’s meeting. I check my email to see I sold something on Poshmark, so I send the label to Fedex to print, which costs $0.15. I’ll make a whopping $11 on my sale. Drop the package in a USPS drop box on my way back.
5:30 pm: Wrapping up early for once this week! I had a presentation this afternoon that went awesome; my boss said it’s a huge win and wants to make sure I get it in front of our SVPs. After work I go for a 4 mile run by the lake. Arrive home to another random package, which ends up being my company’s 2020 ugly Christmas sweater and a mask. Sweet!
9 pm: Since it’s been a hectic week, I decide to treat T and I to a fancy take out meal for tomorrow night from our favorite sushi spot in the city. They require advanced ordering and scheduled pick up so I place the order $95 platter for 2 + a fuji apple crisp dessert for 7 pm pick up tomorrow evening. With fees and tip it comes to $138.40. This is actually a very good deal; anytime we’ve eaten in the actual restaurant it’s at least $200+.
Daily total: $138.55
Day 6 (Friday)
8 am: TGIF! T and I usually do a neighborhood coffee date on Fridays, barring any crappy weather. We bundle up and take the dog with us to Coffee & Tea Exchange - they have the best seasonal lattes. I get a gingerbread cheesecake latte and T gets a fancy hot chocolate (he’s not a coffee drinker, which is CRAZY to me!). With tip it's $10.10; I pay.
9 am: T makes us pancakes for breakfast bc #Friday, but then 30 mins later I get a surprise donut delivery from work! Regretting all those pancakes now. I text our neighbors to see if they want any and they do, so I leave them on their back porch.
10:30 am: Dial into a department all hands and chat with our Chicago hub slack channel on the side. I work on a distributed team, meaning we’re spread across the country. I’m the only person in Chicago, so it’s nice to have a connection to local coworkers since I can’t go into the office.
12:30 pm: Virtual holiday party time! We play ‘Never Have I Ever’ which is fun; I learn a lot of silly facts about my team and especially my boss.
6:30 pm: Drowning in preparation for my global project kicking off on Monday, but break to go pick up my bougie sushi order. We get home, I eat, then I get back online for a couple hours to get to a better stopping point.
9:30 pm: Call it quits for the day and join T on the couch for our alma mater’s basketball game. This one isn’t as much as a blowout as the other night, keeping the faith though!
10:30 pm: We lose the game. :( Put on “Meet Me in St. Louis” to lift our spirits with some jolly showtunes. T insists I let him help me with my audit project, so I tell him to go for it. He stays up til midnight working on it. I fall asleep watching the movie.
Daily total: $10.10
Day 7 (Saturday)
10:15 am: Saturday, best day! I slept for 10+ hours so I’m feeling great. Put on coffee and join T on the couch to read my book. T makes us spinach pepper jack omelettes, and helps me with my work project again. He’s a gem. At 1:30 pm we put on T’s cousin’s Zoom wedding.
2:30 pm: After the wedding, I order T’s final Christmas present, which are a pair of boots from Thursdays he hinted at. With tax it comes to $211. After that I do a Nicki Minaj full body strength workout on Peloton, which kicks my butt but is so fun.
4 pm: We go on a Target run for some household items; I’m also looking for things to spend my FSA balance on. T buys an Instant Pot air fryer attachment and snacks. I get a pair of 5 lb dumbbells (my Peloton workout earlier made me realize I need more variety lol), 3 Christmas cards (for my mom, for T and T’s parents), hand soap, trash bags for $60. I also buy condoms, 2 face cleansers and body lotion using my FSA card.
5:30 pm: I head downtown to a friend’s apartment to hang out. She lives in Streeterville, land of the expensive parking - I pay $15 for the evening. She makes us dinner, and we watch Elf and Gossip Girl. Random combo. She sends me home with a bunch of leftovers.
9:30 pm: Back home, dick around on my phone while T plays Assassin’s Creed. At 10:30 we turn on SNL, bc Timothee Chalamet is hosting and I love him (much to T’s dismay lol). After that we head to bed, watch an episode of Broad City, and fall asleep.
Daily total: $286
~~
WEEKLY TOTAL: $615.88
Food + Drink: $210.30
Home + Health: $60
Clothes + Beauty + Gifts: $280.43
Transport: $15
Other: $50.15
This was a fairly normal week for me, other than the Christmas gifts. T and I do takeout once per week and I typically pay since he tends to cover groceries; this takeout meal was a tad more expensive than usual but that expense itself is standard. I hope you all enjoyed reading!

I’m trapped. Maybe I shouldn’t bother you, maybe I kind of deserve my fate, but if someone doesn’t send help soon, roll the credits, ‘cause I’m finished.
Let’s start from the beginning. My name is Kyle, and I’m in the eighth grade. We had just moved into this stuck-up little town and this cruddy old house because my grandmother died and Dad wanted to fix it up before selling it.
Me and Dad were in the attic sorting boxes when the side of one split open and comic books spilled out.
“Look at these!” my father said. “Must’ve been my old man’s!”
We took a break to pour over the faded Batmans and Dick Tracies. Flipping through a Superman, I stopped on a weird ad. “Sea Monkeys”, it said, only the “monkeys” was crossed out and replaced by the word “monsters”.
A bowl full of terror and mischief, the ad announced, scare your friends, scare your parents, scare yourself! Just add water and watch the little devils grow.
A drawing showed a sailing ship surrounded by serpentine figures.
I showed my dad.
A big smile broke out on his face. “Oh, I remember these!” he said.
I know pretty much what I’ll look like when I grow up...if I grow up...for everyone says I’m the spitting image. Dad has a slender frame, a warm face, thick glasses, and a hairline that has retreated to its last stand on the back of his head. Like me, he’s a bit of a spaz.
“Obviously, this is a scam,” I scoffed. “How could they get away with that?”
“If I remember,” he replied. “Sea Monkeys are a kind of shrimp. Like you!”
He tussled my hair. I hated being called that, but something about the fact that he only did it when we were alone made it tolerable.
“So what are these?”
“Probably something similar. Who knows? Come on, let’s finish up.”
When Dad took a break for beer and gummy bears, I googled the company, and amazingly they were still around. The price had only gone up to 12.99.
I waited til Dad was on his 4th beer and his 2nd gummy bear before getting him to buy the monsters.
A week later, I was crossing the street to go check the mailbox. Mabel, our wrinkly basset hound, watched wearily from the porch. At the illustrious age of 4, she had little enthusiasm for more than watching stuff.
My little sister Ali, practicing her kick boxing on the front lawn, eyed me suspiciously, wondering about my sudden interest in the mail. If I have a sworn enemy in life it is Ali. A year younger than me, she inherited Mom’s height and athletic ability, and of all the indignities I have had to put up with in life, the worst is this: she can kick my ass.
Reaching the mailbox, my pulse raced when I saw the package with my name on it. But I didn’t want Ali poking her nose into my business. What to do? I was anxious to open my package. So I darted across the street with the box and a handful of letters, irrationally hoping she would leave me alone.
She was closing in on me by the time I reached the walkway.
“What you got?”
“The mail, what’s it look like?”
She wore gym shorts, a t-shirt, and mixed martial arts gloves. We’d only been to this school for two days and already Ali had risen up the social ladder. Where genetics had conspired against me, leaving me short, skinny and four eyed, it had turned Ali into a princess: long blond hair, tall and athletic, not as smart as me, but smart enough that brains gave me no advantage. Six days out of seven, Ali picked on me, and on the seventh she ignored me.
“Let me see the package,” she insisted.
“It’s for dad.”
I shifted the package to my other arm, aware of the mistake as soon as I did it but unable to stop myself.
Like a coiled spring, she kicked in front of my chin. My legs stopped moving.
“Mind your business, Ali.”
I took another tentative step, but a kick in the air stopped me, the wind from it knocking my eyeglasses askew.
