Is there a way to download steam to shield?

Just wanna know since I am so bored. Also preferred if they are free.

Going to be on the road with a friend and we want to play Civ 5 on our Macs but we may not have wifi anywhere. Any way to get this to work wirelessly with no router?

The Tale isn’t long. All the other faff is. Words in the Glossary will be marked with ^*
—-
Me - Contracting Electrcian. Dresses in high visibility long dark blue trousers. High visibility blue and bright yellow, long sleeved work shirt. Company logo left breast pocket. Both of these have the shiny reflective strips. Dark brown work boots with blue PVC glue^* on them, because, glue. Also, I have my hard hat^* clipped to my belt.
I live in a small-ish rural town in Australia. The kind where everyone seems to know everyone. It can take 40mins just to buy milk because of all the “oops-eye-contact” socialising. I’ve been fixing all manner of equipment at this store for a while and get along with mostly everyone. But not Produce-Tzar “Steve”.
—-
It happened again, Tuesday, after work. I got a Pokey.
I was at The Supermarket, looking at jam^*. Holding, and contemplating, a jar of IXL^* Raspberry in my left hand, and an IXL Strawberry in my right, I heard the all too familiar behind me..
Woman - (terse) : ”Where is the sugar.”
Me - (I ignore her. Without an “Excuse me”, she could be talking to anyone. Outwardly I must seem to be daydreaming, but jam is no joke. This is a week-long commitment, and it cannot be rushed. Jam people will understand.) : “...”
I receive a poke to my back, signifying that The Pokey Game has begun, followed by.. Pokey Woman - (terse, and indignant now) : “I saaaid, where is the sugar.”
Me - (still striving for a jam resolution) : “Isle 17, half way down, 3rd shelf.”
Pokey wanders off. All Pokeys, 100%, never thank. Ever.
About 2mins later, while I’m feeling guilty for glancing at the Beerenberg Plum^*, I receive a much firmer poke in the back, followed by..
Pokey - (annoyed, verging on anger, slightly raised voice) : “There IS no isle 17.”
Me - (still looking at jams. The Beerenberg knows I’ve glanced now. It knows it’s a contender.) : “I am sorry madam. I mis-spoke. Isle 7, half way down, 3rd shelf.”
She again wanders off, a little stompy now.
About 5mins later, holding the winner, I’m a little further down the isle looking at the ingredients on a new breakfast cereal. From the end of the isle I hear..
Pokey - (raised voice exclamation. I imagine that ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’^* is playing in her head.) : “THERE HE IS!”
Putting the cereal back and turning, I see Pokey heading toward me, followed by Store Manager “Brad”.
Pokey - (older-than-me lady. Standing. Pointing. Glaring, vengeful eyes.) : “TWICE! He sent me to the WRONG ISLE, TWICE! I want him REPrimanded!”
Brad - (arms crossed, also glaring at me.) : “This is not one of my staff, madam. Is there anything else I can help with?”
After a couple quiet moments, Pokey demands sugar, and Brad escorts her.
I head to Brads office, where a few minutes later..
Brad - (tired and exasperated, like all supermarket store managers ever.) : “Could you at least do this on my day off?”
Me - (matter of fact) : “Mate, you know the deal. I stop when the planogram^* stops changing. That replacement touch-screen for convection oven two should be here tomorrow. I’ll see you then, hey.”
As I’m walking out, I hear Brad say, “Standard chimes for the end of cook this time!”
I’m smiling, because I already know I’m going to set it as the 16bit theme song from ‘The Twilight Zone’ TV show. It’s one of the selections in the installer menu. The other oven already has 16bit ‘The Imperial March’. Because of course it does. (No. Seriously, they do. Brad gets to pick when the planogram stops.)
Thank you for reading.
—-
Glossary
Glue - Glue of any variety has no master and doesn’t obey the natural laws. Beware of glue. PVC glue for electrical conduits will always end up on your boots. Just accept it.
Jam - Typically a fruit conserve. What some less discerning call Jelly. Jelly is made of a Gelatin base, is wobbly, and your Granma will put fruit in it. If it’s a special occasion, you may get Trifle.
Hard Hat - You lift the brim of a hard hat to gaze at the newest idiocy on a job-site. My hard hat has the slickest, sickest stickers.
IXL/Beerenberg - IXL Fruit Conserve is the best jam on the planet. This is my hill. Beerenberg is second. Beerenberg Plum on peanut butter toast is amazing.
The Ride of the Valkyries - That one by Wagner in ‘Apocalypse Now’ when they’re dropping napalm on everything. Good film. Jed Bartlet is in it.
Planogram - Every efficient shoppers nemesis. This is the plan for a store where products are supposed to be put. Stores change this all the time based on how much kick-back a manufacturer gives them for prominent placement of their products. Sometimes they swap WHOLE ISLES around. You go in to get jam one day, and now that isle is health foods. Changing the Planogram was invented by Satan.
The Twilight Zone - Rod Serlings, The Twilight Zone. A black and white TV show from a million years ago. You like X-Files? Stranger Things? Go find and watch the OG of the genre.
—-
The Tale is over. The rest is just my idiocy. Read, or don’t. All good.
The Pokey Game I’ve said this before. High Vis clothing is mercurial. You are both invisible, a personal assistant, and a Corporeal Google. I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve been politely and rudely approached for information and/or assistance. Polite has always gotten all the friendly help I can muster.
Over the years, I used to engage with the Rude. I tried reasoning with the Rude, seeking to understand the why of the Rudeness. I tried giving the Rude the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’d had a bad day, gotten some bad news. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I tried remonstrating with the Rude, in an attempt to bring enlightenment and humility. Having done work in Police Stations and Court Houses, I knew that cells had no wifi access, so I stopped getting all up-in-their-grill.
I learned that, sometimes, Rude is just Rude.
So I started playing with the Rude.
—-
Here are The Rules: (For the time being)
1 - All Rude gets ignored. (This is not to bait into escalation. Most times, Rude just goes.. away. Which is fine.) (Actually, I’m not sure if it isn’t with the hope of baiting. So I can play.) (It’s probably baiting, hey.)
2 - All Pokeys must be played with. (Regardless of venue or personal time constraints.) (See below for examples based on venue.)
3 - Must be dressed in High Vis. (Playing the Pokey Game in casual dress is like low-hanging-fruit. Because what if I was dressed similarly to store staff without realising it.) (I started to bring the hard hat to the supermarket because it was happening so much there. I wanted an extra difficulty for more points.) (There is no points system.)
4 - Must be pleasant and polite. (Cells have no wifi.)
5 - Extra Points if a Pokey comes back more than twice (Sent a guy to three different isles once. 3 is the most so far.)
Venues Service/Gas Stations - These are mostly for directions. Mostly by Caravaners. So of course they get the wrong directions. - If asking to borrow tools from my work vehicle, I walk over to the vehicle, and drive off.
Hospital - Non-staff cannot be played with. They may be in need of medical attention, bereaving, worried, etc. That’d just be mean. - Staff get played with. I stand there ignoring them and see just how committed to the poking they are. Twice poked is the most so far. I put them on my list for further attention by other means.
General Pubic Areas - Same as Service/Gas Stations
Supermarkets (The Main venue for games) - “Where is..” gets the treatment in the tale. If they come back for seconds, they’ve had to walk past other people to arrive back at me. They are more than fair game. (Maybe it’s like that joke where the bear says to the hunter, “You don’t come here to hunt, do you.”) - “Get me..” something off a high shelf. Readers 6’ and over will attest - when out in he wild, you are by default, a Common Use Implement. For these Rudes, I keep grabbing the wrong items and try to give it to them. Without speaking.
—-
I still wonder what some people must have gone through in their life, to be at the point where poking others is acceptable. I feel kinda bad for them. Just not bad enough to stop playing.
Oh yeah. IXL Raspberry.

*Updated Feb 3 2021* (I also update the list with new potential problems/tests as I find them)
Edit: Feb 3rd 2021: Sony released firmware Version 20.02-02.50.00 today. I've only done one test so far, but it seems to have solved the "Green Screen of Death" for me SO FAR... I'll update when I have more.
My PS5 has the rest mode problem/bug. [Edit] I've solved it partially for me. See test 7 and beyond below
If you don't know what the rest mode bug is, basically, you put your PS5 into rest mode, and then at some point, your orange light will go out, and you won't be able to power on with your controller. You have to press the power button on the console, it beeps, but doesn't actually turn on, and then you can use your controller or the power button again to turn the system on. It will complain that you unplugged the PS5 (even though you didn't) and it will often want to do a repair to the storage. - Is this happening to you? Or do you have some other version of this? I'd love to hear the variations... (if there are any). I'd also love to hear if you have the exact same problem.
Edit: It now seems to me that there are a few different causes to the rest mode bug. One solution will not fix it for everyone, but if you can identify which type of rest mode bug you have, we may be able to come up with a solution for the most common types. I'm going to start listing them with specific names and descriptions here. I have the first two listed below.
​
[Edit:] Types of rest mode bug:

• USB-A rest mode bug: Seems to be solved by either not using any of your USB ports, or using the USB-C port specifically. This bug tends to manifest overnight or during an extended period of time while the system is in rest mode (similar to what is described at the beginning of this post) - This alone will not solve the green screen of death. You may have both, like me.
• Green Screen of death (Suspending games): This is also a rest mode bug, but it usually manifests when you're suspending a game or when you're waking a suspended game. It can usually be avoided by fully closing your game and WAITING for a minute or two before putting your PS5 into rest mode. This is just a crazy hunch of mine that I cannot prove and I don't have any evidence of it so far, but I feel like this green screen is associated with HDR, resolution settings, or both. I have not been able to test this yet.
• WiFi / Network rest mode bug: Seems to be associated with WiFi... possibly even WiFi6 Specifically, or network instability, or automatic DHCP settings perhaps. I don't have this problem, but I also have a straight ethernet connection to my router with no switches or hubs between the two, so maybe ethernet is less likely to have this problem, or I'm just lucky not to have this issue.
• Several other fringe cases exist, but I'm not seeing a pattern or common thread to them yet. I'll update with more bullets here as we learn more.

Okay, so now that I've described the problem I'm talking about, I've been trying to figure out why it happens. Or at least how to avoid it while still using rest mode. Rest mode is handy for keeping your games up to date and allowing remote play to wake your system, so even if you aren't using it to suspend games, it can be helpful.
There are a lot of theories out there about why it happens:

• Its tied to HDMI-CEC where your TV is sending a signal to turn off your PS5 while its in rest mode, and that's causing the bug. - Tested, for me, didn't make a difference
• It's tied to having external storage plugged in - This has multiple things to test:
  • In your settings, do you have it set to "Always" power your USB Ports? Or "3 hours" or "Off". The theory here is that the power to the external drive shuts off and causes the problem. This doesn't seem to make a difference for me.
    • Which USB port are you using? - There are two high speed USB-A ports in the back, a high speed USB-C port in the front, and a slower speed USB-A Port in the front. Which port are you using? Does using a different port make any difference? I've seen at one person claim the USB-C port fixed their problem. TESTED THE FRONT USB-C AND IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING SO FAR (SEE TEST 5 BELOW)
  • Some people claim formatting your external drive with your computer or using the PS5 to format it for media, and then formatting it back to the game storage set up fixed the issue. I haven't tested this yet
  • Some people claim its the TYPE of drive that causes the problem. HDD vs SDD... Many people claim the Samsung T7 SSD works great without rest mode problems. I bought one to test this. for me, it did not solve the issue until I moved it to the USB-C port.
  • Some people have a theory that corrupted games or games transferred from the PS4 can cause this. On both my HDD and SSD I deleted everything and downloaded all the games fresh to test. It did not solve the issue.
  • Theory: If playing a game installed on external, shut it down, wait a while, and THEN put it into rest mode. (doing it too fast causes the crash) - I've actually seen this, and I think it does make a difference for the Green Screen of Death.
  • Theory: if the drive draws too much power in rest mode it crashes the PS5... to test you'd need to try a drive that has separate power (not using the USB port to power it)
  • Leave the external storage disconnected (don't plug it in) - DOING THIS KEEPS THE REST MODE BUG FROM HAPPENING FOR ME SO FAR (but doesn't help with Green screen of death for me)
• Theory: its caused by a corrupted PS5 firmware:
  • Tests:
    • Rebuild databases using safe mode - didn't solve for me
    • Download official firmware from Sony's website and install firmware from a USB Stick - didn't solve for me
    • Factory reset PS5 - didn't solve for me
• Theory: It's caused by game updates.
  • Some people have noted that their system will crash if it tries to update a game while in rest mode or even multitasking while playing a game. Might be worth testing with automatic updates disabled to see if it helps.
• Theory: A few people mentioned that network problems may be to blame
  • Potential tests:
    • Wired VS Ethernet
    • Eliminate hubs/switches and plug in directly for wired connections
    • Unplug ethernet and disable wifi or shut off router at night to see what happens
    • Assign ip address and other network settings manually instead of automatically

I'm in the process of doing extensive tests to figure this problem out since my system has it. Its slow going due to needing to test things overnight each time...
Test 1: Sometimes crashes immediately

• Game running
• External HDD Connected via back USB-A (2Tb Seagate)
• Features available in standby: ALL ON (Always on USB ports, Internet available, etc)
• HDMI CEC Disabled

Test 2: Typically fails sometime overnight

• Game closed
• External HDD Connected via back USB-A (2Tb Seagate)
• Features available in standby: ALL ON (Always on USB ports, Internet available, etc)
• HDMI CEC Disabled

Test 3: Typically fails sometime overnight

• Game closed
• External SSD Connected via back USB-A (2Tb Samsung T7)
• Features available in standby: ALL ON (Always on USB ports, Internet available, etc)
• HDMI CEC Disabled

Test 4: No Rest Mode Failures so far

• Game closed
• External SSD NOT CONNECTED (ejected safely and cord disconnected)
• Features available in standby: ALL ON (Always on USB ports, Internet available, etc)
• HDMI CEC Disabled

Test 5 (Jan 15-16, 2021): No Rest Mode Failures so far!

• Game closed
• External SSD CONNECTED via FRONT USB-C (2Tb Samsung T7)
• Features available in standby: ALL ON (Always on USB ports, Internet available, etc)
• HDMI CEC Disabled
• So, it's only one night of data, but Test 5 shows the most promise so far. It's the first scenario that works with the drive attached so far. I'm going to test having the usb ports turn off next. I can see that the drive has power due to its light and I would prefer to have it off when the system is resting, but I don't know how that works with game updates, so maybe its not a good idea. I'm going to test it anyway.

