An Investment in Diet Coke (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir on Morning Rituals, Targeted Advertising, and Ninety-dollar Solutions

Setting: August 2026 — Somewhere between the drive-through and financial irresponsibility

I get a large McDonald’s Diet Coke every day. 

Every. Single. Day.

On workdays, I stop at the drive-through on my way in. On weekends, it’s one of the first things I do after I shower and get moving. At this point, it’s less of a beverage choice and more of a structural component of my life.

Sometimes I’m lying in bed at night, thirsty, already thinking about the Diet Coke I’m going to get the next morning.

This is probably not normal. But it is consistent.

A few months ago, I ordered a couple of drink coozies meant to keep cups or cans cold. They were fine. Or at least, fine in the way that something technically works but does not actually solve your problem.

My Diet Coke would stay colder for a little while, but if I was drinking slowly, which I often do, eventually the ice would melt and I’d be left with increasingly warm, increasingly watered-down soda. Some days it takes me three or four hours to finish one.

Clearly, something had to be done.

Then Facebook showed me an ad for Frost Buddy. This was not just another insulated tumbler. This thing was specifically designed so you could slide a large McDonald’s drink directly into it.

Finally, targeted advertising had stopped trying to sell me clothes and started addressing my actual problems!

I clicked.

One was $45. That felt a little ridiculous. Then I saw that shipping was free if I added something else.

So naturally, instead of spending $45 on an insulated holder for my Diet Coke, I spent $90 on two insulated holders for my Diet Coke.

Financially, flawless.

They arrived, and I immediately put one to work. My McDonald’s cup slid right inside. Hours passed. I kept drinking. And drinking.

Four hours later, there was still ice in my cup.

I regret nothing.

This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.

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The Lives I Almost Lived

On possibility, uncertainty, and imagining what comes next

Lately, I have spent a surprising amount of time imagining lives I do not actually live.

I can turn almost anything into a life. Give me a house listing, a promising conversation, a job posting, a town I have never seriously considered, and my brain will begin furnishing it almost immediately.

I have a rich inner life. Once something feels possible, my brain starts filling in the rest.

House hunting made this especially easy.

I would walk through a front door and, within minutes, start assigning bedrooms. Caleb wanted the one with more outlets. Holden wanted whichever one he had decided was his within the first thirty seconds. We would notice a hill in the backyard and immediately picture sledding. I would look at the kitchen and wonder where everyone would drop their backpacks.

For twenty or thirty minutes, we lived there.

Then I would walk back out the front door and start doing the less romantic math. How much are the taxes? How far is the drive? Is there a bathroom upstairs? How old are the windows? Do I love this house enough to overlook the thing I already know will bother me every single day?

Sometimes the answer was yes for a little while. Sometimes I knew before we reached the car that it was no. Sometimes I loved a house and still decided not to pursue it.

Some things are easy to leave behind because they were never really yours. Others get close enough to make you rearrange the furniture in your head.

And not every almost ended because I decided it should. Sometimes the listing disappeared. Someone else’s offer was accepted. The taxes made the numbers impossible.

And just like that, a life I had quietly begun building in my head was gone.

It is strange to miss something that never actually happened.

But I do.

Not in some dramatic, devastated way. More like a small internal collapse. A tiny future gets folded up and put away.

House hunting made the pattern impossible to miss, but it was not the only place it showed up.

I have done the same thing with work. I have interviewed for jobs and tried to imagine myself walking into those buildings every morning. I have started jobs and learned what it feels like to become a slightly different version of myself somewhere no one knows the old one. I have even received rejection letters from jobs I had already stopped caring much about, little reminders that a future can disappear before you have fully decided how much you wanted it.

Relationships have worked this way too.

I do not mean that I meet someone for dinner and immediately invent an entire future together. But give me enough good pieces and my mind starts connecting them. A person is kind. Funny. Easy to talk to. There is chemistry. There are conversations that hint at something more.

And suddenly I can imagine the ordinary parts. A Saturday night. A long drive. A quiet evening. The way someone might fit into the life I already have.

