Ask the grumpies: Can I Retire Early?

Middle class revolution asks

By the time you post this, I may already be out of a job. However, i can always use your money wisdom and that of your readers. I may also ask Frugalwoods but they want so many details.

Here is some background info about me and my family:

– Family = me (50), my husband (poor health), 2 young kids – one with special health issues and low functioning autism. We don’t plan to pay for college but want to support spec needs kid with a trust (from home sale?).
– My parents live nearby and currently offer babysitting help.
– We own a single family home in a high cost west coast state. It is safe, blue collar, ethnic neighborhood with so-so schools. Valued at $500,000 to 600,000. We are 2 years away from paying off mortgage. May do this sooner if possible.
–  I have a 401k, rollover IRA, Roth IRA totaling . My husband has no retirement savings. Total value of approx. $470,000 depending on stock market.
– I will get social security but don’t know amount.
– Husband earns approx $5k per month from state as our kid’s caregiver. I will take over this role. He can get health insurance thru this job but I don’t know how good it is.
– My income was $3k per month after taxes, 401k contributions and health care premiums.
– Currently spend about $4k per month. Want to reduce this.
– We own 2 cars and will sell one.
– We have no debts.
– We don’t have a will or life insurance (very bad, I know)
– Both sets of our parents are financially fine. His parents already gifted us to help buy our house. No inheritance expected.

I am resigning due to a bad work situation (horrible boss). I do not expect to find a similar job since I won’t have my boss as reference and I’m 50.

Did I make a horrible mistake? Will I end up eating cat food or worse?

Please advise!

With a low functioning disabled child, you need to get a will AND life insurance NOW.  This will probably be pricey if you’re thinking about a trust.  Along with the thinking about a trust, the law office will likely be able to recommend someone to think about the financial aspects of your plan for your child.  How much will they need after you are gone?

I always think that the FrugalWoods are overly optimistic about retiring.  I mean, I guess that’s their brand but also they haven’t lived it (since Mr. FW has never stopped working for an employer and Mrs. FW has her own business), so…

Looking at your numbers, with half your wealth locked up in your house and a low functioning child and spouse with health issues… I would not personally retire early.  If my job were terrible, I might leave that job, but I would definitely keep looking for another opportunity or get more education to switch fields or *something*.  I don’t think you have enough to safely retire because your life right now is highly dependent on the whims of a state government.  And we just can’t count on governments.

You should figure out social security amounts for you and your DH.  We used to get printouts from social security on a regular basis, but I think they’ve stopped doing that (possibly because they know the social security trust fund will be running out sooner than it should).  They have a retirement estimator on their webpage but the interface is not great.  I think you may be able to get it to do what you want by choosing “add a new estimate” after it gives you the stupid initial estimate that assumes you will work until 62/6?/70 and then telling it you want to work 0 at your current age.  I ran through it that way and if I stop working today (or age age 50), I will get about $900 less per month than if I keep working until 62, and 1900 less than if I keep working until age 67 (I’m guessing my big salary years are still replacing low income years in my work history).  Keep in mind that you will need more future dollars than you do now because of inflation.  (Low estimate:  2%, high estimate: 7%… any more than that and Social Security will have worse worries than keeping up with inflation because we’ve turned into a Banana Republic and nothing is safe.)

A big worry is that $5K/month won’t last.  That is extremely generous and it is likely that when your state hits financial difficulties in the future or gets a Conservative governor that this program will get trimmed if not cut entirely.  Even if it doesn’t get trimmed it could not keep up with inflation.  You cannot count on it as safe income.  Also, looking up the program, the amount you get depends on where you live, so it will be dangerous to tap into your house or to move someplace less expensive.

You’ll need to find out the costs of health insurance and what it doesn’t cover and what the copays are and so on and if the people your husband and child have been seeing take it.  Along with property taxes, that’s a big necessary expense.

I like this Nerd Wallet calculator.  Be sure to click on the “optional” so you can put in spending and retirement age and so on.  It’s not going to be perfect because social security will be hard to figure in there.

