The Moon Is Only Three Days Old

The moon came back three days ago, and I almost missed it. I checked a sky app Sunday night at 10:47 and found the sliver 7% full, three days past the new moon on October 10. So today's letter says one thing: you are allowed to count a crescent as money arriving.

A $12 Venmo from a sister who finally paid you back is money arriving. A client who answered after 11 days of ghosting is money arriving. A $4 Etsy royalty on an old listing counts the same way. The letter is not a lecture about crumbs. It is asking you to stop crossing out the small numbers in your account because they are not as big as the numbers you were hoping for.

I was taught that money starts in four figures, and I carried that math for 14 years without checking it. I was wrong about it, because money starts at $1, and the crescent is already a yes. That yes is not a maybe just because the number next to it is small. I spent all those years treating every arrival under $50 as a joke, and I kept short the whole time.

The moon shows up at 7% full and we still say the moon is back. Try saying that about your money.

This week I kept a sticky note on my laptop, and every time money came in I wrote the amount down.

Here is the list. $12 Venmo from my cousin for the gas I covered 6 weeks ago. $4 Etsy royalty on a planner I made back in May. $27 refund from a yoga studio I thought was gone for good. $9 cash a friend handed me at coffee. One $0.46 interest payment on a savings account I forgot I opened.

That comes to $52.46 in 7 days, or about $7.49 a day. I would have thrown out all those numbers before this week, because they looked too small to count. $12 is a tank of gas, and I was waving at it as it drove past.

If you add 7 dollars a day for a year you get $2,555. If I had been counting crescents for 14 years, I would already have $35,770 I did not notice. That math is not a trick, it is only addition.

The reason I used to cross small numbers out is that I was taught big numbers are the only real ones.

My first boss said anything under $100 did not matter, and he said it over the counter at a bagel shop where he paid me $9 an hour. He meant well, and he was broke.

I inherited his math and kept running it for 14 years. I treated $12 as closer to zero than to $20. I would check my balance at $127.80, see the number on the screen, and tell myself I had nothing. $127.80 is not nothing, because it is a bus pass, a prescription, a lunch, and $20 left over. I called it empty because it was not full.

Here are the three sentences I crossed myself out with, and you can hear whose voice they are in. They are not mine, not anymore.

I am not going to set you a task today.

I am not going to tell you to track every dollar, write a list, or make a plan. The letter was never a plan. If you want to count the small arrivals this week, count them. If you want to leave the Venmo sitting in the app and look at it on Friday, leave it there. The crescent does not need your help to grow.

Here is what you are allowed to receive today. A $7 refund you forgot was coming to you. A client who comes back with a yes after you had already written them off. A friend who finally pays you the $20 she has owed you since July. A single Etsy sale on an old listing from the summer. The $0.46 interest the bank hands you at the end of the month. Any amount at all that shows up and makes the number in your account go up.

You can count it, and you can say it out loud in a group chat. You are allowed to feel $12 the same way you would feel $4,000 showing up in your account tomorrow morning. Small money is money.

The moon is 3 days old today, and so is this month of money.

P.S. The $27 yoga refund hit my account on Thursday evening and I still have not opened the Chase app to look at the new balance. I keep forgetting it is sitting there waiting. I will check Tuesday night after I send this. Maybe.