Imagination does not always care about likelihood.

It cares about possibility.

And possibility can be generous. It gives you enough material to start filling in what is not there yet.

I have learned that I can have a genuinely good day with someone, laugh with them, feel close to them, and still drive home knowing I do not want the life that would come with continuing down that road.

That realization surprised me more than I expected.

A few years ago, I was not spending much time imagining possible futures at all. I was mostly trying to get through what was directly in front of me. Divorce. Money. Work. Parenting. The practical mess of rebuilding a life after the old version no longer existed.

Back then, the goal was mostly to get through the week.

Now I have enough room to think farther ahead. And with that room has come a different way of looking at possibility.

For a long time, when something appeared in front of me, I focused on whether it could work. Could I get the job? Could I afford the house? Could this relationship become something? Could I make the logistics fit?

I was so used to figuring out whether something was possible that I did not always stop to ask whether I actually wanted the life attached to it.

That is what has changed.

Now I ask different questions. Do I want this job? Do I want this house? Do I want this commute? Do I want this person in my life? Do I want this version of Tuesday morning?

That last one might matter more than all the others.

Because a life is not really the beautiful kitchen during a showing, or the polished job description, or the best version of someone across a dinner table.

A life is Tuesday morning.

It is finding somebody’s missing shoe before school. It is driving the same road until you stop thinking about the turns. It is knowing whether the kitchen has enough counter space when everyone is hungry at once. It is deciding who gets access to your evenings. It is figuring out whether the ordinary parts of a life feel good enough to keep living.

That is harder to imagine than the exciting parts.

It is also more useful.

I can make almost any possibility beautiful in my head. What I have gotten better at is looking past the version with perfect lighting and asking what happens after it becomes ordinary.

A house can be lovely and still not work. A job can sound impressive and still not be right. A person can be wonderful in plenty of ways and still not fit into the life I want.

Being able to picture something is not the same as wanting to live inside it.

Since I started writing this, one of those imagined lives has started becoming real.

There is a house now.

Not ours quite yet, but close enough that the boys have stopped talking about hypothetical bedrooms and started talking about their actual bedrooms. Close enough that I can picture the furniture, the routines, the drive home. Close enough that one of those ordinary Tuesday mornings no longer feels entirely imaginary.

Soon, the exciting part will give way to the ordinary one.

The drive will become familiar. Backpacks will land somewhere inconvenient. The boys will argue over something before school. I will stand in that kitchen on an unremarkable weekday morning, probably wondering where somebody put their shoes.

The life I once pictured during a showing will stop feeling like a possibility. It will just be our life.

And after all the lives I almost lived, I think that is what I understand differently now.

The life worth wanting is not simply the one I can imagine.

It is the one I still want when I picture Tuesday morning.

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The Debt Diaries (12): August 2026

💸 The Debt Diaries (12): August 2026

This month in money, mess, and progress... apparently paying off credit cards does not mean they can never come back.

August was supposed to have a fairly simple financial assignment. At the end of July, my savings was down $305 for the month, so I gave myself one goal for August: put the $305 back.

I did not do that. In fact, savings went down another $140. And, for the first time since I paid off my credit cards in February, I'm ending a month with a credit card balance again. I am not particularly thrilled to type that sentence.

But August wasn't entirely a financial step backward. Both of my installment loans decreased. My credit score held steady at 760. My total debt still went down overall. And on August 27, after months of searching, rejected offers, calculations, and wondering whether this was actually going to happen, my offer on a house was accepted.

So once again, the numbers are telling several different stories at the same time. And that's probably exactly why I'm writing them down.

💳 Debt Overview

Each monthly Debt Diaries update summarizes the previous month's financial progress using balances from the first day of the following month. For August, that means comparing my balances from August 1, 2026 with the balances I recorded on September 1, 2026.

There is also a third debt on the list this month. I paid off my credit cards completely in February, but during August, I used my ESL Visa a couple of times rather than transferring additional money out of savings. I ended the month with a $199.01 balance.

The progress bars below represent the percentage of each installment loan that has been repaid based on the original amount borrowed. The Visa is revolving credit, so it does not have a progress bar.

NYS Retirement Loan

Original Amount Borrowed: $13,702.00
Previous Month's Balance: $13,155.46
Payments: −$250.00
Accrued Interest: +$54.69
Current Balance: $12,960.15

Debt Reduced: −$195.31

Loan Progress

5.4% Paid Off

Auto Loan

Original Amount Borrowed: $17,895.93
Previous Month's Balance: $16,037.36
Payment: −$316.65
Interest: +$144.11
Current Balance: $15,864.82

Debt Reduced: −$172.54

Loan Progress

11.3% Paid Off

ESL Visa

Interest Rate: 14.75% variable
Previous Month's Balance: $0.00
Current Balance: $199.01

New Debt: +$199.01

📊 Grand Total Snapshot

Overall Debt Reduced

−$168.84

Previous Total: $29,192.82
Current Total: $29,023.98

Installment Debt Reduced: −$367.85
New Credit Card Debt: +$199.01

💸 Where the Money Went

I paid a total of $566.65 toward my retirement and auto loans during August. Of that, $198.80 went toward interest, leaving me with an actual installment-debt reduction of $367.85.

Total Paid: $566.65
Interest: $198.80

Actual Installment Debt Reduction: $367.85

That means about 64.9% of what I paid actually reduced the two loan balances, while the remaining 35.1% went toward interest. The retirement loan continues to be the more satisfying one to watch, with $195.31 of my $250 payment actually lowering the balance.

The auto loan finally moved again after showing no change between my July 1 and August 1 checkpoints. My $316.65 payment reduced the balance by $172.54, with the remaining $144.11 going toward interest.

Unfortunately, the $367.85 in progress on those two loans wasn't the whole story. I also added $199.01 in new Visa debt, which reduced my overall progress for the month to $168.84.

💰 Savings

I'm continuing to track savings without publishing the actual balance. Instead, I'll share how much went in, how much came back out, and the net change each month.

Savings Update

Deposits: +$3.00
Withdrawals: −$143.00

Net Change: −$140.00

Last month's goal was to replace the $305 that came out of savings during July. Instead, I deposited just $3 and withdrew $143, leaving me down another $140 overall.

So no, I did not accomplish the goal I set for August. Between July and August, savings has now decreased by a combined $445. I'm not particularly happy about that, especially because I also chose to use my Visa a couple of times instead of transferring even more money out of savings. Protecting the savings number was part of my reasoning, but ending up with a credit card balance instead isn't really the kind of protection I'm looking for.

At the same time, what happens to savings is about to change for a very different reason. On August 27, my offer on a house was accepted. I already know at least $1,000 will come out of savings in September for my earnest money deposit. That means September's savings number will almost certainly move backward too, but money leaving because I'm finally buying the house I've been saving for is very different from watching it disappear on ordinary expenses.

📈 Credit Score

Credit Update

Previous Score: 760
Current Score: 760
Change: 0 points

My credit score held steady at 760 this month. After spending years rebuilding it from the 500s, "nothing happened" is a perfectly acceptable credit-score update. With a mortgage application in progress, boring is exactly what I want from this number.

✅ Wins This Month

• My retirement loan balance dropped by $195.31.
• My auto loan balance dropped by $172.54.
• My two installment loans decreased by a combined $367.85.
• Even after adding the Visa balance, my total debt still decreased by $168.84.
• My credit score held steady at 760.
• My offer on a house was accepted.

⚠️ What I Struggled With

• I did not meet my August goal of replacing the $305 that came out of savings in July.
• Savings dropped another $140 instead.
• I used my Visa rather than transferring additional money from savings.
• I'm ending the month with $199.01 in credit card debt after paying my cards off completely in February.
• I'm entering a period where savings, debt payoff, and the upfront costs of buying a house are all competing for the same money.