Yes, age discrimination exists.  Fortunately although it happens sooner for women than for men, there’s also a bump up in hiring for women at older ages, so you shouldn’t give up on finding a new job.  I don’t know if resigning your current job without a new one lined up is a mistake– if it’s affecting your health etc. sometimes just quitting is the best thing you can do.  But if you haven’t quit yet, I would like to encourage you to sweeten up your boss so you can get a good reference, explore other options within the company if possible (can you cut to part time?  are there other units within the company?), and so on.  Think strategically– knowing that you will likely quit, how can you put yourself in the best position possible for finding new work (possibly after the pandemic is over).  When you quit or get fired with cause you don’t get unemployment insurance unless the government steps in because it’s an emergency.  It might make sense to wait until the Heroes act has been passed (and call your senator to get it passed) to see if it covers unemployment for your situation.

Or you can hope to get laid off or negotiate a voluntary separation package with your company, since it’s difficult to fire people from middle-class jobs in those west coast states.  It might be worth talking to your management about this possibility.  Be strategic.  Or if they don’t actually want to lose you, they might be willing to fix some of the problems you’ve been having with your immediate boss.  Who knows!

So… bottom line, no I don’t think you can retire early in this situation.  If everything goes well, then you might be able to do it… a 60K/year income with a paid off house and health insurance might be fine even in an expensive city given savings and Social Security kicking in in 12-20 years.  But you can’t really count on the income increasing with inflation or not being cut, you can’t necessarily count on your property taxes staying put (and you need to stay where you are for the benefits), you can’t count on health insurance not bankrupting you, you can’t count on getting more than 70% of your anticipated Social Security claim, etc.  And your responsibilities (husband with health problems, low functioning child who will need lifetime help) are much too high to allow for you to cut expenses to the bone should things go wrong.

Update from Middleclassrevolution:

Family

– Me Middle Class: 50, good health, the one quitting her job ASAP.
– Husband: 60, declining health, home caregiver
– Kid 1: 10 years
– Kid 2:  9 yrs, Special health issues and low functioning autism.
– My parents: 80s, fairly good health but I am not counting on their babysitting help for much longer.

Assets (conservative estimate)

– Single family home valued at $500,000 to 600,000.
– $470,000 in various retirement accounts.
– $30k emergency fund
– Two cars (both owned 100%)

Income

– Me: $60k per year. Much of it goes toward insurance premiums and 401k contributions. Take home pay is closer to $2k per month.
– Husband: $4.5k per month income from state as caregiver. Income is not taxed.

Future Income

– Social Security: amounts unknown.
– No inheritance expected.

Liabilities

– Mortgage : We are 2 years away from paying this off but may do this sooner if possible.
– No debt
– No will, no will, no life insurance. (Bad I know!)
– Both sets of parents are financially sound and will not need our help.

Health insurance

– Three of us are covered by my employer’s high deductible plan.
– Special needs kid is covered by state programs due to health issues.

Career

– I plan to quit and take over the Caregiver role. This job does offer health insurance but I don’t know copays or premiums.
– Unlikely to find another job due to ageism and inability to get a reference from current boss

Spending

– Currently spend about $4k per month. Want to reduce this.
– We plan to sell one of the cars ASAP.

Other factors

– My husband is very impatient with special needs kid. He is good at stepping in when needed to get kid to change clothes, brush teeth, etc.. However on a daily basis, he tends to ignore him, [ed. deleted by request]. I never understood why my mom felt the need to help every other day (alternating with part time nanny). I thought my husband was capable of being sole caregiver. Now that I WFH, I am not so sure he can manage much longer.
– Without school for months and re-opening unlikely, special needs kid will continue to regress.

So… some of the numbers are different compared to when we gave our first advice and the husband [doesn’t sound as good].  If you really do need to stay at home with your child during the pandemic (a common story for many women, and not indicative of their underlying quality of workers), then maybe paint the leaving your job narrative that way and make sure that everyone else is on board with that narrative at the company because it is likely when you do try to return to the labor force (and you will likely have to) your former boss will likely be elsewhere and somebody else at the company will be providing a reference for you.  Hopefully your DH has some redeeming qualities or will be bringing home Social Security in a couple of years, [ed. deleted].  Though since he is close to 62, if he has Social Security benefits, it is unlikely that those will drop (though they may not keep up with inflation) and you may be able to transition to retirement with them, so figure out what they are.  He’s got to be useful for something once he’s no longer being paid to ignore your kid.

Also given your husband’s age and health, it’s probably not cost-effective to get life insurance for him, even term, so just get it for you.  But you can still look into costs.  You do need it for you.

Update:

No honestly he has good points too. He does most of the cooking and a lot around the house and yard. I am often impatient with my special needs kids too. The situation has taken a toll on us. I cannot manage both kids alone.

