Author Archives: L.

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Weekly $ Checkup 5.3

  1. The most I’ve spent this last week was - $60 – on the electric bill. After that was $50 to Discover, $25 on gas…I’ve been a boring shopper lately :)
  2. Today I am thankful that I’m almost finished with the video editing on the project I detest at work ;)
  3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was baking a blueberry crumble pie because I was meeting bf’s aunt and uncle. Not a whole lot of happy things happened last week, but bf also met my family for the first time, and that went considerably well, especially considering the circumstances.
  4. I will consider this week a success if I get my laundry done!!!
  5. If I had today off I would claim I wanted to do laundry, but I’d probably end up sleeping or watching Netflix ;)

Summer is coming. It’s getting warm, I’ve found a new route home that is awesome! A river runs through where I live, and the new route is alongside it, high speed limits, rolled down windows, etc. Sad things have happened, and things with bf are going wonderfully. My family is reconnecting, I’m finally working on things I like at work, and things are finally connecting again like they were in March. Whatever rut things were in is finally turning into a positive groove. I guess thinking positively in May is working…it’s becoming genuine.

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Moving Moving Moving!!!

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Out with the old! Well, up there is a pic of our current place, our half of a duplex, 2 bedrooms.

From boarding school through this past summer, I’ve always lived in on-campus residence, so this was my first foray into furnishing my own place and paying my bills on a schedule instead of twice a year, and living with my best friend (a guy, which isn’t allowed at my university)!!! Some other day I may entertain y’all with the stories of how I slept on a twin air mattress until December (when I purchased a used full-size mattress from a friend who moved for $40 – excellent!) and managed to furnish with a $15 bookshelf and free desk and plastic drawer set from someone moving.

Summary of the old place:  $750/mo total ($375 apiece), ~800 sq ft, shared wall with the most awful neighbors in the world (drugs, alcohol, parties, untrained dogs, etc.), tiny yard, not enough parking, etc., 20-30 minute drive from work (through campus & downtown), walking distance of all the bars >.>

The new place

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Isn’t. It. Gorgeous? It’s an older Tudor cottage style house, 3 bedrooms (picked up another roommate)…

It’s 2000 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, an enclosed patio, enclosed yard, hardwood floors, gas stove (6 burners and a griddle section!), huge bedrooms (I get the master!!! My own bathroom and two closets!), and an office (which we plan on making our cat’s room), and a fireplace!

Pretty much, I’m the most excited person ever. Our lease starts in August.

Oh yeah, price…it’s $392/mo (a $17 increase), BUT BUT BUT, it’s a 20 minute walk and 10 minute bike ride from work! So that means I will be saving a good bit more than $17/mo. To be honest, I’ve already started cleaning out my stuff and scoping out pinterest (and Katie’s posts on her new house over at the girl with the red balloon!). Prepare for the home improvement posts in August ;)

So I’m incredibly excited! New house! It’s great! Excellent! Excited! Stuff!

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Good-bye Pawpaw

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Sunday will go down as the worst Mother’s Day in existence for my own mom. I woke up to her walking through the living room to get my dad and then heard them whispering in the den. Then, my dad comes to wake me up “He’s gone.” My grandpa was a strong man. He grew up during a time when life was a little harder, and even more so for the deaf community. Almost a decade ago, after losing an alarming amount of weight, we heard the doctors say the phrases no one wants to hear:

“Stage Four” “Spread to his bones” “Maybe five years”

And then, my mom had to explain to her own father how his body had turned on him. Five years turned to seven, and we were very lucky to have him for all of those.

He was a master carpenter. I have a rocking chair, a table and chair set, a little bassinet with a built in rocker that he built for me as a child. He was a force that united the deaf community in his area and beyond, to give them a voice during a time when it was even harder to establish an identity and sense of belonging in a “hearing world.” I am grateful for what his life has taught me, what I learn from my mother through him, and the ripples of positive change that echo in the world because of him.

Good-bye Pawpaw. I am in awe of the life you led and hope that I can accomplish great things like you.

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Weekly $ Checkup 5.2

  1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on pop-a-lock – $50 – Self-explanatory, I locked myself out of my car.
  2. Today I am thankful that I’m not really sure. I’m going to write more about this tomorrow, but my grandpa died on Sunday, so I’m headed home for the wake today and funeral tomorrow. I’m thankful that bf has been wonderful through this.
  3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was playing Settlers of Catan with my friends.
  4. I will consider this week a success if I figure out my budget for the rest of this month.
  5. If I had today off I would I’m taking a half day, so when I get off I’m driving home to be with my family. I’m not really sure what I would have done otherwise. Sleep?

