Our Bill Pickle

The most important transaction I make each month

April 18, 2023

Every month, I pay $130 to talk to a therapist about my mental health for an hour.

We meet at the same time (mid-morning, mid-month), in the same way (virtually) and in roughly the same location (always her office, usually my kitchen).

We cover a lot of ground and it always surprises me how quickly the time passes.

The invoice arrives minutes after we disconnect. She doesn’t direct bill, so I pay the $130 out of pocket, then bill it back through insurance. Our coverage is excellent – $150 max per session with no cap on yearly spend so I get it all back a few days later.

It is the most important transaction I make every month.

It’s been a while since I’ve been present in this space. Scratch that. It’s been a while since I’ve been present in any online space. I didn’t intend to disappear — on the contrary, I thought 2022 would be the year I returned.

Here’s what happened instead.

Five personal finance confessions

April 27, 2022

Welcome to another edition of personal finance confessions — a totally irregular recap of how I’m managing my money lately.

This is my fourth confessions post. Here are the others: one | two | three.

This round features five confessions. Much like the first three posts, calling these confessions is likely a little dramatic.

Here we go.

February budget forecast (+ other notes)

February 3, 2022

My monthly budget forecast includes wins from the month before, expectations for the month ahead and areas I'd like to focus on.

I used to start my budget updates with a note about how our monthly budget doesn’t change much.

And for a long time, that was the truth! Then, in 2021, we had a kid and bought a house.

What can I say? We apparently thrive on chaos. As a result, like got a lot more expensive. Our budget had to change — so, too, did my method of sharing updates on this blog.

In January 2022, I debuted a new look for budget updates and I quite like how it came together so I’m keeping it! These updates will now focus more on the wins coming into the month, any noteworthy expectations and areas I want to focus on in the month ahead. I know I like reading about how people budget their money so hopefully this will be at least a little interesting.

With all that being said, here’s my February budget forecast.

It feels like we’re moving backwards

January 27, 2022

Ever felt like you're moving backwards on your goals? In this post, I'm sharing my thoughts about going backwards on our financial journey.

Something was off, but it took time to figure it out.

I had a whole other post on the schedule for today. The idea was to talk about some of the ways I plan to take care of myself in 2022. I had the outline, the headings identified and a few sentences drafted.

The last part was my first clue something was wrong. Those sentences…man, they did not come easy.

Of course, writing isn’t always easy. I worked as a reporter at a daily newspaper for almost six years. I’m not stranger to writer’s block.

This was different.

Each day it felt like I made less progress than the day before. Eventually, it got to the point where I found myself avoiding the task altogether, as if doing so would somehow solve the problem I didn’t know how to define.

When I finally figured it out, I felt relieved…until I realized what it meant.

Writing a post about self-care felt disingenuous. Writing a post about…just about anything felt disingenuous. Because if I’m being completely honest: I’ve been struggling lately. And while I wish I could just ignore that fact, I’m finding it hard to move forward as a writer without acknowledging it.

So, in the interest of moving forward — and in keeping with my mission to keep it real in this space — I wanted to take a moment to share some of what’s been going on lately. I’m hopeful writing these things down will remove them from my brain and allow more space for other things.

So here we go.

Four considerations for buying a house in a hot market

January 20, 2022

For many, buying a house is the most significant purchases they will make. Here are four considerations for buying in a hot market.

For many, buying a house is one of the most financially significant purchases they will make.

Individual circumstances notwithstanding, becoming a homeowner can involve a lot of money upfront followed by years spent paying back the rest of the money required to attain the asset. Sure, there are folks out there who can purchase a house without taking on debt to do it, but that’s most certainly the exception, not the rule.

Finding a home can also be a time consuming process, frustrating process — especially when the market is hot.

I know this because it’s what we experienced while house hunting in spring 2021.

It’s been about seven months since we closed on and move into our house. And while buying one house in a hot market does not an expert make, I did learn a few things during the process which may (or may not) be useful to others who are in the process of house hunting.