I realized that I changed 5k to 4.5k…I am not sure of exact amount so I lowered it. I guess that 500/mo makes a difference..

$6000/year when you’re not bringing in a lot does matter (as does knowing if your current take-home pay is 24K/year or 36K/year).  But more importantly, before you make your next move at work, you need to figure out the values of all of these numbers (including Social Security) so that you can make an informed decision.  30K in cash emergency fund does buy you some time, but will schools be reopened in 7.5 months?  It does sound very likely that you will quit this job, but before you do, get all of your ducks in a row.  It might be worthwhile getting all those numbers that the FrugalWoods want even if you don’t actually email them for advice.

Update:

I checked my husband’s monthly income and it is 5k , not 4.5k if that makes a difference.

Finally my son is already stronger than my me, my mom, and nanny. When he gets angry, he hits hard, scratches, twists our fingers and sometimes bites. It is probably when not if he will do more serious harm. Yes we are looking unto meds. Bottom line: I can’t physically manage him without my husband. I would like to keep my son home with us as long as possible.

Grumpy Nation:  Would you retire early in MCR’s situation?  What things should she be thinking about?  What questions would you ask?  Do you have any suggestions for how to best separate from a bad job when you’re in your 50s (especially a state with employer protections)?  Any other advice?

RBOC

• Few of the women I most admire are people pleasers.  As I head through middle-age, I should remember that.
• So… they’ve updated teaching schedules and I am one of the few teachers listed as teaching in person.  The other people teaching sections of stats this semester are all teaching online, even though they’ve added another section (from a guy whose elective didn’t make).  All of a sudden people want to get into my 8am class instead of avoiding it.  I am not particularly happy about this.  I mean, is it worth risking my and my family’s life?  (Plus the new section only has 3 people in it, though I imagine he’ll just teach it the same way he does the online asynchronous section he teaches in the summer.)
• Looking at who is teaching online and in-person doesn’t seem to correlate with anything that would be health related or helpful to students.  The (childless) people who hate being on campus are all teaching online.  The people who care most about the students, even those in the at-risk age categories, probably did what I did and said, “Whatever is best for the department,” which, maybe I’m regretting? If I get Covid from a toilet plume I am going to be so unhappy about all of this.  Especially if I get DH sick.  [Update:  some of the over 60 folks did switch to online, which I’m happy about because I like these colleagues! and also even if I didn’t it’s not worth that much risk.]
• How is it that cheese puffs are always good even when they’re not actual cheetos?
• I feel like I’m turning into a Los Angelean (though I think I have to lose 50 lb to *actually* be accepted)– I keep trying various vitamin cocktails to try to fight this fatigue that I seem to keep getting.  And… the vitamins seem to work.  I HAVE to take vit D (doctors orders), but even though my B12 levels were fine the last time I had bloodwork, sometimes a little B12 pill will pick me right up (especially during certain points of my cycle).  I seem to be able to take iron without throwing up, but it doesn’t tend to help any more than the B12.  Sometimes I really crave B-complex (usually the smell of the pill nauseates me), and that seems to help with my thinking, though not the fatigue.  Finally, when all else fails, magnesium seems to help.  And when I get leg cramps, I always eat a banana right after which makes  me wonder if I should get a little potassium.
• I DO take a multivitamin many days… alternating with a Rainbow One prenatal and a Centrum, but I sometimes seem to need more than that.
• I would also have to start drinking kombucha without wanting to spit it out if I became an Angelean.
• Vitamin-induced fatigue is scary during a pandemic.  So are allergies.
• I wonder if I’ve always had this many allergies over the summer or if it’s the extra wet we’ve been having keeping things alive.  Or maybe it’s more dust mites.  Whatever it is, I tend to freak out a little bit and then take a Zyrtec and 20 min later I’m completely fine.  [My sister suggests I’m allergic to the Saharan desert.]
• Zyrtec is my second best friend.
• I have nothing under review which SUCKS.  I have several papers that are close to a completed first draft that have to get done before school starts, but I don’t know how it is going to happen.
• OMG so many people are sending so many papers this summer.  Everybody who does reviews seems to perpetually have 5 papers to referee, including me on top of my editing responsibilities. This is SO HARD.  I need to go through the new crops of graduate students at schools whose training I trust before the semester starts and I get completely overwhelmed again.  [What I do is I have a drive document called “Victims-Journal Name” and then I have a Graduate Students section and then I put the name of a school and then the name and (if I’m being good) email of their further along students and a few brief words about what they study as they relate to the journal(s) I’m editing for.  They tend to make excellent referee #3s (I try to get the other two to be experts who have published on the topic, but the third can be more of a generalist who does related work or who is working but hasn’t published yet)]
• I’m one month into my first month of editing the journal I said I could only handle 1 paper a month for and the editor in chief just tired to send me a fourth paper.  I was like, no.
• Why does Gen Z say Weary when they mean Wary?  I mean, I’m tired too, but it’s a different word.  (Also tail end of Millennials do this AND I caught my Millennial sister who should know better doing this, though she claimed she was also weary.)  I’m not ready for language to change this definition because I need both words!  Tired isn’t descriptive enough!