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Budgeting is a lot of Work

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Well. I suppose that’s misleading. Honestly, my difficulty lies not necessarily in sticking in my budget, it’s actually been finding one that works for me. Since January, I’ve kept my Little Red Book.

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I guess the cover’s red & I’m in the red, so it’s appropriate…

Each month is divided into its own section that begins with a mini-calendar and a list of goals. Everything else after that is what I’ve been doing…or at least calling, budgeting. I list out what I make and then what standing bills I have to pay with that check. The leftover money is then allocated to X,Y, or Z. I work at a job with hourly pay and no leave, so my checks aren’t necessarily consistent. For example, this week I will probably have to take a day and a half off, so my check will be about $100 short. It’s hard for me to plan out in detail how my budget will work when I don’t really know what I’m making from month to month (especially because I didn’t start working 40+ hours a week until January). But by now, I can see somewhat of a trend; however, there are external factors (holidays off without pay, being sick, etc.) that I have to somewhat take account of.

So my usual process is: 

  1. Turn in my time sheet and discover how much I’ll make for that paycheck (which will be received in a week). 
  2. What bills are due within that two week period?
  3. Okay. “Set aside” the money to pay those bills. 
  4. Allocate appropriate amount into gas. 
  5. Leftover? Usually ~$50. And I’ve gotten to where I just don’t even really budget in money for food or miscellaneous, so I end up spending the leftover on that. And it’s not an unreasonable amount to spend.

I guess the problem with this process is that it’s not working toward getting me out of debt or building an emergency fund. Right now I am in full-on maintenance mode when it comes to money. Now that I’ve paid off my car insurance and rent and this month is a three paycheck month, I thought May might be the month in which I make all these grandoise payments…except that I forgot that the timing means that I’m paying for May and June’s rent as well as a potential deposit for a new place for next year…so essentially three month’s worth of rent in one. Yuck.

Another big issue is the way I’m employed. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it and am too lazy to go back and check, but I’m employed on a work-as-needed basis, which means no retirement, benefits, sick-days, holidays, vacations, or job security. Essentially, my supervisor could tell me today that she just doesn’t need me anymore and I would have no job as of then. This means that an emergency fund is something that I desperately need. Not to mention the fact that I go into forced loan repayment as of June. I have been applying for more secure jobs that will also provide the nonmonetary benefits that this one does (relevant experience, networking, etc.), but so far have been rejected. 

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That is the attitude I have had, but my actions have not backed this up enough. So now here’s to reevaluating my budget to actually include a set miscellaneous/grocery allocation and to at least have a set amount of $$$ I work within so that I can make my savings a priority. Right now it’s been whatever is leftover, but the goal is to set that aside first and then later any excess can also join it.

Essentially the progress I’ve made so far this year is:

Picture2And for me, considering I started the year owing my roommate almost six months worth of rent and my mom six months of car insurance, I think that’s pretty darn good! But. At this point, it’s not enough. Frugality isn’t enough if I’m still living paycheck to paycheck and more often than not have that horrible “Will I have enough gas to get through the week so I can go to work” thought.

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Forward Thinking

72128031501624702_lRSVNnTn_c_largeEasier said than done, but I’m trying to make my heart softer in May.

I was telling bf about how my supervisor tends to jump to conclusions, and he immediately says “You jump to conclusions too.” And although he said it in a soft voice, a morning-tease voice, there was more than a peal of truth to it. And although I playfully replied “But it takes me 5 minutes to get back to where I was!” I thought about jumping to conclusions and the Phantom Tollbooth. And about how sometimes I’m incredibly nit-picky about things, expect people to be perfect, and always assume the worst…because that’s easiest. It’s easy to assume that people are out to be cruel. That they are out to be terrible. That they are sneaky and mean. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to me. That hardness in my heart that is from it being hurt too often, that scar tissue that keeps it from beating evenly…needs to be healed.

And although it will take time, and trust, and patience, I hope to be able to embrace the idealist that resides in me, and trust that those that I care about and are closest to do have my (as well as their) best interests at heart and do not wish to hurt me.

I know this isn’t related to personal finance, but it’s been something I’ve been struggling with greatly for the last year or so, and I’m finally ready to disassemble the fortress I have up so that I can let others in and quit being too afraid to even give the benefit of the doubt to those I love and those who care about me.

