It doesn't make too much sense to do a check in, since I haven't even been paid since the last one, due to my procrastination. But here's the chart.
I went grocery shopping this week to save on food, so yay for that.
Monthly Money Check-In: December 2013
It doesn't make too much sense to do a check in, since I haven't even been paid since the last one, due to my procrastination. But here's the chart.
I went grocery shopping this week to save on food, so yay for that.
Monthly Money Check-in: November 2013
The Good: I went on my "I can die happy" trip, three weeks to Thailand and Myanmar. I rode elephants and I got scuba certified and I learned some Thai and Burmese and I'm not sorry.
The Bad: With a perfect storm of this trip, Christmas plane tickets, and tuition, I took more than just a few steps back on my emergency fund.
The Ugly: My face while making up my charts just now.
Money money money, what will I do with you? I keep having this dream of "I will save up to quit my job and become a writer!" But then snowboarding happens, which is awesome. Thailand happens. My saving sputter. This trip cemented for me that yes, I do want to make money and travel the world. No, that is not exclusive of writing. I just have to work a little harder at hacking my life.
But now there is a shift in the game. I have paid off debts. Once you pay money, you can't really get it back. Now I must shift to saving money. Money that is just sitting there, that I can spend at any time. Money that I have said is just for emergencies, then used for non-emergencies. How to keep my sticky little fingers off it? I really don't know. (Though I'm still scared of disappointing Jeri!)
I keep thinking: I could lose this job at any second, because that is the truth. If I got fired, and I only had $2,000 in the bank, I'd be pretty mad at myself. Self-discipline. It's so hard for me. I have to remember what I'm saving for: travel, living, writing. My most expensive habit is laziness: going out to eat when I could cook, taking taxis when I could walk, drinking Starbucks when I could make my own coffee.
The next step I think I'm going to take is to deposit my savings safely away from my current bank, in another credit union, so it's not so damn easy to get to.
I added a Health Savings Account (an HSA), which I'm going to start adding to aggressively.
I started contributing more to my retirement once I got my emergency fund in order. Then that kind of got shot to shit.
Onward!
Monthly Money Check-In: October 2013
It feels...weird. It's just a lack of desperation, which you can't really feel. Like hunger, you remember being hungry, but you just can't feel it once you've eaten.
It's crazy though. I'm happy. I got this huge commission from the biggest deal I've done at work in two years and boom, all on the rest of my student loans and they are gone.
This reminds me of something I read once, that years from now, you'll wish you had started today. That time is going to pass, where do you want to be when it gets here?
It was so crazy to see all of my accounts green. All but my mortgage. I'm so glad I just said, I'm getting these out of the way.
I must admit that I did take a chunk out of my emergency fund kind of going slightly ape shit afterward. Cavair and champagne, I just needed a little celebration.
Monthly Money Check-in: August 2013
It's finally raining in Seattle for a day so I can take a minute to sit down and look at my progress. Though it has been slower that I'd like, progress is being made. Lifestyle creep is definitely sinking in a little bit. For sure. I love having money to just go buy a new dress if I want! Just to go to the mall, pick out a dress, even if it's $100, I can just do that if I want. I have literally almost never been in a place in my life where I could do that.
Plus, my boyfriend and I are going to Thailand this November, but I file that under Y for you only live once. Travel is part of my education and one of my favorite things to spend money on is education.
Yes, progress is being made. My mindset is changing. I like prosperity. I plan to continue it. I hope I can keep the job I have now and convince them to let me work on a freelance basis, so I can do my job and work on my writing, about 20 hours a week each. But that's in the future. I am, however, working toward it.
74% to my emergency fund!
Monthly Money Check-in: July 2013
Hi, it's the summer in Seattle, which means you shirk all responsibilities and play in the sun. So I'm going to do a quickie here.
I look good this month. I got a nice commission. Then I bought a nice couch at a real adult furniture store, though it was in the ill-lit back room, on clearance because it was used in a model home. Still, it ended up costing us about $1,200, but then we sold the old couch for $200. (My boyfriend still owes me $500 from the deal. We just can't get the Chase transfer to work.)
And guess what...I like having nice stuff! I know that seems obvious, but I've never had nice stuff before. I've always been broke. Just at the movies the other night, I was realizing that this was the first time in my life I've had money. I like it! I want to stay here.
Also, sorry Dave Ramsey, but I'm buying a ticket to Thailand. Because...you know...I can, and you only live once, so fuck it. That will take about a grand off what I have below.
Here are the numbers:
I also might...miiiiight be on the verge of a huge deal at work. Pretty exciting!
Monthly Money: June 2013
Hello from Florida. I got a call last Saturday. My grandma was dying and soon. My first emergency with an emergency fund. It was so nice to just be like, boom, I'm there.