We decided on Virtual Schooling

In the end we decided not to send the kids to in-person school in the fall.

In our last post, we’d already decided not to send DC1.  The risks are larger at the high school level and all but one of hir chosen classes is going to be offered online (Programming II will have to be swapped out with either AP Physics 1 or AP Statistics).  DC1 was also on board with this, as zie is an introvert and while sociable enough in person doesn’t even know some of hir friend’s last names and certainly doesn’t have any contact information.

DC2 ended up being a harder decision, but we finally brought the question to hir.  Zie asked what virtual schooling was going to be like, so we showed hir the district webpage.

While there, Zie also looked at how in-person schooling was going to be different while zie was there, which we hadn’t really thought about.  Zie didn’t like that zie wouldn’t be allowed to play on the playground with friends from other classes.  Zie didn’t like having to wear a mask all the time.  Zie was a little weirded out by the going to the restroom as a group rather than when zie had to go.  Zie also didn’t see much point if zie couldn’t go to after-school with hir main friends.  Zie pointed out that in-person school didn’t sound as fun as usual.

Then zie added up the amount of time spent doing school virtually (90+90, that’s 3 hours, right?) and liked that it was low.  Zie liked the flexibility.  Zie liked being able to eat whenever and not wear a mask and use the restroom whenever.    Zie also found out that at least one of hir good friends is going virtual and had hopes for zoom and maybe even Minecraft realms on a regular basis like we’ve been doing this summer.  (The four of them piloted out Minecraft Realms for DC2’s birthday party with a couple weeks of one-on-one playing in anticipation so that hir two friends who weren’t already immersed in Minecraft could learn how to play the computer version.  One amazing thing is that zie can even play Minecraft nicely with her frenemy(!)  They’re a little snippy at each other but nowhere near as much as usual.)

Adding that DC2 will still be considered Dual Language (meaning instructions and lectures will be in Spanish alternating weeks) and will still have GT (zie promises not to be a jerk on zoom like last year), it seems like virtual will be the best option.  We’re going to have to figure out how to make it work with our work schedules, which is always the problem, but at least there will be less worry about illness.  And DC1 will likely be getting more sleep than last year during in-person high school (hopefully).

And as the weather gets less hot we’ll be able to kick them out of the house again.  Other online people are setting up beautiful welcoming home offices for their kids.  Maybe we can set something up in the backyard instead.  I wonder how far out the wifi reaches…

Link Love

I’m not entirely sure what to do about this new wave of fascism– does anybody have thoughts on action items?  I did call one of my senators and complained about his saying fascist things, but what is the best thing to do (other than donating to protesters in Portland– can’t find the thread I was going to link to here, anybody have it?) to combat secret police and Trump’s interference in the Census and USPS?  No matter what happens, getting people to register to vote and to vote is still going to be incredibly important, so postcards to voters and votefwd are ways to do SOMETHING while trying to figure out what phonecalls to make.  Also donating to your favorite senate, house, or state-level government candidate.  (Or just swingleft if you’re not sure who to pick.)  Also I’ve bought so many stamps I regularly get the post office’s stamp catalog and they have some really fun new stuff.  (Also did you know they sell stuff that’s not stamps?  Like jigsaw puzzles and magic kits and halloween costumes and toy cars.)

What the fuck does that mean? Is this Minority Report? He just ADMITTED TO VIOLATING THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS. https://t.co/ZKkEGwNwJC

— SmartDissent.com (@smartdissent) July 22, 2020

This thread from Portland is eye-opening and horrifying.

Federal agents pepper sprayed medical supplies in Portland tonight. https://t.co/9PHGBX8GFA

— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) July 22, 2020

President Trump is signing a memorandum today that calls for unauthorized immigrants to be excluded from census numbers used to divide seats in Congress.