I decided to run. Ali was much faster, but she was barefoot, so all I had to do was make it to the gravel driveway, where she couldn’t run. The generals in my mind determined it was a good strategy, drafted the order, stamped it, and sent it along to my legs to be carried out immediately.
But the chain of command within my body often failed me, and it did so here. While my legs did not yet move, my eyes somehow gave away my intentions, and during this delay, she struck with a leg sweep. I hoped to God no one else saw it. It was almost as demeaning as what happened yesterday, when I was getting bullied at recess and Ali put a stop to it. That did wonders for my social ranking, let me tell you.
Now she had me in a scissors lock, her legs around my neck.
While the mail blew across the lawn, she grabbed at the package, but I had it in a death grip under my arm.
“Give it over,” she commanded.
“No!”
She took the bottom of her foot, dirty with grass and dust, and smacked me in the face, rendering me almost blind as my glasses dropped to my nose.
Surrender was now unavoidable.
“OK,” I said, “we’ll do it together, but I’m in charge.”
She released me and sprang to her feet, helping me up.
“There, was that so hard?” she said. “Now what’s in the box?”
I took her past Mabel...whose only movement was a slight wagging of her tail...through the garage, the laundry room, and finally into a small furnace room where I already had an aquarium set up.
“What is this, fish? Jeez, what a dweeb.”
I could see Ali had already lost interest and was about to return to her martial activities when again a screw up in the chain of command occurred. The order had gone out to keep silent so she would leave, but my mouth took its own initiative and tried to seal the deal.
“Em, yeah, it’s just a goldfish.”
But my eyes betrayed my mouth, and of course Ali didn’t miss it.
“Ok,” she said, her curiosity having been reignited. “Let’s open it.”
I opened the package, my sister’s presence spoiling the moment, and emptied out smaller packages: water purifier, food, and what apparently were eggs.
Ali grabbed the instruction sheet.
“Sea monsters?”
“OK, it’s stupid,” I said, “but I just want to see what they are.”
She put her hands on her hips, which in her way of thinking meant, this is serious, so listen up, buddy.
“Under no circumstances,” she ordered, “can you tell anyone at school. And especially not the boys across the street.”
“Right,” I said. “We don’t want kids nosing around.”
“No,” she corrected me, “what we don’t want is to make the target on your back any bigger.”
“Oh, right, good point.”
I had already filled the tank with aquarium sand. Now I went to the laundry-room sink and began filling a bucket of lukewarm water. Ali followed me.
She seemed worried. “Why don’t you come outside and let me show you some moves?”
She wore that fake concerned look. I knew she just wanted another excuse to rough me up some more, so I ignored her.
“Fine, get your butt kicked at school again.”
With that she finally left.
The Sea Monster instructions were simple:
Empty the purifier into the water. Pour the eggs in. They may take some time to hatch. Feed one teaspoon of food a day. As they grow, you may try to feed them vegetables or fruit, but under no circumstances feed them any meat!
After adding the purifier, I inspected the four eggs in the bag. They just looked like four cheap glass trinkets.
Nothing to lose at this point, however, so I poured the them into the middle of the tank. Watched them settle on the sand.
Little trails of vapor streamed off them. That was encouraging.
I heard my mother throwing in a wash. When she entered the furnace room, I didn’t look up.
“I guess your monsters came,” she said.
I nodded.
Mom stands taller than my dad, and only wears glasses when reading. She had tied up her long hair, which meant she was either going running or about to conduct a zoom class. She taught art history at a community college and was busy trying to finish her book. She indulged my “sea monster thing” to compensate for disrupting my life in making me move here for a year.
She kissed me on the top of the head and left me watching the eggs, willing them to hatch.
The next morning, sleep still in my eyes, I ventured down into the furnace room, and to my surprise the eggs had been replaced by four small holes in the sand.
Holy Schlitz, as Dad liked to say.
I crouched down for a closer look.
Wait...was Ali playing a joke on me?
But then a thought came into my mind with such force that I took a step back: feed them.
So I took a teaspoon and measured out some food and dropped it into the water.
The food sifted slowly to the bottom. I had my nose pressed against the glass. When some of the food reached the holes, I held my breath.
But nothing.
I watched them a long time.
Ali popped into the room. “Hey,” she teased, “it’s the weenie from Shaleeny.”
“Go away.”
As she came closer, her face changed, going from amused to serious.
“You gotta feed them, Kyle.”
I turned in surprise. She never called me by my actual name.
I went back to watching, and some time later, to my surprise, Mabel actually came in. She stood beside me sniffing the air. I crouched and put an arm around her.
“I thought you didn’t like it down here?”
Mabel was usually not a fan of stairs or exercise, and certainly not the furnace room, with its spooky noises.
She sat down facing the tank, her tail slowly wagging on the floor.
“What is it girl?”
When I left to go have breakfast, to my shock, she stayed behind staring at the tank.
After eating, I decided maybe what the tank needed was something to make it look more like the ocean bottom. Like a piece of coral or a conch shell. So I cajoled Dad into taking me to Petco.
Pulling out of the driveway, we saw Ali, basketball in hand at the top of the neighbors driveway, playing with the O’Keefs. Dad waved cheerily.
“You should go join the game when we get back,” Dad suggested.
“They already have an even number, Dad.”
He nodded, unable to wiggle past that logic.
“So I had a dream last night,” he said, “about your sea monsters.”
“Really? What did they look like?”
“I don’t know. The water was murky. Kinda like little Loch-Ness things, I guess.”
“I wish they’d come out so I could see them.”
“I think you just have to feed them more.”
Gee, where had I heard that?
An hour later, a Spanish galleon with three layers of cannon portholes sank to the bottom. I had dropped it rather than place it, not wanting to get my sleeves wet. Yeah, right, that was the reason.
It settled on the bottom rather close to one of the little holes. I watched very closely to see if any creature emerged, and had been watching a long time when my mom entered all sweaty from having just been on her daily run. She stood behind me with her hands on my shoulders.
“How are they doing?”
I shrugged.
“Well, how are you doing? Meet anyone interesting at school?”
“I guess.”
“It takes time. Especially for the really smart kids. I didn’t really have any good friends til grad school.”
“That’s encouraging.”
She laughed. “Key word being ‘good’.”
I felt her hands leave my shoulders. I’d always been closer to Dad because he was, well, fun. Dad shot a basketball worse than me, and his wiry arms and legs seemed not always on the same page together. But Dad could laugh about it, which made people comfortable around him. Mom, on the other hand, always had it together, a hard standard to live up to. Yet Mom also made me feel safe, like she was in control. One time a few years ago, we’d had a burglar in the house in the middle of the night. While Dad stumbled around looking for something that could be used as a weapon, eventually settling on a broom, Mom quietly called the police, then loudly told Dad to use the shotgun shells. At first he didn’t understand, since neither of them knew anything about ammo and they didn’t actually own a firearm. By the time he caught on and shouted something about ‘making his day’ the intruder was a shadow running across the lawn.
Mom’s voice now trailed from beyond the laundry room: “Don’t forget to feed them!”
With still no sign of life within the holes, I decided it was time to do just that. A few minutes later, I returned with a small handful of Rice Crispies. Mabel decided to come with me. But the snap, crackle and pop material turned out to be less than ideal food, since they just floated on the water. So I ran up and took a carrot from the fridge, skinned it, and cut some small pieces.
While I finished, Mabel’s excited barking reached me from the cellar. I ran back full speed, chunks of carrot in hand.
I arrived in the furnace room to find Mabel sitting facing the tank with her tail wagging on the floor. Adjusting my glasses, I studied the tank, expecting to finally see some action. But nothing. Just four holes and a Spanish galleon.
However, then I noticed the rice crispies were gone. Aha! So they’re just shy.
I dropped the carrot pieces into the aquarium. They settled onto the sandy bottom, with one of them landing on the ship and becoming its only cargo. When nothing further happened, I stepped back toward the door to the laundry room and spied on the tank from there. But still nothing happened.