Test 6 (Jan 18, 2021): No Rest Mode Failures so far!

• Game closed
• External SSD CONNECTED via FRONT USB-C (2Tb Samsung T7)
• Features available in rest mode:
  • USB power: Always off
  • Internet: Always connected
  • Wakeable: Yes
  • Time till rest mode: Don't automatically put into rest mode
• HDMI CEC Disabled
• Seems to be working. I've gone two overnight periods without a crash and usually it would crash by now. I also tried suspending a game with everything else the same and it did a green TV crash where it fails during the pulse phase and the TV Screen turns solid green for a few seconds. So I still can't suspend games, but as far as I can tell, rest mode is working well otherwise with this scenario. It seems that switching from the back USB-A ports to the front USB-C port can make a real difference in the success rate for some reason. It doesn't make a ton of sense, but thats just what the data is showing so far (in my case).

Test 7 (Jan 19-20, 2021): No Rest Mode Failures so far!

• Game closed
• External SSD CONNECTED via FRONT USB-C (2Tb Samsung T7)
• Features available in rest mode:
  • USB power: Always off
  • Internet: Always connected
  • Wakeable: Yes
  • Time till rest mode: Don't automatically put into rest mode
• HDMI CEC (Device link): ENABLED
• HDMI HDCP: ENABLED
• Basically this is the same as Test 6 but with the HDMI stuff re-enabled. So far, this seems to support the USB-A to USB-C scenario as the solution for my particular instance.

Test 8 (Jan 22, 2021): No Rest Mode Failures so far!

• Game closed
• External SSD CONNECTED via FRONT USB-C (2Tb Samsung T7)
• Features available in rest mode:
  • USB power: Always off
  • Internet: Always connected
  • Wakeable: Yes
  • Time till rest mode: Don't automatically put into rest mode
• HDMI CEC (Device link): ENABLED
• HDMI HDCP: ENABLED
• ACTIVELY DOWNLOADING SEVERAL UPDATES for both internal and external storage when put into rest mode - Worked fine
• Its looking more and more like my particular situation has been almost entirely corrected by moving the SSD to the front USB-C. So far, every test has indicated that this fixed the problem with one exception: I still cannot suspend games. If I attempt to suspend a game, I'll get the green screen of death where the TV turns green during the phase where the system is pulsing its light (working through to rest mode). Iv'e seen the screen flash green like that briefly when various devices are activating HDR, and I suspect it may actually have something to do with it. If I get ambitious, I might try deactivating HDR from a system level and see if it makes suspending games work. I feel like there is more risk of game save corruption with this green screen bug, so I'll have to think about what I'm doing before I jump in on that one.
• Update Jan 31, 2021: I'm still on the test 8 setup. Its working great as long as I don't suspend a game, or put it into rest mode too quickly after closing a game. If I suspend a game or put it into rest mode quickly, I get the Green Screen Of Death.
• Update Feb 3, 2021: Sony Released Firmware version 20.02-02.50.00 today. During my lunch break, I booted up miles morales and suspended the game successfully. It went into rest mode without the Green Screen of Death, and appears to be in rest mode without problem. I'm going to let it sit suspended until tonight and I'll try bringing it out of suspension to see how it does. I'd really love to know if any of you are seeing improvements with the rest mode bug with the new firmware.

​
Original post continued below:
----------------------------
Obviously, I'd like to be able to keep my external drive connected, so I'll probably keep doing some tests involving external drives being connected.
I'm going to try to test a few more things
I'll probably try testing the USB-C connection in the front next.
Have any of you had the rest mode problem and solved it? Was it using one of the theories above? Or was it something else? Are there any other solutions you've heard of working? Let me know and I'll add them to the list.
Also, if any of you have tried any of these things, please share what did or didn't work for you so I can compile the results together.
Thanks for your time.

Hey all...I've been pretty exhaustively trying all the current streaming services. I know this is a Stadia group but I thought if anyone out there is curious about what the experience is like on other services, perhaps you could benefit from a layman's experience using each service and trying to make it my "main" service. Like I said, I'm a layman, not a professional reviewer, so there's a lot of things I'm still learning, but having tried all three of the major services, here's my thoughts.
Edit: Please bear in mind this is not an exhaustive list, just some thoughts based on a couple of months of on and off testing. I'm certainly not trying to sway or influence anyone's purchasing decisions, just giving some general thoughts that might help when trying to decide which service to look into. I know not everyone can get ahold of / rush out and buy all of the devices I have listed here - I happen to work for a tech company so I have a lot more devices floating around than most other people. Your mileage, of course, may vary!
I know there's also Steam Link, but since that requires you to have a PC capable of playing the game in the house somewhere, I'm not considering that a streaming service.
Testing Devices:

• ChromeCast Ultra (Stadia Only)
• iPad Pro 2020
• Asus G14
• Pixel 2 XL (xCloud only)
• iPhone 12 Pro Max (Stadia only)
• nVidia Shield (GeForce Now only)
• Samsung Galaxy Chromebook (Stadia only)

Amazon Luna

Notable Games: Control, lots of highly rated indie titles (Blasphemous, Bloodstained, Iconoclasts)
To be fair, I only have about 6 hours on Amazon Luna, but they've been pretty excruciating. My wifi averages about 75-90 MBps, and about half of the games I tried suffered from lag and graphical smear, mostly the Ubisoft+ games. The indie games played fabulously well. Luna is probably the service I have the least to say about. It's $6 a month for Luna on it's own, so it's kindof like the "also-ran" effort - it's cheap, but might be the most forgettable of the bunch. The user interface is better than GeForce Now, worse than Stadia, and unlike Stadia it doesn't seem like Luna can be enhanced with browser extensions.
I have Ubisoft+, so I tried to play Immortal: Fenyx Rising on Luna and it was absolutely horrible. Smeared graphics, dropped frames, input lag, the works. It was the only experience across all of the big three services that was literally unplayable. This seemed to be a problem only with the Ubisoft games, however, I have to stress.
Pros

• Netflix-style game selection, with lots of indie titles you don't see many other places. Control is the only standout AAA title, and it looks and plays fantastically. Indie games were great too.
• Integration with Ubisoft+ is seamless and the games just become part of your library.
• Twitch integration is pretty cool - nice to see streamers who are playing the game live when you jump into the game page.
• Runs in the browser but also has dedicated apps - a plus for me.
• Luna is probably the best service for Twitch streamers - it's integrated right into the UI. I don't stream so I wasn't able to test it, but it seems pretty easy.

Cons

• Seems to be in Early Access, so I literally don't know anyone else who has gotten an invite.
• The pro of having niche indie games is offset by the con of not having a wide game selection. Of all the services, seems like Luna has the least, but broadest, selection.
• Seeing an ad for Luna, WHILE PLAYING LUNA, was irrationally annoying. Amazon just can't freaking help themselves I guess.
• I signed up for Luna fully expecting to play all of my games claimed through Prime Gaming...literally none of those games are available.
• If there's a way to find Luna from the main Amazon home page, they've hid it pretty well. I'm sure it's buried in one of their dozens of menus but I could not for the life of me find a quick and easy way to get to Luna from Amazon dotcom.
• This is a very minor point, but Amazon Luna ONLY works on Chrome, while Google Stadia works in either Chrome or Edge Browser (since it's built on Chromium). Probably doesn't make a difference for most people, but to me Edge seems to run better, so I'm docking a point.

GeForce Now

Notable Games: Cyberpunk 2077, Control, Immortals: Fenix Rising, Metro series, Destiny 2 (all paid)
I picked up an nVidia Shield specifically for GeForce now, but my wife and I have ended up using it primarily for Kodi and to watch Netflix more than playing any games on it. I'll just say it straight out - GeForce Now sucks ass. It's a broken, shoddy, inconsistent mess. It's actually WORSE on the Shield than it is on PC, because there are so many times when I needed a keyboard to do anything. I tried playing Immortals: Fenyx Rising on GFN on my Shield which required me to log into Ubisoft+. I'm fine with that, since you only have to do it once...but using the Shield remote that came with my Shield, the on-screen keyboard never popped up, forcing me to track down a second keyboard from in my garage and plug in. After I plugged in the physical keyboard....THEN the onscreen keyboard popped up and just mirrored what I pressed on the physical keyboard. What? Why?
Games are all over the place as well. Witcher 3 was a nightmare - every time you try to play the game, it wants to install the DLC packs onto whatever virtual machine you've been assigned. Then when you can play, it dips so far under 30 fps it's literally better to just play it on a budget PC with Hairworks off.
Plus the Shield ain't cheap - it was like $200 at Best Buy, and didn't include a controller. $100 more gets you a Series S, and $100 LESS gets you a Stadia-enabled Chromecast WITH a solid as hell controller, just for comparison's sake.
Pros

• Raytracing, I guess. Control looks great?
• Links with Steam, GOG, and Epic, so you keep your games if the service goes down at some point in the future. Also technically "cheaper" overall than Stadia cos you can find cheap keys online or Steam sales (which seem to be more frequent than Stadia sales) and still get the game in your GeForce Now.
• GFN seems to have the widest selection of enabled games. Not all that impressive since you have to own the game already, but this does give it somewhat of an advantage.
• Links to Epic library, which is cool. 80% of my games on Epic were not GFN enabled, which is not as cool.

Cons

• Literally the hardest of the big three services to use. Not a "pick up and play" experience. Requires a lot of effort to get working, and even then, inconsistent across platforms.
• Even on nVidias own hardware, it can be tricky to figure out what games actually are on GeForce Now and which aren't and get them running right.
• Some games just don't play well. Witcher 3 is a buggy, low framerate mess...while Control is smooth as butter. No rhyme or reason as to why. I couldn't get Mankind Divided to play full-screen - it always wanted to play in a window.
• Since you're just running a virtual machine, you still have to fiddle with graphical settings. Some games don't look right when first started, and you have to remember to go into the settings and change things to match whatever screen you're on.
• Twice I still had to wait in a queue to play even though I paid for the Founder's subscription. Insanely frustrating.
• One hour limit to gameplay if you don't pay for the Founder's subscription, and you're stuck waiting in a queue. There were times where I was in a queue of over 300, which translated to upwards of 18 minutes one session, waiting to play. I would go as far as to say, if you don't pay for Founder's, don't bother with GFN at all.
• Also, just because I don't have anywhere else to put this, Ubisoft's Cloud Save system is atrocious. This isn't nVidia's fault, I just want to complain about it.

Google Stadia

Notable Games: Cyberpunk 2077 (paid), Hitman: World of Assassination (Pro), Destiny 2 (Pro), Red Dead Redemption II (Paid)
Stadia is easily the best overall, but it still has its cons. I came to Stadia thanks to Cyberpunk 2077 so I have the most hours played on Stadia of the big three services. Stadia on the Chromecast Ultra seems to me to be the hands down best way to play streamed games currently.
Of all the services, Stadia was the one that felt the least like a "me-too" service and more like a dedicated platform. Almost all of the other services felt like a way for corporations to dip their toe in the water and figure out if there's money to be made, while Stadia feels like someone who really grasps and cares about gaming is at the helm.
Pros

• Least barrier to entry. Download Chrome or Edge Browser, grab any bluetooth controller, and you're off the races.
• No subscription required. You can play any game purchased on Stadia without a subscription with no queue system, no picking a virtual machine, no Steam big picture mode...it's just, hit the Play button and go.
• This is a big one for me - seems to have the best "capture" integration. Though, the iOS / Android app could use work (just let me download the image and share it? Why do I need to share a link?) overall, sharing your snaps and vids is pretty easy on Stadia.
• Playing with the Stadia controller on my TV after picking up a Chromecast Ultra felt like magic.
• Similarly, being able to "pick up and play" games like Cyberpunk 2077 on a Chromebook felt similarly magical. The game looked its best, believe it or not, on a Samsung Chromebook that I tested at Best Buy. Random side note but the Google guy at Best Buy was SO EXCITED that I wanted to check out Stadia on a Chromebook. He was over the moon.
• The game selection for Pro does have some interesting titles that I wouldn't have picked up otherwise. But see Con 1 below.

Cons

• The game selection for Stadia Pro is a tad lackluster at the moment. Definitely enough to keep me playing, but there wasn't really a "must have" title that jumped out at me. Bunch of average, quite playable titles
• The game selection for purchases is a little thin as well, seeing as how the service is over a year old at this point. I know it’s on literally every other platform but I would have loved to do a second play through of Control on Stadia, and stuff like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Hades, even some older indie titles like Transistor or Pyre, some of the Lego games...
• UI seems like an complete afterthought, which is a little weird since this is a Google product. This is solved a little bit by extensions like Stadia Enhanced, but that's a third party fix so I'm still listing it as a con. No search? Captures seem deprecated?
• Probably the highest "cost" to play, since you have to buy the games outright, and sales seem few and far between. If Stadia just vanishes at some point (which, let's be fair, Google has a track record of doing with their services) they haven't really outlined what happens to your library.
• No raytracing yet. Not really a con for me personally, but other services offer it.
• This may just be a bug but I'm listing it as a con - a number of times the Stadia homepage just wouldn't load. I was left staring at the Stadia logo wondering what was going on for minutes at a time. I'd have to close out of the browser and restart. Not sure if that's an issue with Chrome, but it seemed to happen on Edge browser as well.
• Stadia-specific versions of games. Now, hear me out - usually this is a PRO not a con, but in Stadia’s case it seems to be a con as making a wholly new build of a game for a specific platform probably just isn’t in the cards for a lot of developers. That could be what’s slowing down a lot of games coming to Stadia - the time and money required to build a new version of the game. Hopefully we see some “Stadia first” games that will convince other developers to jump on board.

Xbox Game Pass / Game Pass Unlimited / Gold / Live / Play Anywhere / xCloud / Whatever it's being called these days

Notable Games: Nier: Automata BAG Edition, Dragon Quest XI S, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda
Xbox Game Pass gets added to this list on a pure technicality.
So, technically Xbox Game Pass isn't a streaming service, but I include it because on Android, there actually is a "cloud" option for playing your console Game Pass library. The Cloud streaming works surprisingly well, but you're limited to either an Android tablet or phone because it doesn't seem to work properly on Android TV. I've heard you can sideload onto the nVidia Shield, but that was beyond the scope of what I was trying to accomplish with these reviews...I just want something I can pick up and play. So, yeah if you don't mind playing on your phone, Game Pass Cloud is actually probably the best of the bunch in terms of ease of use and game selection. There are so many things I want to play on Game Pass it's actually a little overwhelming. However, I don't want to stare at a 5" screen for hours to do so.
Pros

• Wide game selection with lots of games being added every month (almost every week, seems like)
• Broad game selection - seems to be some standouts from just about every game genre. I know this seems like a repeat of point one, but they're very different things - it's one thing to just throw a ton of games on your service, its another to make sure you're representing every genre out there, which Game Pass seems to do more admirably than any other service.
• Streaming seems to work just fine. I was able to play Dragon Quest: Inquisition on my Android phone with very little issue. Couple of times the connection dropped, but it was no better or worse than Stadia.
• It seems like services are stumbling all over themselves to get included in Game Pass.