But Trump doesn't have final authority over the census — and it's likely to spur legal challenges.https://t.co/goD7dkEKeb

— NPR (@NPR) July 21, 2020

Ignore this article, but look at the charts(!)

More details on the value of different kinds of masks.

A difference in differences primer with some of the newer stuff.

please scroll through quietly, the kittens are sleeping, a thread: pic.twitter.com/vELRkNdGWb

— alアリ🐡 (@ralicexx) July 19, 2020

 

Ask the grumpies: Reader Sabbatical Update

Susan says:

here’s a really long update [to this post] …. I’ll happily answer any other questions.

— How do taxes work – did you change states and file in new state? For us, home state 3%, new state 9%, yikes.

This is an issue a bit particular to us, but — because we spent less than 183 days per year in New State, and because my pay and DH’s pay did not change in location or structure, we did nothing different with taxes, we’re filing in Home State. We did nothing to trigger reporting to New State, so hopefully this will work out. We were a bit concerned about some possibly eventful things happening with DH’s tech options that could be impactful on taxes, but that turned out not to happen because of the pandemic.

— Did you change drivers’ license? Car registration and insurance?

We did not.

— Did you need to switch health insurance? I’m on a local-base HMO plan, which won’t work in new state.

DH was already on a PPO. I was not, but was able to switch during open enrollment, and at least I was covered for emergency stuff before that. I did have to change the address the XPress Scripts sends things to, because having our housemate send drugs was illegal, turns out.

— How did you find tenants? Did you rent out your house furnished? Full year lease? Utilities? Yard work? Our home area is small college town. I have landlorded a condo before, but this part is still giving me apprehension.

We had a neighbor’s relative, who had recently moved here and needed a place of her own but wanted to still be close to neighbors and their baby, house-sit for minimal rent. No lease. We cleared out space for her in drawers and closets, but otherwise left everything here. We did not change utilities. She did yard work, well enough. In the end, we really just wanted a responsible adult here more than the $$, but we’re a bit privileged on that.

— Did you fully move, or send a Pod of things, or …? Did you rent a furnished place, or spend a bunch at IKEA? How did you approach that choice?

We drove a car full of clothes and outdoor gear, but did not send more than that. We rented a furnished AirBnB in one location for 2 months, then when we went to Main Location we rented an apartment from a private LL who was willing to be flexible, altho there were buildings that would do leases of varying length (for varyingly more money, of course). We rented furniture. We spent $n00 at IKEA to outfit a basic kitchen setup + linens, and gave it all away at the end. We ended up shipping some stuff home at the end.

— What was your supervising plan for the year away?

I Zoomed a lot — regular one-on-ones, and group meetings. Both students had a Plan for the year already or were writing a grant that became a plan. It went well overall.

— Did you pay yourself from grants? I have opted for the half pay for a year away, and have a grant that I could use. However, we’re fortunate enough that I think we can swing this without taking extra grant money, and I … feel like the grant should go to my lab, not me. I’ll need to spend some on supplies anyway.

I did not pay myself for the semester, but did for summer salary.

— How did it go departmentally being away for a year, any resentment or sidelining or other professional issues?

In my department, sabbaticals are regular and expected, so nothing seems different, and I’m as involved as ever (it seemed). But now that it’s dovetailed into pandemic, it’s hard to tell!

Thanks for the update, Susan!

Are we going to send the kids to school in the fall?

The answer is:  I don’t know but we have to decide by July 30th.  We have the option to send the kids to school or have them virtual school at home.  We don’t know what either will look like but it also sounds like we’re not going to know until the school knows how many kids they’re dealing with.

I do think we will be sending DC2 [update:  things have gotten worse in the South– now we’re not sure].  Zie is still in the age range where there’s not a lot of transmission and cases tend to be mild, with a few exceptions [update:  some new articles have come out suggesting transmission rates may be higher than previous articles suggested, but it is still unclear].  Hir pediatrician is very good and we trust him to be on top of things and the nearest city has a top rate children’s hospital should it come to that.  And zie has been a handful this summer.  I suspect we won’t be using after-care like we usually do and I’m not sure if we will be using the bus.