Well, I actually did learn a lesson. I couldn't get a hold of my money because Edward Jones isn't open on the weekends, so I had to have my boyfriend pay for my ticket and my mom give me some spending money. I've already paid it back, but it's on my official report from the 1st.
I'll post the charts later. Gotta go be with my family.
Monthly Money Check-In: May 2013
I am not feeling very happy right now. It's been a long time, months, since pulling this monthly report has brought a real sense of joy, of accomplishment.
I got a commission this month, finally, and I sent the entire thing, $900, to my student loans. What do I get? This.
In case you missed it, this is what nearly a thousand dollars looks like in the fight to pay off my student loans:
I do have some other goals that are affecting my finances. I am getting healthy, and I found that the only way I can stick to my diet is with promises of nice shoes. So I have bought two pairs of ridiculously expensive shoes in the last month, one pair of Nike frees that I designed online and one pair of flats, both to replace shoes that were three years old. And I've lost 10 pounds. Is that "ok" or the "correct" thing to do? I sure as hell done know, but I'm just mucking my way to a better self.
Plus, I think I have a really big commission coming in the next few months. Don't count your chickens before they hatch, I know, I know.
So, here's what we're looking like this month. I had to add up how far I would have come in the last month if it weren't for my stupid house.
So I still put more in my emergency fund, I still paid off that chunk (nibble) of my student loan. Hey, they started at $14k and now we're down to $11k. My positive attitude is what is most important, so I'll have to look for that somewhere around here.
And Hey, I'm almost half way to my emergency fund! If I lost my job, I could afford to live for almost three months, without calling my mother crying. Hooray for that!
Monthly Money Check-In April '13
Hello. I'm sitting here eating my friend's half of a burrito left over from lunch. She was going to throw it away. I've become that girl. Don't worry, she was just eating it with a knife and fork.
Hawaii happened! We were there, I told my boyfriend I had a budget of $800. We were doing free or cheap stuff, like going to beaches, eating at little Korean dives, watching the sun set. Then came the volcano.
The volcano on the Big Island was amazing. BUT...you could not see the actual lava unless you spent $167 on a lava boat ride. What did we do? Well, we were there once, maybe for the one time in our lives. So yeah, I did it. Of course I was going to do it, this is me we're talking about. A "live for today" attitude was never a problem to conjure up. Overall I spent about $1,000 while there. That's a lot of money. BUT...I'm 30, I'm making good money, I don't have kids yet, and I'm free to do these things, perhaps for just a few short years.
Balance is key.
Now back to scrounging half-eaten burritos and shopping at the cheap Asian market that reeks of bleach. And that's fine. I've realized that people always think your level of luxury has to rise across your life, but that's not true. You can configure it. I like a lot of luxury when it comes to traveling, eating and experiences. That is to say, I like great, and sometimes expensive experiences, like snowboarding and seeing lava. That just means I have to tone down the luxury elsewhere in my life. So I cook, wear old clothes and shop at thrift stores, and I drive a 10-year-old car with three working windows. The point is consciously selecting the life you really want, instead of chasing what's been handed down by magazine pictures, across the board.
I even managed to put extra toward my student loans and emergency fund. Slow and steady. Ok, so I've been a little to much on the slow part. But I just got my new Dave Ramsey wallet I had made on Etsy, the one with all the little budget envelopes, so hopefully that will keep me on track. Plus, I did get this huge deal at work and I think I have a big commission coming, so honestly I might be slacking a bit because of that.
You'll see that it looks like I went down $4,000 this month! That is because the value of my house plummeted. Damn that four-walled hell hole! The good news is that I have a cash offer and that idiot Bank of America should accept soon, and that whole anchor that's been drowning me in red should go away soon!
If my house value had stayed the same, I'd be up $1,000.
Monthly Money Check-In March '13
Well, the effects of counting my chickens before they hatch
continue, and I’m so mad at myself for stalling my get out of debt plan. Granted,
Hawaii will be fun, but when you can’t really afford something, and it gets in
the way of your other plans, better, higher goal plans, then you don’t really
enjoy it as much. It puts a lot of pressure on things. It HAS to be worth it,
IT being this new level of what’s at stake. Now you can’t have derailed your
plan for nothing, it has to be more and more fun! Nothing kills fun more than
running around like, “I MUST have fun on this trip god dammit!”
Any way, lessons being learned currently. Need commission. I
feel stupid every time I say that. I should just be able to live off my base
pay, commission is supposed to go straight to savings. Now look at me, I’m
desperate. That’s what I’ve done to myself. How stupid.
But hey, in good news: I got a raise! Yay! And, because
there are things more important than just money, I negotiated for three weeks
of flex time where I can telecommute. I was thinking, maybe, just do a house
swap or something and go live in France for three weeks? Or Tokyo? Or anywhere
in the world with internet?
The cool thing is that I really feel like I’m designing my
life. I’m not just taking what’s given to me. I’m going out and getting it, and
that feels awesome.
My commissions will come!
So I've been trying to at least send $150 to both my emergency fund and student loans. I still upped my situation a bit, but not nearly as much as I have been doing.
My short term stuff did go up slightly, but I'm limping along.
My emergency fund is more than a third of the way there!
Monthly Money Check-in: February '13
I am missing my high. My monthly fix is not there, the one I get when I look back over the last month and say "Yeah, I kicked ass!" I'm puttering.
My big mistake this month was agreeing to a vacation that I don't have money for right now. In March, my boyfriend and I wanted to go somewhere. I said Costa Rica. He said Hawaii. Both have mountains and beaches, and he has a friend in Hawaii, so I said sure. When you think of vacation in March your brain says, "Remind me to save up for that so we can buy that in March."
Then like two seconds later my boyfriend says, "We should really get the tickets soon." March turns out to be busy season, so he bought the tickets and said I could just pay him back. There is no way in hell I am starting another month owing him money, so both paychecks this month, I paid him back $280 for a total of a $560 plane ticket. It did not do very much to help me get out of debt.
Some old feelings have met me this month. Worry that I won't make it to the next paycheck, embarrassment that I couldn't afford a dinner. I kept bugging the girl at work who does the commissions to see if I was getting any. I kept feeling like I'd made the wrong choices and wanted to turn back. Why did I agree to come to this restaurant? What am I going to get my mom for her birthday? Why did I agree to this vacation?
It is much better to not do something than to try to do something you can not afford. I knew that already. True, by the time March comes around, I could probably scrap together the entire cost. But that is like buying something on credit.
But it happened, moving on. I'm still going to Hawaii with my love. Everything is ok. It's just a bad kind of choice that one does not want to make a habit of, a relic of the way I used to live.
My 401(k) was still in effect this month, so my investments went up. My house went down, still waiting on the foreclosure. As "Hawaii poor" as I am, I still sent $50 to my emergency fund and an extra $50 to my student loan.
So, I increased my net worth by $1,505 even though my house went down so much.
I hate when I break my little graph's neck.
All my other graphs are slow and steady up and up.
Other good news is in my budgets. While I was still unable to stay out of the damn restaurants, I spent only half my budget on going out and only $2 on coffee in the whole month! My work got a new machine that's, well, it's ok. It's not terrible, and with Hawaii on my mind, I'll take it.
Monthly Money Check-in: January '13
I have saved or paid off more than $20,000 in the last year.
That. Is. Crazy.
I was just feeling cheesy for buying all my self-improvement
books at Barnes and Noble. I like to read non-fiction about how to get better
at life. I need it. What feels bad is when you buy all those books, but you
never actually improve. I can see that trying is working. I am better.
That was a huge revelation in my life, to realize that I
could change myself. That’s why the first step is positive thinking. If you
have no hope of ever improving, then you’ll never take steps to improve. We
have all the information available to overcome our obstacles.
Fifteen months ago, when I was a half-employed wine waitress
making $600 every two weeks, I had enough faith to work hard. I studied how to
get a good job, and dammit I got a good job. My boss recently told me that there were dozens of applications for my job, but that most of them had typos in their resumes. I went that extra step to make sure my stuff was perfect, and it paid off.
I studied how to save money, and I’m
saving money. I knew I was in a hole, and I knew I could dig myself out. We are not trapped in the prison of our selves. We are malleable.
How exciting.
This year I’ve paid off $4,000 in credit card and personal
debt, saved up $2,000 in an emergency fund, and added $10,000 to my retirement
fund. The me of 10 years ago would be shocked. Hell, even little more than a year ago, I had $98 in the bank and owed more than $5,000. I remember how scary that number was to stare down.
My mantra, "Fall down seven times; stand up 8," is working. That backsliding of last holiday season is just a blip in the past. And I stuck with my goal this holiday season of just maintaining current levels. This month I got a big boost from a commission I sent right to savings, doubling my emergency fund.
I read somewhere that you should have a year's salary in your 401(k) by the time you're 30. While I thought that the author might be from a different planet, it might be a good idea to strive for at least $30,000 before I leave my current job. I'm on my way!
Goals for 2013:
- Pay off Student Loan
- Save the rest of my $6,000 emergency fund
Thanks for reading along and encouraging me to stay on the path. Two years ago a friend said, "If you want to accomplish something, start a blog about it." He was right.
