It’s technically April 29, 2023 as I type this but May 1st is Monday and a new month.

The month has mostly been a blur. On the weekends I play kickball though a few times the games were rained out. During the week I play billiards. Some weekends I practice billiards. Occasionally I’ll see a movie with friends. This month I saw Chevalier, Renfield, The Super Mario Bros. The movies all good for different reasons. I’ve been binging in Star Trek: Picard and The Mandalorian. Both amazing series but STP brought back an incredible sense of nostalgia having watched my first TNG episode back in 1990 with the columbia house videocassettes.

Earlier this month I had a very interesting experience wth my cell provider. For over 2 years I’ve had a 5G phone and 15 with AT&T. However my speeds started getting obnoxiously slow. I reset network setting, rebooted my phone, double checked my data usage. So I called them and spoke for 20 minutes, turns out there are no 5G towers in my immediate area. The f*cking headquarters are less than 20 miles away and there are at least 2000 people who live on just the same street as me. I was livid, so that night I did some research about which providers have the best coverage in Texas. T-Mobile came up time and time again for multiple states.

My T-Mobile experience has been lukewarm. The rep put me down on a hard of hearing plan after I told him to put the chime on the iPhone you had to go in accessibility settings. Then I got home and data worked but not voice. I had the top end Magenta Max plan but downgraded to Magenta at a cost of $70/mo from the $81 I was paying. Giving it a trial run but so far aside from the service initially being slow inside things are improving. Spectrum Mobile is another option if I want to go the frugal route, but there’s a story there…

So for funzies I decided to upgrade to the Spectrum Gig plan at an additional $20/mo bringing the cost up to $100/mo. However I wasn’t seeing the max speed it was supposed to provide on WiFi 6. So I dropped $250 on a fancy Google Nest Wifi Pro 6E router with 2 pods to form a mesh network. Wi-Fi 6E on this device is supposed to offer up to 5.4 Gbps… but in reality that wasn’t happening. More like 600Mbps on the latest MacBook Pro and iPhone 14 Pro hadware. I changed a ton of different settings. Still the same speeds as before. So I called to cancel and had to talk to 3 reps before they were able to resolve my issue. The previous ‘Ultra’ plan was 500Mb download speed and I got a low promotional rate. However once I upgraded, in order to downgrade back that promotional offer ending in January essentially expired. So back on hold…. Eventually they let me keep the faster service and gave me a $20/mo discount to match the previous plan I had. If Frontier didn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth I might’ve switched back.

I just made it home from a Costco run for a few essentials. On a Saturday afternoon I know crazy right… Was sitting in my car dreading walking in but the experience wasn’t too bad. I also ordered some new clothes online with cashback from Rakuten, on friends & family sale, with a new customer code, free shipping, and get cashback on my Chase Sapphire card.

	4/29/2023	3/31/2023	Difference	% Diff
401K	$   177,848	$   173,931	$                       3,917	2.3%
Roth IRA	$     27,475	$     27,186	$                          289	1.1%
M1 Acct	$          860	$          770	$                            90	11.7%
Cash	$       3,551	$       3,135	$                          415	13.2%
HSA	$       2,925	$       3,030	$                        (105)	-3.5%
Total	$   212,660	$   208,053	$                       4,607	2.2%
Credit Cards	$          250	–	$                          250	N/A
Auto Loan	$     11,975	$     12,938	$                        (963)	-7.4%
Net Total	$   200,435	$   195,115	$                       5,320	2.7%

Net Worth is back to $200k again. I’m happy about that, I’ve been steady doing what I can. I did lower my 401k contribution down to 6% from 21%, for a day but then I thought about the long term impact of that decision and quickly reversed. Homes in DFW are also at near record highs from an unaffordability perspective and lots of 1st time homebuyers have regrets about tax assessments going up $100k, or maintenance costs being higher than expected. Near my hometown on Long Island you can stay in a Luxury studio or 1br apartments at The Selby starting at only $3,800/mo. Only $2,666 more per month, that’s a walk in the park right? I wanted to do triple monthly car payments but can only do double unless I stop contributing to my Roth temporarily. I took my dog to the vet for vaccinations and that was $144. My car has some minor paint damage from a recent storm we had with hail. That will run me about $250 to fix on Monday and they come right out to my apartment. Life costs money, even if you cut back. Responsible / practical but not overly strict and the occasional splurge is my approach.

I’m learning as I get older that a lot of the story I have that limits me is in my head. Sometimes you just set yourself a timer and just do however much is humanely possible in a short period of time. That’s what I started doing at least. Cleaning, applying a job, sending an e-mail. It doesn’t have to be *that* complicated. There are also situations where you put too much weight or pressure into something and sort of sabotage it.

Professionally I would love to get promoted and am actively trying to do so. Nothing happens overnight but I’ve been in this industry since early 2012 and many director roles want 10 years experience. If this were to happen I’d see a big bump in salary. There are also other opportunities I’m keeping my eyes out for. A few have approached me on LinkedIn but for companies I thought were in a delcining industry like Real Estate, or a startup. To me startup = high risk, especially if their funding gets cut or is on shaky ground to begin with.

Put my best foot forward and if it happens great, if not I’m not going to lose sleep over it. I have exceeded the aspirations I had in 2008 when I finished grad school. Back then I wanted a job that would pay me $50k/year, adjusted for inflation that’s $70k. I’ve been well above that for over half a decade now.

Completely unrelated, I’m not sure if you saw the buzz from Mr. Money Mustache. He bought a Tesla Model Y whch is controversial because people see him as the frugal guy who spends money on nothing. See his post ‘Frugal Man Buys $52,000 Car – Why??‘. I kind of can relate to him having bought a new car last year when I had a paid off car that didn’t have any major mechanical issues. However in my case it was more a timing thing. Value of old car decreasing rapidly, interest rates rising, and wanting something a bit better on gas. What I owe on the car today is under 6% of my total net worth.

I’m a grown man now, registered this wordpress as a .com, so debtfreealpha.com instead of debtfreealpha.wordpress.com. Time to walk the dog, hit up the gym and seize the day.

Technically morbidly obese but I’m still up and kicking.