VelvetFreak's Investing Adventures

VelvetFreak

Hello diary! I decided not to take a Covid test as I woke up feeling fine today. I think my strange feeling yesterday was due to being overtired and using a new nasal spray that made my throat feel funny and mouth taste weird.

I worked on my assignment for a very short amount of time this morning but lost patience with it rather quickly as it's a bit confusing. The tutors post additional assignment info/guides on the forums but as they are all on leave there isn't anything to read yet. Nevertheless, I'll keep going with trying to do a little bit each day. There's a guy I know from work who is doing the same course and is a few subjects ahead of me and I can't wait to get back to work so that I can email him and ask for tips!

Today was very uneventful - I went grocery shopping, my mum came over for a quick visit and I did some laundry and cleaning but that was about it. I am getting really bored, but really don't want to go anywhere as I really don't want to catch Covid! I'm not sure if any of you keep up on the Covid news in Aus, but this is the first time that there have really been active cases in my area so it's only now that we really have to start worrying about it. Lucky, I know! But a bit distressing as the govt seems to have given up all efforts of contact tracing and there are huge lineups to get tested and the rapid tests are always out of stock, hence I don't want to waste my one RAT when I'm not 100% sure that I've got symptoms. 

Anywho, I seem to have caught a second wind and have just become motivated to work on my assignment even though it's 8:30pm here, but I'll take advantage of it while it lasts. I find that I have to read assignment questions so many times before I understand what it's asking me to do

 

VelvetFreak

I am having another very boring day. I went and got a blood test this morning, then came home and had an early lunch. My MSE effort for today was that I came home and made food to eat when what I really wanted was a McD's breakfast 😇. I've just enrolled and paid for my second subject for the study period - so $1,300 has just exited my offset account and the current balance is now $14,874. Hopefully, the money owed from my old employer doesn't take much longer to come through!

I've been thinking a lot about my money goals over the last couple of days. I had a good chat with my friend about the potential of buying a house and the reasons *why* I want one, and I think I've come to the conclusion that perhaps I don't actually want to buy a house any time soon. I think a lot of the reason why I become obsessed with the idea of buying a house is because I want the type of life that my brain associates with living in a house ie. a relationship, lots of time to spend doing gardening and other relaxing activities, etc. The reality is that my life simply isn't like that at the moment. That doesn't mean that I can't make goals to change my life to be more in line with what I want, but I also need to remember that with my shorter-term career goals, buying a house is probably not what I need to be focusing on over the next few years. I've never stated on here what my actual career is, so I'll just say that completing the graduate degree will take me from a very administrative-based role into a role that is much more demanding and client-focussed, with a much larger salary to go along with it. At that point, my goals may be very different ie. possibly wanting to own my own business, move to a new location, etc. 

All this to say that I think I should put aside my goal of buying a house for now and just focus on putting plenty of money in the offset to get help pay my current mortgage down faster, and of course investing as much as I can which can then be used for whatever I like in the future. I want to keep my situation fairly flexible and not be too tied down to a particular house or location. My friend also made a good point that buying an actual house adds yet another layer of complication to my life should I meet someone/be in a relationship in the future. I hope that I do meet someone in the near future, and if I do, I think I'd rather have money available to buy a new house together and start fresh than be stuck in the middle of something that I've started on my own. I hope that makes sense and doesn't come across too cynical - but I know that I can be very stubborn and get tunnel vision sometimes and if I want to find a relationship - I actually have to be in a position where I'm open to my life changing in some ways. 

In summary, I think I will put the buying-a-house goal aside for now as I'm realising that I can't do everything all at once. My goal has always been to purchase a historic home and restore it, and perhaps this is better left a retirement goal than something to focus on right now 😆

In other news - the Australian Stock Exchange is having a cracking day. So that's nice! 

VelvetFreak

Warning: this post will be very boring unless you are me. So if you aren't me, please stop reading now 😂. 

I had a Telehealth appointment with my doctor this morning and I whinged to her about my severely increased appetite. I am eating so much and slowly but surely packing on the weight! For example, yesterday I ate pretty much constantly all day and even had two servings of dinner and a fairly sizeable bowl of icecream and still went to bed extremely hungry with a grumbling stomach 😐 My thyroid levels are almost back to normal now, so she suggested that we lower my medication dosage slightly as having too high of a dosage can cause an increased appetite. In hindsight, this makes so much sense because my appetite did seem to behave better on the days that I accidentally missed a tablet, and I get soo hungry towards the afternoon and nighttime. So I get to drop down to two tablets per day instead of three. I'm relieved to at least be trying something to fix the problem. Not only is the weight gain annoying, but the increased cost of eating literally twice as much food is getting quite ridiculous! 

I've decided to really take charge of the situation, and have re-downloaded MyFitnessPal and set my daily calorie limit to maintenance. I'm going to seriously track everything I eat so I can really get an idea of my appetite, what I'm eating and what my metabolism actually is. I'm approaching it from a scientific perspective rather than just trying to lose weight - and I want to put a focus on eating as much healthy food as possible and getting plenty of protein, vegetables and fiber so that I can feel better. I've just been accepting the fact that I feel like crap most of the time but have now realized that it's not really acceptable and this is a real health issue that I need to work on and get fixed otherwise I'm going to feel gross and unproductive forever!