💭 Real Talk

I don't like seeing $199.01 in that Visa column. Part of me immediately wants to add all the qualifiers: it's only $199, I'm planning to pay it off this month, I didn't run up thousands of dollars, and my total debt still decreased overall. All of those things are true. But another thing is also true: I paid off my credit cards in February, and I wanted them to stay paid off.

For years, credit cards were one of the clearest measurements of how financially overwhelmed I was. During my divorce, the balances climbed until I eventually owed more than $26,000. Paying them off wasn't just another number disappearing from a spreadsheet. It represented getting out from underneath something that had followed me for years. So yes, seeing a balance there again bothers me.

I used the Visa a couple of times in August because I didn't want to take more money from savings. I understand the logic I was using at the time, especially after working so hard to build that account. But moving an expense onto a credit card doesn't actually preserve the money. It just moves the problem.

At the same time, I don't think $199.01 means I've somehow undone everything I've accomplished. Six months ago, I paid off my credit cards completely. They're not quietly accumulating thousands of dollars again. I caught this immediately, I know exactly what happened, and I have a plan to get the balance back to zero. Financial progress isn't never making a choice I dislike. It's catching it before it becomes a pattern.

And August had a much bigger financial development happening in the background. I got the house. Or, more accurately, I got an accepted offer on the house. There are still several steps between an accepted offer and standing in the kitchen holding the keys, but this changes things. For months, I've been trying to do two things at once: pay down the debt I already have and build savings to buy a home. Now I'm beginning to cross from saving for a house into actually paying for one.

That means the numbers are going to look different. I already know $1,000 will leave savings in September for my earnest money deposit. If everything goes according to plan, eventually an entirely new and considerably larger number will appear in these posts: a mortgage. The Debt Diaries will have to change again when that happens.

That seems appropriate. When I started this series years ago, financial progress meant watching a long list of debts disappear. Then it became rebuilding. Then saving. Now, maybe, it's becoming building something.

But before I add a mortgage to this spreadsheet, I have one small piece of old business to take care of. The Visa has overstayed its welcome.

Goal for September

Pay the Visa Back to $0

Eliminate the $199.01 balance before it has a chance to grow.

I already know September isn't going to be a month when savings goes up. At least $1,000 is coming out for the earnest money deposit on the house, so I'm not giving myself a savings goal that I know I'm going to fail before the month really begins.

Instead, the goal is to keep this financial transition as clean as I can: pay off the Visa, keep making my regular loan payments, and let some of the money I've spent all this time saving finally do the job I saved it to do.

← Previous: July 2026 | Next: September 2026 →

This post is part of my Debt Diaries series, where I share the numbers, setbacks, wins, and lessons from my journey toward financial freedom.

Explore the full series on the Debt Diaries landing page.

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Exact Model, Exact Color (One Minute Memoir)

A Memoir on Christmas in August, Smart-Home Planning, and Extremely Specific Instructions

Setting: August 2026 — Somewhere between summer vacation and Christmas morning

Yesterday afternoon, while I was at work, my phone buzzed. Caleb had shared a note with me.

Christmas wish list was the title.

It was August. I had not asked for a Christmas list. Apparently, neither of those facts mattered.

I opened it expecting the usual kid chaos. A bunch of random things. Something wildly expensive. Maybe something he’d forget he wanted by October. Instead, there were exactly three items: an Echo Dot Max in amethyst, an Echo Glow, and an Echo Spot in ocean blue.

That was it.

Honestly, the fact that there were only three things on the list alarmed me more than the fact that I had received a Christmas list in August. Three items? From a child? Suspicious.

So I texted him.

“What will you do with all the Echos? Put them in different rooms?”

“Yes.”

This seemed like a reasonable question considering he already owns multiple Echos. Apparently, however, his current collection was merely the foundation.

Then came the plan. The Echo Glow was a night light. The Echo Spot would go on his bedside stand. The Echo Dot Max would go in the living room. Holden would have his own Echo Glow and his own Echo for his room.

Apparently, Caleb had already completed the smart-home technology plan for a house we do not yet live in.

I asked what he would use them for.

“To play music and stuff?”

“Yes.”

Then, more specifically:

“I can use the Echo Spot to play my spa music at night.”

Naturally.

This is the same child who can turn nearly any piece of technology into a fully developed system before I’ve even figured out where the charger goes.

I looked back at the note. It wasn’t just three products tossed onto a list. There were direct Amazon links. Exact models. Exact colors. And at the bottom, one final instruction:

Make sure to check “This is a gift” when buying these items on Amazon!

Not because he was worried about preserving the surprise. Because if I didn’t, Amazon might automatically register the devices to my account instead of his.

Of course he had thought of that.

By the time I finished reading, I realized this was less a wish list and more a fully planned installation. Exact products. Exact colors. Exact rooms. Even instructions to make sure the devices ended up registered to the correct account.

This was, technically, a child getting excited about Christmas.

Nothing says childhood wonder quite like account-registration strategy.

This post is part of my One-Minute Memoir series — short reflections on small moments that still manage to say something big.

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Month in Review: August 2026

August 2026 in Review

August looked calm on paper. There wasn't much on the calendar, and after the major changes of July, I thought maybe life would finally slow down a little. Instead, the entire month was consumed by house hunting. Showings, open houses, offers, waiting, rejection, hope, and finally, one accepted offer. In theory, August was quiet. In actuality? It was insane.

Month by the Numbers

Weight: ↓ 6 lbs	|	Migraines: 3
Runs / Walks: 0	|	Books: 0
Blog Posts: 12	|	OMMs: 3
Savings: ↓ $140	|	Debt: ↓ $168.64

OMM = One Minute Memoir

Apparently all available reading and walking time was reassigned to house hunting. Still, the scale moved, debt went down, and by the end of the month, all that searching had actually led somewhere.

August, As It Happened

House hunting took over: If I wasn't scrolling through listings, I was talking to my realtor, driving to a showing, walking through an open house, calculating numbers, or waiting to hear whether someone had accepted an offer. We saw a lot of houses this month. Some were immediate nos. Some made me think. A few made me imagine our lives inside them. By the end of August, I had made three offers.

Two rejections: The first two offers didn't work out. Both hurt in different ways, especially because by the time you put an offer on a house, you've already let yourself imagine it a little. I learned quickly that house hunting in this market requires a strange combination of hope and emotional self-preservation.

And then, one yes: The third time was different. After weeks of searching, calculating, hoping, losing, and trying again, my offer on a house was accepted. I'm buying a house. By myself. For me and my boys. There is still plenty to happen before anyone hands me keys, but after spending so much of August wondering where we'd end up, we finally know where we're going.

Settling into my new job: August was also my first full month in my new position. I'm learning names and faces, figuring out new routines, and settling into the work. It's quiet, I have a window view, I get along really well with my new supervisor, and most importantly, I'm happy with my decision to make the move.

A luau and some Bingo: Our monthly Bingo night at the community center had a luau theme this time. Nothing life-changing, which was honestly a nice change of pace for August.

A summer afternoon at Seabreeze: Work held a summer outing at Seabreeze Amusement Park, which meant a half day away from the office, and the boys got to come along. It was a fun little break in a month when my brain was otherwise almost permanently occupied by houses.

What I Read

For the first time in a while, I didn't finish a single book this month. I've been slowly making my way through one, but between the new job and the chaos of house hunting, reading kept getting pushed aside. Hopefully September brings a little more room for it.

Yearly Progress: 17 / 100

What I Watched

August was another documentary-heavy month, with some true crime, a couple of trips to the theater, and the end of an excellent season of The Pitt.

TV Shows

The Pitt ★★★★★
HBO Max · 2026  · Season 2 · Episodes 10–15
The final stretch of another intense emergency room shift. Officially finished with season two, and this remains one of the best shows I've watched in a long time. Now I'm anxiously awaiting season three.

Grey's Anatomy
Netflix · 2005 · Season 2 · Episode 10
Slowly continuing my very long journey back through Grey's, one episode at a time.