It’s harder to decide for DC1 [update:  we’ve pretty much decided DC1 will virtual school for at least the first grading period].  Zie is 13 and in high school.  Kids these ages are much more like adults in terms of transmission and effects.  Plus, DC1 doesn’t get sick very often (zie has perfect attendance awards almost every year of schooling), but when zie does get sick and it’s something zie didn’t contract back in daycare many years ago, zie gets really sick.  Hir tonsils and adenoids have also become less protective overtime (which is good because it means hir teeth straightened out and zie doesn’t need to have surgery to remove them, but also means they’re not as protective.)

Plus, DC1 is young for hir grade and could take a gap year and still be early for college.  I don’t want to have hir skip a year of math, but precalc is one of the less useful years, and we could in theory get it somewhere else and waive it somehow.  And… DC1 has been pretty good at entertaining hirself and doing schoolwork hirself without interaction.

The big thing is that no matter what we do with the kids, I am still going in to teach two days a week.  I will still have classes of college students, and these classes are going to be bigger than usual because the other people teaching the section are all teaching online, so suddenly my 8am section looks attractive.  Even though they’ve added another section so there are more teachers than usual.  So… I’m fairly sure I am going to get it even if I opt out of all of the conference travel I currently have planned.

If I get it, it is likely my family will too.  I suppose I could quarantine myself in the house and not see my family for the duration.  But even so it’s likely I will transmit it to my kids.  And if they get it from me, does it matter if they get it from school?  Should I be worried about them transmitting it to their classmates (again, less concerned about DC2)?  These are really hard questions.  I don’t have an answer yet.  I do promise that we will be very good about not sending kids to school with the slightest fever or drippy nose, but that doesn’t help with pre-symptomatic spreading.  Maybe we keep them home if/when I get sick?

The NYTimes recently posted a survey they did back in May in which they asked a bunch of epidemiologists if they planned to send their kids to school.  Most of the ones who had kids said that they would.  Most of the ones without kids said they would not recommend it.  Having had DC2 home for months, I empathize with the epidemiologists willing to take the risk.

Update:  This more recent article from NPR suggests numbers you should look at while making the decision.  The numbers for our county suggest that we should be keeping both kids home.

We’ve also gotten some more information about the way that Virtual learning will work at the high school.  It looks like DC1 will be able to take all but one of the classes zie has requested.  Ironically the class not offered online is computer programming.  We may see if we can work something out for that class since DH can easily teach any lesson if DC1 is allowed to just do the work.  The alternative would be to take AP Physics 1 which wouldn’t be so bad if zie wasn’t already taking AP US History (which is a lot of work) and Pre-AP Chemistry (hard and a lot of work).  Another alternative would be to take AP Statistics , but then zie doesn’t have a math class for senior year.

Right now (as of last Friday) I think there’s a 98% chance DC1 will be staying home at least for the first part of the year.  I give DC2 an even 50%… I want to check the numbers again before July 30th and I would like to know how dual language will be addressed.

We’re also allowed to switch from virtual to in-person at the end of a grading period, so that may be the right thing to do– see what happens in the first 6 weeks of school and then send them in.  There’s a non-negative possibility that all of school will be shut down by then.

Grumpeteers with school-age children:  How are you making the decision about sending your kids back to school in the fall?  Has your school district made that decision for you already?

Masks

I wish I could post links and pictures, but I’m afraid that my favorite etsy shop makes it pretty clear where I live!

I have, at this point, tried several different designs of masks.

The cheapest per-use masks by far are from the Old Navy variety packs.  These are $2.50/mask.  They are triple ply and, I think, reasonably cute.  The children’s are especially cute on DC2. They do not have any nose guards or anything, they’re just the accordion style mask.   They fog up my glasses when I wear glasses.  They sometimes ride up my nose and cover the bottom of my eyes, which makes me understand why so many people wear their masks under their noses.  I am not a fan.  But I did buy a ton of these and I will be handing them out to people who have forgotten their masks.

The most adorable masks are those from redbubble, where they have so many cute Ms. Frizzle-worthy designs.  Unfortunately they’re only double-ply and they’re kind of thin.  They’re not uncomfortable, but they don’t really adhere to my face as much as I’d like.  I’ll still be wearing them, but over a one-layer balaclava.  I would say this combination is overpriced, but my students will likely appreciate it.

What I like best are the etsy triple ply cup design masks with bendable nose guards.  I like the ear loops (cloth, not elastic) better than the ribbons, so far.  After a day spent teaching I might prefer the ribbons.  But we will see.  These generally cost ~$12-$25/mask depending on how popular the place you’re getting it is from on Etsy.  The place I use is on the cheaper end of that scale and I found it by searching for my university’s name and facemask.  Turns out there are local seamstresses filling a need.