Cons

• Again, inconsistent experience. Offerings are different on console than on PC...why is Torchlight III a console exclusive? Why are all the good games pushed to console and cloud, with PC being an afterthought?
• Games seem to come and go randomly - some popular games pop up for a few months and are gone, other seemingly niche titles have been on the service since launch
• Probably the biggest con - no streaming on PC, iOS, or Android TV. Baffling choice. Maybe there's business reasons I'm not aware of, but as a user, it's maddening.
• Minor point, but good lord Microsoft needs to simplify EVERYTHING related to Xbox. No one can figure out what the hell service we have when I try to talk to people about it - there's Game Pass, but there's also Games with Gold, then there's Live, then there's Game Pass Ultimate, but there's also Play Anywhere, which isn't really a service, just some sort of cross-play, And the number of times people thought I have a Series X when I actually have a One X was insanely frustrating as well. I know this doesn't have anything to do with the service, but jeez man why is everything Microsoft does so haphazard?

Whew! I actually had way more to say on this topic than I thought, I guess. I've probably spent more time and energy on this than I should have, but working from home has given me a lot of time on my hands, so hopefully my experiences can help save someone else some time and effort. Would love some counterpoints as well!

Note: I was technically supposed to post this earlier this week, but noticed that no one was signed up for today (plus I was super busy earlier), so I'm posting a bit late, under a throwaway account! Fair warning: I'm VERY verbose, so this will be long!
Section One: Assets and Debt
As I mentioned above, I make $56k per year as an administrator in higher education. My husband (K) just got a raise to making $155k per year. He works as a lawyer, has been in the workforce for about 12 years. I won't get into too many details but he works for a small boutique firm, not Biglaw. He also sometimes gets a yearly bonus of around $10k-20k but it's not guaranteed or anything like that. K and I have totally combined finances, so the below numbers are for both of us. I have a humanities PhD but I decided to leave academia and find an alt-ac job. My current position has good work-life balance (I never work past 5 pm), but pays terribly and my university is very badly run. I'm hoping to leave higher education all together in the future and am currently enrolled in a certificate program to try to make a career transition to instructional design.
The big elephant in the room is that my husband, K, makes a lot more money than me. When we first met, he was paying off massive amounts of student loans and making much less, and I was debt free with a lot of savings, so we both spent about the same amount. Now he makes 3x what I make and we are both debt-free, so the difference is much more noticeable. We do argue about money sometimes (more in the past), but the reality is that I have a humanities PhD and will likely never out earn him, and he knew that when I married him, lol. Because of all the labor I do around the house and in our lives to support him as he works a much more intense job, I was very clear that I believed we should split our finances equally as soon as we got married. We don't have separate accounts and we generally check in with one another whenever we are planning to spend more than $100. This system works for us for now.
I also want to address the question about parental or family support. Although I technically paid all of my own bills since I got my Bachelor's degree, my parents supported me a lot by paying for my flights home to visit at Christmas or in the summer as Xmas presents/birthday presents. My parents also paid for my undergraduate degree (and K's parents paid for his undergraduate degree as well). They also gave us about $15k to pay for our wedding.
Finally, my parents recently gave me $20k as an "early inheritance." They told me they plan to do this every year (depending on the stock market). We put this money into a brokerage. I don't consider my parents rich, as they both worked hourly jobs in health care my entire life (as a nurse and respiratory therapist - both with only associate's degrees). We never owned a new car, when we went on vacation we stayed in hostels , and shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. But they scrimped and saved and now they have over $1 million in a retirement account. So I want to acknowledge my financial privilege in that I came from this kind of background. K's parents are similar.
Retirement Balance: $186k (combination of 401k, 403b, 457, 2 Roth IRAs, and taxable brokerage account).
Equity: None, we rent.
Savings account balance: Approximately $45k.
Checking account balance: Right now, around 8k.
Credit card debt: Right now, around $3k. But we pay it off each month with our checking account balance.
Student loan debt: $0. We finally paid off my husband’s law school loans (around $130k), last year. I didn’t have any student loans from undergrad (parents paid) and my MA & PhD were fully funded.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve been working in my current field for 3 years. I started off making about $53k and got tiny 2% “merit increases” twice. Then in July my payroll title was changed, which triggered a required raise of about $2k. (I am dramatically underpaid).
Before my current position, I was in academia. I worked as a visiting assistant professor for one year at my alma mater (made $50k for 9 months of work) and before that I was a graduate student for 7 years. I was paid $18k-21k in stipends each year and my tuition & benefits were covered. Luckily, I lived in a very low cost of living area and this was enough for me to live on without going into debt. I got my PhD in 2017. Before I was a graduate student, I taught English in Japan for three years and made around $36k per year. In high school and college, I had random jobs that provided grocery/spending money, but I was lucky enough to have parents that paid my tuition and my rent in college.
I’m currently trying to make a career change (as you will see in my diary) and enrolled in a certificate program which runs from Autumn 2020 to Spring 2021 in order to help with that.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $7,634. This probably seems low relative to our joint income, but we max out our 401k (K) and 403b (me). I work for the state government, which means I’m also eligible for something called a Deferred Compensation Plan (457b). This is basically the same as a 401k but you can withdraw contributions and gains from the account at any age without penalty (of course, you still have to pay taxes). I also max this out, and the limit is the same as a 401k/403b - $19.5k. Also this number is before K’s raise is accounted for. It won’t increase until his end of February paycheck.
Other deductions - I have health insurance taken out (about $80 a month for me, K’s firm covers his premiums) and taxes. WA has no state taxes, so it’s only federal taxes. I used to have to pay $50 / month for a bus pass (K's was free), but I don’t pay any longer because I’m working from home during COVID.
Final note - the sum I mentioned in the headline includes a variable bonus my husband gets. My base pay is $56k and his is $155k (as of February 1). This year he also got a bonus of $20k, which is set up a bit strangely. About $4k of this was structured as a 3% matching contribution to his 401k and the rest was taxable income. In small law firms, it’s unusual to get any 401k match so this was nice.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: None.
Any Other Monthly Income Here: We get some interest from our savings account… like $25 a month.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: Rent comes to approximately $2,050 total for a one-bedroom apartment. Rent itself is $1886, then we have pet rent ($25 per month), bicycle parking ($15 a month) and water / sewage / gas, which is usually $120-150 (variable cost).
Renters insurance: $157.76, paid annually. $13 a month.
Retirement contribution: In addition to the 401k, 403b, and 457, which all come out before taxes, we max out our Roth IRAs. That means $500 each per month per person (for a yearly total of $6k each). As I noted up top, we match out our 401k and 403b (19,500 each) and our 457. My employee also offers a 7.5% match. K's employee offers a 3% match but it is included in his yearly bonus so it's not guaranteed (confusing).
Savings contribution: We put $500 per month into our emergency fund. We also put about $860 a month into our “sinking fund,” which covers large and small annual or sporadic purchases such as vacations, gifts, Amazon Prime renewal, car insurance and renters insurance, etc.
Investment contribution: $875 per month into a taxable brokerage at Vanguard.
In total, we save about 47% of our gross income. We can do this because we keep our housing cost low relative to our high income, we don’t have any debt remaining, we don’t have any kids or parents who need financial support, and we’re very privileged in a lot of ways. We are hoping to FIRE within 10 years.
Debt payments: None.
Donations: We budget $100 per month for donations, which includes one-time donations as well as some reoccurring donations. My husband does pro bono work as well. I would like to increase this by quite a bit, but I still have a hard time budgeting for donations because I spent 7 years living on approximately $20k a year. To go from that to making more than 10x that amount within 3-4 years is obviously something that I am very privileged for, but it is still hard for me emotionally to comprehend at times.
Electric: ~$50-100 (billed every other month)
Wifi/Cable/Landline: An extortionate $87.12 for slow internet that only works for Zoom calls about half the time. Do I really live in one of the tech cities of the future?
Cellphone: $170 (This includes both service and paying off two new iPhones. We could have paid them off up front, but it was actually cheaper by like $50 to go on a payment plan.)
Subscriptions: BritBox ($7.70), Spotify ($16.50), HBOMax ($16.50), We Hate Movies Patreon (my favorite podcast - $8.81). My parents pay for Netflix and my sister pays for Hulu, and we all share.
Gym membership: None. K and I both run and do yoga with YouTube videos. Before the pandemic, we went to yoga classes pretty frequently in person. I’d like to do some online synchronous yoga classes but find it hard to make time.
Pet expenses: Varies, but I budget $50 per month and also include an emergency fund for my cat’s vet bills in our sinking fund. She’s 11 years old and probably asthmatic, so I know her vet bills are going to increase over time.
Car payment / insurance: We own our car outright. Insurance billed yearly is $2,097, about $174 per month.
Regular therapy: $0
Paid hobbies: Nothing regular, sporadic language classes and art supplies.
Other expenses: Right now I’m doing a certificate to hopefully help with a career change. The total cost for tuition is about $5k and we already saved it up (included in our 'sinking fund') basically through spending less during the pandemic. I’ve paid two quarters so far, and the last quarter (due in March) will be a bit more - about $2.3k.
__________
Day 1
Morning: I wake up at 5:30 am. Ever since the pandemic, my sleep schedule has been shot. At first, I was so happy not to have to leave the house at 7:15 for my 45 minute bus commute and I slept in a lot. But the stress (and maybe getting old?) has made me an early riser, no matter how much I try to sleep in. I do value my early mornings with just me, my cat, and my coffee, though.
I start work at 8 am and begin by triaging my emails. I have a bunch of deadlines this week, so it’s busier than usual. My job tends to be very seasonal, and sometimes I have a ton of work and sometimes I have none and can work on other longer-term projects. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and place a Whole Foods delivery order for the following day at 10:30 am. We made a meal plan and put everything in the cart the day before ($117.36, including tip).
Afternoon: I have my lunch break from noon to 1 pm. It doesn’t really matter when I take my lunch break, since I’m salaried, but the others in my office are hourly so in the before times we used to always close our office during the same time. I have a piece of leftover delivery pizza and some spinach risotto that I made a few days earlier. I also have half a brownie – the last one from a batch I made a few days ago (K gets the other half). He also has leftovers for lunch.
I should say at this point that both K and I are lucky enough to have been working almost entirely from home since early March. An area near Seattle was one of the first places to get hit by COVID-19, and my state and both of our employers have been taking it very seriously ever since. Working from home hasn’t always been easy since we live in a 600-square foot apartment. Also, there is a three-story townhouse being built directly next door to us and I can hear the pounding in my dreams at this point.
Around 2 pm, I go for a 2-mile run. I feel like some money diarists tend to toss off things like “oh, I went for an easy 7 mile run,” at the drop of a hat, so I want to be clear – running for 2 miles isn’t easy for me; it’s exhausting, annoying, sweaty, and generally gross. Also I am very slow. But it has kept me sane during quarantine.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to our local pet store to get an enzymatic cleaner (our cat peed in one of our suitcases… I think it’s probably a lost cause, but it was basically brand new, so worth a try) and special weight-loss cat food. Our cat is an 11-year-old rescue from the Humane Society and she is a chonky girl. We had to sign a waiver when we adopted her, saying that we understood that she was very overweight, lol. Our vet recommended a special diet food, rather than just restricting her intake as we have been doing, so we will give it a try ($78). My husband also stops buy our local wine store and picks up two bottles. We’ve been doing a dry January, so this will be our first drink for a while ($27.53).
I have a phone interview scheduled for 4 pm – just a preliminary interview with an internal recruiter. It’s the first ‘corporate’ job interview I’ve ever had, since I’ve been in academia my entire life. I’m trying to make a pivot into instructional design / training and development. I’m just excited to get an interview. It seems to go pretty well, but who knows. They tell me they will probably get back to me by the end of this week.
Evening: My husband whips up a random meal of fridge remnants – pesto pasta with sausage and a fridge salad with feta and bell peppers. It’s pretty tasty with a little Sauvignon Blanc. During dinner, we play a card game we call gin rummy, although it bears no resemblance to the actual game. After dinner, I make a chocolate cake with orange buttercream frosting and we watch Cobra Kai.
Daily total: $222.89
Day 2
Morning: Up early again, a piece of toast for breakfast (very exciting). We’re out of eggs until our Whole Foods order arrives. I’m working on creating some tedious but necessary spreadsheets this morning.
Noon: Our Whole Foods order arrives around noon. Excitement! They’ve given us a half-rotten bag of romaine lettuce and substituted pecans for hazelnuts. I should probably just double mask and go to Trader Joe’s myself (our regular spot, only a 5-minute walk from my apartment). I’m just getting anxious about these new variants.
I have leftover meatloaf and spinach risotto again for lunch. Lots of meetings and more organizing spreadsheets in the afternoon. Around 3 pm, I go for my daily ritual - a 20-minute walk around my neighborhood. It’s still raining slightly but I need to get out. Halfway through the walk, I get an email from my apartment manager telling me the apartment will no longer accept debit card payments, direct deposit, or credit card payments for paying rent. In other words, only checks or money orders (?!). Ugh. Our lease is up in 4 months and we will not be renewing our lease. Our last apartment manager was a gambling addict who may have been stealing people’s identities, but by God, he kept things working. Ever since they fired him, this place has been going downhill.
Evening: I check my bank statements to update my budget spreadsheet and realize that I have been billed the wrong amount of rent. They actually charged me less than they should have. I don’t trust my apartment manager not to start charging me a late fee or something for this, so I call them up. They are baffled by how to fix this, which you would think would be the one thing you would want to get right, if you’re renting out apartments.