Documentary Films & Docuseries

The Man Will Burn ★★★☆☆
HBO Max · 2026 · Docuseries · 4 episodes
A look inside the enormous Burning Man festival and the culture surrounding it. Fascinating and unlike anything I've experienced, though it could be a little slow at times.

A Toxic Love Story ★★★☆☆
Netflix · 2026 · Documentary film
A relationship and revenge story that becomes increasingly bizarre as it unfolds. A wild ride, and I enjoyed it.

A Child of My Own ★★★☆☆
Netflix · 2026 · Documentary film
A fake pregnancy becomes entangled with the abduction of a baby in a truly bizarre case. Fascinating, although the hybrid format of reenactments mixed with real interviews threw me off a little.

The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare ★★★☆☆
Netflix · 2026 ·  Docuseries · 3 episodes
A closer look at the murders of four University of Idaho students and the investigation that followed. It was a huge case I hadn't followed especially closely, so I found this interesting and eye-opening.

Skywalkers: A Love Story ★★★☆☆
Netflix · 2024 · Documentary film
Follows a daredevil couple who climb skyscrapers and perform terrifying stunts high above the ground. Fascinating, especially after I'd already heard about them following their more recent climbing drama in New York City.

Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea ★★★★☆
Netflix · 2026 · Documentary film
Survivors recount a terrifying shipwreck and the chaos that followed. Engaging, frightening, and really well done. I still love cruises, though.

Death of the Pastor's Wife
Netflix · 2026 ·  Docuseries · 3 episodes · Watched episodes 1–2
Examines the death of a pastor's wife and the troubling circumstances surrounding the case. I watched the first two episodes in August but finished it in September. Rating to come!

Movies

The End of Oak Street ★★★☆☆
Theater · 2026
A strange story that takes an ordinary setting somewhere increasingly unexpected. A little absurd, but pretty fun.

The Odyssey ★★☆☆☆
Theater · 2026
An epic retelling of Odysseus's long journey home after the Trojan War. Obviously a very well-made film that I could appreciate, and I love Anne Hathaway, but it was a little too slow, long, and boring for my taste.

Favorite Watch: The Pitt

What I Wrote

Unsurprisingly, much of what I wrote this month followed the house-hunting journey right along with me. I published twelve posts, including three One Minute Memoirs, and documented some of the hope, disappointment, waiting, and absurdity that came with trying to find our next home.

Favorite Essay: The Night Before Everything Could Change
I think I loved this one because it captured such a specific emotional moment: the night when I still didn't know whether the house would be ours, but I knew everything could look different by morning. It held all of that hope, fear, and waiting in one place, and now that I know how the story turned out, it means even more to me.

Favorite One Minute Memoir: The Home Inspection
This one was just funny to me. The boys had already decided they didn't want the Hilton house, so they spent the showing finding increasingly ridiculous reasons why we absolutely could not live there. The sump pump panic, Holden repeatedly pulling the light string, and the fact that these same children had previously approved a basement with a dirt floor still makes me laugh. It felt like one of those very ordinary family moments that became even funnier once I wrote it down.

Coming Up in September

September is already here, and unlike August, this month actually has plenty written on the calendar. It also feels like we're standing in the middle of several beginnings at once.

• Holden turned eight! His birthday was September 2, so we're starting the month with an official eight-year-old in the house.
• Middle school begins. Caleb has Back to School Night at his new middle school, where he'll get his schedule, locker, and a glimpse of what middle school life is going to look like. I still cannot quite believe we're here.
• Back to school. Both boys start September 8, and both are beginning at brand-new schools this year. Lots of new faces, new routines, and new territory for all of us.
• A long weekend. I'm off for Labor Day, giving us one last long weekend before school routines officially take over.
• Preparing for home. I don't have a closing date yet, but I'm expecting September to bring plenty of paperwork, forward progress, and preparation. I'm figuring out everything we'll need to start a home from scratch and trying to pick up a few things each week rather than buying it all at once.

August was about finding the house. September, hopefully, will be about getting ready to make it ours.

♥

See you next month.

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