Today I have good news to share.  I got the bill for MM(23)'s last quarter of tuition.  I am transferring funds now and will make the final payment tomorrow.

Take it with a grain of salt because life be cray cray.  He's having problems getting a couple of classes that he needs.  I don't think it's necessarily a big problem.  He was just running down some red tape for two classes he couldn't simply register for.

I am just being realistic re: if everything doesn't go to plan...  I've had front row seats (for 5 years) of nothing going to plan for his fiance (and also her sister).  Both went away to college healthy but have had massive health issues and lots of school quarters missed.   & MM(23) was in the ER last week, so there is also that.

'Only if everything goes right' aside...  Here's the final numbers. 

MM's FINAL net college costs:

$43,242 Tuition/fees** (4 Years)

+$11,589 5th Year Tuition/Fees 

-11,000  Tax credits (Estimate)

-19,642  CA middle class grants 

-  7,500  Scholarships

---------

$16,689 Net Tuition cost  

**Includes $1K for one summer school class

****Side note: MM(23) only got that 4th year middle class grant because he added a double major and extended another year.  Net tuition costs would have been about the same, for 4 or 5 college years.

MH and I will go out for a nice dinner at some point, to celebrate.  & will have to celebrate again when we make the last rent payment. (He should be graduated at that point.  His lease runs into July).

MM(23) is the only one in our household that 'went away' to college.  It's such an unneccesary expense (moving away) in my opinion, that it was never my focus as we planned for the college years.  But...  As we near the end, MM(23)'s big college expense was housing.  Fair enough.  It hasn't been my focus but it is clearly a necessary expense for MM(23) to attend this particular college.  I will do a final wrap up of all college costs when he crosses the finish line.  Quicken tells me we spent $57,000 on housing, so far.  We have a few more months of rent to pay.  

Housing costs will end up being about $12,000 per year.   I don't know what you think about that, but it's dirt cheap compared to any point of comparison that I have.  My housing set point is sky high.  

I have to give the housing credit to MM(23).  He did the work and kept costs down.  I don't know that he personally benefitted much from that (if we are paying the rent).  But he is very frugal at heart and did very well managing costs. 

For now, I am just so happy to be done with keeping track of these extra 3 tuition due dates every year.  Going forward, just the two due dates for DL(20)'s semester college.  Everything about DL(20)'s college is so much more simple.  Just living at home, and all that.  Counting down the days until our lives get a lot more simple.

Before I forget, we had one small win.  MH ended up replacing his theater chair mechanism for $15 (the cost of the replacement part). 

I briefly thought that maybe we were continuing the trend of 'constant emergencies that cost $0 or very little' trend.  Which was most of 2025.  Maybe this ER vet stuff was just a blip.

HA!

Emergency spending was $11,000 during the past 2 weeks.  The last 8 days or so were completely absurd.  If I can have 5 minutes of peace I will share more.  Car break downs, road rage, out-of-network ER visit (college kid), etc.  *sigh* 

I had such high hopes for things looking up in 2026.  😭

My cat didn't make it.

It's never easy but this one is really hard.  It was so completely out of left field.  He had so much energy and life when we dropped him off.  His liver numbers never improved.  Within 24 hours he went from 'appearing very healthy' to 'it's time to put him out of his misery'.  

He was 14.   

Hell froze over and life relented.  In what world do I get to grieve my cat in peace for 3 whole days or process *any* grief.  What!?  Life has not let up during my 40s.  It feels like such an incredible luxury to just sit with my feelings.  I haven't had any time or space to grieve anything the last decade.  It's always on to the next emergency, before I can process anything.  While it's not fun, I recognize that it's very healthy (to actually grieve) and it's a luxury I have not had in a very long time.

I took a nap Friday around 4pm.  I had some peaceful time where I felt I should rip off the band aid and tend to a few things.  Let his primary vet know.  & I transferred money from savings to pay off the vet bill.  I could not even begin to imagine having to think about this financially for another X months or years.  I thought, "I will transfer the money now but clearly can't do much until Tuesday."  Ally is pretty fast to transfer and my CU always gives me funds 1-2 days early.  But *never* have I been able to set up a transfer around 4pm and get the money in my account in a couple of hours.  Not even if I set up the transfer at 7am.  So I took my nap.  Woke up and saw my paycheck hit my bank account already (4 days early re: weekend and holiday).  & the Ally transfer I had just started was there.  What!?  Felt like divine intervention.  I told MH it was a small thing.  I expect the grief to still be very fresh on Tuesday.  I could have handled making the credit card payment on Tuesday and being done with it.  But the money part is done and life moves on.  & I appreciate closing that chapter.

We talked about running away to Pismo Beach.  There was one room left (at our forever hotel, the only place I would stay) and the cost was within the realm of reason somehow.  Even with the Holiday weekend (it hasn't been reasonable on the weekends, in recent years).  I told MH I would see how I felt after my nap.  I actually felt pretty terrible after my nap and changed my mind.  Looked up a few hotels closer to home (that didn't involve 10 hours in the car, roundtrip).  Things are pretty booked up for the holidays, and expensive in prime destinations.  I told MH, "You know what?  I like sleeping in my own bed, and saving a bajillion dollars." 

We did go to the coast for the day (Saturday) and I think it was a perfect 'denial stage' activity.  

My cat had a big personality.  I know it will be very quiet, and that part will be hard.  But it helps as we share the infinite memories of all his quirks and antics.  💞  

I got a fog picture.  

The light is a street lamp.  It just looked cool in the fog but I was surprised you can't even see the street lamp (the rest of it) in the picture.   & then it just looked cool with the tree and the dirty car windshield.

It's been a weird couple of months of extreme fog.  Including a white knuckle drive home from San Francisco a few weekends back, with the thickest fog I've probably ever driven through.