K cooks dinner – steak with a Roquefort sauce and glazed brussels sprouts. It’s from a French cookbook we recently bought and it is delicious. I work on classwork for my certificate program while he cooks. After dinner, I do the dishes and buy the 13th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. I watch the first episode – lots of shocking twists and turns! I’m planning to watch the rest of the episodes together with my younger sister, M ($22.01).
Daily total: $22.01
Day 3
Morning: K has an 8 am dentist appointment, so he takes off early. He already paid for the work last month, so there’s no charge. I have a piece of toast for breakfast and get to work checking my emails. It’s 8:20 am and the construction crew building a townhouse next door is blasting mariachi music. I’m glad someone is having fun. At least the sun is coming out.
Someone at work has made a critical error, but it wasn’t me, thank God. I was the one who found out about it, but it’s still going to cause a big old headache for me. I’m ready to be done with this job. K and I go for a run so that I can exhaust myself enough to no longer be furious about said careless error.
Noon: I have leftover spinach risotto and meatloaf again – exciting. I’m busy at work but frankly, not a lot going on other than that. Still no word about fixing my rent payments. I’m not really willing to pursue this any further at this point.
Evening: I start making chili (Turkey Chili from the NY Times) and cornbread (from my new cookbook, Jubilee). K is doing some work on our investments when he announces that, somehow, a transfer was scheduled from our checking account to our savings account of $55k (?!) We obviously don’t have $55k in our checking account, so we start frantically trying to figure out what’s going on. Numerous phone calls later, we still don’t know if that was a hack, if my husband somehow mistakenly scheduled the transfer himself, or if the bank messed it up. Either way, it doesn’t seem like any harm was done since the bank with our checking account just declined the transaction. But it seems really strange and worrisome. We get to work changing the passwords on all of our accounts, just in case it was some kind of hack.
After dinner (and chocolate cake), I have a Zoom happy hour with a local friend. We occasionally see each other outside but it’s nice to have a longer chat from the comfort of our living rooms. We both love murder mysteries, so we signed up for a service where a company sends us letters with clues and we try to solve the mystery together. It’s a fun way to stay connected and look forward to something during the pandemic. The service costs about $15 per month, but I paid for it in lump sum for 3 months, so it’s not included in my budget above. I drink some wine and we vent about work (we work at the same place) before getting started on the puzzle.
Daily total: $0
Day 4
Morning: I sleep in a bit, which is nice. Get up around 7 am. My parents are both getting their 2nd vaccine today – they’re both in their 70s and I am so relieved. I send my mom a “congratulations on being vaccinated!” text and we chat for a bit. I have leftover cornbread with honey and butter for breakfast – soooo good.
Work is not particularly exciting today, but someone sends me a last-minute request for something that does not need to be so urgent. I feel annoyed. Still no word from the interviewers on Monday, and I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t selected to move forward. Too bad. K pays for a Wordpress website for the year (it’s a work-related website, but sadly his work doesn’t reimburse him). It costs $92.48.
Noon: The mariachi music is particularly loud today. I stand out on my balcony in the sun for a while and watch the workers. It’s been interesting seeing a house go up next door in real time, especially since I’m at home all the time. The workers are balancing on the top of the third story wall without, as far as I can see, anything like a safety line. It seems unsafe, but I presume they know what they’re doing.
We booked a cabin for the upcoming weekend in the Hood Canal region of Washington to do some hiking and birdwatching. I want to be as safe as possible and not go to any grocery stores or risk spreading COVID in any way while I’m there, so I place another grocery order with Whole Foods just for some special treats for the weekend. The cabin has a small kitchen and a grill, so we’re planning to make a fancy steak salad on Saturday. I order chips and hummus, some fancy cheese and meats, Tate’s cookies (I’ve heard a lot of good things about these), a baguette, and the ingredients for the steak salad. I also order a few staples I forgot in our last order, like sweet potatoes, more coffee, and half and half. It comes to $87.41, including tip, but that does include like $30 worth of steak. For some reason, I can’t order a small amount of steak online, so I’m planning to freeze half of it for later. (I include this purchase in our vacation fund budget, rather than under our regular grocery budget).
Around 2 pm, K makes a quick trip to our local wine store to buy an Oregon pinot noir and some port to enjoy at the cabin ($59.45). This store has an outdoor walk-up counter where you can tell the owner what you’re looking for, and he brings you some options (the store is way too small to allow customers to enter during Covid). It’s fun to chat with another human being, even briefly.
Evening: After work, we spend a little time rebalancing our investing and retirement accounts. We decide to put more money into bonds and a little bit into REIT’s as a hedge against a potential crash or recession in the future. Then I start making dinner – Broken Eggs (Huevas Rotas) from the NY Times cooking site. You basically cook the potatoes in a skillet in water, spices, and olive oil, and then sauté them to crisp them up once the water evaporates. Then you add onion, lots of garlic, and finally some eggs. It is delicious. I eat it with leftover cornbread while watching RuPaul’s Drag Race season 13 with my sister – we watch the first two episodes. It’s full of twists and turns. A note about this – we have an elaborate procedure for watching shows together developed during quarantine whereby we start the show at the same with an earbud in one ear, while FaceTiming. I also have chocolate cake, of course.
Later, I get an email that I’ve signed up for HBO on Amazon Prime. I definitely have not. I text my mom, who shares my account, and she tells me she signed up by mistake. I cancel right away and luckily they won’t charge us for it.
Meanwhile, K is doing an online Japanese language class over Zoom. He’s been interested in learning ever since we went to Japan last January. I lived in Japan for 3 years so I was able to take us around to a lot of more obscure places and he really enjoyed the trip – it was a blast.
K starts a YouTube yoga class (from Do Yoga With Me – my favorite channel) and I join him for part of it before bed around 10 pm.
Daily total: $239.34
Day 5
Morning: I get up around 7 am and we go for a run first thing. I prefer running early in the morning because there are fewer people to avoid during COVID. We do a different route today – it’s longer (3 miles) but has fewer hills. It’s a slog, as always, but I feel good when I get back right around 8 am. I jump straight onto my computer to start checking work emails and my husband makes us avocado and egg toast for breakfast - it is absolutely delicious.
We talk about how our bathroom smells distinctly mildewy (yay for being a grown-up because I guess this is what we talk about now) and we buy two big buckets of DampRid on Amazon ($26.60). I’ve found this to be a necessity in Seattle. Mid-morning, I take a break from work and start packing for our trip to the cabin.
Noon: I have leftover potatoes and cornbread for lunch, and my husband has the leftover chili. We finish getting ready to leave and head out right after lunch, taking a half day. The only problem is that I have attend a meeting at 3:30 pm, so we head out hoping to get there in time. Our cabin is near Quilcene in the Hood Canal region of Washington, about a 2 hour drive or a 2 hour ferry ride + drive. We are initially planning to take the ferry both ways, but realize that we mistimed the ferry departure, so we drive the whole way instead. Luckily, there’s little traffic mid-day, and we arrive at our Airbnb around 3:00 pm.
The Airbnb is beautiful! It’s a small cabin handmade by the owner, whose house is next door. It’s very rural, with a beautiful view. It’s tiny, but has a little kitchen and a waterfall-style shower with river rocks on the floor. It’s a great place to get away for a short time. Luckily, it also has good reception and I’m able to sit in on my meeting with no problems. My husband also does a little work, and then at 5 pm we’re free!
In our planning, we decided to get takeout on Friday night, since the little kitchen isn’t designed for any serious cooking. We call ahead to a local restaurant to order burgers (one of only 2 restaurants in the whole town). It’s around 5:30 pm and the place is deserted. It’s a microbrewery, but they tell us they haven’t been making beer since COVID-19 hit. None of the workers are wearing masks when I walk in, but they put them on when they see I’m wearing one. I pick up our order - a few bottled beers and burgers and fries ($49.52 including tip).
Back at our Airbnb, we watch Big Trouble in Little China and enjoy our very messy, but delicious, burgers (it costs $4.39 to rent). The movie is very campy but fun. I love silly action movies, as you will see with my other viewing choices. We wrap up the night in a very exciting fashion, eating chocolate cake and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek.
Daily total: $80.51
Day 6
Morning & noon: When we wake up around 8 am, the weather is looking thankfully clear and even sunny! We were expecting rain, so we’re really glad. We decide to go hiking today, and we head out before even having breakfast, with snacks and lunches packed. Our first destination is a hike called Mt. Zion, but unfortunately, we run into enough snow 2 miles before the trailhead that we decide to turn back. We don’t have any traction for our Subaru and don’t want to risk getting stuck on a very narrow mountain road. Instead, we drive another hour or so to the Lena Lake trailhead, a very popular and less strenuous trail. It’s about 7.5 miles roundtrip with 1200 feet of elevation gain.
By this time, it’s around 11:30, but luckily there is still parking. It’s a great hike up, and we run into relatively few people. We always mask up whenever we pass anyone, as does about 50% of the people we meet. The others… not so much. Around a mile from the lake, we start to run into snow. It’s turned into a beautiful sunny day, and I’m loving seeing all this snow! It’s a bit slippery, but not too bad. We make it to the lake mid-day, and it’s super jammed – there’s only a small viewpoint accessible, so everyone is crowded in there. I feel a bit uneasy with all the unmasked people, but we manage to find a spot away from the crowd and sit down to eat our lunch of apples, chips, and energy bars. There are a ton of robber jays there (Canada Jays) which try to eat our chips. It is fun watching them, but I’m annoyed to see some kids feeding them – it’ll just make them that much more aggressive. Bad trail manners.
On our way back down, we get stuck behind a group of 5 unmasked adults, who refuse to cede the narrow trail to faster hikers. I’m a slow hiker myself, so, to be clear, I’m not angry at slower walkers being on the trail but have some self-awareness and let people pass! especially if you’re going to go hiking in a big group during a pandemic! We finally get back down and head back to our Airbnb.
Evening: Back home, we explore some of the trails our Airbnb host has set up around his extensive property, and then relax on the deck. The sun is breaking through the clouds and it feels wonderful to sit out in nature and feel the sun on my back. We open up a bottle of wine and have a few pre-dinner snacks (more chips and hummus). For this night, we brought ingredients to make a steak salad. Our Airbnb host has kindly set up a charcoal grill for us, so we grilled the steak and toast some bread on the side.
We eat dinner while watching the truly terrible Jean Claude Van Damme movie Bloodsport and finish up the very last of my chocolate cake. It’s amazing that anyone ever let Van Damme act… or should I say ‘act.’ I also have a Tate’s chocolate chip cookie or two, accompanied by a little port. My husband and I are truly very old people at heart, so we finish up the night watching a few episodes of Columbo.
Daily total: $0
Day 7
Morning: Unfortunately, K had insomnia last night, so he sleeps in pretty late. I drink coffee in bed and enjoy looking at the view out our big windows. Once he’s up, we get packed up and write a thank you note for our host. It was a great stay.
One of my big hobbies is birding and K enjoys wildlife photography, so we go out to look for some lifers! (The first time you see a new species of bird). Did I mention we are very old people in (relatively) young bodies? We first go to Dosewallips State Park and see some bald eagles, great blue herons, lots of various ducks, and a flock of Canada Geese, which, strangely, includes a domesticated gray goose. He’s much larger than the Canada Geese and seems to be watching over them. It’s kind of cute. Unfortunately, a lot of the birds are too far from shore to be seen clearly.
Our next stop is Point No Point (I love all the sad & disappointed names that early Westerner explorers gave places in the Washington/Oregon coast), a popular birding spot. We see a ton of birds here, and I can understand why it’s so well-known - Red-Breasted Mergansers, Western Grebes, Common Goldeneyes, Pacific Loons, and a few others I can’t identify yet. Most excitingly though, we see a whole pile of otters! They’re lounging around together on a rock just offshore and a ton of people are watching. We watch as they all slip off the rock and go hunting in the shore. It’s my first otter sighting in the wild, and it’s so cool! We also see some seals and possibly a sea lion. It’s a great spot for wildlife. We eat some snacks (hummus, chips, some sliced meat & cheese) before we head out.
I really want to come back to this area another time and explore further, but K has decided that we need to get back home in time for the Big Game. We take the 3:00 pm ferry back to Seattle ($16.40) and get home around 3:45 pm. I veg out at home while my husband watches football. He’s a Patriots fan but he still loves Tom Brady (??) so he’s happy to see Florida win. I don’t understand sports team loyalties at all, but whatever, I’m glad he’s happy. We order from a new Indian place called Spice Box and get vindaloo, roganjosh, and vegetables pakora – so tasty ($53.96). Happily, there’s enough left over for lunch the next day, since I have no plans for what we will eat yet!
I’m really dreading work the next day, as I know that it will be obnoxious. I want to get out of my job so badly, but it doesn’t look like I’m going on to the next interview stage for the job I interviewed no back on Monday. I’m feeling kind of down about it. I try to stay positive and promise that I’ll apply for at least 2-3 new jobs next week. I bake up some frozen cookie dough I had in the freezer and feel sorry for myself. We end the night by watching another episode of Columbo.
Daily total: 70.36
Food + Drink: $395.23
Fun / Entertainment: $26.40
Home + Health: $26.60
Clothes + Beauty: $0
Transport: $16.40
Other: $170.48
Grand Total: $635.11
I think this week was pretty normal for us. Obviously we spent a bit more than usual due to the weekend cabin trip, but nothing outrageous. Our largest consumer spending category is definitely food and drink – we live in a very busy area of Seattle with tons of restaurants and bars so believe it or not, we actually used to spend even more on eating out. We still try to support our local places by getting takeout or delivery during the pandemic and even occasionally getting a few drinks outside. I spent more than usual on groceries due to stocking up for the weekend away.

Note: I’m not a citizen, but I’ve been living in the US long enough to be considered a resident alien for tax purposes. On my visa, I cannot work any job that’s not directly related to my major in grad school (IT/computer science), but I can invest in the stock market.