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Love & How it Makes me a Blithering Financial Idiot

As y’all may or may not know, I was ruthlessly dumped in a Greyhound station two days before Valentine’s Day after a 16+ hour bus ride from a conference I had been at for a week in 2012 by my then boyfriend of 4 years. Oh, didn’t know that? I think back then I was being respectful of his privacy and all that jazz (and he knows about this blog) so I was super vague, but whatever. Facts is facts. So why bring this up a year later? Well, aside from being emotionally devastating, there was a marked … decrease in the cares I gave about my finances for the next eight months. Hell, there was a marked decrease in the cares I gave about a lot of things. Those eight months were financially devastating…but they were also the months I…ahem…got my shit together for the first time in years.

I also lost my favorite jacket and debit card on this trip :(

I also lost my favorite jacket and debit card on this trip :(

I remember the first and only big fight we ever had was about money. He felt I was taking advantage of him by him paying for our take-out and sit-down meals, whereas I thought it was balanced since he was using up my meal plan to have lunch every day. We decided the rule would be “dutch unless it’s your birthday.” And I think that actually worked for us for a few years. Until things started falling apart. And I could see that this was happening, but I didn’t understand why, and he wasn’t being upfront about it. So I began spending. Looking at my January 2012 expenses in January 2013 was horrifying. $30-$40 charges to restaurants, charges for gifts, etc. all over the place. Just to show that “Yes, I care! I want to treat you well.” But money and free meals weren’t what he needed, much like being treated the way I was being treated wasn’t what I needed, and this should not have been the first sign that being enamored with another person turns me into a financial idiot.

After him came a male friend that I had a crush on and had casually gone out with a few times. I was interning in Florida, and his family was visiting there, so I made plans to see him. Whereas he thought it would be a casual lunch (because he thought I was 30 minutes away), it turned into an affair that I spent most of my first paycheck from that summer on, from a new outfit to the gas to drive the … hour there, plus breakfast, a movie, the boardwalk, and my own lunch (at this point he wised up and insisted on paying for at least his own half).

It was a beautiful day, albeit maybe it could have had less events...

It was a beautiful day, albeit maybe it could have had less financially draining events…

Enter in bf, who has been mentioned in several posts. He pays for a lot of things. And holds my doors open. I want things to be even between us, although unlike in previous situations, our financial situations aren’t really equivalent. It’s been a real pain in the uh-huh to try to not go spend-crazy. So far I’ve actually been pretty good, in that we’re starting to hit where it’s not quite so heavily weighted in his corner, and we’ve started eating home-cooked dinners vs. going out, or if he gets take-out, I get us fro-yo or we pick up stuff to make root beer floats (which means dessert for the next million times he’s over) and picking dates like going roller blading or for walks or just watching X-Men on Netflix. I still spent a little more on his birthday present than I should have, and do spend a lot more on gas so that I can visit him, but I think so far I’m hitting my stride. The most financially irresponsible thing I’ve done was to take three days off to go on a family vacation with him and then spending about $100 on said trip, costing in total (through expenditures and lost wages) approximately $350-$400. Which, when all was said and done, was totally worth it.

So what have I learned through these experiences?

  • Eating homecooking  is so much cheaper than eating out
  • Money can’t buy love – you shouldn’t buy gifts to prove you’re valuable.
  • Don’t rely on someone else to pay for all your stuff. It’s kinda rude.
  • You don’t need to buy a new outfit for all your dates. They’re already invested if they’re sitting there talking to you and probably won’t notice if your dress was purchased a week ago or a year ago (unless you don’t take care of your things).
    Other people tend to be much less critical of us than we are of ourselves.
  • Compromise is key, as well as being honest and open about your financial situation. If visiting often will drive your gas budget into the red because s/he lives so far away, don’t do it. The additional stress will take its toll in other ways.
  • Remember that you can go to a concert or you can go on a picnic, and you’ll both enjoy yourselves because that’s the way it works. You’re dating for each other, not for events.

The number one thing I’ve taken away from this is that if a person likes me, they actually like me. They won’t be mad if I can’t eat out every day with them, they won’t be mad if I can’t visit every single day, and they won’t be mad if I ask for compromise (a balance of expenditures). They won’t require expensive and elaborate dates during which I have to force myself to entertain and think of ways to be funny. That being myself is good enough, and finding someone who respects the desire to be financially autonomous and secure and … gasp … might even share that desire is possible and may have even happened.

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Weekly $ Checkup 5.1

    1. The most I’ve spent this last week was on rent – $380 – that was a given. The most I spent on unexpected expenses was for Pop-a-Lock…because I distractedly locked my keys in my car yesterday morning – $50 :(
    2. Today I am thankful that after breaking my computer charger yesterday that I managed to get a new one that will get by Thursday for “freebies” by using my Discover reward points ($8) for Amazon.com and activating a free trial of Amazon Prime, meaning free 2-day shipping too! I’m actually very proud of myself!
    3. Money can’t buy happiness. One free thing I did last week that made me happy was going to see Rock of Ages and attending my friend M’s wedding. 
    4. I will consider this week a success if I can make progress with learning to let things go. I tend to dwell and whine a lot, so I’m really trying to work on relinquishing my pretend control of the things I cannot or should not control.
    5. If I had today off I would sleep…maybe see if bf wanted to get lunch? I would probably clean the kitchen…it’s getting to be a hot mess. 
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If I had today off, I’d probably do this too….

