Red Cross of Wisconsin CEO keeps focus on community
The Milwaukee Business Journal is accepting nominations for its C-Suite Stars and Executive of the Year awards, which recognize the work of corporate leaders in a range of functions.
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A Week In Minneapolis On A $187,000 Joint Income
Welcome to Money Diaries where we are tackling the ever-present taboo that is money. We're asking real people how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we're tracking every last dollar. Today: a research and development engineer who has a $187,000 joint income and who spends some of her money this week on home furniture. Occupation: Research and development engineer Industry: Medical device Age: 26 Location: Minneapolis, MN Salary: $95,000 Joint Income/Financial Setup: My husband C. and I share finances. Our household income is $187,000. Assets: 401(k): ~$39,000; C.'s 401(k) and Roth IRA: ~$70,000; savings accounts: ~$56,000; investments: ~$20,000; home equity: ~$96,000. Debt: $364,000 (mortgage). Paycheck Amount (Biweekly): $4,399 Pronouns: She/her Monthly Expenses Housing Costs: $3,213 Loan Payments: We have no formal loans other than the home mortgage. I owe my parents ~$7,000 for part of my education. Gym Membership: $25 Netflix: $9 Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it? I was a good student in high school so I kind of naturally ended up in honors classes and AP classes. Once I was in that group I was never presented with options other than college. In hindsight I think I should have considered trade schools, but I didn't really know that was an option at the time. When the time came my parents and I agreed to split all college costs 50/50. I had some money saved from working in high school and graduation gifts so that's how I paid my half at first. When I ran out of money my parents decided to give me an interest-free loan where they would give me money as I needed and continuously tally it up. I've paid bits off over the last few years but they insist they don't want us to pay them back until we're 'established in life'. Now that we've bought our house, I think it might be time to pay them back. Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s) educate you about finances? My dad worked in banking, so he told my brother and I bad money management things he'd seen so that we would know what not to do. He was very good about setting us up for success later in life like getting us credit cards/loans that he managed so we could start off with good credit scores. What was your first job and why did you get it? My first job was babysitting for spending money. Did you worry about money growing up? I was occasionally (incorrectly) worried about money just because my parents kind of made a big deal over spending any money. I know now that it was never a concern, it was just something they commented on a lot. I think they were trying to show us real world money management but it came off a different way than I think they intended to. Do you worry about money now? My husband and I are fortunate enough to have pretty stable jobs and a good emergency fund but I still worry about money because I'm generally a worrier. At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net? I would say I wasn't financially responsible for myself until I graduated college. I was still paying my own bills and whatnot in college but it wasn't until I moved into my first apartment by myself that I really felt like I was on my own. If anything catastrophic were to happen I'm sure my parents or my husband's parents would help financially. Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain. My grandparents gave each of their grandchildren their inheritance ($10,000) ahead of their passing because they knew that all of them were in a spot in their life where they could really use it. We're very grateful and used the money toward our house down payment. Day One: Monday 7:30 a.m. — Ugh, I am not a morning person. Since I showered last night, I pretty much just get dressed and put on a quick slick of mascara. I make an espresso but spill it all over the floor while pouring it into a to-go mug. I don't make another because I want to get to the office before the rain starts. I guess no caffeine for me today. 8:30 a.m. — Even without making a new espresso, I get to work just as the rain starts POURING. I get soaked on the walk in. I eat the overnight oats I prepped last night while I review any new emails. 12 p.m. — I meal prep weekly, so I eat lunch at the office. This week I'm having dumpling soup with Nasoya tofu dumplings. It's good enough to eat this week but I'm definitely not buying these dumplings again. I find a piece of chocolate in my bag to reward myself for eating my lunch and not going out. Back to work! 3 p.m. — I eat some pineapple and strawberries I brought for a snack. I recently did a pretty massive health overhaul where I lost 70lbs, so I try to only eat snacks when I'm actually hungry. Even then I try to start with fruit and eat something more substantial only if the fruit doesn't do the trick. My husband C. likes a 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. dinner, so this also makes sure I'm hungry around the same time. 5 p.m. — We're having a home energy assessment done to see if our new (to us) home is energy efficient. C. was there to let them in but I'm late. The findings are surprisingly good!! I learn we don't need new windows after all (and you really only need to replace windows if they're actually broken). We should plan that we'll need a new water heater soon (the energy efficient one they recommend is $3,000) and to get more insulation in the attic (they quote this at $7,500). We'll have to weigh this against the other projects we want to do. The city pays for half of the $100 visit and C. swipes his card for the other half. $50 6 p.m. — Once the energy people leave we make dinner. Dinner is a pasta salad with ranch dressing made from blended cottage cheese, a little mayo, and buttermilk. After dinner, I decide I need whipped cream for the pound cake my in-laws left with us when they came over yesterday. We run to the grocery store to buy it. $6.99 7 p.m. — We eat cake when we get home. A big storm was supposed to roll through so we don't have any plans for tonight. We end up not even getting rain so we could have gone for a walk or something. I prep some overnight oats for breakfast tomorrow and then lay around the house all night. Daily Total: $56.99 Day Two: Tuesday 7:30 a.m. — Wake up, shower, get ready, make espresso. I try to do as little as possible in the mornings before work. I have to feed our youngest cat every morning since we haven't gotten an automatic feeder for her yet. She also gets pumpkin to help with digestive issues and that's not the easiest to manage with an automatic feeder. I feed her on my way out the door. 12 p.m. — Lunch is meal-prepped soup. My coworker gives me crap for eating soup not in the winter. I more or less work through lunch so I can go home earlier. Later in the afternoon I have a snack of kiwi and blackberries at my desk. 5:30 p.m. — Dinner is leftover burger bowls from Sunday. We always cook meals so that there is at least one day of leftovers but almost never eat the same thing two days in a row. This saves on time and ingredients to not cook something new every day. On days we don't cook, we try to go to the gym. I have a black card membership at Planet Fitness solely because you can bring a free guest every time. This makes it $5 a month cheaper for us both to go to the gym and also saves us approximately $100 on yearly fees. We spend about an hour at the gym before going home to take a shower. 8 p.m. — I learn there's an app version of a game I loved as a kid. I pay for the unlimited play using Google Opinion Rewards (I probably wouldn't have bought it otherwise). I play until I crawl into bed and go to sleep. $4.99 Daily Total: $4.99 Day Three: Wednesday 7:40 a.m. — I lay in bed a few extra minutes (because I showered last night) before remembering it is bagel day at the office and I need to be there early for the best selection. I end up being early but the bagels are late. I snag an everything bagel when they arrive. 12 p.m. — I run out to the grocery store to get my report some cookies for their workiversary ($5.99). I also grab extra toasty Cheez-Its because they're on sale ($3.49). I eat my meal prep when I get back to the office. $9.48 3 p.m. — I check my phone while I eat Cheez-Its and fruit from home. C. messages that he ran to Target during his lunch to get a new pair of shoes since his had a hole in the sole. $24.99 5 p.m. — I pull in the driveway to see the driveway company is here. We're pricing out how much a new driveway will cost, but I forgot they were coming today. Luckily C. is way more on top of it than I am. The driveway quote is $8,000. This was the last big quote we needed, so now we need to decide if we're going to do more insulation in the attic, a new driveway, or repair our chimney. They all cost about the same but we really only want to do one big project per year. The chimney seems the most time sensitive (bricks are in danger of falling on our cars in the driveway), so I'm thinking that's going to win this year. 6 p.m. — I make dinner — a farro, cauliflower, and white bean casserole with a parmesan cheese sauce and garlic bread crumbs. I'm surprised at how good it is. After dinner we go for a walk around the neighborhood. C. tells me he picked up his meds today. After our walk, I make a breakfast apple cake with the apples that are spoiling. I eat a mini ice cream sandwich while it's in the oven, then scroll Instagram until bed. $17.88 Daily Total: $52.35 Day Four: Thursday 7:30 