Section One: Assets and Debt

Net Worth: from -$13,603.63 (Jan 2020) to $9,605.97 (Jan 2021)
Retirement Balance: $16,000 in my 401(K).
I only started working 2 years ago and my company messed up my registration so they basically didn’t put any money into it my first year there (I found out in horror and they gave me around $1,000 to say sorry…). I contribute 9% and my company matches 3%.
Savings account balance: $2,500
I have $2,500 set aside as my “emergency fund”, and I’m building back my vacation & study abroad budgets after having to tap into them for a move. My job is very stable and I won't be let go any time soon (unless I quit myself) so I’m not setting aside a big emergency fund for now.
Checking account balance: $3,111.01
Investment account: $1,500 in some stocks.
I initially dumped half of my 2019 bonus and some monthly contributions (totaling around $4,000) to this account to test strategies. This was my “study fund” and I didn’t care if I’d lose it all. I grew the account to around $10,000 and withdrew almost everything (that went to all the fees I had to pay to break my lease, my brother’s lease, deposit, moving expenses, and new furniture) and left $1,500 worth of stocks in there right now.
Credit card debt: $2,243.76 on my BestBuy card and PayPal Credit.
I had the money to pay for the items in full but they offered X months interest-free and I wanted to throw money into my debts instead. I always pay off all balances well before the deadline. I also pay all my credit cards in full and have never paid any interest.
Student loan debt: $11,046.09 left on my $20,000 loans at 8% for my BA in Biology and Statistics. Day 1 of arriving in the US, they sat us down, handed each of us a pen, and said hey kids here are the terms of your 8% loans, sign the documents now! I just turned 17, didn't even know I had to pay this money back, and remembered thinking "Is 8% a lot?" That's how clueless I was.
As a non-citizen, I will never have them canceled, so my plan was to tackle this as soon as possible and I started paying more aggressively until they made it 0% interest since Q4 last year.
Car loan: $4,900 left on my $10,000 loan at 8.9%. I didn’t have a long credit history when I bought the car (September 2019) since I only got my first credit card after graduation, so the rate was terrible. I’m planning to pay this all off after my bonus comes in March.

Section Two: Income

Income Progression:
2012 - 2016: I had multiple student on-campus jobs all throughout my undergrad, making from $7.25 to $10/hour. After graduation, I couldn't find any job directly related to my majors within 3 months (I had only been searching for Bio lab work), ran out of money, and had to go back home. Honestly, I didn't want to keep doing science either and was very lost back then.
2017: My first full-time job was being a tutor for a private college prep institution when I went back to my home country to “figure out what I wanted to do with my life.” They paid pretty well for the standards of living there ($1,000/mo). I worked that job while self-studying how to code and data science courses on the side and preparing my grad school applications.
2019: I got a job at my current company a semester before I graduated from my MS in Data Science program. This was my first “big girl job.” I started out at $64,000 and couldn’t work for 2 months due to complications in my visa processes so that ate up all my savings that year. By the end of the year, they bumped my salary up to $76,000 and we also had an annual 3% raise, so in total $78,280 + 5% bonus.
2020: One of my teammates left and one thing led to another, I got a title change from Data Analyst to Data Scientist towards the end of the year. I asked for a raise and they bumped it to $96,000 + 5% bonus.
2021: After our annual 3% raise my salary is now $98,880 (+ at least 5% bonus). I think I’m slightly underpaid, but this job is very low-stress and flexible (especially after we WFH).
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $5,082.58
Taken from my last paychecks (before the annual raise)
Gross salary: $8,000
Tax: $2,081.68
401(k) deduction: $720
Health insurance: $115.74

Section Three: Expenses

Rent & renter’s insurance: $935 for my share for a 2bed/3bath condo. My parents pay a flat $700/mo for my brother’s share. He recently moved here since his school went virtual until at least the end of this semester and our family wanted us to be nearby to take care of each other.
Savings contribution: $900
Investment contribution: $420, but will increase once my car loan is paid off.
Debt payments:

• $1,000 on car loan until paid off.
• $200.13 minimum on student loans for now at 0% interest, will increase to $1,100 when car loan is paid off.
• $300 for Best Buy & PayPal Credit promotional deals

Car insurance: $127.01 ($762.05 paid in full every 6 months)
Car registration: $25 ($300 annual)
Donations: $20 monthly (ASPCA), plus several hundreds throughout the year (last year I donated to BLM orgs and local animal shelters)
Gas: $0. I drive an electric car. Charging probably drives up my electric bill by a bit, but still cheaper than gas. Also, this means no car maintenance at all until my car battery dies, which probably won’t happen in the next 5 years.
Utilities (electric, natural gas): ~$150
Wifi: $40
Cellphone: $10.61 ($108.66 for 6 months and I got a $45 credit from my bank)
Groceries: $500 (for 2 people)
Subscriptions: $20 (HP Ink, shared Netflix account, YNAB, Disney+)
Pet expenses: ~$20 for wet cat food
Personal care/hobby: I collect perfumes. Between makeup, skincare, clothes (which I had planned to stop buying this year) and perfume bottles and samples (the majority of my "personal care" expenses...), I averaged $400/mo last year. Without the makeup, skincare and clothes, I budget $150/mo this year for my fragrance hobby.
Household supplies: $30
Education: $30 (language/technical textbooks, Udemy/Coursera)
Gifts: $30
Credit card fee: $21 ($250 annual)

Section Four: Background

Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Education is one of the top priorities in our household and this has been instilled in my mind since I was a kid. Perhaps because my grandparents were both professors and my parents both attended grad school, it was expected of us to have at least a bachelor's degree. With that said, my family tried to support our higher education financially as best they could and I'm very thankful for it. During undergrad, I had need-based financial aid and on-campus jobs, and my parents helped with the rest of my tuition. I still had to take (required by the school) a $20,000 loan. My grandmother helped pay for my 2-year master's program.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
During high school, I had a measly weekly allowance and my dad had me write out all the transactions in a notebook. I thought it was very silly back then but now thinking back, it was probably some good practice. Other than that, they didn't talk about money at all, and I was absolutely clueless and wasn't interested in personal finance until a couple of years ago. I don't remember how but I think I woke up one day and decided to read every book about personal finance I could find and now I do talk with my dad about finances.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
My first job was washing dishes as a student worker! We all had to do it our freshman year before we were allowed to find other jobs. I managed to find 3 other jobs (stage crew, sports event worker, and math tutor) and stayed with all of them for 3 years.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Even though our parents never let on to us about their finances, they made sure that we'd grow up comfortable financially, so I didn't worry because I didn't know anything.
Do you worry about money now?
Yes. As I grew up, I came to learn more about my parents' financial situation and realized that they've sacrificed a lot for us. I had the majority of my college tuition supported by the school, but my brother doesn't, and tuition in the US isn't cheap, especially when you convert it to our local currency. I also never know for how long I can stay in the US and keep making the same kind of money I'm making now so I'm trying my best to pay down the student loans ASAP.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I became fully financially responsible for myself when I started working at my current company. Before that my student worker jobs paid for my personal expenses in college but my parents still chipped in for tuition. I guess my family back home is my safety net but personally, I wouldn't ask them for help even if bad things happen to me in the future.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Nope.

Diary

Day 1 (Thursday) - $3.35

• Alexa wakes me up and turns the light on. I change into my work clothes and head downstairs to my “office.” My boss starts our daily standup call, talking about what we did yesterday and what we plan for the day.
• I have my annual review meeting. Everything goes well and my bosses are very pleased with what I’ve done, especially after I transitioned into my new title as a Data Scientist, which honestly brought me more fulfillment in my job as well. We talk about our annual bonus and raise, which I already expected. It’s not a lot of money but hey any money is money and I’m not saying no.
• Some people bought my photocards so I gather all the orders and purchase a shipping label since 1 order is with tracked shipping. (Don’t ask me how this works but I’m a K-pop fan and we collect expensive cardboards. Depending on the popularity of the member of the group, profit margins can go up to 400%.) I head to the post office and drop off all the packages ($3.35)
• I’ve been waiting for the mailman all day and he finally comes! I’ve been working from home for almost a year now and my back pain is starting to kill me so I decided to “invest” in a $400 chair with lumbar and neck support. My cat happily takes the other chair and starts claiming her territory on it.

Day 2 (Friday) - $206.24

• I wake up on cue at Alexa’s daily briefing. Half an hour passes while I ponder on a perfume sample set I saw in someone’s fragrance collection on Reddit.
• I eventually give in and purchase the Zoologist sample set ($120.24). It’s within my budget this month, I’ve been eyeing this one for some time now and I can resell it for 80% value once I’m done testing them, so it’s not a huge loss anyway.
• Late lunch today. I make a quick lunch with sausages and keto toasts and quickly finish it while watching some YouTube videos on personal finance and updates on $GME (no I did not buy any shares).
• When in doubt, throw every leftover food in your fridge in a pan and make fried rice. Side dish is sweet and sour tomato and egg “cloud soup.” Then we have our weekly family video call with my parents back in my home country.
• I go down the YouTube rabbit hole again and buy 2 more perfume sample sets ($86.00). All the purchases today (~50 samples) would probably take me months to try out so I promise myself no more until next quarter as I click the pay button.

Day 3 (Saturday) - $71.27

• I wake up at 8:45 am and laze around for half an hour, scrolling down Twitter and answering my friend’s questions on how to enter the stock market. Today is my cheat day (I have one every 2-3 weeks), so I contemplate if I should order delivery for lunch. I check YNAB and decide that it’s too expensive, so I go downstairs to make myself a hearty breakfast with a latte, half a croissant, grilled chicken breasts, and snack on some shrimp crackers and tangerines.
• I purchase a shipping label ($3.22) and head out to the post office. For some reason I want to smell like a lemon cake today, so I spritz on Xerjoff Lira, put on sunscreen, and head out. This perfume always makes me feel so warm and delicious.
• I spend the whole afternoon catching up with my Chinese and Korean lessons for the week.
• Suddenly craving some instant noodles, so I immediately get up and head to a local Asian grocery store to shop for instant and pho noodles (I’m planning to make pho for Lunar New Year) and some snacks for my brother ($38.71). We drop by a bubble tea shop nearby and get bubble tea and 2 dessert cakes ($19.71). I usually don’t drink sugary drinks, but since it’s my cheat day, I put in an order and pay for the both of us.
• Some more PC orders came in and they’re all with tracked shipping. The post office is closed tomorrow but I’ll just pay now for the shipping labels so that I won’t forget ($9.63).

Day 4 (Sunday) - $0.00

• I literally do nothing today until 4 pm.
• I make dinner, then finish my Chinese lesson and review the flashcards I made yesterday. That’s enough activity for the day.
• One of my friends calls to show me her album haul of the day and I'm tempted, but (fortunately?) there's no kpop store in my city so I make myself forget about buying any more albums.

Day 5 (Monday) - $40.10

• I wake up with a headache, not feeling too well, so I request a day off and message my boss. I can’t go back to sleep, so I just lie there in bed for a couple of hours. I suddenly remember that WandaVision is on air, and there are a couple of movies on there I haven’t watched yet, so I subscribe to Disney+ ($7.52) and start binge-watching.
• We ran out of soft drinks for my brother, so I have to drive to Costco again after lunch ($32.58). I also need to drop off all the orders that came in over the weekend.
• I go to my old apartment for my move-out inspection (I haven't been living there since December but still had to honor the 2-month notice and pay for all the rent). There are a couple of spots that might cost me some deductions in my deposit. Sigh. At least I get to tell them to remove the charges on my lease for February, and they assure me that they will.
• I finish binge-watching some movies on Disney+. I see Colourpop is advertising some Valentine’s Day palettes on my feed. I do not need those, I do not need those, I do not need those. I should’ve just unfollowed makeup brands on social media. Some more late-night scrolling, and then I finally go to sleep.

Day 6 (Tuesday) - $8.02

• I wake up groggily, still feeling a bit sick. We have a late standup today, so I take my time making my coffee and start working, as my cat also settles in on my lap and starts napping. My head is still aching and I'm not sure if it's the cold or just keto flu so I load up on electrolytes, fish oil, and acetaminophen just in case.
• Somebody lowballed me on one of my postings. Ugh I hate it when they do this, but this one is not selling too well, so I meet them halfway. I purchase another shipping label ($3.03).
• Today is our bi-monthly deployment date, which means all the engineers (and anyone who has committed changes in our codebase) meet up and sit around until all the merges are deployed into production. I had some changes last week so I just sit there and do my own work until it's my turn. My boss told me this morning he had some test API from one of our new clients so I go to check out some of the data there. Oh how I love me some messy, messy data that nobody knows what to do with.
• The repair guy who came to fix our washing machine doesn't leave until 5:15 pm so I drop by the post office late, but just in time as they're collecting the mail! Then I drop by a nearby (rather upscale) grocery store as I'm running out of heavy cream, but everything is so expensive. I compare price per oz and pick up the coffee creamer instead ($4.99).
• I heat up the cauliflower rice and leftover curry and eat dinner as I watch Coco (I can't believe I've never actually watched it!) Then I review my Chinese flashcards for a bit, do half an hour of Just Dance until I sweat, play with my cat, and call it a day.

Day 7 (Wednesday) - $3.49

• I stayed up quite late yesterday playing a mobile game and finally wake up after snoozing the alarm for the 84th time. My boss starts our standup at our usual time; there's nothing urgent or pressing today so I just take my time. I take a quick nap in the afternoon and go back to work.
• I use the last drops of avocado oil to fry up some bulgogi for dinner. Need to go back to Costco for more avocado oil tomorrow, I guess.
• After dinner, a friend asks me about perfume samples that she wants to try. I go online to search for them but no dice since they belong to a new collection that only got launched in Europe. I take this time to try out some similar smelling samples in my collection as well.
• I review my Chinese flashcards and do some workbook exercises. After an hour, my brain is fried on Chinese but I don't want to go to bed yet, so I pick up a book on my bookcase that I was reading a while ago (A Random Walk Down Wall Street) and read one more chapter.
• An order came in so I purchase another shipping label ($3.49), update my budgeting app for a bit, and then head to bed.

Summary

​

Category	Amount	Note
Food & Drink	$95.99	Groceries
Fun / Entertainment	$7.52	Disney+ subscription
Home & Health	$0.00
Clothes & Beauty	$206.24	Perfume samples
Other*	$22.72	Shipping labels
Total	$309.75	shipping labels not included

*I don’t count the shipping labels as expenses because they’re already factored into the profits I made from my sales, but I included them anyway because they're still charges on my accounts. Any profit goes back to funding my album purchases so... I guess it's a vicious cycle.
Overall, a pretty normal week for me in terms of food. I don’t eat out often (I allow myself only one meal and one dessert every month) and have used up my 1 dessert allowance this week so I probably won't have any more this month. I might’ve gone overboard with the perfume purchases this week, but tbh perfumes bring me joy. My mood is lifted and I'm transported to old and new places every time I put on a perfume that I enjoy, so for me, it’s worth it. I try to be frugal whenever I can, but I'll never skimp on education and hobbies that make me happy. Writing this week-long diary, I realize I need to get back to working out, though. I'll probably have to stop procrastinating and pull out my RingFit gears still inside the moving boxes. Playing Just Dance also makes me miss dancing so bad as I used to be active in several dance crews since college (but stopped after I started working full time). I'll try to stick to Just Dance for now to get my cardio until Covid is over and I can get back to in-person dance classes.