This time when I left I made Mabel come with me. I played a video game with Dad the rest of the afternoon, and when I went back to check on the tank some time after supper, I found Ali standing before it.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Don’t worry, nothing.”
I noticed the carrot pieces were gone.
“Did you see anything?” I asked.
“No. But I think maybe if they eat more...”
She held a broccoli spear over the tank. When she started to reach into the water, I pulled her arm out. For some reason it frightened me to think of my sister’s hand in the water going anywhere near the holes.
“What’s the matter with you?” she barked.
“It says not to touch the water,” I lied. “Something about contamination I think.”
“Fine, baby.”
She dropped the broccoli into the water from safely above. It crashed to the sea bed between the holes. We watched for minutes, but nothing moved.
Finally, she gave up, saying “Your life is so lame!”
No doubt a lethal retort was on the tip of my tongue, but I thought it best to not give her an excuse to hang around any longer.
I stood there watching a long time, and while I did, two terrifying but compelling thoughts came into my mind. The first was that maybe I should feed them some meat. What could go wrong? If it killed them, so what, they never showed themselves anyway.
The second was terrifying simply because of its pure strangeness: that I should stand next to the tank facing away it.
The following morning, a Monday, I resisted the urge to bring some of my breakfast bacon down to the aquarium.
Under no circumstances feed them any meat, it had said.
And I was the kind of kid that obeyed the rules. Sure, like everyone, I had a joker in my head that sometimes blurted out inappropriate thoughts, a little voice that interrupts the regular programming of your mind with something that usually goes against good sense. I learned long ago to ignore that joker.
Dad usually made breakfast, but Mom took care of lunches for school. She was handing paper bags to Ali and me at the door with a kiss. She always showed more affection to me, but I figured she was compensating for her preference for Ali. Still, I relished the warmth of her cheek against mine, and I always wanted to believe her when she told me how handsome I looked. Every school day they sent me out to the wolves to be slaughtered, but I understood my parents believed it would make me strong some day.
I filled with dread as me and Ali climbed on the bus. One of the O’Keef twins, who wanted to impress Ali, almost knocked me over with a high five.
We sat down behind them.
“You could at least make an effort,” she whispered to me.
Right, so I was making her life so miserable by embarrassing her.
At school that day, I daydreamed more than usual. During history, I imagined that terrorists invaded the school, black-clad men armed with multiple weapons each, and while one of them was more or less ignoring me, I swiped a handgun from his belt. I had never held a gun, certainly didn’t know how to use one, but how hard could it be? I saved many lives before history class ended, but on the way to algebra kids were bumping me like I wasn’t even in the hallway. I settled behind my desk, and in my next daydream, I again found a gun, only this time there were no terrorists, only me and my classmates. And they sure noticed me now.
On the bus home, I felt the lowest I’d ever felt, because I knew the daydream had crossed a line. I wasn’t one of THOSE kids, the ones who knew they didn’t have a future so they did something crazy and horrible. I wouldn’t really take pleasure in seeing anyone hurt, and besides...the other kids weren’t the problem. I was the problem.
When I got home, Dad was busy cutting pieces of paneling for one of the bedrooms. He had protective goggles over his glasses and bits of sawdust on his nose.
“Hey, little guy,” he said, “how was your day?”
“Awesome,” I deadpanned.
Not catching the sarcasm, Dad replied, “Great! Keep up the good work.”
I went to check on my monsters, and to my shock, found Mabel sitting there watching the tank. She wagged her tail at my arrival.
“Hey, girl. Are they doing on anything?”
I looked for myself. Four holes in the sand, nothing more.
Why was everything in my life so lame?
That settled it. I left Mabel in the furnace room and Dad frowning over a ruler and pencil.
Time to get some meat.
Mabel was still there when I came back with some leftover ham. Four pieces. She wagged her tail when I dropped them into the aquarium.
I crouched down with Mabel, arm around her, watching with anticipation.
Again I had to ignore that weird urge to turn my back to the tank.
I watched a long time, with nothing happening, and when Mabel finally grew bored and left, I followed her up the stairs. The family had dinner together, and no one mentioned the monsters. Dad told corny jokes, Mom laughed despite her usual effort to not encourage him, and Ali tried to one up her dad, but failed as always. After dinner, we played Scrabble, the one thing in life Dad took seriously. No one ever challenged any words he put down, no matter how absurd they seemed, because his knowledge of obscure words was almost supernatural. Usually he won, though sometimes Mom let him, and though both Kyle and Ali were aware of it, neither told their father. His Scrabble victories meant something to him.
After the game, I noticed Ali heading down to the cellar and decided to follow. Sure enough, she headed straight for the furnace room. Mabel tagged along beside me. When I looked in the tank, to my shock, the bits of ham were gone. But something else had been left in the sand: skins. Four skins, like from shedding snakes.
I worried I had killed the things with the meat.
Ali pressed her face close to the tank.
“What are these things?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Dad says maybe shrimp.”
Ali started to reach into the water, but I ripped her arm back. “What are you doing?” I gasped.
“Relax, Dorkowski, I’m not gonna bother them. I just want to look at that skin.”
I relented as she dipped her hand into the water. Held my breath. Watched the long, pale, slender hand of my sister reaching down, closer to a hole.
I hated her, but then again not really, and the thought of something hurting her...
She grabbed for the skin, but it slipped through her fingers.
Did something move just beneath the surface of the hole?
I looked at the sand below the water line. Something stirred within, like tentacles or a nest of snakes.
The light refracting through the water made it hard for her to locate the skin. Her index finger drew a small path in the sand.
Then that strange urge struck again...turn away from the tank.
And was my sister turning away too as she felt for the skin?
“Come on, forget about it,” I told her.
“I got it!”
Her hand withdrew from the water with the piece of skin.
Mabel barked.
Mom entered from the laundry room.
“Mom, look,” Ali said.
Mom and I examined the skin held in my sister’s palm.
“What is it?” Ali asked.
“Looks reptilian,” Mom replied. “Or maybe cephalopod.”
“Squid?” Kyle asked.
She nodded. “I have a friend in the Biology Department. Let me see what she says.”
Mom left with the skin, while Ali and I returned to examining the tank.
“Is it me,” my sister asked, “or do those holes seem bigger than yesterday?”
I just nodded.
“Kyle?”
I turned to her.
“Don’t put your hand in there,” she said.
As the week went by, I mostly avoided the furnace room, having the growing sense that whatever lurked inside that aquarium might be dangerous. I debated whether I should get my father to help me lug the whole thing into the yard and just dump it all out. But then I worried that might not kill them, so maybe I should just dump bleach into the water?
The joker in my head burst in with his own idea: give them more meat!
However, I knew how to ignore that voice, so not only did I not feed them more meat, I stopped feeding them anything.
But I started to suspect others in the family were. I’d catch Mom or Dad or Ali leaving the furnace room with sly looks on their faces. They always went in alone, and never said anything, but there were times they seemed a little bit sneaky. And none of them ever said anymore, “Don’t forget to feed them.”
Mabel began making the furnace room her main habitat, only coming upstairs for meals. It bothered me that no one else in the family found this strange. Mabel didn’t have much ambition as a rule, but she had always liked to be around the family.
On the following Monday, I was doing homework at the kitchen table when I heard Mabel let out a sharp yelp from down in the furnace room. I rose slowly, afraid of what had happened, hoping someone else had heard it and would come to check on her. No one did.
So I crept over to the cellar door and started down the stairs, but I had only gone a few steps when Mabel burst around the corner and came charging up the stairs, still whimpering a little. She went right past me, and when I tried to follow her, found she had disappeared under a desk where Mom sat conducting a Zoom class session.
I had no choice but to stay out of the room until her session was over, but I could have sworn seeing a wet spot on the dog’s head as she ran by.
I decided to go down and check on the tank. A strange mix of feelings came with this decision. Revulsion, excitement, fear, curiosity. Strangely, the joker actually seemed to shrivel up hiding in a corner of my mind.
Creeping into the furnace room, I observed water on the floor in front of the tank. Not much, maybe just enough to slip on.
Arriving at the tank, my heart pounding, I looked inside. Nothing unusual.
Except now there were only three holes.
I went to bed early, though I did not sleep for hours. Processing all this became very difficult. Facing me on my bureau sat a photo of me with my parents and sister from two years ago. Sixth grade. I’d been a completely different person. When my sister was in the fifth grade, I looked out for her. I played hoops every day with Dad and had no idea we both stunk. And when Mom fawned all over me before leaving for school, I felt no self consciousness at all. At school I was still unnoticed, but unaware of it. The universe felt wide open.
But a shadow had descended over me since then. I felt it a little more every day.
The next morning, I found Mabel sheltering under mom’s desk, Mom out on an early morning run. I could of sworn I heard her whimpering while eating breakfast. When I crouched down to check on her, she raised the corner of her lip and growled a little. Wow, that dog never growled.
Ali came up from the cellar, which seemed surprising, since she usually slept late on Saturday.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Like it’s any of your business,” she replied. At least that felt normal. But why was she downstairs?
Then the urge to go visit the tank came so sharply into my mind that I found myself standing there blinking. My sister walked away shaking her head. Only when I realized my legs were edging toward the cellar door did I send out the panicky order to them to stop.
I stood there in a daze, unsure where to go or what to do, my world shifting beneath my feet, everything in this old house feeling menacing now. Like the house itself was a monster and my family had unwittingly fed themselves to it, and I was the only one even aware they needed to escape before being digested.
The ringing of the doorbell unfroze me. Mabel let out a small whimper of pain. Dad had gone to pick up coffee, and Mom was still on her run, so I answered the door.
A small woman with a receding jaw and sparkling eyes greeted me with a British accent.
“Hello, is your mum home? You must be Kyle. I work with her at the university.”
“Hi.”
“She brought what turns out to be a most interesting biological specimen.”
“Really? What did you find?”
“Is your mum here?”
“She’s on a run, should be back soon. You can come in and wait.”
I led the women to the kitchen.
“I’m Lynn Barrett,” she explained. “You’re a very bright boy, I’ve been told, very interested in science.”
“Yeah, science is cool.”
We both sat at an island counter in the kitchen. Mrs. Barrett pulled out a printout.
“I should be upset with this little trick you’ve played on me, Kyle, it costs a lot of resources to run a DNA analysis. But just how you managed it has really intrigued me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s really impressive. That sample we got really looks like skin, but somehow you got the DNA to show something that’s, well, impossible.”
I spread my hands and gave a slight shake of my head to show my bafflement.
“Look,” she said, “right here.”
She pointed to the printout.
“According to this, the DNA is a mixture of something similar to a squid with something, well, very different.”
“Different?”
“Amino acids,” she replied, “or what look like amino acids anyway, only with sulfur molecules replacing the carbon.”
“OK, I’m not sure I like science that much.” She had lost me.
“Naturally,” she explained, “I don’t expect you’ve figured out how to design your own nucleotides, but perhaps you’ve found something very peculiar and marinated some squid inside of it. Brilliantly done, whatever it is! I wouldn’t want you to think you’re in any trouble. My own brother once blew up the garage with his chemistry set...you’re not doing anything like that I hope?”
But I was already jumping to my feet in terror. “Mrs. Barrett, you must help me get rind of them!”
“Don’t panic, dear boy, what is the matter?”
“I sent for these things, and put them in the water as instructed...”
I began pulling the woman to her feet.
“...and I did everything right, except it said not to feed them meat, and now they are a danger to everyone!”
I pulled her through the house, down the stairs and toward the furnace room, fighting to keep my glasses from flying off while she fought to keep hers.
I released her before the tank. She approached cautiously, eying the holes in the sand and the three remaining skins.
I worried she was standing too close.
Wished the tank had a cover.
“Whatever they are,” I said, “we have to kill them.”
Worried maybe she still believed I was playing a trick on her, I stepped a little closer so I could see her better. But something strange had come over her, something that drained much of the life out her face.
“Well, I...I...I,” she stammered in confusion.
“Please,” I said.
“Really, I must...” she said, taking a half step back and searching for the words. “I must be going.”
She turned and left, with me trying to catch up with her as she bolted up the stairs.
“Tell your mum I stopped by. A very clever joke, very clever.”
She never slowed to look back at me, just kept going right out the door, down the walk and to her car.
Mom or Dad would be home soon, maybe one of them would know what to do.
No, this was my fault. I had to do something now. I returned to the basement.
Placed my hand on the bottle of bleach on top of the washer.
Froze there, a wash of miserable feelings coming over me.
What kind of person harms innocent creatures?
But they were not so innocent were they.
I asked myself, Didn’t you bring them into this world? You’re their father, their god.
But I didn’t know what they were, had no idea, and I would never bring anything that could harm my family into the house.
You don’t have the guts to do it anyway, the voice told me.
I had no answer for that, and a wave of self loathing rolled in. Finally, with trembling hands, I lifted the bleach and entered the furnace room.
Only someone was already there: Ali, lying on the floor beside the tank doing her stretches.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What does it look like?”
“But why in here?”
“I don’t know, the grass was wet. Why do you have bleach?”
“Oh...I was just going to do some laundry.”
“Since when do you do laundry?”
She had her back to the tank, her torso stretching toward her straightened leg.
“You know how it is,” I said, “if you want something done right...”
“I hope whatever you have, big brother, it isn’t contagious.”
“Right. Well, you should do those somewhere else, Ali.”
She scowled at me. “Let me know when you have an army so you can tell me what to do.”
“I’m serious,” I insisted. “The air is not good down here.”
“True,” she said rising to her feet. “Starting to smell like bleach. And nerd,” She stormed out.
I stood alone now, bleach in hand, staring at the tank.
You don’t have the guts.
I took a step closer.
Maybe if you turned around while you did it...
Another step closer.
But wait, that made sense. Turn around, reach behind and just pour the bleach in with your back to the tank.
I turned around.
Stepped backward toward the tank.
Started to unscrew the cap on the bleach.
Another step closer.
A god has the right to destroy his creation, doesn’t he? Even the duty to if things went not as expected. Like Noah’s God sending the flood.
Just get a little closer.
Then I heard the garage door opening. Dad.
Maybe he would have a better idea.
I hurried out of the furnace room.
But glancing back as I turned out the light, I thought I saw black and squirming things slithering back into the holes.
I found my father taking groceries and a case of beer from the car.
“For later,” he said. “When I’m done working.”
I knew the first beer would be cracked by noon. And since it kept Dad out of Mom’s hair, she didn’t mind.
Dad then noticed the troubled look on my face.
“What’s bugging you, little man?”
“Can you help me get rid of those things inside the tank?”
“Oh, no, you can’t do that. God’s creatures, and all that.”
“You aren’t religious.”
“But it’s a fine philosophy, isn’t it?” I helped him load individual beers in the cellar fridge. “Live and let live,” he said. “Imagine the eons of evolution that went into whatever those little guys are in that tank? You just added water and a bit of food to some tiny little eggs, and out of that you got little creatures. Amazing!”
“Can we please just get rid of them?”
I wondered if I should tell my father about what happened to Mabel...but what had happened to her?
“Tell you what,” he said. “You let me take care of them, and when they’re starting to outgrow their home, I’ll find them another one.”
“Dad...”
“Go on, it’ll be ok. Don’t I always take care of things?”
“Actually...”. It was really Mom that took care of most things.
“Go find your sister and keep an eye on her, make sure those kids across the street aren’t giving her a hard time.”
With his corny smile, he nudged me out of the garage. I knew full well Ali could more than take care of herself, so I walked up the street in the opposite direction, all the while having to resist the strange urge to return to the furnace room and stand with my back to the tank.
Along the way, my mother passed me on the other side of the street. Three things startled me about this. First, she was walking instead of running, and walking kind of sluggishly. Second, she wore a knit hat that belonged to my dad, and she never wore hats. Finally, she didn’t seem to recognize me. When I waved, she didn’t see it, or perhaps ignored me, staring straight ahead and moving right past.
My hand slowly, absentmindedly, went to the back my head, feeling around for anything unusual.
I walked in a daze, autumn leaves drifting around me. No destination, I kept walking, unable to think clearly. Hours I apparently walked, for it had become late afternoon when I finally found myself slipping into my house. The tug drawing me toward the furnace room was overwhelming, but I resisted.
Ali, in the kitchen helping Mom cut vegetables, flashed me a smile.
“Hey, big brother, what’s up?”
Was I in the right house?
“I talked Mom into making your favorite, beef stew.”
“Alright...” I replied, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t.
My mother didn’t even look at me.
“Ma?” he asked. “How come you ignored me today?”
Finally she turned, but her face looked like she’d been shot up with Novocaine, and her eyes stared right over me.
“Nnnnnnnn...” came out of her mouth.
“She had a little incident,” Ali explained. “Sprained ankle. Ice, heat, then pain meds. That’s why I’m helping.”
Mom forced a smile.
I continued on to my room, half expecting to find another me in my bed, since I’d obviously stumbled into an alternate reality of some sort. Maybe this other Kyle could dribble a basketball between his legs, and see more than three feet without glasses. It would be pretty cool to meet a Kyle like that. But no such luck.
An hour and a half later, Ali called me down to dinner with the kind of cheerful voice she reserved for kids who could shoot from the three point line. I showed up with the same caution I approached gym class with, expecting horrors to ensue. But, of course, nothing of the sort happened. Ali told me how lucky she was to have an eighth grader for a brother...huh?...and Mom had recovered enough speech to remark how excellent the beef stew was, some of which dribbled down her chin.
Dad seemed normal, and if he was oblivious at all to the fact his daughter and wife seemed a little off, that too was normal.
After supper, I retreated to the fortress of my bedroom. I hunted aliens on Playstation, watched old episodes of the Twilight Zone on Netflix, and created an avatar for a virtual colony on Mars. While trying everything to take my mind off what might be going on outside the fortress, the underlying anxiety I felt never ceased. I imagined this was what it might feel like to be on death row, knowing your execution was set for tomorrow.
At long last, I turned out the light and rolled over to go to sleep. I’d been lying there some time when something pushed open the door, letting in a little light from the hallway. My heart raced. I was afraid to move.
Whimpering reached me from the floor.
I tried to turn on the bedside lamp, but the bulb blew. So I opened my laptop to get a little bluish light, pushed on my eye glasses, and found the source of the whimpering.
Mabel. Looking up at me and crying. I could just barely see her in the limited light.
“What is it girl?”
The dog, no longer agile enough to hop onto my bed, jumped up with just her front paws and continued crying in pain. I reached down and scooped her into the bed beside me.
I smoothed the fur on her back, and she settled a little. It warmed my heart to know she still sought solace in me. Ever since that incident in the furnace room she had been very out of character, grumbling whenever I went near her. Now she seemed her old self, though in a little pain.
As I continued petting her, my hand found my way to the folds of skin at her neck, and then to the thick bone on the top of her head. She let out a cry, but otherwise didn’t move. But I felt wetness there.
Grabbing my cell phone, I pressed the flashlight app and examined her head: blood!
Gasping, I sat sat up quick, examining the dark splotch on my hand. Looking again at the dog’s head, I was relieved to find only a small amount of blood.
But then Mabel began to shiver violently.
“It’s ok, girl,” I tried to soothe her.
However, the shivers turned into convulsions.
I pulled away and stood crouched on the mattress, wanting to scream for help but finding I could not.
A convulsion knocked Mabel off the bed. I aimed my flash beam at her on the floor. She continued to convulse, and her head split open. Something like a tentacle pushed out.
Again I tried to scream and could not.
I had trouble keeping the light on the dog with my trembling hand.
A second tentacle came out, and some kind of head...I could only get glimpses in the shifting light.
The tentacles pulled on Mabel’s head, and the thing that emerged had raptor legs, an octopus head and tentacle arms.
A second one came out, helped by the first one pulling it.
I aimed the phone’s flash at their faces, and they hissed at me.
They started looking around the room.
Finally, they moved toward the heating vent in the wall, taking little hops.
One of them used its tentacle arms to pull the vent cover off the wall. It waited for the other one to slither into the vent, then went in behind it, closing the vent with the cover from the inside.
At last, I found my voice, screaming at the top of my lungs, a scream that didn’t stop until Mom and Dad and Ali poured into my room, turning the ceiling light on.
Their eyes, of course, went immediately to the dead basset hound on the floor, her head split open.
“Oh, poor baby,” Mom said.
“It was her time,” Ali added.
“She was very old,” Dad agreed. “She had a good life.”
“She was only four years old!” I yelled. “And look at her head!”
Mom came over and smoothed my hair. “Death can be quite unpleasant, sweetie.”
“Monsters came out of her head!” I told them.
“You’ve always had a wonderful imagination,” Dad remarked with a smile.
“It’s what I love about you,” Ali said with her own creepy grin.
“But they’re in the walls!”
I pointed to a trail of wetness leading to the vent.
“She did leave a mess,” Dad shook his head. “Poor thing.” He bent down and picked Mabel’s corpse up. “Ali, can you get the mop?”
But Ali was already cleaning the floor with one of my sweatshirts. She was doing a terrible job, smiling the whole time.
Mom gently pushed me into the bed and straightened my legs, pulling the blankets up around me.
“We need to call an exterminator or something,” I insisted.
All three of my family stopped what they were doing then and gave me a hard stare.
“Or 911,” I proposed sheepishly.
Mom took my cell phone and put it in her pocket.
Ali took my laptop.
Dad, heading through the door with Mabel, flashed one last smile at me. “Try to get some sleep, little guy.”
I then noticed the wound on the back of his bald head as he left.
Mom pulled my glasses from my face. “You’ll sleep better without these.”
She and Ali left the room, turning off the light and closing the door.
I lay there stunned, watching the door, listening to their footsteps trail away. Then I turned to the vent, almost invisible in the darkness. I watched it a long moment.
Remembering my old laptop in my sock drawer, I jumped out of bed, avoided the blood and brains on the floor, and dug it out. While it powered up, I kept a nervous eye on the vent, hoping I would have time to tell my story, wondering who I will send it to, since I don’t have any friends.
I am still watching that vent as I hit “post”.

First, I'm sorry this is so long. Second - please be nice. We have debt, bad habits, and are Catholic. So if any of those things are going to get you spun up, just skip this one.
Section One: Assets and Debt Use this section to explain your current financial picture at large.
Everything here is joint – “M” and I have been married 22 years and we’ve had “smashed money” that whole time (and really for about a year before that).
Retirement Balance (and how you got there): Approximately $500,000 in a variety of IRAs and current 401(k)s.
Equity if you're a homeowner (and how much you put down and how you accumulated that payment). Bought our house in 2001 for $239,000 with 20% down (some aggressive saving and a gift from each of our parents). We refinanced, took some cash out for some home repairs, and reduced it to a 15-year loan in 2009 – our current equity would be about $195,000, but similar homes in the neighborhood are listed at $475,000-$525,000, so if we ever sell, we’re probably coming out ahead.