a.m. — Up, shower, dressed. I pack up apple cake for breakfast and my soup meal prep. Every Thursday is 'Coffee Day', so I pre-order a coffee for pickup from Caribou. We have an espresso machine, so Caribou isn't necessarily an upgrade, but it's nice to take a day off from making it. I end up a little late to work due to the coffee detour. My office has pretty flexible working hours so late is subjective, but I do try to get to work at 8:30 a.m. $4.61 12 p.m. — Lunchtime! I discover my soup is dumped out in the bottom of my lunchbox. I think the lunchbox might be ruined but clean it and set it outside to dry anyway. There's enough soup to still call a meal so I eat it with some Cheez-Its. 2 p.m. — C. reminds me that our first regular mortgage payment is due today. I'm very lucky he's so good at dates and timelines. He pays the mortgage plus the pre-agreed upon extra principal payment of $1,000. $1,000 5:30 p.m. — Home for dinner. Dinner is pasta salad from Tuesday but I add more dressing and it's just as good as it was on Tuesday. It's a leftover day, so we go to the gym after dinner. On the way home from the gym, C. fills my car with gas. After a shower I just hang with the cats for the rest of the night. $35.51 Daily Total: $1040.12 Day Five: Friday 7:30 a.m. — It's FRIDAY. Work has been exhausting and the weekend is supposed to be beautiful weather, so today can't be over soon enough. I get to the office to discover someone brought in doughnuts! I grab an old-fashioned one. I end up eating my packed breakfast (apple cake) around 10 a.m. because the doughnut didn't keep me full. 12 p.m. — I have a lunch meeting where work feeds us pizza. I would have rather not had free lunch if it meant I didn't have to sit through this two-and-a-half-hour meeting. 2:30 p.m. — I take a brain break and scroll Facebook Marketplace. I've been spending a ton of time browsing Marketplace because I'm too cheap to buy new stuff for our house and I'm known for being pretty picky. In terms of furniture we still need a bookshelf, a big area rug, two coffee tables, six dining chairs, a headboard, and at least two nightstands. I find a rug that's close to C.'s work and arrange for him to pick it up. He venmos the seller when he gets there. $80 5 p.m. — It's the weekend, baby! C. helps me unroll the new rug under one of the beds. I vacuum the rug but decide it's not the day to steam clean it. After dinner (leftover casserole), we chat about what we can do tonight. Neither of us are big drinkers but it feels like there are very few non-alcohol things to do on Friday evenings. We eventually choose to walk around the nearby mall. We get decaf coffee to drink while we mall walk. $6.50 8 p.m. — More Marketplace scrolling until I go to bed. I have lots of hobbies that I wish I were keeping up with more but I feel like furnishing this house and making it 'home' is my priority. Daily Total: $86.50 Day Six: Saturday 8 a.m. — I miss the days I could sleep until noon. At least this way is more productive. I lay in bed for a bit and look up different landscaping ideas until the promise of coffee lures me out of bed. C. and I chat about goals for today while we eat breakfast. We decide the first task is to clean up a grove of dying trees in the backyard. I never thought I would be excited to do yardwork but I've been looking forward to it all week. We make good progress cutting down dead trees and clearing out branches. 12 p.m. — We eat assorted leftovers for lunch. While we eat, I scroll Marketplace again and find a bookshelf. I ask the seller if I can pick it up in the evening (when the weather isn't so darn perfect!), but they don't want to hold it until then. We hop in the car to go get it ($125). On the way home, we stop at one of my coworker's houses to get some plants for our house. They're getting rid of the plants anyway so we are free labor to take them out and haul them away. We get a hydrangea, phlox, a rose bush, raspberry runners, and a white flower nobody remembers the name of. We grab fertilizer for the plants and soil acidifier for some blueberry plants we pre-ordered from a city plant sale that we're picking up next week ($13.52). $138.52 3:30 p.m. — We have a lot of plants to plant. We end up landscaping around one of our pine trees — complete with flowers, mulch, and lawn edging. We also plant the raspberries near the strawberries that were planted by the previous owner of our house. 