Monthly Money Check-In: May 2012

Something big happened this month. I had a break with my artistic career. It's kind of embarrassing to admit here, because my posts are more functional than artistic, but I want to be a writer.

This month, someone paid me for something I wrote, and put it on a web site that gets millions of visitors a month. A miracle. Or, more accurately, the product of years of tiny steps toward a goal. The kind of thing that should give me hope for my finances.

Writers have a few options: 1. Live poor. 2. Have a benefactor.

I need to be my own benefactor. The Me of Now is going to support the Me of the Future in that years-long gap between when you try to live as a writer and when you actually make money at it, if ever.

I can afford to live rich now and poor later, or live moderately on both ends. I'm choosing to lower my standard of living, so that I can afford to live that way longer on my salary now.

To do that, I need to get serious about saving. I need concrete goals. I want to be a self-supporting writer by age 40, and this is Phase 1, starting right before my 30^th birthday. I want to be financially sound enough to pursue my dream. I want to do it by September 2014. I'm tempted to throw out a number, but I'm going to do some calculations this month and see what is attainable.

Here's How I'm Going to Do It:

I decided that I’m done pretending I’m going to change. Everyone wants to change. "Lasting change," "real change." I’ve Googled it, like everyone else. Let’s love ourselves enough to say hey, we are who we are. I am a special little snowflake with lots of talents, but saving money isn’t one of them. The spontaneity of my jokes and creativity becomes the impulse control issues of money management. It’s all just me. I accept it.

For example, 15% of my income is going to my 401(k). Almost $500 a month comes straight out of my paycheck and I barely miss it. I don’t have to have the will power to save it in order to save it.

I’m good at sending out my commissions. I get a third check each month and (usually) bounce it directly to my debt. As long as I don’t let it linger long enough to imagine what it can buy me, I’ll send a check through my bank and the balance will go directly down to pre-commission levels. After my debt is paid off, I’m hoping to send these checks directly to a money market account or CDs at Edward Jones.

Lastly, I have a friend paying me $300 a month. Long story. Maybe this is pathetic, but I asked my mom agreed to maintain an emergency fund for me, and she readily agreed. This fund will be kind of like a pre-paid “Mom bail me out!” I’d rather be pathetic with an emergency fund than broke.

I'm having trouble keeping money in the accounts I have access to each day, whether they're labeled "checking" or "savings." As soon as I have money, I lose any emotion about its worth. For example, last night I was too lazy to go out in the rain and feed the parking meter. I figured I’d probably be fine. If I was too broke to pay the ticket, I would have gone. What happened? A $44 ticket. Ugh.

So basically, I keep trying to trick myself into thinking I’m half-broke, so I spend money like someone living on a tight budget, which is really what I am.

Ok, here's how we look this month. I had extra fun with Excel graphs: