the march 2024 list
a month filled with career highs, my highest reselling income, family-oriented gratitudes, my in-depth analysis of barbie (2023), and 1 non-essential spend
March usually feels hopeful and romantic, at least most of the time. When I was a student, my spring breaks would usually land in mid-March, which was what made it the month more restful and short than the first two. I’ve been feeling wildly inspired by a lot of people, not particularly specific creators or well-known public figures, but rather people I see when I’m out and about, people in my life, and honestly, myself. If I were to read this about myself a couple years ago, I’d scrunch my eyebrows together in a distasteful way (can you feel the insecurity through the screen?). I viewed other people’s outward confidence as overly bragging, when the truth was, I lacked confidence on my own and wished to have what these people had. Writing these posts not only allow you, my dear reader, to get a more holistic glimpse into my life, but they also encourage me to be more gentle with my mistakes while acknowledging that my achievements are mine, and not because I just got lucky (certain circumstances are due to luck, and privilege attributes to how some parts of my life are the way that they are, but there are many things I’ve achieved that are isolated from these situations). With that being said, cheers to closing out the first quarter of 2024.
Here are the previous month’s editions of the monthly list installments in case you missed them:
Previously named “non-consumer things”. A list of items, feelings, or experiences that bring me joy without having to contribute to the worsening of the environment or my wallet.
✮⋆˙ Sticking memorabilia on the wall using packing/washi tape. I love unique art prints; however, I do not like the mass manufactured nature of them. Even if I were to find one on Etsy, there probably is someone in else out there who purchased the same exact art print as me and has it on their wall. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but with art specifically, I prefer the pieces to be unique in that only I own it. So far, I have two of Bumble Beans’ Studio Ghilbi inspired paintings gifted to me for my birthday last year, a caricature of myself drawn by an artist at my high school graduation night, and a SpyxFamily folder that Bumble Beans found at a local convenience store in Japan (this one isn’t particularly unique, but it’s unique enough for me). More importantly, I don’t have to 1) purchase a frame for the painting, 2) use nails to enforce the frame onto the wall, and 3) deal with a bunch of holes in the wall if I wanted to move the artwork around.
✮⋆˙ Driving to my parent’s home every weekend. The truth is, I never really had a healthy relationship with my parents growing up. Helicopter parenting caused me to fall into a terrible depression in high school, which triggered an eating disorder and suicidal ideation. I blamed a lot of shortcomings on them, and as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that while they were at fault for 95% of what happened during my childhood, they were still trying their best, even if their best hurt me very deeply. After years and years of therapy (with the right therapist, I might add), my relationship has significantly improved and I’ve learned to healthily and respectfully set boundaries with them. This has made me so much easier to re-learn how to actually be their daughter without feeling the need to rebel or lie every five minutes (it got to the point where I started lying about the most innocuous things, such as whether I went to the grocery store or not). This is not to say that all broken parent/child relationships can be addressed in therapy, because some are simply broken beyond repair. I’m grateful it didn’t get to that point of severity with my parents, and I’m now able to spend quality time with them without getting into frequent nasty arguments (it still happens from time to time).
✮⋆˙ Spontaneous flea market visits. To clarify, I am not particulary a flea market type of person, in the way that I don’t ever think about going to one unless someone were to invite me to one. All my friends weren’t interested in these types of craft/thrift markets, but after meeting Bumble Beans, I felt like the world of thrifting and secondhand shopping, successfully I might add, opened up to me. This month, I visited two (!) flea markets. Both didn’t require an entry free (thankfully). I didn’t find anything that stood out to me, but even if I did, I know I would refrain from purchasing because I’ve been feeling quite meh about all the non-essential purchases I’ve made this year. I already love food festivals and farmers markets, so it is about time I start thinking about exploring different flea markets in the area!
