April had both ups and downs. I got carried away designing quilt patterns to sell on Etsy (hypomania) and burned out of sewing, we spent time with my family before they left for the season, and the weather finally warmed up and we got to soak in some sun!
We also booked all of the lodging and accommodations for our Europe trip this fall which we’re really excited for.
Continue reading “April 2023 Budget Round Up”February was a busy month. I attempted to study for and then postponed my Professional Engineering Exam. Frankly, I’m pretty burned out of studying while working full time and doing all of the things adults do like cooking dinner. I’m trying to be better about listening to what I need and not just pushing through to the end.
In February, I spent a magnificent day skiing with a friend, spent time with family, played Wingspan, lead a photography meetup at a local park, and started sewing again. I’ve been really enjoying my hobbies and even though they are expensive, I’d like to keep pursuing them.
Part of FIRE is finding joy in life now while saving and investing for the future. Without that joy and my hobbies, life feels pretty flat. I think that I’m solidly out of my depression after failing the first Profession Engineering Exam in January and now, I’m just stable, enjoying life, and doing what I can to find purpose and joy.
Continue reading “February 2023 Budget Round-up”January was a hard month. I studied for, took, and failed the Professional Engineer Exam and it honestly pushed me down into a depressive episode. Mental illness is hard to talk about without making people uncomfortable so instead of telling you about how depressed I was, I’m going to tell you what I did to try to combat my depression.
Continue reading “January 2023 Budget Round Up”
December was fairly calm. We celebrated Christmas and New Year’s Eve with close family in a small stress-free gathering. It snowed a bunch in early December but then rained on Christmas. I knit my family members mittens for Christmas, worked on content creating, studied hard for my big test in January, and binged watched The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO. Mr. Fipolar was content and happy with his hobbies too.
Continue reading “December 2022 Budget Round-Up”
November was a jam-packed month for us. I celebrated my 28th birthday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends, and we got our Christmas tree. We ended up taking advantage of some Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales to buy a couple of camping items and a new tv stand for our living room. These are items that we’ve been watching for and even though the expenses were somewhat unplanned, we still ended up mostly on budget.
Continue reading “November 2022 Budget Round-Up”