I've also forced myself to realize that exercise plays a huge part in feeling better, and even though I *think* that I don't have the energy to exercise, I need to do it so that I do have energy. The hardest part is putting my shoes and workout clothes on, and once I'm actually doing the exercise, I don't actually feel that bad. I hauled self onto the treadmill this morning and walked for 40 mins, and once I got started I felt completely fine! I definitely feel tired now but I feel tired either way so oh well!

I've done a grocery order to pick up tomorrow with lots of healthy but tasty stuff and will do some meal prep so I can start next week with lots of healthy things in the freezer to take for lunches at work. I've got to stop making excuses for being too lazy to cook and eat properly! There's no reason why I can't do it, it simply takes organization and forward-planning and cutting up some vegetables. Really not that difficult. 

I'm also happy to report that yesterday I drank the last can of soft-drink that I had in the house going forward I won't have much sugary junk to tempt me. I will allow myself one choclate-y thing at night after dinner and work it into my maintenance calories. 

Well, that's all for now. I am off to lay down and read my book, and might even take a nap as I have worn myself out with the treadmill session! I feel tired but I don't feel bad at all. I really hope I can keep up this positive attitude and build the discipline to have healthy habits even though it's tiring! 

VelvetFreak

Hello diary Today was my last day off before I go back to work 😩

I had coffee with a new friend today (she is my mother's boyfriend's daughter-in-law - how confusing lol) and it was so great to talk to her! This is the first time we've met up outside of forced family gatherings and it was really nice. I really like her and am glad to have someone in this new 'step family' situation that I can get along with. I won't go into detail here lest I bore you to death but we discussed the family dynamics in great detail and it was very therapeutic, to say the least.  

In money news, the $3,300 back-pay from my previous employer has finally hit my bank account. I have transferred $3,200 over to the offset account - I had to leave a bit of a buffer as once again I am running out of money in my normal accounts as I had to pay $236 for the warranty insurance for the kitchen extension installation. So the offset balance is now $18,074 - getting very close to $20k - yay!

Thankfully it's payday in a couple of days! I'm kind of glad to get back to work and in a more normal routine as am getting a tad depressed being at home. I have spent the last few days sitting around being fairly bored and unproductive. I did manage to assemble my new electric fireplace/mantel whatsy and I also finally wall-mounted my TV. Both tasks were extremely difficult and I really should have waited til someone could help me but I'm too impatient! Am feeling very pleased with the living room now and it finally looks finished! 

I have not made any further progress on any assignments although I have read through some of the study notes. I find it really hard to do productive work when the deadlines are quite far away so am hoping my brain kicks into gear some time over the next few weeks. I've decided that there's no need to stress about trying to force myself to do things super early, and as long as I'm not too last-minute and I can get it done then that's good enough.  

I popped to the shops this afternoon to buy something for dinner and found that a lot of stuff was sold out and shelves empty (supply issues/panic buying?) and I ended up getting takeaway instead as nothing looked good and I could not decide on anything to buy/make. Thankfully I do have a few days' worth of lunches in the freezer, but I'll have to have a serious think about what I can buy to make as a lot of my usual go-tos weren't there. Very annoying but I suppose that's the reality of Covid and it could be much worse!

I really hope I can sleep tonight! I always struggle to sleep the night before I have to go back after an extended time off. Fingers crossed! 

Cherryfudge

You really are hitting the new year with some big changes! Some good thoughts there about waiting to buy a house and focussing on the offset.

You may find the thyroid still has surprises as if doesn't sound to have settled down but it can take a  while to find out what's right for an individual and of course it can change over time too. All the healthy food has to be helpful though.

VelvetFreak

I wrote a post yesterday and it must not have saved properly because now I can't find it. 

Anyway, yesterday was payday so I've done all my usual transfers including sending $900 to the offset account so the balance is now $18,974. Yay!

I am once again worried that I have Covid symptoms and am contemplating using the one RAT that I have in my possession. I don't want to waste the one test that I have as it's near impossible to buy more of them here and I really worry that I'm being dramatic. I was washing dishes after lunch at work and all of a sudden my throat started feeling slightly sore and a sort of burny feeling kind of like when you accidentally get saltwater up your nose/throat at the beach. I brushed it off as I had just eaten spicy food for lunch, but it hasn't gone away. And now I swear I'm having very slight body aches and swollen glands in my neck/throat and maybe a bit of pain in my eyes tired_face:

Really annoyed that we have so much trouble getting the RATs here and our government is not providing them! I'm waiting for my friend to call me so that I can whinge to her and discuss whether I should take this test or not. I will definitely take it before I go to work tomorrow if I'm still feeling off, but I'd be so annoyed if I took it tonight and it's negative and I wake up feeling totally fine. 

Also super annoyed that my boss is totally against working from home. I mentioned this morning that we should aim to get all our files in the cloud so we can work from home if one of us gets Covid and he completely shot down the idea, and reckons that he's tried it before and it didn't work and if I get Covid then "we'll just deal with it". Great. I guess that means I have to use sick leave for the isolation period even if I'm well enough that I could have worked from home. I'm seriously annoyed at him. 

Anyways, that's my rant for today! 

Cherryfudge

It may be worth waiting a few more hours before taking a test anyway as viral load (if it's Covid) would be building up so it would be more accurate. I think that's how it works, anyway. However, there are a lot of other infections around in the UK and it may be similar in Australia. I've been off work the last couple of days with some bug that isn't Covid but gives a sore throat etc.

Does the Australian Government or a work union have advice on working from home? Obviously it's more applicable to some jobs than others but I would have thought secure cloud storage made sense anyway in case someone spills tea on a computer or something. My husband's been working from home and the employer provides all the tech stuff but as a desk job he can work almost as well here as in an office. He does find it weird that he's never met his current colleagues, though. My job can't be done from home and we do struggle if anyone has to isolate or has Covid, because there aren't enough of us anyway. However we do have to wear masks all the time and wash hands, do the social distancing thing (though we aren't very good at it) and keep windows open so that helps us not to be contagious.

VelvetFreak

Hello diary
Thought I'd better pop in here and let you know that I don't have covid! I worked out that wearing a mask all day is making my throat burn as it would get worse as the day went on. I seem to be getting more used to wearing one now and my throat isn't as sore today so that's good. 

It's Friday night and I've been super bored! Am preparing for a boring weekend as I really want to avoid getting Covid as I don't want to have to take time off work. I only have about a weeks' worth of sick leave built up at the moment so doing the mandatory 7 days of isolation would mean that I use it all up. I'm really trying to avoid spending money although I did spend $20 on takeaway dinner tonight because it's Friday and I just felt like it but I regret it now because it didn't even taste that good. I need to get a few groceries tomorrow but other than that I really shouldn't need to spend anything. I'm trying really hard to stick to my budget as I have a hair appointment next weekend and I don't want to take money for that from my other accounts as I've been doing that so much lately that I've run all my accounts down to the minimum.

I've got $100 to last me until Tues 25/01 and I'm going to really try hard to see if I can stick to that. It's been a long time since I've been truly strict with money so I might as well take advantage of these boring times and not spend! I've got quite a few meals put away in the freezer so it should be do-able. Just means that I need to eat more proper meals and not eat so much junk. I did well for the first three days of the week but then lost my discipline yesterday and today

It's annoying being bored but I'm also kind of enjoying just doing nothing and not putting pressure on myself to get things done. Of course, I always have assignments and study that I could be doing but I'm going to save that for work next week as I'll be in the office by myself a lot of the time. 

VelvetFreak

It’s been a quiet couple of days at work by myself. Been working on my study a little bit but as always I have a difficult time focusing or understanding what I’m supposed to be doing 😩

I have watched one of the 60min lectures and have done a small amount on one of the smaller assignments. I will do a bit more reading this afternoon. 

I’m happy to report that I haven’t been spending much lately and I’m also on day three of not eating chocolate 😇. I discovered some new stretch marks the other day and decided that enough is enough, I can’t keep putting so much junk into my body so I went off it cold turkey and haven’t had much sugar in other forms either. I think I may be experiencing a few withdrawal symptoms but nothing too unmanageable. I feel a bit anxious and shakey but that could also be thyroid related. The good thing about not eating chocolate is that it greatly reduces my the amount of times I need to go to the shops! 

Anywho, I don’t have much else to report for now. Covid really makes everything so boring!  

VelvetFreak

Helloo diary! Been MIA for a little while, whoops. 
I submitted my first assignment of the year yesterday. And I managed to get it done a few days before the deadline 😇 so I don't have to stress about it over the weekend! Yippee!

I went grocery shopping this morning and can't believe how expensive everything is getting  
My 'no-chocolate' plan has been going fairly well, I did have a slip up last weekend and I have had a couple of sweet things through the week but other than that have been going well. Sometimes I get bad cravings but if I wait a while it will usually pass. I've lost somewhere between 1-2kg in the last couple of weeks so I'm happy about that. Hopefully I can lose the weight I put on over the last couple of years (about 7kg total). I think my thyroid medication must finally be at the right dosage as I've felt a lot better lately, less tired and cranky and I seem to be able to concentrate. I've been reading before bed every night instead of scrolling on my phone which I think is helping with my concentration. 

Payday was a few days ago so I've transferred $900 to the offset as usual. The balance is now $19,886! I'm sooo close to my $20k goal, but I will keep saving a little after that as I will need to have money to put away to pay for the rest of my study. 

I haven't got really got any plans for the weekend I wanted to catch up with a friend but she has Covid so can't do that now. I'm going to do some study this afternoon for an exam that I have in two weeks. And do all my usual weekend cleaning of the house and loads of washing. So boring!