Section One: Assets and Debt Use this section to explain your current financial picture at large.
Retirement Balance: $0 (I can’t contribute until March)
Equity if you're a homeowner: My boyfriend, H, and I just bought a house! We close on Feb 5th, but don’t take possession until March 15th. But our home was appraised at $270,000, we paid $267,000. Our downpayment is 20% and H’s parents gave us $46,000 for that and closing costs. I have put forth $10,000 from my investment account (see below) and H has contributed $7,000 and will pay for a chunk of the repairs needed before we move in.
Savings account balance: $5,000
Checking account balance: $1,200 (I try not to ever let this go under $1,000)
Credit card debt: $300 (This is gas/some grocery expenses that will be paid at the end of the month)
Student loan debt: $10,500 for a BBA in general business. I am reeeeeally hoping Biden is going to forgive this, as I have almost exactly $10,000 left to pay. My grandparents paid for most of my degree until my last 5 semesters because I changed schools. I had been going to my grandfather’s alma mater and changed schools with 5 semesters left, going full time all semesters.
Mutual fund: ~$6,500. This had $10,000 more but I used it for our down payment. This was opened for me by my grandparents, and my parents also contributed. I got ownership of this account the year I turned 21.
Section Two: Income
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $2,472
My boyfriend H makes $52,000/year, but we do not combine finances. We either split everything or Venmo each other. It typically evens out.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent / Mortgage / HOA fees: Currently our rent is $950 for just rent and we pay relative to paycheck (I pay $400). Our mortgage will be $1,200 and I will be paying $550
Renters / home owners insurance: We paid for a year of renters ($110) and will have to start paying home owners in March
Retirement contribution: I can’t contribute until March, but will start contributing 3%
Savings contribution: usually around $200-300
Investment contribution: Nothing now, will be after we get the expensive home things finished
Debt payments: Pay off CC monthly. Not paying off student loans until September, if I have to. Then will be paying $100
Donations: I volunteer with an animal rescue (am also a board member!)
Electric: H pays
Wifi/Cable/Landline: H pays
Cellphone: On my parents’ plan
Subscriptions: $15 for book of the month, and $60 every 6 weeks for our cats’ food through Chewy, $10 for Grubhub+, $10 for Disney+ and $5 for Spotify for students (they don’t know I graduated). H’s parents pay for Netflix and Amazon and we let them use our Disney and Hulu!
Pet expenses: See above, and $20 month for their insurance (for my half)
Car payment / insurance: My parents bought my car and pay my insurance
Friday:
7:15 am: Wake up for work. Make an iced coffee and get ready. Throw on Madewell jeans and a sweater and out the door by 7:35.
8:00: Arrive at work. Realize I have nothing to do today and internally freak out. This is my first job out of college and I’m really struggling with figuring it out. We are in the office, but my manager is working from home this week and my coworker, L, is in the office. They have different expectations of me and I’m completely overwhelmed. My coworker is a bit controlling, so she “assigns” me my work and I have a project that I can do in my free time. I feel like I’m wasting time by not actually doing any real work, but L is swamped and won’t delegate. During my first week I attempted to just start doing things that are my responsibility, but L freaked out, called my manager, who then told me that I can’t do anything until L assigns it to me, even though I was just doing things that are my responsibility.
12:30: Heat up lunch and chill on my phone. L is being quite verbal with how busy she is and makes an off hand comment about how she’s “so glad I’m here, but it’s like double the work having to check over someone else’s work and do your own.” I apologize for being new and she says that she can’t wait until I have free reign on things and I agree. I remind myself that I am still new and it is okay to make mistakes.
4:30: Finally done, call H on my way home. I tell him I am so glad it is Friday and I can’t wait to just relax tonight. When I get home I have a Diet Coke while H makes tempura cauliflower and potsticker soup.
7 pm: Amazon delivers a box of vitamins my mom ordered for me and I call her to thank her. H is on the phone with his mom, so we both chat with our respective moms for a few before we continue watching Netflix and chatting.
9 pm: I start getting tired but we decide to watch Lady Bird and hang on the couch with the cats. I doze off at 11 while H plays video games.
Money spent: $0
Saturday:
9:30: Wake up to coffee in bed supplied by H, who has been up since 7 am to watch a soccer game. I put the coffee on my nightstand and one of the cats instantly knocks it over, spilling it everywhere. I guess it’s time to get up?
10:30: Hop in the shower after milling around straightening the apartment. I am finding it so difficult to even want to organize here when I know we’re moving in a few weeks. We don’t have a possession date yet, because the current owners have not found a new house. We have a huge list of things we want/need to do to the house before moving in, so we will not move in on our possession date anyways. I throw in some laundry after my shower and H decides to make lunch.
12: We need to get out of our apartment, so we go drive by our house and check out our new local brewery. It is half a mile from the house and they have an outdoor beer deck, as restaurants in Michigan are closed to indoor dining. I get a sangria and H gets 2 beers and some fries for us to share. H pays.
1:00: We see that town a few minutes away has a whole street closed down where you can open carry alcohol and there are fires and food. We figure we will stop by and see how things look. Everyone is wearing masks (unless eating or drinking) and are social distancing, so H parks and we walk around. We stop for coffees first, I get a tea latte and H gets a coffee. ($8 with a tip).
1:30: After sitting down and hanging out drinking coffee we walk around downtown. Everyone has masks on and are social distancing and it is so nice to see. It is pretty cold out but most bars and restaurants have outdoor seating with heaters or fires. We pop into another brewery where H gets a ghost pepper beer and a spicy Crunchwrap for when we get home. H pays. On our way out we stop at our favorite cheese store and get a caramelized onion quiche, a goat cheese with red pepper and onion, some Tipperary Irish cheese and a triple cream Brie/blue cheese, I pay. ($26 with tip)
2:30: After sitting out by the fire my hair smells like smoke so I take another shower while H puts away the cheese and tidies around the living room. We share the crunch wrap and it is amazing. Today is cheat day, so we won’t work out tonight, but will tomorrow. Loaf around between loads of laundry and watching Pirates of the Caribbean.
8:00: Hungry again so we order Thai food from Grubhub. I get peanut curry noodles and H gets yellow curry and we split crab Rangoon. ($32, H pays half). H plays games online with some friends on Saturday nights so I make the bed, tidy up, and start some online shopping for the house. We currently have 1 b1 bath and our house is 4 b2.5 bath and I’m so overwhelmed! The current owners are taking all of the fixtures in all bathrooms (toilet paper holders, towel bars and hooks, etc) so those are things we need pretty quick after we move. I put some items in my cart at Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, but don’t check out because I know there will be a sale soon.
10:30: The cats and I head to bed, H is staying up to watch the Connor McGregor fight. I do my night time skin routine of Lush’s 9-5, the Body Shop’s Oils of Life and Olay night cream and eye cream, brush my teeth and watch Bob’s Burgers until I pass out.
Total: $50
Sunday:
9:30 am: H wakes me up with coffee and asks if I want him to heat up the quiche from yesterday. He does that while I talk to my parents and cuddle the cats. We eat in bed and lounge until noon, when we decide to run to the grocery store and take our recycling and garbage. (Meijer trip: $26 for my half) We get onions, brussels, asparagus, potatoes, soup, crackers, rice, enchilada sauce, black beans, and other stuff I can’t remember.
1:00: On to target because our Meijer is never well stocked. We are able to get in and out in 15 minutes, which seems like it should be illegal. (My half: $13). We get some meatless crumbles and falafel, parchment paper and Valentine’s Day toys for the cats.
2:00: Home and the groceries are put away. I make a cheese board for H and I to snack on while we watch the Red Wings game.
3:00: I start cleaning the apartment while H watches football. I clean the sinks, the bathroom, vacuum and steam clean the floors while he scoops the litter box. While the floors dry, I take a nap on the couch with one of the cats. We do a popsugar workout when I wake up and then veg until dinner, talking and watching TV.
7:30: H makes brussel sprouts, asparagus, and rice for dinner while I finish up laundry. After dinner I shower and do my night time routine and out by 10.
Daily total: $39
Monday:
7:30: On way to work and the line at Starbucks is insane. I usually stop at Starbucks on Monday mornings but there is no way I can wait in line and still make it to work on time. I stop at the gas station next to work for my coffee ($1.50) and hope it doesn’t suck (spoiler: it did).
12:30: Lunch time! H texted me this morning that we will be able to take possession on our house sooner than we thought, so I make a list (one of many) of things we need to get done between closing and possession. Getting a little stressed about things we “need” vs “want” but I know it’ll work out. I eat an Annie’s Mac and cheese and look online for bathroom hardware.
4:30: H calls and tells me we need to figure out how to get a wire transfer receipt for the money I sent him for our down payment. On my way home I call my credit union, but they don’t offer receipts for wire transfers. I call H back and give him the confirmation number my CU gave me, and we hope that is good enough. When I get home we do another Pop Sugar workout video and order mexican food. We have some rewards from Grubhub, so our fajitas only cost us $4 (I pay).
6:00: Home, eat and relax. It is going to snow tonight so H reminds me to leave early in the morning for traffic. We do our nightly routines and I’m out by 10.
Total: $5.50
Tuesday:
7:30: Wake up to a ton of snow and icy roads. Thankfully H brushed my car off before I left, but it is still snowing and gross outside. We’re supposed to get another 6 inches today!
12:30: Lunch time! I heat up some mashed potatoes and call my credit union. We are still trying to get our lender proof that I gave H money for our mortgage and I’m getting frustrated. I give them permission to speak to H, and he gets it straightened out.
4:30: My boss calls me as I’m about to leave to tell me I can work from home Friday! When I got this job I was told I would be remote within a year, but from conversations with my boss it sounds like it could be a lot sooner. This was a huge reason we wanted to get a house, because I do really need an “office”, not just a desk in our bedroom. I call H on the way home and make him tell our cats I will be home with the all day Friday.
5:00: Home and my mom texts asking if I want anything from The Body Shop. She places an order and I get Aloe moisturizer, some make up remover, and a facial massager ($28, sent to my mom). I have been trying to get more into skin care lately and I’m so excited for the facial roller! My mom and I are super close and I miss her so much. We usually chat on the phone once a day, but it isn’t the same.
7:00: After dinner (soup and salad, made by H) I get the box my mom sent me. Mostly things I left at home for Christmas. H and I were not planning on going home for Christmas, but the week before there was a death in his family. We went home (2 hours away) with the cats, not knowing how long we would stay. We packed for 4 days, but ended up staying 3 weeks. Also included in the box was my tab renewal form. I decide to do it online, instead of going to the Secretary of State in person ($91.31, with fees for paying with a card). My car is in my mom’s name, so I have to update my tabs during her birth month, not my own.
9:30: Shower and get in bed. We watch the Simpsons until we fall asleep.
Total: $119.30
Wednesday:
7:15: Wake up and get dressed. I have extra time this morning, so I stop at Starbucks and get a Carmel macchiato ($5). I get into work and my boss calls to let me know my laptop bag was delivered, so I grab that from the receptionist. Since I’ll be working from home Friday I make sure my laptop, mouse, and charger all fit in the bag.
12:30: H Venmo requests me $65 for utilities this month. I didn’t pay for rent from August-December, so I tell him I will pay half of our utilities for a few months. I was furloughed from my retail job March-June, and then I was collecting underemployment June-August. I got COVID in July, and quit my job in August, due to being asked to work while being sick with CIVID. Because I stopped receiving unemployment at that point, H agreed to let me stop paying rent. I really appreciate this, it allowed me to not have to get a job for my last semester, and truly focus on school and getting an after graduation job. I place a pick up order for Target to grab on my way home from work. I get pita bread and snacks for work ($11).
4:30: Leave work, stop at Target for Drive Up. I also stop at Sam’s Club for gas ($18.40) When I get home, H and I do a popsugar work out. He makes dinner (falafel, rice, pita and salad) while I fold towels, pick up a bit and chat with my mom. I also text a few friends I haven’t talked to lately. In bed by 9, after a shower and skin care routine.
Total: $94.40
Thursday:
7:30: Up and out the door. At work, my boss asks what I want for lunch so I order a wrap from Applebees (she pays) and my coworker, boss and I eat in a conference room. We discuss how I’m doing and they let me know I will be able to work from home by my 90 day point (!!!!). They also explain that another coworker, who isn’t in my department but was hired in the same day as me, was let go last week due to misaligned expectations. They ask how I’m feeling, and I am honest and explain that I feel a little overwhelmed and like I’m not doing a good job. They both reassure me and it ends up being a great talk.
2:30: My mom texts and asks if I think my niece would like an Amazon tablet and I say yes. I do a pickup for one at the target near my mom, so she can use my red card discount and drive up. ($105, but my mom will Venmo me when she decides if she will keep it)
4:30: Grab my laptop and leave work! I stop at Marshall’s to get a new cat dish, and also some soap dispensers for the house. Wouldn’t be a marshalls trip without buying something that I don’t really need but I walk out with an entry way bench anyways. ($108) I chat on the phone with my mom and friend while shopping and then go get my dip powder taken off my nails ($10). Super bummed I’m not going to be doing dip for the time being but it is an unnecessary expense right now, and I’ll be working remote more with no one looking at my nails.
7:00: H gets home from guitar lessons and we talk about moving. This leads to a fight about realistic expectations of moving, cleaning old apartment, and what happened last time we moved. We both agree that there’s no use fighting until we know all the facts and H makes dinner.
9:30: H does the dishes while I get ready for bed and we get into bed. Asleep by 10, excited to WFH tomorrow!
Total: $223
Week total: $531.20
Food + Drink: $110.50
Fun / Entertainment: $0
Home + Health: $108
Clothes + Beauty: $28
Transport: $109.71
Other: $65
Reflection: This is an atypical week for spending. H and I definitely order a ton of take out, and that’s typical, but I haven’t been shopping as much lately. Saving up for housing expenses has been pretty stressful for me, I really want to get the big stuff out of the way before buying furniture. In case anyone is wondering about our house buying process, I will outline briefly below:
In November 2020, H’s parents offered to help us with a down payment, as we were having a tough time finding any homes in our budget. We met with a lender, who approved us for way more than we planned on spending. The market in Grand Rapids is hot. We put an offer in on another house, $30k over asking, we had done an inspection before our offer, and offered an appraisal gap of $5k. The winning offer was $70k over asking, in cash, no appraisal or inspection. We were devastated, it was truly our dream home. This was right before Christmas, and H had lost a family member that week. We agreed to take a break from looking at houses. January 3rd, I found our house on a Zillow email. We called our agent and he told us that there was already an offer in, who asked the owners to stop showing the house. It had been on market for 6 hours. Our agent was able to get us in that night, but told us if we wanted it we needed to make an offer that night. We agreed to offer $15k over, with an escalation clause of $20k over, $3k appraisal gap, and 40 days between acceptance and possession, as the current owners needed to find a house. There was another offer that was $1k over our initial, but under our escalation clause maximum, so our offer won! We found out we got the house on a Thursday, and our inspection was that Saturday. This was January 9, and the inspection didn’t find any major issues with the house, save for the 24 year old water heater and furnace. We asked the sellers for a 1 year home warranty, which they agreed to. They also offered us their washer and dryer (5years old, LG) for $500. We agreed and our all in was $268,500. It was really important to H’s parents that we put 20% down so we didn’t have to deal with PMI, so our down payment was $56,000. Closing costs will be $7,000. We will need to paint, add gutters, have a handy man and electrician do small jobs, and update the master bedroom carpet.

