Welcome to a new recurring series called The Monthly Memory. This is my way of cataloguing at least one interesting or notable thing that I did in the past month. It’s a good way for me to put out some extra content. It’s also a way to motivate me to actually do something notable. It’ll be a fun memory keeper for me personally to look back on too. I’ll also pull the curtain back on financial successes and failures that I’ve had in the past month.
August Major Memory: The Twins' First Vineyard Trip
This month, my family took our annual weekend trip to Martha’s Vineyard. It’s only an hour away by ferry. The weekend included a bunch of firsts for the boys. They went on a boat for the first time and did really well. They enjoyed it when we took them outside on the top deck. We took them on the Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs, which I’ve been going on since I was a little kid. They felt pretty neutral about it. What they did not feel neutral about was their first time at the beach. The cold water wasn’t appreciated and they let us know that they did NOT like the (very small) waves. Hopefully next year they’ll like it a little bit better. We took them for frequent walks around town and there were many people there to play with them. So it was an overall successful weekend for the boys.
Best/Worst of Spending
Since we were on vacation, we did eat out more than we usually do. This amounted to buying four meals over the course of the weekend. Fortunately, three of those consisted of sharing a breakfast sandwich so we didn’t COMPLETELY blow our budget. The thing that was absurd was paying $34 for 2 not large margaritas. We were getting takeout and we ordered them without checking the price. Big mistake. I am ashamed, so I’m sharing with all of you so you can shame me too. Near the end of the weekend, I did resist the temptation to buy a tee shirt from the aforementioned Flying Horses Carousel. They still use a design from the 80’s on their tee shirts. They’re delightful, and I do love the old carousel. But I have a whole drawer of tee shirts at home, so I remained strong and stepped on the ferry home with the same clothes I disembarked on the Vineyard with.
Investment Roundup
Since I encourage everyone to max out as many retirement accounts as possible, here’s how I’m doing with it. My Roth IRA is 92% funded for the year, while the Frugal Mrs’s Roth is currently 33% funded. With about 8 months left to fund it for the year, we should have no problem maxing both out. She hasn’t received a regular paycheck since late April (her maternity leave was only partially paid using sick time) so we’re both looking forward to getting that second paycheck coming in again real soon. On the TSP front, I’m not focused on maxing it out this year. I wish I were, but circumstances didn’t allow for it this year with the twins’ arrival. I’m on pace for about 50% of the contribution limit, not including the matching that I get from Uncle Sam.
August Finale
August has been a nice wind down after a busy summer. Marisa has started to use a Cricut machine that she bought a while back to make tee shirts. She wants to make them for fun and hopefully to turn it into a side hustle. As a test tee shirt, she made me a limited edition 1/1 Frugal Jon tee shirt. It came out great, so now we’re looking into where to get quality blank tee shirts on the cheap and where to get good value on vinyl.
On the less successful front, I tried to make my own hot sauce. My dad has a good sized garden, and one of my younger brothers convinced him to grow hot peppers. The only problem is that they don’t cook with fresh hot peppers. So I took a whole bag of them, fermented them with garlic, and blended it all up with vinegar. It was less than successful. Reviews include: “that wasn’t very good” and “the flavor was there but the texture was weird.” I might be able to try again depending on the rest of the harvest. I kind of like that this failure gives me the chance to learn more about the process and make a truly delicious hot sauce in the future.
You might want to try The Craftpreneur in Raynham. They’re on Facebook and you can get lots of vinyl and other supplies there. I had a class there this week and made a T-shirt for myself.
My wife has been meaning to get up there to check it out! Thanks for the recommendation!