In other news, I am really enjoying the $500 chair.  The fancier/electric powered chair will take some time to get used to.  I think at the end of the day I prefer being able to manually adjust how I am sitting. 

I suppose it might be a spendy furniture year.  On MH's birthday, the mechanism broke (recliner) on his movie theater seating.  In the middle chair that he uses the most.  I am not sure if this will be a 'we just were looking at reclining loveseats and should just buy that' thing, if we will buy something similar (theater seating), or if it will be an easy fix.  This could easily go the way of the 2025 theme of we just need to fix or replace the mechanism.  It could end up being a small thing.  Things to figure out later.  Just living with it for now. 

I doubt we'd buy new theater seating because our longer term plan is to just have a short throw projector, and to not have a dedicated movie theater room.  Not that we necessarily have long term use for a reclining love seat.  But it would be a little less specific and easier to hand down or pass on.

January was very spendy.  But we were able to save about $2,300+ (I updated sidebar) re: December windfalls.  There were no big bills left to pay in January.  January spending (Credit card charges) will sort out in February.  Don't expect to be saving much in February, accordingly.

I expect February (Feb charges paid in March) to be a lot more quiet and frugal.  & it's a short month.  Will see.  

My office moved last week and it seemed to go pretty smooth.  I think my only real complaint is the crowded parking lot.  It looked larger and more spacious, initially.  But anyway, the last couple of smaller office buildings I have been in, they both probably had 20 spots for 5 people.  I just feel like it's infinitely more likely to get into some kind of fender bender in the parking lot.  & it's hard to see much when backing out of spaces re: dense mass of cars. 

What's great and exciting about this move is I think I will be saving an hour a week on commuting.  What!?  I had started out with an estimate of 10 minutes a day, or 40 minutes a week.  & was happy to put up with any downsides of the move (mostly, losing the beautiful grounds) in exchange for more time.  But then I saved 20 minutes on Monday.  I now think that the time savings will be more substantial.  We just moved about a mile up the street.  But the new office is right by the freeway, which is what I am more used to.  (I am spoiled, always having otherwise lived or worked right next to a freeway entrance).  The worst of the old commute was the long 2.5-mile slog to the freeway in afternoon traffic.  My 30-minute drive would turn into a 45-minute drive home, just because of that stretch of city street.  Anyway, now it's more of a 25-minute commute both ways.  

It will be a month or two of sorting out infinite address changes (we have ~30 entities we get mail for).  But I am viewing this move as the last big hurdle of a very trying few months.  Phew!  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HA!

This week has been a week from hell.  Many things going on, but the latest is that my cat is in the Kitty ICU.  Should find out more what is going on today. 

The only thing I know for sure is $$$$$$.   Not thrilled about that.  But also definitely an appreciation through trying times like these that we are not normal.  That we can *Shrugs* when random $10K bills fall out of the sky.  

It could be we have run out of luck with him eating plastic around the house.  He's acting like he is poisoined, so we got grilled a lot about anything he might have gotten into.  Haven't figured it out yet and could be something more serious and underlying.  But I do feel like it's a miracle I have never had to take him to the vet re: all the weird and random stuff he eats.  Heck, this is the first ER vet visit I've ever had for a pet.  

Oh yeah, and MH is a big sofite.  Logically, he's pushed back in the past, at the idea of spending this kind of money on a cat.  But he folded like a wet noodle when the rubber hit the road.  Heck, do I have to be the voice of reason??  He actually had a strong reaction to the DNR question.  I was just, "Wait, what!?"  We have a 14yo old man cat.  

The vet called him spicy because 4 people had to hold him down to draw his blood.   It sounded like an excorcism happening on the other side of the wall.  That's my demon cat.  Anyway, the vets all seem to think the odds are in his favor.  He's not acting like a 14yo cat in an ICU.  So all of this was kind of a no brainer.  Also, I'd like him to not turn into a demon cat at home.  Our vet did give us a $500 option to treat him at home.  I don't think the ER would have agreed that was doable.  So it might all be for the best. My nerves are far less shot, knowing he is in the best hands.

I received MM(22)'s college tax form and confirmed that they treated his summer income as a 'tuition reduction'.  Which is not doing us any favors.  Would have been tax-free to him if they just treated it like income.  It was technically wages, that I of course let him keep (and did not apply against his tuition).  

I thought this seemed to be the case when they paid him in one lump sum, the same way they refund financial aid.  On the plus side, MM wasn't planning to do any ROTH IRA contributions** and it seemed obvious enough to me (after he was paid), so I was mentally prepared to pay another $900 tax ($4,500 x 20% tax credit lost).  Was just waiting to see how they reported on tax forms.

**I believe he has $0 'wages' this year so would not be able to do an IRA contribution if he wanted to. 

& literally, he would have paid $0 tax on that money if it was reported as wages.  The weirdest W-2 I have ever seen was the quarter he worked as a TA for the college.  The only box completed on his W-2 was 'taxable wages'.  Not subject to FICA or any other taxes.  His income is well below the standard deduction. 

I also just happened to get our investment 1099s (a couple of weeks ago, when I received the tuition tax form).  Which is the only reason I can't finalize our tax return on January 1.  I've got everything else dialed down the last day of the year.  But I don't know what's a qualified dividend or not.  That's the only tax form I really need.

So our taxes are pretty much done.  At some point I will sit down and make sure all of our tax forms match my records.

I thought we did really good in January (savings) but it will all end up going to taxes and IRA contributions, probably.

I double checked if we literally could contribute $0 to tax deductible IRAs, how that landed.  We can do $1,120.  I will do that, to save $336 (30%).  That's a no brainer.

Mostly I wanted to make a note to myself to remember to do the IRA contributions.