What a wild week in personal finance thanks to the GameStop saga. I have to say though, I appreciate being a buy and hold index fund investor for 99% of my retirement funds so I can just sit back with popcorn and watch everything unfold. If you want some great explanations of what is going on, Kara’s BravelyGo Instagram would be my suggestion.

With everything that has gone on these first four Wednesdays of 2021 (Insurrection, Impeachment, Inauguration, and now (GameStop) “Investments,” I don’t even know what to call these Friday posts anymore. Do I just go back to counting the weeks like a “normal” year like I did pre-COVID? Do I continue counting COVID weeks (we’re closing in on a year…)?

Friday’s Frugal Five

1. I haven’t touched my investment accounts this past week with the wild ride we’re on with GameStop, AMC, etc thanks to the Reddit group that kicked this all off. While clearly there are some people who have made some big money this past week, a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money, and not just the hedge funds that Reddit was targeting.

My hope is that those who have jumped on the bandwagon don’t lose too big and don’t get scared away from the stock market for the long term. I’m not sure how I feel about everything that’s going on right now, but there’s a lot of shady practices that are being blown up and shown in real time, and I very much like sitting on the sideline and not worrying about the money I could be “winning” (or losing) because of it.

2. It’s been nice to have something other than COVID/insurrection/etc to follow along with in the news this past week, but we are still deep in the midst of this pandemic. My parents and grandmother received their first vaccination doses last week, but it has been so, so difficult to get appointments for the other folks in my life who qualify for the current vaccine tier.

Bob (my husband’s godfather) got his first dose on Tuesday this week, and my father in law has his scheduled for today. It felt like trying to get exclusive concert tickets for an appointment, and so many hours before we actually got them scheduled. I am so grateful that they are able to get them now, and I’m hopeful that the vaccine rollout continues to speed up in both our state and around the country/world.

3. My husband purchased (locally) a new Traeger smoker grill with his portion of this latest stimulus check, and he grilled a bunch of meat this past week. He made some awesome chicken wings one night and we took some down to our neighbor along with some homemade cookies for dinner.

We may not be hanging out in the cul de sac for our neighborhood happy hours with the winter weather right now, but it feels nice to be able to connect with the people we live near however we can these days. The days are getting longer though, and I’m longing for those hours outside together again.

4. I re-did my strawberry planter beds in the fall and transplanted a bunch of plants in reused individual plastic planters. With years of growth, I ended up with way too many strawberry plants than fit in the area of the garden I have for them.

I’ve been able to give away some of them to my parents and to a couple of other friends, and I sent a few more down the street to a neighbor this week. I still have a few more, but I have at least one other family to send them to. There are few things I love better than sharing food, and that includes sharing plants that will grow food.

5. We are thiiiis close (<$3,000) to another net worth milestone (the next $100k), but thanks to everything going on in the stock market this week, I don’t think we will hit it for a little bit yet. But who knows, my goal is not to time the market, so it will happen when it happens.

Clearly, my goals stick toward what we can -mostly – control (our savings rate) and not our net worth, which is majorly impacted by outside forces, but I still am excited to see that next number, even if it doesn’t last for a bit. Perhaps we will actually celebrate this one, but we haven’t been good about celebrating big money wins. Do you celebrate them? What do you do?

PS – we will be launching WomensPersonalFinance.org for the first founding members next week. If you’re interested in hearing when we open it up, please sign up here to get an email when we go live!

Exercise Update

Friday was a walk by myself and some stair running (but a shorter flight than the 230 steps I’ve been doing lately). Saturday we went for a hike at Meadowdale Beach Park and the weather was glorious. It was just in the 40s, but it felt almost warm in the sunshine.

Monday was a brisk walk around our neighborhood with some hills with friends (masked up of course) while the kiddo stayed home with our roommate. Does that count as a double date? In COVID times, I’ll take it.

I ran a 5k on Tuesday by myself and finished with a 10:52 pace, which felt really good. While not as fast as I used to run, I’m getting faster post dealing with plantar fasciitis. Wednesday was a long (masked) run with my dad – in the sunshine! And Thursday was a 25 minute run with the kiddo and Bob (masked), at a 12:52 pace, which feels pretty great for an almost-6 year old.

How are you feeling this week? Does your brain seem to be working a bit better lately like mine? (post Inauguration)