Savings account balance: $6,000
Checking account balance: $6,500
Credit card debt (and how you accumulated it): I hope you’re sitting down. Approximately $40,000. Yes, you read that right. How we accumulated it? The house is 90 years old and constantly falling apart, so we’ve had to charge things that needed to be done (some we wanted to have done, but some – like the time our oil burner stopped working in December – were needs). We had two dogs with numerous medical issues – I don’t want to calculate what they cost me, but they each had surgeries that were about $5,000 (each), plus other chronic and acute medical issues. And yes…for a while, we were doing and buying things we probably shouldn’t have (not bad things, just vacations, clothes, and non-essential home improvements) So…when I’m 100 and greeting people at Wal-Mart, I’ll at least have some good memories. That said, I can’t tell you the last time I used credit – if we can’t afford to pay cash, we don’t do it (and I say that fully realizing most people would feel that I shouldn’t do anything).
Student loan debt (for what degree): None – my husband went to the military and then to work after high school and I went back to community college later in life and paid as I went.
Anything else that's applicable to you: If my ex-husband dies before me, I’ll have about $6,000 in a money market that he must have forgotten about. When we divorced, he was supposed to liquidate all those accounts and give me half. He was an accountant and a SOB, so I never knew exactly what we had, but what I got seemed accurate (it paid for furniture, my wedding to M and part of this house, so I was OK with it). Lo and behold, a couple years ago, I found out we still have this money market account in both names. I tried to find him so we could liquidate/split it, but he’s missing. I get the statements here now, and the good part is he’s older than me, so I’m holding out hope he predeceases me and it will be mine.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I've been working in my field for a year and a half, my starting salary was $100,000. I did a salary story with the entire progression – long story short, I’ve made more, and I’ve made less, but this is probably about the average of the last five years.
My husband has been at his job for 14 years – he started there making around $75,000 and now makes $110,000. They usually give him a $10,000 bonus at the end of the year, but are always crying poverty if people ask for a raise. Prior to that, he worked for a company that paid very well and he had a 15-minute commute, but he got out one step ahead of their bankruptcy.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
Me: $5,152
J: $6,230
Side Gig Monthly Take Home:
M is paid $1,300/month by our parish for serving as Youth Minister.
Any Other Monthly Income: $16.00
I get quarterly dividends on stock I was given when I was born (I may not have been born into money, but apparently my grandparents had friends who thought this was a good baby gift). The last few were around $50, so I divided by 3.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees (please specify how you split it if living with a partner): $3,043, which includes the property taxes and homeowner's insurance
Savings contribution: $500/month without fail (my bank transfers $100 if we get over $500 in, so once each paycheck and once when we put the church check in). More if I feel the savings needs a boost.
Debt payments:

Credit card #1: $350/month (this is about twice the minimum)
Credit card #2: $375/month (minimum payment)
Credit card #3: $200/month (minimum payment - this is the next one getting whacked when #1 is paid off)

Donations: OK – anyone who isn’t screaming because I owe $40K is going to start now.

$300/month to the church in the “collection basket” (it’s electronic, but same diff)
$100/month to the church building fund (last year of a five-year pledge, thankfully – if I hadn’t promised to pay it, I wouldn’t)
$25/month to Habitat for Humanity
$20/month to Citymeals on Wheels
~$50/month to various other charities
~$100/month in food for the church food drive (we don’t have a food pantry, but collect food every week and anyone from the neighborhood can come take some. The rest is donated to several food pantries and soup kitchens in the Diocese).
As far as volunteer hours, M and I both teach Religious Ed. I'm on the Parish Council and co-social media manager of the parish (basically, I schedule Facebook). M also videotapes the 5:00 Mass and the children’s worship message each week and uploads it to the parish YouTube channel.

Electric: $110
Gas (stove/hot water): $50
Oil: $250/month in the winter
Wifi/Cable: $179
Cellphone: $252 for both of us (I get mine expensed except $26 for my phone payment)
Subscriptions:

$.99/month for iCloud Storage
$545/month for life insurance for both of us, plus $202 quarterly for the life insurance policies we took out when we bought the house
$17/month for NY Times online
$10.86/month for Ring video doorbell
$12.99/month for Netflix
$9.99/month for Spotify (I think M gets reimbursed for this, because he has it for Youth Ministry)
$119/year for Amazon Prime (yes, I know, I am an awful person)

Car payment / insurance: $295/month for my car (leased). My husband is driving a 10-year old car that is paid off. $128/month for auto insurance
Lawn care: $50/month
Commuting: Now that we’re in COVID times, I’ve been buying a 10-trip off peak railroad ticket every five days for $78.75. Pre-COVID, M and I each bought a monthly ticket for $270, and I took the subway most days for an additional $100/month. I fill up the car about once a month (~$36) and M fills his about every other week (~$70/month)
Saturday, September 26, 2020
7:45 am: Up and at ‘em! I get up, get coffee, check emails and social media and start the day.
8:00 am: M leaves the house for a long list of errands, the payment for which will be shown below. I put in a load of laundry and discover…a leak! There is a large pipe between our powder room sink (which I used when I woke up) and the outside world that runs through the basement and is apparently leaking. Yay whee. If you get one thing from this diary, let it be these words of wisdom – don’t buy an old house! No beautiful feature is worth the aggravation! I get the water (I hope it’s water) cleaned up, a load of laundry in, take a shower, do some picking up around the house, get dressed in a Rangers t-shirt and cut off distressed jeans, do my makeup (Olay microsculpting serum and Miracle Blur over the bottom of my face, pink, gray, and violet eyeshadows, a swipe of foundation under my eyes, black eyeliner, black mascara, and dark brown eye pencil. This is standard everyday makeup for me and will be repeated each day. I put volumizing mousse in my hair and blow dry it (also routine).
In the meantime, M gets a haircut ($30 including tip), sets up the video equipment at church, goes to CVS for passport photos that he needs for an application ($18.87), and goes to the religious goods store for a book of the Liturgy of the Hours ($42.31). He is starting formation for the diaconate (the process of becoming a Deacon in the Catholic Church) today, and they said he’ll need that book. He also needs the photos for his application, and he stops at the bank for two money orders – one to send with the background check request and one for his high school transcript ($26). On the way home, he picks up breakfast (brunch?) for us – classic New York BEC, SPK (bacon, egg, and cheese on a roll with salt, pepper and ketchup) for him and egg whites, turkey and swiss cheese on a whole wheat wrap for me ($10.78), as well as cigs for him and vape cartridges for me ($36).
The washing machine isn’t causing any additional leakage, so I move the wash to the dryer and start moving the winter clothes from the portable closet in front of the leaking pipe upstairs (they’re not wet, but we’re going to have to move the closet when the plumber comes).
After eating the egg sandwiches, we get changed for deacon class – I look like a good church lady in black slacks, a black and white flowered shirt with a black tank underneath, and black sandals with a chunky 2.5” heel. M goes with the classic golf shirt and dockers. While we’re getting changed, he mentions he needs new underwear, so I whip out the phone and order him some ($18.64).
6:30 pm: Home from deacon class and Mass and the groceries show up! I ordered them yesterday, but I don’t think the charge went through till today, so here goes. Asparagus, broccoli, celery, bananas, cucumber, lime, grape tomatoes, peaches, carrots, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, zucchini, frozen burgers, ground turkey, chicken breasts, whole chicken, fried chicken and a pot pie for J’s lunches, yogurt, sugar free pumpkin spice creamer (YES! I’ve been looking for it for weeks!), milk, heavy cream, OJ, k-cups, frozen green beans, cauliflower rice, stuffing mix, microwave rice, cake mix (the good ones were on sale), chicken broth, potato chips, and trash bags. Spent $154.95 including delivery, saved $14.50 (very low for me), tipped the delivery guy $10.
7:00 pm: After putting away all that food, what do we do? If you guessed order dinner, you’d be right! I don’t cook on Saturday unless we’re having company. We order from a new taco place – three each and “Mexican wings”. The wings were meh, but the tacos ranged from good to outstanding. $53.78 including tip. After dinner, M starts post-production of the Mass video and I do some laundry, watch the NASCAR race and the hockey game, and play games on my iPad. Remember, you’ll be old someday too!