✮⋆˙ Window shopping at Abbot Kinney. I know I’m trying to cut down on non-essential expenses and going window shopping might not sound conducive to this goal. However, for those who are new to Los Angeles, Abbot Kinney is a street in Venice, filled with unique boutiques, pop-up shops, restaurants, smoothie cafes, craft stores, jewelry shops, and more! I love spending an entire day there because it’s right by the beach. I never feel compelled to buy any physical items from these stores because frankly, they’re too expensive and I haven’t shopped without a plan in a very long time. I prefer online shopping, then identifying the item I want to try on in store, going into the store to try it on, and then figuring out whether I should buy it or not. Not the other way around. I was able to try on some Everlane jeans (didn’t work), test out the Cuyana Easy Tote (on my wishlist even though I am anti-tote, but this one is so light!), lounge in the beautiful patio area of the Our Place store, grab a bag of vegan donuts from Blue Star (they have the best vegan donuts of all time, speaking from a vegan donut connoisseur), and pick up a iced oat milk vanilla latte from Menotti’s Coffee Shop. Abbot Kinney is an experience, and I always love spending the day here with Bumble Beans. Plus, maybe I’m just lucky but I’m always able to find free parking!
✮⋆˙ Movie night with Papa Beans. I don’t usually have the time or energy to watch a movie with my dad whenever I come back home to visit nowadays. I was able to watch Top Gun Maverick with both my parents this month — my mom rarely watches with us because she is a clean-o-holic. That woman is always doing something, whether it be repotting her plants or scrubbing the floors. Watching Top Gun was so much fun, because when I lived at home after I graduated in 2022, I would routinely eat dinner with my dad and watch a show or movie. We went through all seasons of Suits, some seasons of Great British Baking Show, all seasons of Cobra Kai… and a couple more. I felt the most guilty about leaving behind this routine after moving into my new apartment with Mr. Beans because I know my dad always looks forward to our evening movie watching routine.
✮⋆˙ Small gifts for Mama Beans. One of the home furnishing pieces I slightly regret was from Oraclay. I purchased 4 ceramics — 2 animal mugs and 2 mushroom planters. The ceramics themselves are perfect and beyond adorable. However, I found myself really struggling to figure out where to put them and what to put in them, since I didn’t want to actually use the mugs for drinking (I get nervous about the small details chipping off if I wash them by hand or place them in the dishwasher). I brought one of the mushroom planters home for my plant-obsesed mom, and she acted like I blessed her with 10 grandchildren. She was so happy, and immediately planted a succulent in the planter. Let’s not tell her it cost me $40 each… she would get a heart attack.
✮⋆˙ Picking out surprise outfits and playing dress up. Yet another Bumble Beans adventure — are you surprised? The first time I did this was with my ex-best friend from second grade, and ever since then, no one has ever entertained the idea of picking out outfits for each other to try on. Bumble Beans and I went to our local Crossroads and had the best time. I ended up not purchasing anything, but it helped me figure out what I can and can’t pull off.
✮⋆˙ Using up gifts instead of keeping it as decoration. This is very niche… but I’m talking specifically about this Taylor Swift inspired soap that Bumble Beans got me for my birthday (last October). It’s been sitting as decoration this entire time, but I got to a point where I realized I wanted to actually use it, and that it’s quite absurd to use a soap bar as decor? Ever since I placed it in my bathroom, I started getting excited about washing my hands, because this soap smells so insanely good. Bumble Beans has the peach scented soap at her apartment and it actually smells like heaven. Bottom line is, I need to stop feeling guilty about using up pretty objects and actually use the pretty objects for what they’re meant to be used for.
✮⋆˙ Revamped my Notion dashboard, again. After coming across these bears (thank you, Winie, for identifying them — they’re called kocobear), I needed to change everything on my dashboard and decorate my pages with these bears. I’ll let the screenshots do the talking:
✮⋆˙ The Oscars 2024. I guess you can say I’m in my cinephile era (cringe), and I’ve been trying to watch a movie per night. As you can tell from my Letterboxd, I kind of failed and only watched 14 movies this month (which is still a lot). I’ve also been trying to watch more of Oscars nominated films, so this month, it was Barbie and Top Gun Maverick. I started Dune, but wasn’t in the proper mindset to finish it. But back to the Oscars, here were some of my absolute favorite moments:
A detailed overview of my income sources, mandatory expenses, non-essential expenses, and savings/investments.
net worth
My current net worth is $114,188 — this increased by +$5,237 since last month.
income
My 9-5 is relatively consistent every month, so I won’t go too much into that. I sold quite a number of things on Ebay/Marketplace this month!!! Total reselling income is $565.67, which is my highest ever. Also, the tax return really bulked up my income and most of it went to my Roth IRA.
essential expenses
I spent $466 less than last month, which is always a great thing. I may have cheated a little since I used the cash from a Facebook Marketplace sale on groceries, hence the unrealistically low spending in that category. I also spent 70% of my social budget on a full-day hangout with Bumble Beans, and while I don’t particularly regret it since I was within budget this month, I wish I ate lunch at home instead of eating out twice + getting two lattes that day. I also added a new budget category called “caffeine (focus)”. I used to categorize my coffee for work/studying as cushion, but after some reflection, I realized that these purchases are actually pretty darn essential and contributes greatly to how productive I am in a day. Any caffeine purchases made for social purposes are categorized under social.
non-essential expenses
Cushion ($0) — First month this year where my cushion spending is $0!
Low Buy ($201.68) — However, I was supposed to do a no spend for my low-buy, and my ear piercing got categorized (by popular vote from Instagram stories) as a non-essential. I didn’t plan for this, but I also should have been more thoughtful with this appointment and scheduled it around May, when my purchase volume trajectory is back on track. Also, I thought I wouldn’t have to spend over $100 on this, but holy shit, the gold studs I chose (the cheapest option, I might add), were $80 each.
Travel ($379.98) — I’ve never been able to properly visualize sinking funds on any other budgeting app until I gave YNAB another try and wow, I can easily visualize how much money I spend in a sinking fund as well as how much is funded within this category. Truly superior. This expense was a flight ticket for Boston in the summer time (excited to finally visit again as the last time I was there was when I graduated with my MPH).
savings/investments
Savings/Investments ($2,164.53) — Any “side hustle” money directly goes to my Roth IRA. This was my highest contributing month, and I’m on track to maxing this out before the end of this year. However, I do want to try to max it out earlier if possible. I’m 34% of the way through!
Pre-Tax Investments ($2432.60) — This is not part of the Income total; therefore, I haven’t assigned a percentage next to the total amount.
401K Match ($453.64). My employer gives me a 8% match.
401K Contributions ($396.92). This is the amount I contribute.
403B Contributions ($1582.04). I’ve assigned 30% of my pre-tax paychecks to be allocated to this.
A list of all my highlights (the good things) and my lowlights (the not so good things) that happened this month.
highlights
✮⋆˙ Career. 1) In early March, I got added as 5th author to a new paper, and all I need to do is send feedback/suggestions. Later in March, it got submitted!! The first author of this paper is super productive so he’s way more on top of his shit than I am. 2) A paper that was submitted some time last year is “presently being given full consideration for publication”. 3) A revise and resubmit has been submitted, and the manuscript is now being considered for “possible publication”. 4) Revised my CV and deleted many many experiences that I felt weren’t significantly contributing to my public health or research knowledge.
✮⋆˙ Personal. 1) Hung out with my old friends from AmeriCorps. 2) Parents gifted me this lovely 24K gold chubby heart pendant that my mom put onto a chain she already owned—she haggled with the cutest old Asian grandpa from $210 to $190 (go Mama Beans!). 3) Moved my desk out of my bedroom into the living room because I was getting quite glum with the lack of sunlight. This was instantly transformative, because I felt my mood lift and my headache go away. Best decision I’ve made this month. 4) Studied with my roommate from undergrad and her fiance (and Mr. Beans) at the medical school her fiance is a student at (the same uni I work at). We’re now making this a weekly thing!
✮⋆˙ Finances. 1) I helped Mr. Beans sell his piano for $310 and his audio interface for $122. 2) Sold my non-returnable customized Not Perfect Linen Dress for half of what I paid (truthfully, I didn’t even expect it to sell, so this is a win!). 3) Crazy month for re-selling items ($565!!).
lowlights
✮⋆˙ Personal. 1) Felt an overwhelming dread of the idea of seeing my parents again. This might sound contradictory since I brought up wonderful memories of my parents earlier in this post, but I do treat these posts like my diary, and I update it every other day (or whenever I feel the need to). On this very day (specifically March 19th), I’m feeling a bit annoyed with them after reflecting back on all the nasty comments they made about my relationship with Mr. Beans and the fact that now I’m not “with” him, my mom feels like she has the freedom to say whatever she wants. It’s quite frustrating (not me literally writing a journal entry about this right now lol) and it’s making me not want to visit them as regularly as I have been, on a weekly basis. 2) I keep getting headaches whenever I work from home (perhaps it’s the lack of coffee since I only get it when I work in-office).
✮⋆˙ Finances. 1) You’ll see this later on in the past re: my Intentional Buy, but the ear piercings have been voted on and categorized as an non-essential (as it should, but I didn’t plan for this ahead of time). Therefore, my goal of making 0 non-essential purchases this month failed.
All the books, articles, movies, shows, and songs I read/watched/listened to this month.
articles
I came across this Reddit post, which led me to
‘s 2011 blog post on “Stuff Science”. What an incredible read, first of all. I loved Marie Kondo’s books when I read them a couple years ago, but Venkatesh describes this concept of keeping items that are smart in a more pragmatic way that is change-resistant, at least in my opinion. Here are a couple quotes from the article I wanted to save for future use:Stuff is multi-dimensional. Your stuff embodies your cultural defaults and unconscious and conscious decisions about a lot of things. Utility, convenience, ideology, personality, marital compromises, class affiliations, beliefs about how things can and should be done, rituals, dietary preferences — everything is embodied in your stuff.
I have given up the idea that you can make up purely abstract beliefs that tell you how to deal with stuff. Instead, I believe you have to think about individual lifestyle elements down to things like knives and shoes. You have to put more thinking into every act of ownership. This thinking doesn’t just add value inside your head. It adds value outside your head, to the stuff itself. Your stuff gets smarter. More information — the output of thinking — gets embodied by it. Your bits-to-atoms ratio increases. Some people like to think of this as conscious living, but that’s unnecessarily mystical for me. I prefer to think of it as smart stuff. If you learn to peel vegetables with a knife and eliminate a separate peeler, your knife got smarter. It isn’t the quantity of stuff in your life that matters. What matters is how smart the stuff is and whether it is smart in service of your needs.
When you don’t govern your stuff, your stuff governs you. There are two variants of this, bad and worse. When your stuff is merely dumb, your life merely gets dumb and random. When your stuff is actually smart in the service of the goals of others, your life gets worse than random. It gets toxic, and predatory forces squeeze all value out of it. The bad news is that thinking hard to turn dumb or other-smart stuff into smart-for-you stuff takes time and multiple stuff-shocks. It is an iterative process. With each shock, your stuff gets smarter.
film/shows
One Day // ✮✮✮✮✮.
If you have a weakness for brutally realistic, heartbreaking, and emotionally frustrating plotlines, this show is for you. This show reminded me of Normal People, and I’m sure if you love Sally Rooney or Emily Henry, you’ll be as addicted to this show as I was.
one day (2024) This video sucked me in, but truthfully, any reel referencing Taylor Swift is my weakness. Tolerate It might be one of my top five heartbreaking Taylor songs, and I literally had this line saved in my lyrics that live in my head rent-free Apple Note.
Upgraded (dir. Carlson Young) // ✮✮. Camila Mendes is one of my female crushes, so that’s how the extra star snuck into my rating. Without it, this movie is just a very predictable (with an absurdly random plot twist) rags to riches Cinderella-esque story.
Top Gun: Maverick (dir. Joseph Kosinski) // ✮✮✮✮✮. This movie had me speechless. Never in a million years would I find myself so captivated by a story based on fighter jets, but wow. Just wow. Mr. Beans loves this movie, so he was really excited I finally took the time to watch it.
top gun maverick (2022) Always Be My Maybe (dir. Nahnatchka Khan) // ✮. Everything about this movie was wrong. Read my Letterboxd review (hyperlinked on movie title) to read why.
Murder Mystery (dir. Kyle Newacheck) // ✮✮✮✮. I understand why this movie has such terrible ratings, but it was hilarious. I also love Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston together.
No Hard Feelings (dir. Gene Stupnitsky) // ✮✮✮. I really thought I was going to hate this, but I was quite surprised.
Murder Mystery 2 (dir. Jeremy Garelick) // ✮✮. They should’ve kept the director from the first movie because this one flopped so hard for me. Overly predictable and boring.
Damsel (dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) // ✮✮. God, I love Millie Bobby Brown but they should’ve brought in people from Stranger Things to make this movie better. I can’t get over the fact that the dragon spoke the way that he/she/it spoke (when you watch the movie, you’ll get what I mean).
Barbie (dir. Greta Gerwig) // ✮✮✮✮.
I posted a story about my thoughts on Barbie, and I received quite a number of messages asking for further clarification. Before I start, I’d like to clarify that this is my perception of the movie, and if I objectively understood this incorrectly, then feel free to correct me! If you subjectively disagree, I’d love to chat about it more in the comments. But I do ask that you be nice, since I’m not here to bash on Greta or any of the actors — I think the movie in itself was so fun to watch and the cast was spectacular.
barbie (2023) The “gendered political narrative” I mentioned that story alluded to the idea that all the Barbies at the beginning of the movie had the highest degree of agency, at least compared to the Kens. They were able to be authors, presidents, doctors — people who made a difference in the world. The Kens appeared to simply be arm candy for their Barbies, and were little robotic machines that didn’t have a purpose. After going to the “Real World” and Ken having discovered what patriarchy means, “Barbie World” turned into “Ken’s World”. All the events leading up to this were primarily for the plot, and I appreciated the context until the Barbies began to plan their way back into their original position of power. This was when everything fell apart for me, plot and purpose-wise.
If Greta were to shine a light on the issue of gender inequalities and inequities existing in the Real World, it felt like Barbies “reclaiming” their power by sneaking in their vote while Kens were fighting sends a message that for women to have agency, they should learn to be devious and go behind men’s backs. But there was no conversation on power in the perspective of knowledge, which I personally believe in the “Real World”, much of authority and placement of power is dictated by education, which precedes income. In addition, there was no discourse on why it’s problematic for men to be in positions of power, or truthfully, anyone to have much greater positions of power than others based on gender. At the end of the movie, Kens were willing to be janitors or work for Barbies — elimination of a patriarchial society does not mean to condemn the opposing side to a position that has no power. And while you might say that Kens voicing their opinion to want to work might be an act of having power, it felt like the movie was showcasing an unrealistic women-should-rule-the-world narrative instead of exploring the complexities and the problems that the “Real World” has with men who are in power and what happens to women when they challenge men’s decisions. If the movie was meant to convey a simplified message of, “Okay, women are in power. Oh, men can now have power? Nope, women need to fight back to regain their power again”, then sure — the movie did its job. But if the movie’s intention was to display how it’s not that easy for two groups to find balance, because by nature, humans tend to crave, seek, and act on their innate needs of dominance, then that’s a version of Barbie I’d like to watch…. but wasn’t explored at all in this movie. In terms of the human experience monologue, something I really enjoyed in this movie and truthfully, am glad that this wasn’t the focus of it all, I loved the ending scene where Stereotypical Barbie wanted to feel the human experience, and that negative emotions didn’t prevent her from embracing this form of being. This might be attributed to the way I grew up and how my parents got angry whenever I showed negative emotion (sadness, most of the time), I actually do find solace in sitting in the sadness and having the opportunity to learn and thoroughly embrace what happens to me, physically and mentally, whenever I face challenges. The scene where Barbie meets with Ruth Handler (with “What Was I Made For?” in the background) absolutely destroyed me. This scene was so beautifully shot — the tears, the visualizations of human emotion, and the understanding that in order to have a full life, it is a blessing to experience what your body is capable of experiencing — because there are some people out there who aren’t able to love, cry, shout, or feel butterflies in their stomach due to nervousness — and to be able to feel all of those things and even more, occasionally unexplainable feelings that you just need to sit down and journal or see a therapist to know what’s happening, is something that no one could ever take away from you, and an experience so uniquely yours — how beautiful is it to be a human and feel every single feeling to your heart’s content?
Fair Play (dir. Chloe Domont) // ✮✮✮. This is my first Phoebe Dynevor outside of Bridgerton, and boy oh boy did this movie anger me. There’s an abundance of toxic masculinity in this movie, so much to the point where I felt like I was getting triggered left and right (because I have dated men who have treated me in a similar way Luke, the main male character, treated Emily (Phoebe)).