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May Flowers

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Daffodils

April showers bring May flowers, or so the saying goes. I believe in the power of positive thinking, and that much like how pretending to be confident actually increases confidence, perhaps being positive will make my life more positive. I’ve noticed (and not necessarily on here) that I have been very negative lately. Most of the things I have been dwelling on have been negative (work, school, etc.) and that amplifies small issues into big ones and causes undue stress on different aspects of my life. So here’s to being happy!

physically fit

  1. Have a balance of -$1800 on my Discover Card
  2. Pay $250 of the $500 I owe my university
  3. Have $100 in my savings account

physically ffit

  1. Lose 13 lbs
  2. Log into MFP every day and log all exercise/food intake
  3. Do purposeful yoga at least 3x/wk and the Sun Saluation daily

pphysically ffit

  1. Finish the book of Matthew
  2. Read Millionaire Next Door
  3. Attend Stanford virtual finance classes
  4. Write 15 blog posts (min)
  5. Meditate daily

Miscellaneous:

I have a lot to look forward to this month, for instance I will be going to see the broadway tour of Rock of Ages later tonight and will attend my first big-kid wedding on Saturday. I’m also going to try to give up biting my nails again…so we’ll see where that goes. I also should hear back from a job I applied for at a nonprofit I really like (a career-job with the things that a “real” job should have), so cross your fingers for me! 

So how is your May looking?

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April 2013 Recap

It was definitely a month of showers. April was pretty much the worst month I’ve had since February/March of 2012 (which were “dumped in a bus station” bad). I didn’t really set goals for this month, but I guess I did accomplish a few things that fall under the three big categories. Other things that happened this month can be found here. I am determined that May will be a month of flowers!

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  1. My savings account now has $100! 
  2. I finished paying for my car insurance!

physically ffit

  1. I lost the 8 lbs I gained in March (from February) + 4 more for a net loss of 12 lbs! 

pphysically ffit

  1. Wrote 10 blog posts! 
  2. Signed up for a finance class through Venture Labs at Stanford!
  3. Applied for a new job at a nonprofit!

So what about my budget? 

This wasn’t a terrible month budget-wise, but my income was a lot smaller because I took off a few days + having Good Friday off, so I missed almost a week of work. I don’t get leave or holiday pay, so it was like a long weekend. But it was worth it. Even if it means things were tight. 

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Total Income: $1212.69 & Total Spent: $1291.39 for net difference of -$78.70. Yeah. I used my Discover card =/ but I did put $100 in my savings account, so I guess technically I have a net gain of $21.30. Though I shouldn’t have used my card. 

  • Car Insurance - $120 – I have officially paid my car insurance!
  • Discover – $80 – Kind of moot since I spent $50 of my limit this month. =/
  • Electricity – $62.37 – It’s getting warmer, so the bill is going to climb a little.
  • Electricity – $61.48 – A little lower than last month.
  • Gas – $143.51 – I went home four weekends in a row in addition to what I normally spend (home = $240+ mile round trip), soI spent roughly double what I normally do.
  • Medicine – $26.87 – I’m having insurance problems right now, so I’m having to pay for things like BC outright. It’s not a big deal right this second, but it’d be nice if they would sort out clerical errors!
  • Miscellaneous – $150.97 – This includes knitting purchases, girly purchases, and a purse that I bought for my brother’s gf after depositing cash in my account (since she doesn’t have a debit card).
  • Phone – $50.59 –  I finally called and figured out why I couldn’t access my account and setup autopay, which means I save $6/month!
  • Rent/Electricity - $385 – This is pretty much the same as it always is.
  • Savings Transfer – $100 – Yeah I put monies in my savings account!
  • CC Interest – $28.61 – Not in the chart up there, but that is included in my expenses. I did remove the protection plan fee from my card, so this is just interest…

Reflection: 

I didn’t really set budgetary goals this month, but I think I did pretty well. Only 12% of my expenditures were unrelated to bills or necessities (gas/food). I’m glad I ended the month 12 lbs lighter than where I started, and although April was icky and terrible, I’m looking to put my best foot forward into May. As Thoreau says:

“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”

And I don’t.