11:00 pm: I go to the basement to pick up laundry and remember I wanted to order a new garden flag (this isn’t as random as it sounds – all my seasonal decorations are stored in the basement). I have had a cart set up for days with two garden flags ($6.99 each) and four magnetic mailbox covers for my parents for Christmas ($11.99 each) – they’ve talked about having a different one for each season, and I saw them when I was looking for a garden flag. Total with tax and free shipping: $61.94. I love Christmas and generally spend way too much on gifts so I’m trying to start shopping before December and at least spread out the pain. We went to a crafts fair a few weeks ago and I picked up a few things and now I’ve got this done – go me!!
12:30 pm: The hockey game is over (2 OT!) and I go to bed. M is napping waiting for his video production to finish.
Daily Total: $463.27
Sunday, September 27
7:00 am: The alarm goes off – ugh. It’s the first day of Religious Ed (virtual, but I have to do a 9:45 zoom with my 4th graders). Coffee, social media, shower, dress, makeup. Put on a black eyelet dress because we’re going back to church today so M can videotape First Communion. Do the usual makeup/hair thing.
10:30 am: My 4th graders are great and we’re ready to roll (M has on a shirt and tie in honor of the First Communion), and we’re off to Mass. Drop off the food I bought for our food pantry last week and help him video. Of course, the kids are adorable!
12:00 noon: We’re starving after church, so we stop at our favorite local pizza place on the way home. Get a variety of slices for $22.62, including a tip (we’re getting it to go, but I’m tipping everywhere, because I know restaurants have been hurt badly by the pandemic. These folks are in NYC and still haven’t opened inside dining.)
1:30 pm: Ate, ran more laundry, changed into the jeans I wore yesterday and a Yankees t-shirt and call the nail place. Of all my expenses, nails are probably the most non-negotiable – I’ve been getting my nails done for 40 years, and when I couldn’t do so during the lockdown, I was miserable. They can take me right away, which makes me happy.
3:00 pm: All 20 nails done – gel on the fingers and a regular pedicure with callus removal ($75 plus $15 tip = $90). I went with an autumn theme and got copper on the fingers and bronze toes – the nail polish looked in the jar like it would match the toes, but it doesn’t. Stop at CVS for eye cream (Olay for tired eyes) and mascara (L’Oreal Voluminous) - $27 with coupons. M asked me to pick up cigs on the way home, so I do, as well as vape cartridges, which I don’t technically need yet, but it will save a trip later in the week ($36).
3:30 pm: While at the nail place, I saw that one of our favorite local restaurants had a fire, which consumed an entire block of restaurants and small businesses. The Chamber of Commerce is doing a GoFundMe, and I donate $25 to the cause - $28.75 including the charge. I also notice that the weekly charge for my church donation went through ($75).
11:30 pm: Took a quick nap (the highlight of my week every week), put some fall decorations out, had our family Zoom call, laundry, got the end of the winter clothes moved upstairs, had dinner (roast chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus), made an apple crisp (I’m not a huge dessert person but M is and I like making desserts, so it works), watched baseball, football, the NASCAR race, and basketball, and took a quick shower. Bring a Light & Fit Toasted Coconut Vanilla yogurt (the best!) to bed, finish my book (“Next Stop, Chancey”) and find the next in the series on my iPad – I’ve read them all before, but I’m in the mood for something cozy, especially after reading about the Current Occupant’s taxes – ugh!) , and turn off the lights around midnight.
Daily Total: $279.37
Monday, September 28
6:45 am: I work from home M/W/F and so I can sleep in. Relatively speaking, anyway. Get dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts (despite the fall decorations, fall nails, and roast chicken/apple crisp, it feels rather summery out there), do makeup, have some coffee and scroll through emails/socials, move yet another load of laundry (I’m trying to get it all done before the plumber comes), find the number for the plumber and give it to M to call, get the trash out, and boil some eggs for breakfast this week. I’m sitting in front of the computer by 8:15, which is ok (technically, my hours are 8:30-5:30 – it’s usually more like 8:30-6:00, and on WFH days, starting at 7:30 is not unheard of). M drops off the car at the shop – I think I forgot to mention this, but he mentioned yesterday that when he was driving around Saturday, there was a grinding noise when he backed up. More joy to come, I’m sure.
9:45 am: I hear M on the phone with the garage – apparently, they can get a used part and do the job for $450. Not great, but it’s better than it might have been! He works from home basically every day except when he has to see customers, but thankfully we’re separated enough that we can hear each other but it’s not intrusive.
10:30 am: Between cursing at people on the phone, M calls the plumber and I grab some cheese and more coffee! I’d tell you about my job, but honestly, it’s not worth talking about. Basically, I go to meetings, take notes on meetings, and send follow-ups (I do other things, but that’s most of it). When I get off my 11:00 am meeting, I’ll find out when the plumber is coming. You guys are getting a much more exciting week than I expected!
12:30 pm: What a miserable day – it seems like everyone is annoyed! Take a break to eat a slice of leftover pizza and a Diet Coke (M finishes some rotisserie chicken from last week). He says the plumber may come today to look at the situation but can’t do the work till tomorrow.
6:00 pm: Keep my head down and get some work done in the afternoon and knock off for the day. Run downstairs and make dinner – “tacos” with strips of beef grilled with Korean barbecue sauce, shredded cabbage, cheddar cheese, pineapple salsa, cucumber slices, and lime inside warmed tortillas. Delicious, if I say so myself!
7:30 pm: I get on a Zoom faith sharing meeting and M gets on a Zoom religious ed class.
11:59 pm: Contemplated Sunday’s Gospel with my small group, watched Tampa Bay win the Stanley Cup, took a shower and set clothes out for tomorrow, and off to bed. M picked up the car after Religious Ed.
Daily Total: $450.00
Tuesday, September 29
5:45 am: Ugh. Up and out – I’m wearing a green dress with a black jacket and have black slingbacks in my bag. I have to walk 30 short blocks and five long blocks once I get off the train, so I’m traveling light. I used to take the subway to my office, but since COVID, I try to limit that as much as possible.
7:45 am: Off the railroad and walk uptown. I actually don’t mind the walk, because when I WFH, I walk very little – at the beginning of the lockdown, I had a nice walking routine, but lately the work seems to start the minute I wake up, so walking to work takes care of getting in those STEPS! I forgot my boiled eggs and I’m starving, so I end up buying an egg sandwich. $5.43
12:30 pm: Because I only go to the city twice a week and I have to walk uptown with all my work stuff, I don’t bring lunch often (pre-pandemic, I used to bring breakfast and lunch every day, but I also took the subway). Decide to run to Pret and my boss and co-worker both ask me to pick something up. Of course, no one (including me) has anything but a $20, so they both say they’ll get me next time. I get my favorite chicken parm wrap and a Diet Coke. $32
12:45 pm: I look at my personal email and discover that J’s car registration needs to be renewed. Hop on the DMV website and take care of that. $158.50. I also realize I never took out the sausages for tonight’s dinner and call M to ask him to do so. He mentions the plumber has still not shown up.
5:45 pm: Leave a little early to get to the Fed Ex office and make my train home. I’m a little later than I’d like to be and it’s raining, so I get the subway, which is thankfully empty, reasonably clean, and quick. $2.75
7:15 pm: M picks me up at the train station and mentions that he was so busy working that he didn’t take the sausages out. He asks me what I want to eat and we end up at Wendy’s. Cheeseburger, fries, and (surprise, surprise) a Diet Coke. He gets the same thing, but bigger. $19.75
11:30 pm: Avoid the debate by watching the Yankees pound the Indians. Usual routine (plus ironing a shirt for J, because he has to go to a customer tomorrow) and off to sleep. I’m up to Book 3 in the Chancey series, for those keeping score.
