Dear reader,
It is a bit gloomy and rainy today in the north, yesterday was sunny. The weather seems to change so often. The wood stove is back in session and June lives in front of its sweet glow. I feel happy working on school work, reading, and eating meals I got from a discount code for Factor before I deactivated Instagram. The gunshots are loud across the street as Don and Terry find their deer for the season on this here opening day. Blessed be the food that wanders through the forest.
Today I am writing about money.
HOUSEKEEPING 🧹
Tomorrow Saturday November 16 in Landscapes, the writing group I facilitate, guest teacher
is bringing us a workshop at 12pm EST you don’t want to miss.Thread Dictionary: gather the words and their definitions binding your stories together🪡 In this workshop, we'll build a language for a world you are imagining into being.
Through a series of list making exercises and writing prompts, we'll identify the threads connecting the various themes we explore within our own creative ecosystems.
Brandi will share examples of how to use threads to support a larger body of work or interdisciplinary project like a newsletter, memoir, how-to zine, or book.
For the past week I have had the euphoric experience of when you study something and try to figure it out for years and it finally clicks.
This something is : The world of personal finance.
I have been knitting a lot lately, needing to use my hands as much as possible while I listen to a finance podcast or an audiobook. I find that my mood is better and I am more attuned to the world when I have a knitting project going, preferably one that doesn’t need a pattern so I can completely tune out while I knit one purl one.
I got a Kindle and discovered the amazing resource of Libby and Hoopla. I can’t believe it. Library books delivered right to my hands in an instant. I had no idea how pleasurable it would be to read with this lightweight object in my hands. I also got the free trial of Kindle Unlimited so I could eat up everything in my one month. I made sure to cancel it already so I wouldn’t accidentally be charged.
The last week I have been in what I might call a personal finance hyper focus portal. Consuming as much as I can, and in many examples its books I read years ago but wouldn’t click like I Will Teach You to Be Rich. I devoured Financial Feminist and have now turned to The Money with Katie show. It took everything in me not to buy her 2025 Wealth Planner spreadsheet, but I am on a spending ban through the end of the year. More on that later. Alas
has been helping me build out my own ultimate spreadsheet dashboard in google sheets and that has been great.On the business side of things I finally got a new LLC that doesn’t say Marlee Grace but says Cody Cook-Parrott. I will then open a proper business account which I have never done in twelve years of being self employed. I guess having a checking account that you name “Operating Expenses” doesn’t count to the IRS.
The biggest thing I did for myself that has perhaps completely changed my life was got an account with Betterment and signed up to make high yield savings accounts, a separate account for my taxes, and … wait for it … a SEP IRA.
Now let me be clear. I have multiple six figures of debt (this includes my mortgage, grad school loans, and seven years of back taxes) and I am currently behind with some payments for things. This brings me great shame and this shame has stopped me from doing the most important step I have ever done, until now!
MAKE THE CONTAINERS : A HOW TO
I teach this all the time in creative practice - in order to stick to our disciplines we need containers to put our work in. I shape all of this up for free in the Creative Ideation Portal if you haven’t downloaded it.