5 p.m. — We finish cleaning up outside just in time for dinner. We're running low on groceries so I'm hodge podging a meal together. I end up making a green pea and quinoa salad with grilled barbecue tofu (grilled by the grill master, C.). It's surprisingly good and C. rates it an 8.5 (realistically his scale ends at 9 so I count this as a win). After dinner we both shower before putting the bookshelf back together. Part of the reason I was so excited about this bookshelf specifically was that it could be disassembled to transport. We only have compact cars so it's been hard to buy bigger things for our house. Once assembled we realize we're going to need to shim one side due to the slope of the floor by the wall. This means I can't fill it with the bins of books that are waiting and will have to leave those bins packed for a few more days. 7:30 p.m. — I snuggle with the cats and drink a non-alcoholic beer. I try to resolve to finish knitting the baby blanket I'm working on for a friend, but I end up scrolling Instagram. I eat some cereal for a snack and go to bed around 9:30 p.m. Daily Total: $138.52 Day Seven: Sunday 8:30 a.m. — I finally sleep in a little. I lay in bed scrolling for a few minutes while I wake up. After coffee and more apple cake, I get a little housework done. I vacuum while C. cleans out the refrigerator. 9:45 a.m. — We get an early start to our weekly shopping since we have a few extra places to go this week. We pick up my meds (copay) before going to Aldi. At Aldi we get beans, pepperoni, peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, pineapple, bread, six different forms of cheese, yogurt, sparkling water, flour, chips, and cleaning wipes ($71.94). We stop at Fresh Thyme next to get a few things that Aldi doesn't carry or that we don't like the Aldi version of. We get bananas, unsweetened soy milk, and arborio rice ($20.41). $92.35 11 a.m. — I'm getting hungry so I eat one of the bananas we just bought. Our final stop is Lowe's to pick up the shims for the shelf. $1.71 11:30 a.m. — We unpack the groceries and start prepping our meals for the week. I cut fruit while C. cuts vegetables, then we grill the rest of the tofu and eat that with the quinoa salad from last night for lunch. I shim the bookshelf after lunch. It's not perfect but it's certainly better! 1 p.m. — It's hot outside!! We need to finish digging out the space for our vegetable garden. We end up making it smaller than we planned so we can get out of the heat. We find a project in the shade redoing the grading on one side of the house and removing some very crumbly pavers. 3 p.m. — We take a snack break and eat the last of the dumplings from my lunches this week. We pan fry them and they're way better. After a quick snack we finish cleaning up the demo zone on the side of the house. Since there's no rain in the forecast, I realize it's optimal timing to spray the house with insecticide. I spray while C. plants part of the garden. I end up with insecticide on me so I go inside to shower. After I shower I start arranging books and decorations on the bookshelf. 5 p.m. — I start making a cheater paella for dinner. This was a smart meal idea on C.'s part because we already had so many of the ingredients. All we really had to buy for this meal was arborio rice. While the paella cooks, I finish putting items on the bookshelf. It looks so good! I finally feel like the living area is 'finished' with the shelf up. After dinner I wander around the house and take pictures of all our projects from this weekend before cuddling up on the couch with the cats. I think about working on the baby blanket again but end up just lounging until I go to bed. The Breakdown Conclusion 'Other than all the home purchases, this was a pretty normal spend week for us. I'm sure we'll have a few more weeks like this as we continue to buy stuff for the house, but I think we'll be back to our normal no-frills spending in a month or so.' Money Diaries are meant to reflect an individual's experience and do not necessarily reflect Refinery29's point of view. Refinery29 in no way encourages illegal activity or harmful behavior. The first step to getting your financial life in order is tracking what you spend — to try on your own, check out our guide to managing your money every day. For more Money Diaries, click here. We've updated our Money Diaries submission process: You can now submit your Money Diary via our online form or by sending us a bit of information about you and your financial situation to moneydiary@ We pay $150 for each published diary. Apologies but we're not able to reply to every email. Prior to submitting your Money Diary, please read and consider Refinery29's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Submission of your Money Diary does not guarantee publication by Refinery29. Should your Money Diary be selected for publication, Refinery29 may, in its sole discretion, elect to pay you a fee, subject to such further terms and conditions as Refinery29 may deem necessary. Money Diaries that are not published are not entitled to receive any payment. Refinery29 will not remove Money Diaries once published. By submitting your Money Diary to Refinery29, you agree to abide and be bound by the applicable Terms of Use and Privacy Policy linked above. All submissions need to be original to the author (i.e., no AI contributions).