Have you gotten masks yet?  What kind do you prefer?  Any links to your favorite shops?

Link love

If you like reading Ask the Grumpies on Fridays, we are soliciting more questions! That feature doesn’t exist without the curiosity of the Grumpy Nation.

For literally the first time in my decade long career, and even in the careers of every single carrier in my office, including 40 year vets, we are being given orders to DELIBERATELY. DELAY. FIRST. CLASS. MAIL. Not just your credit card bills or magazines, but packages and checks

— Letter Carriers for Antifa Chapter President (@DingusJMcGee) July 12, 2020

Your reminder that this administration wants to kill the post office, because fuck you, that's why.https://t.co/KkGtkuLhHu

— John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 14, 2020

Oregon Public Broadcasting confirms tweets today that federal officers in camouflage but no agency identification or badges, driving unmarked non-government rental cars, are grabbing protestors off streets in Portland and not talking w local authoritieshttps://t.co/sfY9TUkbDI

— David Burbach (@dburbach) July 17, 2020

Serious brain disorders found in people with mild covid symptoms.  If the timing were right, I would swear this is evidence that I had Covid last winter with that cold that never went away and me feeling like the after in Flowers for Algernon pretty much until April.

You can volunteer for a phase 3 vaccine trial if you live in the following cities (thread).  (Remember that in an RCT, you may be in the control and the treatment may not work, so don’t throw all caution to the wind.)

DH and I separately did a back of the envelope calculation and determined that 1.5% of the population of our county has tested positive for Covid.  That’s without the students back in town.  This is why we’re almost never leaving the house.  And yet, I’m signed up to teach in person next semester.

A third of the 54K FL children tested for Corona-virus have tested positive.

What’s the probability that you encounter someone without a mask in 5 random encounters?

hand sanitizer recall

The coronavirus stimulus package carved out $135,000,000,000 in tax breaks for millionaires.

That's *three times* as much money as was included for emergency housing and food relief.

When I say we have socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest, this is what I mean.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 15, 2020

Soliciting more Ask the Grumpies

You may have noticed that the last few Ask the Grumpies were hard questions that we didn’t have great answers for… long-term readers should know what that means… It’s time to solicit more Ask the Grumpies questions from readers!

Ask the grumpies is a feature we run almost every Friday. You ask, we answer, or we punt and ask the grumpy nation to answer. In any case, you get the benefit of not only our wisdom but the collective wisdom of the far wiser grumpy nation.

What questions do you have for us? What can we bring clarity or further confusion to? What can the grumpy nation ponder and discuss on your behalf? Ask in the comments below or email us at grumpyrumblings at gmail dot com.

p.s.  You can ask the grumpies a question at any time, not during these annual-ish question drives, but without these drives we wouldn’t be able to run Ask the Grumpies every week.

10 years of blogging

Today marks our 10 year blogiversary!  And it’s a Tuesday!  (Will there be a Wednesday post?  Probably not this week…  Still fishing for compliments…)

It started with a grumble.

Early posts had a lot of octopus and hot library guy memes (not together though!)  We started with a lot of small frequent posts, posting daily or more!

Our deliberately controversial posts were especially popular.

We got a lot of readers from the Get Rich Slowly fora.

But times have changed… while we post regularly, it’s only on a M/W/F/Saturday schedule, and not daily.  We still have Money Mondays .  We used to alternate Fridays Ask the Grumpies with Google Questions, but we now get more Ask the Grumpies questions and Google has made it harder to find search terms from wordpress that come to our blog, so we mostly only do the advice column.  Saturdays are for link love.  Wednesdays are for everything else.

We used to be a bit more balanced with food and book etc. posts coming at regular intervals, but now we’re generally at most a week ahead of blogging instead of months, at least for Wednesday posts.  That leads to a bit more bunching of posts, I think.  Life has gotten busy!

Blogging is correlated with me adding too many parentheticals to my writing (like this one).

How long will we keep going?  I don’t know!  Occasionally it seems more like a chore than a hobby, but we’d miss our readers (especially you, yes YOU), and sometimes it’s really useful to be able to just ask the world something to see what falls out.

Do you have a favorite Grumpy Rumblings post?  What do you hope to see in the future?  Praise and congratulate us!  We are totally fishing for compliments!