A couple days ago I made this post here at AMD discussing my experience cooling the 5800x. Since then, my temps creeped back up to 90C, and then stayed there in every benchmark that I ran. Reseating the cooler still helped, as I didn't immediately shoot up to 90C anymore - but even after upgrading to Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and putting a very healthy amount of thermal paste, it still maxed out at 90C near the end of a Cinebench R20 MC test. After redoing my thermal paste 4 more times, I saw almost no improvement in max temperature, only variation was the amount of time it took to get to 90C. Kryonaut is better in my experience, and takes longer to get to 90C, but I eventually hit 90C.
I went on reddit and OC forums and did some more reading, and I found a user who tested two 5800x chips on two motherboards. I can't find the post anymore, but they reported that two different 5800x chips on one motherboard reached a max temp of 90C in Cinebench R20 multicore, and the same two chips on the other motherboard hit max temps around mid 70s in Cinebench R20 multicore. This got me curious, are some of our 5800x's being fed way too much power by the motherboard? Now, I'm not too sure how this all works but that tells me it might be some sort of calibration or BIOS issue.... anyways, to the testing. First, my rig specs:

• AMD Ryzen 5800x
• Noctua NH-D15 CHROMAX.BLACK
• MSI MPG B550 GAMING EDGE WIFI
• 2x16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 CL16
• WD Black 2TB HDD
• Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 2.5" SSD
• WD SN750 M.2-2280 NVME SSD w/ Heatsink
• EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 ULTRA GAMING
• Fractal Design Meshify C
• Corsair RMx 850W 80+ Gold
• Cooler Master ELV8 GPU Bracket
• 4x Noctua NF-A14
• 1x Noctua NF-F12

Note that I may not know entirely what I am talking about with this stuff because it is my first time on Ryzen. I just came from a 4770K so this is new to me. That being said, I wanted to share my experience to see if others can get some benefit.
All fans set on max for the entire test. PBO is ON, and these are my curve optimizer settings. This was set based on some testing using HWinfo64 to identify my best cores. I just arbitrarily set some numbers and it seemed to get me ~50-100MHz extra in all core boost. Otherwise it doesn't seem to affect my temps or anything much, I still hit 90C with PBO on or off anyway.
I read this post from GN: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3491-explaining-precision-boost-overdrive-benchmarks-auto-oc
The part that was most important in this article for my tests was this:
Package Power Tracking (“PPT”): The PPT threshold is the allowed socket power consumption permitted across the voltage rails supplying the socket. Applications with high thread counts, and/or “heavy” threads, can encounter PPT limits that can be alleviated with a raised PPT limit.

1. Default for Socket AM4 is at least 142W on motherboards rated for 105W TDP processors.
2. Default for Socket AM4 is at least 88W on motherboards rated for 65W TDP processors.

Thermal Design Current (“TDC”): The maximum current (amps) that can be delivered by a specific motherboard’s voltage regulator configuration in thermally-constrained scenarios.

1. Default for socket AM4 is at least 95A on motherboards rated for 105W TDP processors.
2. Default for socket AM4 is at least 60A on motherboards rated for 65W TDP processors.

Electrical Design Current (“EDC”): The maximum current (amps) that can be delivered by a specific motherboard’s voltage regulator configuration in a peak (“spike”) condition for a short period of time.

1. Default for socket AM4 is 140A on motherboards rated for 105W TDP processors.
2. Default for socket AM4 is 90A on motherboards rated for 65W TDP processors.

I compared to the AMD default limits which puts the PPT = 500, TDC = 200 and EDC = 220 (from Ryzen Master). It seems interesting that these are set so high, and I thought maybe different motherboards were handling the power delivery different. Now, I'm not an expert at how this stuff works, so I'm not even sure if I'm using the correct terms or the right technical language, but what I found was limiting PPT, TDC, and EDC to certain values on my motherboard gave me a huge temperature benefit with almost no loss in performance. This leads me to believe that some BIOS may be sending way too much power to the 5800x, letting it hit 90C and then throttling based on the temperature.
Testing steps:

1. First I ran some baseline tests with default motherboard limits set in the BIOS, and started decreasing each down from there. First few results were as expected with the Tmax hitting 90C near the end of a Cinebench R20 MC test. R20 is run with no background apps. I only have R20 and HWinfo64 on for monitoring
2. Based on the GN article, I then set reasonable limits below the maximum values for 105W processors (PPT = 125, TDC = 90, EDC = 125). Setting the PPT saw instant improvements in temps down to 81.3C.
3. I started to decrease PPT in increments of 5 to see how low I could get the temperature without dropping my R20 MC scores too far. When I felt like the score dropped too low, I would bring the PPT back to a value that had a good balance in performance lost and maximum temperature. Eventually settling on 120. Then I moved onto TDC while holding EDC and PPT constant.
4. I repeated it again, dropping TDC by 5 and observing temps and scores after. I ended up settling on 85 for now.
5. Finally, I did this on EDC. I found that my 5800x seems to be highly sensitive to EDC in terms of performance, dropping EDC to 90 dropped my Cinebench R20 scores to almost 5500 with Tmax at 78.8C. I decided that I was going to keep this at 110 because it seemed to have biggest negative impact on scores and the temp gains were not worth it.
6. Lastly, I went back to TDC and dropped that as low as I could, I found that dropping it to 75 gave me a 3 degree drop in temperature, and the performance dropped within a margin of error. After running ~23 tests, I headed to bed and settled on PPT = 120, TDC = 75, EDC = 110 was giving me a score of 5976 (pretty good for those temperatures!)
7. Next morning, ambient temps dropped to 21 (setup is in the basement) and PC had some time to chill out, I ran the test twice and saw huge improvements. Tmax = 71.0C and R20 multicore score is 6070, single core is 625. Those are pretty good scores for that temperature! Second trial was similar, CBMC = 6056 and Tmax = 72.0C. See testing results and proof below.
8. I then reverted my PPT/TDC/EDC limits back to motherboard, ran tests, and boom, Tmax = 90 again, multicore score 6038

Note, another quick way to determine how much your EDC/TDC your CPU is taking during full load is to look at the CPU TDC and EDC measurements in HWinfo64 while you run R20 multicore test. This can help you save time in determining what the limit is. I didn't know this until after and just slowly decreased each parameter by 5 and testing in between. I probably could have saved some time looking at these limits instead and starting there.
See my testing results here, (read the notes to understand how I made increments and settled on the numbers that I did): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11rPc7P0omu3FyDYM8YL8V-HuSIhVywwt2tkCeWWyLq4/edit?usp=sharing
Result: https://imgur.com/gallery/zGtAgNr
Motherboard settings: https://imgur.com/gallery/rpafxCU
I did some digging online to see what other users were experiencing on their CPUs, someone made a drive link compiling data for the 5800x based on their setup. I made a copy on my drive of an old version because the working version got deleted by the original creator. Comparing my performance now with some of the samples here shows that I have decent scores and very good temps now.
If someone could explain the technicals behind what is going on here, that would be great!
TLDR: Play with your PPT, TDC, and EDC numbers. I saw temps drop from 90C to 71C. I'm not sure the technicalities behind this but it leads me to believe that some motherboards might be feeding your CPU way more power than it needs to hit clocks causing thermal issues.
Edit: Here are my R23 scores with PPT = 120, TDC = 75 and EDC = 110