Plus One (dir. Jeff Chan, Andrew Rhymer) // ✮✮✮✮✮. I was quite speechless after watching the movie. I recently realized I’m finding myself growing into this genre of film that depicts human experience in the most uncomfortable of ways — and uncomfortable in the sense of painful relatability that borders secondhand embarassment rather than disturbing. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Brianne Howey in this movie! I am quite obsessed with her character as Georgia in Ginny and Georgia. So weird to see her without her chippy southern drawl.
plus one (2019) Her (dir. Spike Jonze) // ✮✮✮. Thought I would enjoy this movie more than I actually did, but Scarlett Johansson’s voice is so insanely soothing, I could listen to her narrate my life.
Fool Me Once (dir. David Moore, Nimer Rashed) // ✮✮✮✮. This is my second “limited series show” of the month, and maybe third of this year? I’m a huuuuge fan of this style of film/book adaptation! I think it does an incredible job at capturing what was written in the book (albeit, I never read this book but I can imagine it to be filled with breadcrumbs throughout), at least much better than what a 1.5-2 hour movie could ever do. The ending was mind! blowing!
Queenpins (dir. Aron Gaudet, Gita Pullapilly) // ✮✮✮. Oh, this movie was silly. So weird that this was inspired by a real life story. Usually, stories like these tend to be adapted into documentary-like films, or something more serious (like Griselda, which I really need to get to finishing up). Kristen Bell always kills it in every role, but don’t talk to me about the ending, because what????
music/podcasts
eternal sunshine (slightly deluxe) by Ariana Grande
I’m Just Ken by Ryan Gosling (the movie and the Oscar’s edition)
BLUE LIPS by ScHoolboy Q
light academia playlist by
The Minimalists Podcast by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus
guts (spilled) by Olivia Rodrigo
I posted my rules three months ago, so I won’t be copying and pasting them onto this newsletter to avoid redundancy. However, this is a summary of my guidelines:
my purchases
These are all the purchases made this year. I will be including items sold as part of this list, especially if I incur a net loss after selling. If I sell at purchase price (or by miracle, even higher), they will not be a part of this list. An asterisk (*) indicates that the item was purchased in the month that this newsletter is referring to (in this case, March).
MD Paper A4 Journal ($25)
Green floral washi tape ($5)
Custom font ($4.14)
Sézane Betty Cardigan ($170)
Sézane Leontine Cardigan ($125)
Sézane Auguste Jacket ($235)
Everlane The Dream Pant in Tiger’s Eye ($88)
Not Perfect Linen Puglia Straight Cut Linen Pants ($103.50)
Not Perfect Linen Short Sleeve Midi Mama Linen Dress ($111.60, Sold $57.56, Net Loss $54.04)
Not Perfect Linen Doolin High-Waisted Linen Pants ($110.70)
Everlane The Supima Micro-Rib Crew in Black ($40)
Everlane The Supima Micro-Rib Crew in Navy ($40)
Hestia Magic Candle Warmer ($64.96)
Ear piercing + 14K gold star studs* ($201.68)
brief reflection
I was thinking more deeply about my intentional buy this month, because in the past two months, it felt like I was letting go of all self-control, and allowing myself to do whatever I wanted without any regard to the financial or emotional consequences. I’m not any happier now that I physically own of 13 items. Truth to be told, I could have cut out at least half of these items, and still maintained (or even improved) my quality of life. I already know that there is a problem if my quality of life is better before than after (when the pre-survey indicates better outcomes than the post-survey — my researchers, where ya at?).
The zipper on my Jansport backpack also broke this month, and while my mind immediately went to, “How can I replace this?”, I forced myself to wait it out. My backpack is still usable — only one zipper is broken, so I just have to use the other zipper to close it completely. While it is a hassle, it doesn’t make my backpack worthy of being discarded. I know that Jansport has a great warranty policy, but I’m not sure what I would use in the meantime while I wait for them to repair my item (on the website, they said the turnaround is 4 weeks).
Instagram, where I’m the most active and post stories every day about my daily life, every non-essential purchase I make, my Goodreads/Letterboxd reviews, my progress with my academic papers goal, and more!
I use Wealthfront for my high yield savings account, and if you use my link, we both get 0.50% added to their current APY for the first three months! The base APY at this moment is a whopping 5.00%.
All my Notion templates can be found and purchased here. Follower favorites are the Capsule Wardrobe Tracker and Digital Goal Setting Toolkit.
Here’s my Bento for all my links consolidated into one webpage!
See you next week,
