It’s hard to believe that our Montana trip was two months ago already. For whatever reason, time seems to be speeding by right now. Really, this last year and a half of COVID time just hasn’t seemed normal. We joke that every day is “noneday” because it’s so hard to keep the days straight.

Will we ever go back to 2019 “normal”? I’m not convinced that we will. Even once the pandemic is under control worldwide (which is a ways away yet), climate change is throwing us continually more extreme weather patterns. Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but I think these next few decades are going to be very different from the last few.

Friday’s Frugal Five

1. Bank of America charged me an overdraft fee thanks to a bank transfer that sat “pending” for most of a week. I took the time to chat with an agent online, and they were able to reverse the overdraft charge. At this point, the $35 dollar fee would just be annoying, and I can transfer funds from elsewhere to cover it, but when it shouldn’t have been charged in the first place, I took the time to talk with someone and the bank.

Really, I don’t love Bank of America and have considered moving fully away from our accounts there. We don’t keep that much money there, but it’s our long term joint account, so we’ve kept it (when we were first married we needed a bank that had locations both in Washington and small town South Carolina).

Overdraft fees are pretty awful to begin with. I don’t think about them often because we are never down to our last few dollars, but the fact that the bank can charge you $35 to overdraw your account seems pretty awful. If you’re struggling with money and just making ends meet, a screw up that takes an extra $35 from you is a big deal.

2. We picked our first cherry tomatoes of the year! We have a tumbling cherry in a hanging basket and it’s well ahead of the rest of the plants for some reason. It’s just producing a handful of fruits every couple days, but for early July, I’ll take it.

I *did* plant nineteen tomato plants this year, so by August we will have well more than a handful of tomatoes each day. The last few years I’ve been able to can enough diced tomatoes for us to use through the winter, which feels awesome. We can’t replace all of our grocery store purchases, but every one I can eliminate feels liberating.

3. A friend dropped off some clothes a few weeks ago, and I finally got to looking through the bag this week. We had some relatively cooler days, and I was able to wear a new to me cardigan to work. It’s a bit more sparkly than I would normally pick for myself, but I find I’m liking it.

July means I’ve now gone four and a quarter years without buying any clothes for myself. Eventually I’ll write an update to this, I swear….. maybe I should make it a Q&A. At this point, I simply just don’t think about it much. Not buying clothes is just part of life.

4. The kiddo and I took off for Jetty Island on Thursday with my mother in law and Bob. It’s a passenger only ferry that takes all of one minute to cross over to the island that is a nature preserve. No amenities other than a bathroom, and no water at all.

The island is just off the city of Everett, but because it’s completely uninhabited by people (but a favorite nesting spot for shore birds), it feels like a whole different area. We packed our lunches, including a Tupperware full of blueberries and raspberries from the garden, and spent a lovely afternoon walking up and down the beach and playing in the wet sand of low tide.

5. We held a Zoom “dreaming” session with our Women’s Personal Finance Insiders after last month’s event with Jessica of The Fioneers. She talked to us about five year planning and has had all of our brains spinning since then.

It’s so hard to think about big dreams when your inner critic is always sitting in your own brain, and Jessica does an awesome job redirecting us to dream big. We’re going to have more of these working sessions, and I’m excited to see what comes from focused dreaming and planning. Five years will pass anyway, if we’re lucky, so I want to be intentional about where we land five years from now.

Exercise Update

Saturday was spent walking around Edmonds and heading to their farmers market, and then spending most of the afternoon in the garden. Sunday morning I started the day with a forty five minute elliptical workout and some stretching. Monday was a lot of body weight squats, twenty five at a time. I didn’t count the total, but I was sore through Wednesday, so it was a good number.

Tuesday was an almost 20,000 step day thanks to multiple walks, including a couple work phone meetings. Whenever it makes sense, I way prefer to take a meeting via phone instead of Zoom. I’ve got Zoom fatigue like the rest of us, and I’d much rather be walking around outside when I have the choice.

Thursday was hours walking on the beach. I wish I could go barefoot, but after my struggles with plantar fasciitis, it simply isn’t worth it. I would rather have to wear shoes all the time and be able to walk every day than go barefoot for a day and then spend a week recovering. Annoying, but it is what it is.

Do you feel like the days are speeding by too? Or are they still dragging like 2020?