Daily Total: $218.43
Wednesday, September 29
5:30 am: Double ugh. Woke up to use the bathroom and couldn’t get back to sleep, so here we are. Get dressed (long-sleeved Yankees t-shirt, straight leg jeans), do the face, have some coffee, and try to avoid the fact that my boss sent me an email at 11:00 pm last night looking for changes to a document, which I said I would do today. Get the trash out, pick up a little around the house, and get to work by 7:00. OH, and despite the lack of plumber and his lack of general motivation, M moved the plastic closet…in front of the washing machine! Glad I bought him underwear, because I won’t be doing laundry any time soon. Now I’m wondering if he looked at the menu (I am an obsessive meal planner and post it on the fridge weekly) and that’s why he didn’t take the sausages out – he’s avoiding zoodles! He can run but he can’t hide – I have zucchini and I’m going to spiralize it sooner or later!
8:00 am: The document my boss needed is out, the agenda for our 9:00 am meeting is done, the morning emails are sorted (for now), and I got a link to our parish survey up on the Facebook page, so I make an egg and cheese on a tortilla and eat at my desk.
12:50 pm: Wednesday is conference call hell – I have recurring calls every Wednesday at 9:00, 10:30, and 11:30, and the added fun today of a 10:00. There’s also a webinar every Wednesday that I try to tune into. Grab some chips and a Diet Coke and go check it out.
2:15 pm: Still no damn plumber, but I’ll let M worry about that when he’s home tomorrow. My garden flags arrived, so that’s good. Hoping to get out and put the pumpkin one out before it gets dark, but the way today is going, that might not actually happen. However, I realize I never put dinner in the crockpot. Luckily, it only takes 3-4 hours on high, so I take care of that. It’s Tuscan Chicken with sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. By 2:30, I’m back at my desk with another Diet Coke and hard at it. Nightmares of rescheduling meetings, missing documents, etc.
6:45 pm: Still at my desk! OK, I took some time to send an email to the parish webmaster about the survey, update this, and read the R29 money diary of the day. But overall, I’ve been working with no apparent end in sight – I could easily be here all night, but I won’t be because (a) I’m falling asleep at my desk and (b) I have a 7:30 Religious Ed teachers meeting. Hopefully I won’t fall asleep during that. Make a list of things for my boss and I to review tomorrow and finish prepping dinner.
7:15 pm: Dinner was delicious – we had the chicken with rice for M and cauliflower rice for me, sautéed broccoli, and a basic salad (bagged spring mix, cherry tomatoes, cucumber). Now off to Zoom!
11:45 pm: The Yankees game is still on, but I’m showered, my clothes are set out for tomorrow, and I’m fading. Turn off the light and hope for a win.
Daily Total: $0.00 (bet you didn’t see that coming!)
Thursday, October 1
5:45 am: You know it…ugh. Get up, coffee, very quick scroll through the Yankees score/e-mail/social media. Get dressed in a black v-neck sweater, black and gray plaid skirt, and black jacket (not the same one I wore the other day). Am grateful the skirt fits – I gained some weight and am trying to resist buying clothes. Make sure I have the right shoes in my bag – I’m wearing high-heeled gray suede Mary Janes today.
8:15 am: At my desk and ready to go – I remembered to bring 2 hard-boiled eggs today, which I eat with coffee while looking through emails.
12:30 pm: Call after call after call, but I have a half-hour to eat. Run to the fancy buffet place that just re-opened for 2 meatballs, brussels sprouts, broccoli, salad, and the inevitable Diet Coke ($15.75). Manage to eat before my 1:00 pm call – go me!
3:30 pm: Leave to go to a job site and pick something up that has to be shipped to Italy. Something that's almost as tall as me, but thankfully not heavy. Taxi down there because I’m in a hurry and I can get reimbursed ($14.04, including tip), expensed.
4:00 pm: I get a cab to the Fed Ex office – thankfully the first one I see is a minivan, so I fit in just fine ($12.74, including tip), expensed.
5:30 pm: Well, that was harder than it needed to be – the Fed Ex office I went to didn’t have a box that would fit the item, so they suggested another Fed Ex office about 6 blocks away, so I had to walk through midtown Manhattan carrying an object almost as tall as me (it's 5' long and I'm 5'3" tall) while dodging oblivious people. Thankfully, the other office had my box, and they were super-sweet and helpful, but it took them forever to get it done. Bought the box and bubble wrap, which will be expensed (I brought the Fed Ex label, but I don’t remember the account number) ($43.54). Get a nice early train home, though!
6:45 pm: Wow, we’re eating when I’m usually getting the train! Cheeseburgers, tots (tater for J, cauliflower for me), green beans, and vinegar coleslaw with the end of the shredded cabbage. Get the kitchen cleaned and the dishwasher run and settle in to watch the Jets – I’m not holding out much hope, but you never know!
11:30 pm: I’ve showered, set out clothes for me and M (he’s seeing customers tomorrow), I prepped for Youth Group, which I’m leading because he’ll be working, and the Jets are winning, so I decide it’s time to sleep. Up to Book 5 of the Chancey series. I find series usually go downhill after about the third or fourth book, but I’m not sure what I feel like reading, so here we are. OH, at some point M must have gone to the convenience store, because there are vape cartridges on the table ($36).
Daily Total: $122.07; $70.32 expensed
Friday, October 02, 2020
6:00 am: Wake up, grab coffee, find out the Jets lost after all, do the morning e-mail/social media scroll. Leaving early to deal with that work errand has left me with a ton of stuff to do, so I get dressed (long-sleeved v-neck gray t-shirt, white tank because the v-neck is halfway to my belly button, dark wash skinny jeans), put out the trash, peel two hard-boiled eggs, and head to my desk.
12:30 pm: As always, call after call after call. Plus a bit of aggravation when my boss asks me at 10:30 for an agenda for the 11:00 call, which I sent him at about 7:30, and which he returns at 10:59 with the formatting looking like nothing on earth. Yay whee! And a project was mentioned that he forgot to tell me I’d do. So in case I thought I’d have nothing to do (that never happens on Fridays), that’s not happening. Anyway, between calls, I run downstairs for the lunch of champions – a Hot Pocket and a Diet Coke. Just that kind of day.
6:15 pm: Realize I have to run Youth Group at 7 and I haven’t even done my haimakeup. Get that done, heat up some frozen cauliflower rice/broccoli/cheese combination and add some leftover chicken. With a green salad on the side, surprisingly yummy.
8:15 pm: I am not a good youth leader…couldn’t get anyone talking about the subject of the day, which I thought would be a good one. I did make them laugh a few times, so that’s something.
M is going to have some expenses because he went to see customers today, but I don’t know what they are and his company will reimburse him, so I’m just leaving them out.
Daily Total: $0.00
This is the Week That Was:
Food + Drink: $326.06
Fun / Entertainment: $108 (if people can put drugs in as entertainment, I’m putting our nicotine in)
Home + Health: $61.94
Clothes + Beauty: $165.64
Transport: $638.03 (some of it will be expensed)
Other: $234.47
Lastly, reflect on your diary! How do you feel about your spending? Was this a normal week for you? Has this inspired you to make changes or has it given you a “wow I’m doing pretty good” confidence boost? Is there anything you’re actively working on? No need to answer any or all these questions but just use this space to write any thoughts you have!
This was a fairly normal week except for the car breaking and needing to be registered – we're saving some now that we WFH more because M will not bring food from home, but I used to bring breakfast and lunch at least four days a week. I know we should make changes, but I also know we don’t want to – honestly, if you looked at the way I lived 15 years ago, I’ve made a lot of changes already. We’re working on the credit cards – I’ve gotten rid of several already (paid off, not just moved balances around) and we don’t use them at all anymore (I can honestly say I don’t remember the last thing I charged). The bad news is that M’s car is on its last legs, and so I see car payments in our future. Hopefully, he’ll get something used – we have my car when we want to look good going somewhere (mine isn’t super-fancy, it just wasn’t hit by a bus and full of stuff for his job).
OH, and the plumber still hasn’t shown up! But that will be for next week’s expenses.

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