Thing 1: a social good.

Last week I put out a call for a client in need of fully subsidized ie zero-cost coaching. I personally think that 1. coaching is a social good and 2. it fills needs that are going desperately unmet in modern Western culture. I care about this quite a bit.

I heard from a couple of you who want coaching—and can pay for it! Which is awesome; thank you SO much. I am looking forward to speaking with you 🤓

But I did not hear from anyone without the means to pay. Perhaps you are a uniformly comfortable bunch! That would be deeply okay and I would be glad to hear it.

If not, if there’s someone out there that thought, ach, that free coaching slot is already gone: IT’S NOT. It’s still open; if you want it and qualify, please get in touch.

You don’t need to expose your finances to me; you just need to be truly without the means, and tell me what you want to create for yourself through coaching.

You can read more here.

PS You can also forward this note to a friend 😇 who could really use it!

Thing 2: budget-free livin’.

I have a good friend who blew my mind when he told me he does not have a budget. He just … keeps an eye on his spending and his resources, and adjusts accordingly.

I thought about this a lot before I decided: Budget-free livin’! THAT’S FOR ME.

So. Many ppl would think this is a crazy way to live and is only for crazy rich ppl, The End.

But! I am sane and also a member of the 99%.

How I hope to make it work: Figure out how much I need to keep in the bank to get me beyond my cohort’s life expectancy (86) to something more individualized (my mother lived to almost 94) without dying in the gutter (come savior, lead my life to a fortunate end!)

, taking care of the non-negotiables first and SPENDING THE REST GUILT FREE.

The first time I did this calculation with my most recent ex, the financial planner ran his numbers and said: If you both live into your early 90s and keep spending at present levels, you will die with [actual number redacted] in the bank.

That number was a shocker, to say the least.

It’s just us tho so let’s say the most: that number was so insanely off-kilter HUGE that it filled me with REVULSION and FURY.

Just a WORLD OF “NO”. A world of “I won’t live like that”.

Now I understand how inflation works. I know these were 2050s fantasy death dollars the guy was talking about, not cute little twenty-aughts alive-and-well dollars.

But still. I was living a life of “Do you need that cheese? Because did you look at the price of that cheese!? That is very expensive cheese!”¹

Which I’m just going to say, if you think it’s better to eat industrial cheese so you can die rich: wow, way to miss the point.

Anyway. The situation has changed, it seems I can afford cheese, and I am now trying to get a new number from my financial planner. My apparently simple question: Say I don’t want to die rich: HOW MUCH DO I HAVE TO LIVE ON?

Because I have respect for limits, when they’re based on reason. And I keep careful track of what I do spend. I can tell you where it’s all going.

But I do not care to tell my financial planner where it’s all going. And his response to my question How much can I spend? was to send me an expense sheet more than twice as granular as the one divorce court required. Which was ALSO weirdly and unreasonably specific and which I ALSO did not want to fill in.

Anyway it’s not only that I don’t see the need for this level of scrutiny! I actually don’t want spending to drive the bus.

I just want one number. Based on earnings. I want earnings to drive the spending, not the other way around, since—famously—spending more does not cause one to earn more.

Is this HARD? I asked a friend that question, and she gave the example of his needing to know if I was going to buy a car in the future. For example. And I was like please! I drive a 1934 Honda Fit and when it cacks in 20 years I’ll just pay $54.99 in 2046 money and get another one. Because I came of age in the West in the 80s and to me it’s normal for ppl to drive old cars, I just can’t make myself care about having a Boston-level car.²

Thus I persist in trying to get this one number without submitting to daddy’s authority doing what looks like busywork to me.

What I have done is give the guy my average per-month non-negotiable spend (rent, utilities, insurance, groceries).³ I am hopeful that we will be able to work it out from there. (And I have a Plan B.)

Meanwhile, I’m interested in what you all do. Budget? No budget? Use a financial planner? DIY? Tell all? Keep the details to yourself? Do you like to talk about money? Hate to talk about money? Agree with your partner? Struggle with them? Do you fret? Are you relaxed? Do you figure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’ll all work out and then go about your life? I’m curious.

Tell me anything you want to about what you’re doing and thinking. (I’m not seeking feedback about what I’m doing; I know almost all of you already know that ;)

Or! You can ask me a question.

If you struggle with eating I urge you to give this little book a try. My method is the EASY way.

It is also incredibly fast, basically INSTANT, it actually WORKS while being fun, and has no negative side effects.

I like to say you can break a habit of binge eating in the time it takes to read this book, and a lot of readers would agree.

You can get it on Kindle or in paperback.

RECOMMENDING.

writing.

Over at Modern Daily Knitting, a shock to the system (the good kind). Also Special Circumstances: On the giving and taking of advice.

reading.

The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life, by Robert Fritz. As you know, I have plumbed the depths of self-help and the adjacent genres. This book is the first of its kind to surprise me in quite some time. It’s from the 80s, and it shows, but I have profited by it and I recommend it.

Anna Dorn’s latest, American Spirits. Another page-burner about badly behaved lesbians—and a Lana Del Rey type superstar—just managing to avoid utter self-destruction. Maybe.



Looks like she (and Myriam Gurba!) are also in the upcoming anthology Be Gay, Do Crime. And I also recommend her new Substack Sample Sluts. It’s all about perfume + music, like her books. 

It’s already encouraged me to ruin myself with God of Fire, a spicy oud “inspired by volcanoes” 🌋 🌋 🌋

And I very much liked the third Sister Holiday mystery from Margot Douaihy, Divine Ruin. In fact, my favorite so far. Sister Holiday, Brooklyn-raised New Orleans nun, has done a lot to fill the terrible void left by the end of the Vera Kelly series.

After I finished Divine Ruin I emailed Rosalie Knecht, author of the Vera Kelly series, to see if she was perhaps reconsidering her devastating decision to be done with Vera. She is not, Vera is over. However, Rosalie let me know she has a new project in the works! Something to live for.

Anyway, what are you reading? I always want to know.