The $76K Project: Reboot

Originally posted on The $76K Project on 8/21/2018 For a while now, I've been wanting to  revisit a topic I've broached in a few previous posts : how my mental health impacts my financial well-being.  For me, the two are closely connected.  My dicey mental health is something that I've long struggled with, and I know I'm not alone. In fact, I'd bet a lot of money that most of us deal with mental health issues of some sort because let's face it: being human is really,  really  hard. Our minds are placed under enormous amounts of stress every day. We're all doing the best we can to cope. (That's something I tell myself a lot when I find myself getting annoyed at others... They're doing the best they can in the moment, as we all are, and we need to cut each other a little slack.) While I'm not quite ready to parade out all of the diagnoses that therapists and doctors have assigned to me over the years (at some point I want to put it all out there an

(Originally posted on The $76K Project on 8/6/2018) Our temporarily relaxed budget and a vacation to the mountains made July a fun month.  It was refreshing to leave town and my office, and it felt luxurious/weird to splurge on things that are clearly more in the category of wants (e.g., condo rental, kitchen gadgets, beauty products, overpriced sightseeing activities) rather than needs. July was our opportunity to take a break from the grind, and it was completely worth it. But now it's August, and it's time to get back to business. Fortysomething will be returning to work, the Kiddo will be returning to school, and we'll all be returning to our budget and the pursuit of our long-term financial goals. Do I feel ready? No! Are we all going to buck up and do it anyway? Ummm, yeah. Sure. Our August started off with a key decision. You may recall that  after we paid off our credit card at the beginning of July , we were trying to figure out the best way to deploy the last of o