NOTE: All currency has been converted to USD (1 PHP = 0.021 USD)
Intro: I hope this gives people an idea of what life is like on the other side of the world, in the Philippines. I’ve also included Ref29’s questions at the beginning to give you more insight into my background. Please know that writing this turned out to be much harder than I had originally anticipated since it forced me to confront several things about me, particularly about my mental health and my privilege. I’m aware that I’m incredibly privileged and have lived a very comfortable, sheltered life, when compared to most Filipinos, especially amid this global pandemic when practically half the country is starving. I’m really nervous to share this with all of you, but please be easy on me as this was not easy for me to do.
Ref29 questions:
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes, education is held in high regard here in the Philippines, to the point that landing a well-paying job without a bachelor’s is extremely hard, if not downright possible. Parents are also expected to pay for the entirety of college, although, of course, this isn’t true for all. Coming from an upper-middle-class family, I was even more pressured to land a spot in one of the Big 4 universities, which is sort of like the equivalent of the Ivy League here. In the Philippines, college admission involves taking an entrance exam at each college that you’re applying to, so my senior year of high school was spent in after-class prep centers to prepare for this. Fortunately, I was able to major in a pre-law course in a Big 4 university, which my parents fully paid for.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
My parents had the mindset of “work hard, play hard,” which meant that they worked seven days a week, but compensated for it with week-long family vacations abroad between twice to thrice a year. As I mentioned, this was a very privileged upbringing. They weren’t extremely thrifty, but they definitely instilled in us values like delayed gratification and spending money only if you worked hard for it. They also insisted that my brother and I save at least 20% of our allowances, so upon reaching first grade, we were taken to the bank to open a junior savings account.
Unfortunately, our business has taken a huge hit, due to policies that the current government has, so we’ve had to significantly tighten our belts. We don’t worry about putting food on the table or of being unable to afford basic necessities; however, we’ve had to do away with things like weekend shopping trips, impulse purchases, eating out every week, and international vacations for the past two or three years now.
Did you worry about money growing up?
It’s extremely privileged of me to say this, but no. I didn’t. I come from generational wealth on my mom’s side while my paternal grandfather owns several properties. I was always secure in the fact that if we were ever struggling financially, one of my grandparents would end up bailing us out.
Do you worry about money now?
Yes, I’m currently saving up to go to law school abroad. This will mean repeating my bachelor’s, but this program will open up so many opportunities for me. However, it also means having to save up at least $20,000 to make it work, and I’m still pretty far from my goal.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I’m not yet financially responsible for myself. My 22-year-old brother, E, and I are still living with our parents, and they’ve refused our offer to pitch in with the bills. They both believe that as long as they’re still working, then it’s their duty to provide for their children. However, this also means that their kids are their retirement plans, which is a very common mentality in the Philippines.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
No, I haven’t.
SECTION ONE: ASSETS AND DEBT
Retirement Balance: All my money right now is being poured to fund my future studies, so I don’t have a retirement balance yet. I don’t know if this is wise or not, and this has been a great cause for my anxiety these past few months.
Savings Account Balance: I have approximately $16,000 spread out across three different bank accounts right now.
Miscellaneous Debt: I bought AirPods from my friend last year, and she asked me to pay her back in installments, so she wouldn’t be tempted to spend all the money in one go. I have approximately $56 left on this, which I’ll be paying next month.
SECTION TWO: INCOME
Income Progression:
This is my first job ever. As I previously mentioned, school is extremely important here in the Philippines. In my case, throughout my elementary and high school years, I was in school from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and this was supplemented by after-class tutoring sessions and weekend advanced classes. College was basically the same since I decided to take up two minor degrees, in addition to my major, which meant that I took 8-10 classes every semester. So, I didn’t have time at all for a part-time job, which was okay, given the fact that my parents funded my education 100%.
2019-2020: I graduated from university in June 2019 and my parents asked me to start working in the family business. This didn’t turn out so good, though, since they refused to pay me a salary and would guilt-trip me whenever I’d take money from the day’s sales to pay for my expenses. When talks of a lockdown began in February 2020, I began looking for a job that would allow me to work remote since I had an inkling that our business would be shut down. Fortunately, my friend recommended me for an open position in the company that she was working at, and that’s where I’ve been since then.
In addition to my full-time job as a Social Media Analyst, I also started doing freelance work early last year.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: This varies. I’m considered a freelancer in my job, despite the fact that I’ve been with them since early 2020. I think they mostly do this to avoid paying me benefits, which is morally questionable but sort-of legal in the Philippines. So, I get paid a daily rate and am on a no-work-no-pay basis. If I don’t take any leaves for the month, then my take-home pay will be $582.79.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: Again, this varies. In 2020, I believe I averaged approximately $1,200 per month. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hit these same numbers this year, though.
SECTION THREE: EXPENSES
All expenses below are monthly unless otherwise specified.
Phone Bill: This varies, depending on my data usage. Our WiFi doesn’t reach the second floor, so I’m forced to use my data if I’m working or staying in my bedroom. Our phone bills during lockdown were also suspended and have been amortized over six months since then, so I’m still paying this off. Currently, my phone bill can be anywhere from $52 to $83.
Subscriptions: Spotify Premium ($3) – but this is added to my phone bill, thanks to my service provider. I also pay for Babbel ($13) because language learning is my hobby, and I’m currently learning Brazilian Portuguese.
Pet Expenses: I average about $10 for my dog’s food and treats. A trip to the vet for a regular check-up is $8. My local government unit provides certain pet vaccines for free, so we get our shots from them.
Other: My brother, E, and I have privately agreed to answer for the expenses that our 10-year-old brother, L, incurs. So, we pay for his food, school supplies, etc. I budget $15 for him, but I’m not upset if I have to go over this amount. Right now, though, I’m paying for most of L’s expenses since E’s business isn’t doing too hot, due to the post-holiday slump.
DISCLAIMER: Face masks are mandatory, if you’re outside. People also aren’t allowed to go into establishments if they don’t have a face mask + face shield on. Both of these were worn at all times outside my home.
DAY ONE - SUNDAY, JANUARY 10
10:00 a.m. – My cousin and her husband are heading to the shopping mall to run a few errands. I go with them to have my eyes checked as my last prescription was from 2019. The doctor tells me that astigmatism in my right eye has been corrected (thank god) but that my left eye has gotten worse (noooo). I buy contact lenses and have them put in new lenses in my specs. $93
1:30 p.m. – My cousin is a few weeks pregnant and is craving mushroom soup from a particular chain restaurant, so we head over there. I get a burger and offer to pay for my share, but she and her husband refuse.
5:00 p.m. – My parents are very religious and require us to attend Sunday Mass every week as a family. Our church has the recommended COVID-19 measures in place (2-3 people to a pew, contact tracing, etc.), but I’m still annoyed that the Catholic Church here is trying to claim that mass is an essential service that should be allowed to continue, even when it clearly isn’t.
6:00 p.m. – Before heading home, we drop off take-out dinner for my Grandma. She lives alone, so we try to visit her at least once a week. We talk through the gate, though, to keep her safe.
11:00 p.m. – As a social media analyst, my shift is from 12 a.m. to 9 a.m. because I have to take note of all the online traction from the day before. This has worked rather well for me, mainly because I have insomnia.
Daily Total: $93
DAY TWO - MONDAY, JANUARY 11
5:30 a.m. – On Mondays, I have to analyze all social media traction from the weekend, and this has definitely cemented my deep hatred for this day of the week. Fortunately, it wasn’t too terrible this time. I chill for a bit by catching an episode of Friend Zone, a TV series from Thailand that’s sort of like Gossip Girl, except they’re middle-class and have actual jobs.
7:00 a.m. – I wake up L for his classes and begin working on my freelance job. Breakfast is leftovers from Sunday night dinner, so I have Truffle Mac and Cheese, and Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings. My parents and E usually leave very early in the morning for their respective businesses, so it’s usually just me and L.
10:00 a.m. – I send off my social media reports and watch an episode of Fairy Tail.
1:00 p.m. – My brain is out of creative juices, so I take a nap. Before doing so, I place an order to replenish my toner ($5) and AHA serum ($5). I’m also running low on my fish oil capsules, so I order that too ($6.87). My total comes out to $19.25, due to shipping. $19.25
3:00 p.m. – L wakes up from my nap and I work some more before heading out to walk my dog. It’s cold outside – 28ºC or 82.4ºF. This is how winters in Manila look like!
6:45 p.m. – Dinner is white rice, Steamed Tilapia, and Ginataang Sigarilyas. According to Google, this translates to “Winged Beans in Coconut Milk.” I don’t know if this translation is 100% legit but it’s probably one of my favorite vegetable dishes ever.
Daily Total: $19.25
DAY THREE - TUESDAY, JANUARY 12
2:30 a.m. – One of my accounts is in crisis mode, so their reports are much more finicky than usual. When I feel that my brain is about to explode from reading social media posts, I work on my freelance deliverables.
7:00 a.m. – Again, I wake up L. Tuesdays are hard for him because he has back-to-back classes, and it isn’t long before I notice that he seems a bit overwhelmed. This year has been tough for him because we moved him to a new school and this, plus online learning, meant that he’s had to adjust like crazy. It’s too much for a 10-year-old, I think. I buy him his favorite Iced Cacao milk tea (I think it’s called boba in the States) to cheer him up and order an Iced Matcha for myself ($7.89). We drink our milk teas while having a very healthy breakfast of hotdogs and rice. $7.89
11:00 a.m. – The rest of the morning goes by quickly. I send off my reports, work on my deliverables, pitch to new clients, answer e-mails, and so on. Unfortunately, two of my clients have declined to work with me again since I was a bit late with a few of my deliverables, due to the holiday season. I try to take it as a sign from the universe that I need to slow down, but I’m still pretty sad about it.
5:30 p.m. – I wake up from a nap and notice that my phone bill is due, so I pay ($53.49). I Dinner tonight is Fried Milkfish, Rice cooked with Crab Fat, and Sayote sa Sotanghon, which is basically chayote mixed with vermicelli. $53.49
Daily Total: $61.38
DAY FOUR - WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13
2:00 a.m. – Thank God, my account has ended its crisis mode, so work is a bit more chill. Again, social media traction and freelance work. When I was 15, I thought I’d be spending my early twenties in a high-paying corporate job, wearing cute clothes and going to parties afterward. Instead, I’m spending it in teddy bear pajamas. I blame Gossip Girl and Korean dramas for my unrealistic expectations.
7:00 a.m. – After waking up L and sending off my reports, I spend the rest of the day working on my freelance jobs.
11:30 a.m. – Our live-in helper, J, prepares fried chicken for lunch and I eat it with L. He still has some time left before his next class, so I play a few rounds of Among Us with him. I honestly don’t enjoy the game as much as I make it seem I do, but it’s his absolute favorite and I like having these small bonding moments with my little brother.
1:45 p.m. – My brain can’t take it anymore, and I pass out from exhaustion.
3:30 p.m. – L wakes me up from my nap and I try my best to get a few more things done. Thankfully, my next deadline involves a podcast script on a certain historical event. These are pretty easy to write, although researching them can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
4:00 p.m. – I take a break from work by checking out apartment listings because it’s fun, even though I have no plans to move out. I honestly want to, mainly because my relationship with my parents isn’t that great, and living back home has highlighted that even more. E has it worse, though, and his relationship with our dad has deteriorated so much that they got into a few physical fights during lockdown. While I can afford to move out, E can’t and of course, L is underage, so I can’t take him with me. Right now, I’m bearing the brunt of my parents’ stress and frustration, and if I leave, then it’s likely that they’ll start taking it out on my brothers. So, I don’t because I’m their eldest sister and a huge part of me feels like it’s my duty to protect them. But if worse comes to worst, then I’m ready to shoulder E and his expenses. He only started his business last year, so it isn’t super profitable yet. The post-holiday slump hasn’t been kind to him either.
5:30 p.m. – Dinner is Tinolang Manok, which is a dish that consists of chicken and papaya slices cooked in ginger-flavored broth. For me, it’s a must-eat during “wintertime.” While eating, my parents ask me what my plans are for my upcoming birthday. They’re trying to pressure me to treat the entire family to dinner, but I decline because a) I’m trying to save money, and b) COVID-19.
8:45 p.m. – I take a shower and catch a few episodes of a Chinese drama called “A Love So Beautiful.” Then, it’s back to work.
Daily Total: $0
DAY FIVE – THURSDAY, JANUARY 14
3:45 a.m. – I finish my main job early, so I go and work on some deliverables, but I keep getting distracted by “A Love So Beautiful” that I barely get anything done. Before I know it, it’s nearly time to wake my brother up, and I haven’t accomplished anything at all.
5:00 a.m. – My mom brought home fried chicken from McDonalds last night for L’s breakfast, but I’m so hungry that I steal it. I order the same thing ($5.50) and schedule a 6:30 a.m. delivery to hide my crime. $5.50
7:00 a.m. – I wake up L, shower, and settle in to watch the final episode in the series. I’ve accepted the fact that I won’t get anything done until I find out what happens to Chen Xiaoxi and Jiang Chen.
12:00 p.m. – I must be more torn up about losing two clients than I initially thought I was because I end up crying while working on a deliverable. I lock myself in my room and plan to have a good 10-minute crying session, but this quickly into a full-on breakdown. I never really recognized the impact that my home situation and lack of proper sleep have left on me, but it looks like the emotional toll is too much. I’m also feeling really anxious about one of my long-time clients, who I feel is a bit disappointed with my work lately, and this sends me spiraling even more. I end up crying for a good hour or so. It would have gone on longer, had it not been for L, who knocks on my door and cuddles me for a bit. He can tell that I’m upset, thanks to my swollen eyes, so he offers to treat me to milk tea using his Christmas money. It’s sweet, but I decline.
4:00 p.m. – After working and a quick nap, I put on a Korean eye mask to hide how swollen they are. My dad gets annoyed whenever we cry since he perceives it to be a sign of weakness. I know that he’s completely wrong about this, but I’m too exhausted to argue with him tonight.
5:00 p.m. – Dinner is white rice and Pork Bistek. I don’t know if that has a proper English translation, but it’s basically pork chops and onions cooked in soy sauce and calamansi juice. I’m still feeling pretty lethargic from my breakdown earlier, so I take a cold shower to feel refreshed.
10:00 p.m. – I guess breaking down uses up a lot of energy because I’m starving, even though dinner was only a few hours ago. L is also hungry, so we ask J to buy us Puto Bumbong, which is a steamed purple rice cake topped with margarine, coconut flakes, and brown sugar. This particular stall also puts cheese and condensed milk on theirs. I personally find it too sweet, but L is in love, as only 10-year-old boys who can eat a whole jar of Nutella can be. J uses the leftover money from today’s dinner to pay.
11:30 p.m. – Work is pretty chill today, so I watch an anime called “The Promised Neverland” in-between monitoring social media traction.
Daily Total: $5.50
DAY SIX – FRIDAY, JANUARY 15
12:00 a.m. – Happy 23rd birthday to me! I initially wanted to go to treat myself to a spa to celebrate my birthday, but I canceled my booking because of COVID-19. Hopefully, the Philippine government will finally get its shit together by March, which is when I had my appointment rebooked. I’m doubtful, but hopeful.
7:00 a.m. – I log off for the week and settle in to finally enjoy some no-work bliss. Kidding! I wake up L, take a shower, and work on my freelancing deliverables. Since it’s my birthday, J allows me to decide what breakfast will be and I pick chicken nuggets because I know that it’s something that L will enjoy too.
11:00 a.m. – My lack of sleep this week has caught up to me, and I pass out from exhaustion. Thankfully, I don’t have any deadlines today.
4:30 p.m. – L wakes me up, and we dress for Mass. My parents require us to attend Mass together as a family whenever it’s someone’s birthday. L isn’t allowed inside the church because of my area’s COVID-19 restrictions, so he and E sit outside. I’m jealous because the air is so stuffy inside the church that breathing through a mask and a face shield is a struggle.
6:00 p.m. – We come home and a few of my other family members are there for a...surprise birthday dinner. I’m trying not to feel annoyed at the fact that my parents went against my wishes because I know they mean well, but still. I had planned a quiet night with anime and a face mask to celebrate my birthday, but of course, this won’t be feasible any longer. I’m trying not to let my irritation show because everyone made an effort to be here, but still. Oh well, at least they kept the number of guests below 10, in line with restrictions.
6:30 p.m. – My mom ordered food from a caterer, and we settle in for a dinner of Baked Salmon in Cheese with Green Beans, Braised Chicken with Rosemary and Potatoes, and Ox Tongue with Mushrooms. They’re all pretty good, but I can’t help but dream of the face mask that I had prepared in anticipation of tonight.
11:00 p.m. – I nurse a glass of white wine, and it isn’t long before my aunt and I have managed to polish off the entire bottle. I can’t help but feel a bit sad because only two of my friends greeted me today. I know that I shouldn’t put a lot of stock into birthday greetings because they’re just words, and I know that all my friends are busy with work, and I also know that they’re going through their own mental battles right now because of COVID-19, but still. It sucks.
11:30 p.m. – A friend from Germany asks me if he calculated the timezone correctly, and he wishes me a happy birthday. As a gift, he sends me a video of snow falling out his window. I don’t know if I’m crying because I’m wine-drunk, or if I’m crying out of envy because SNOW or because I’m a teeny bit sad. Maybe it’s all of the above, idk.
Daily Total: $0
DAY SEVEN - SATURDAY, JANUARY 16
2:00 a.m. – Party’s over and all my relatives have gone home. I set an alarm for 4 a.m. because I have an early-morning deadline to meet.
9:00 a.m. – I must be drunker and more tired than I thought because I completely slept through my alarm. I apologize to my client and ask for an extension. I’m hoping that he’s kind to me because it was my birthday the day before; fortunately, he grants the extension.
12:30 p.m. – E is craving Chinese food, so I hop onto Grab (Southeast Asian version of Uber) and place an order from Panda Express. They were only brought to the Philippines in 2019, and lines have been pretty long, so it was only this year that I was able to taste their non-Chinese Chinese food. I pay for our food as a late birthday treat for my brothers and also because I know that E has been denying himself a lot of things lately to have more cash to inject into his business. With delivery, the total comes out to $13. He offers to wash the dishes afterward, which I’m really thankful for. $13
3:00 p.m. – The rest of the day passes by quickly. It’s J’s day off today, so L and I do household chores. While doing them, I catch up with some of my favorite podcasts, including Military Murder and The Asian Madness Podcast. Highly recommend the two of them. And, let me know if you have any recommendations!
4:00 p.m. – I’m trying to work out whether I should buy the new Macbook Air M1 or not. I’ve been using my 2014 Macbook Air 11 since high school, but while this has been great for school, it’s a huge challenge now that I’m spending more than eight hours a day on it. The screen is too small, so my back and shoulders hurt the entire time I’m on it, and the resolution is also too low. A few people from this sub have recommended that I get an external monitor, but I don’t have a home office or a desk. I work on our dining room table because my vanity’s too small. Since we don’t have Apple Store here in the Philippines, I have to make do with a re-seller. Right now, the lowest that a Macbook Air M1 goes for is $1,102. This is something that I can definitely afford, especially since a junk shop has offered to give me $249 in exchange for my old one. But I’m having trouble being okay with buying a new laptop when my current one is working just fine. I know I deserve it after all my hard work and I know that it’ll make working much easier, but still.
6:00 p.m. – For dinner, my parents bring home take-out from a local restaurant. We eat Breaded Tofu, Butter Buffalo Chicken Wings, and Mixed Vegetables. I do the dishes afterward, which takes a long time, because dishwashers aren’t common in the Philippines, and it’s hard to manually scrub oily food.
8:00 p.m. – I work and watch anime in-between.
Daily Total: $13
WEEKLY TOTAL: $192.13
REFLECTION
This week’s spending was unusually high, mainly because of my phone bill and rare expenses, like eyeglasses and contact lenses. I also had way too much food delivered this week, but I felt like treating my brothers since it was my birthday, so I don’t mind that all. My usual weekly spending, however, is somewhere around $10.
But aside from spending, I think that writing this money diary really forced me to confront my privilege and mental health issues, as well as my workaholic tendencies. It’s tough to admit to yourself that you aren’t happy at all, but maybe it’s time to finally face it. I feel like I also have a problem with making big splurges that will ultimately benefit me, so moving forward, I’d like to remember that while treating my brothers is totally okay, I should be kinder to myself too. There’s still a lot of issues that I need to unpack and work through, but hopefully, being 23 will give me the strength to do so.
I hope you enjoyed this money diary from the other side of the world :-) And sorry for any typos. I’d edit, but it’s 2 a.m. right now, and I’m exhausted.