budget

Everything I spent money on last week (2/11)

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Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash

I’m on a money-saving journey this year since I want to take some time off of work next year. I burned out last year, feel like I have lost every ounce of creativity, and want to make a life pivot (more on that in another post).

I made a strict budget for myself at the beginning of the year and did okay sticking to it in January, but haven’t done a great job in February so far (oops). Here’s everything out of my budget this week that I need to reign in for the rest of the month/in March along with some strategies for the future.

  1. Eating Out: This is always a big one but in the last week (actually the last few days), I spent $110 eating out. I still want to go out and enjoy spending time with my friends, but I think I can cut back.
    • Suggest cheaper places to eat out. For me, the point of eating out is to spend time with my friends and to occasionally try new restaurants. I can suggest cheaper places to eat so I’m not feeling guilty about going over budget.
    • Don’t order drinks. Even sodas! One of the ways to make things cheaper is to only spend money on food and not order any add ons. I did order a coke this weekend because I was so tired and needed extra caffiene.
    • Suggest going for a walk or hike or coffee. All of these are way cheaper than eating out and a walk can help with my exercise goals too!
  2. Nail polish: Not sure why, but I’ve suddenly gotten very into nail polish and so spent $26 buying some new colors.
    • Add items I want to my wishlist. Whenever I want something new I’ve started adding it to the back of my journal with the price, the date, and a terribly drawn picture. It’s fun and also keeps track of all the items I want (but hopefully don’t want in the future)
  3. New jeans: Okay, so I actually only have one pair of jeans and am looking to get a new pair. I saved about half of this in my budget, but the ones I wanted were on sale, so I just bought them. $70
    • Same as above! Add to my wishlist.

In total, that’s $206 dollars I wasn’t really planning on spending, but did. I’m not going to beat myself up about it, but just learn from this and move forward with my next steps.

How are you feeling about your budget so far this year?

Until next time!

Day 43: The Dreaded Credit

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Ugh. So I was dumb and dug myself into a hole of credit card debt when I was unemployed. Basically I put everything which wasn’t rent on a credit card. Which is dumb! But also, what else am I supposed to do when I don’t know where my next paycheck is coming from.

Thankfully, I found a full-time job which I mostly like and offers me sweet health benefits and a steady paycheck! That means it’s time to start digging myself out of the trouble I got myself into. And I’ve been steadily working on it. I’m almost done paying off my lowest balance credit card and should be done by the end of the month. (Yay!)

It’s been hard, but I’m so excited to get to 0. I keep an excel chart (of course) of how much I pay off each month and if I hit it then I get to mark it green and if I don’t then I mark it red. It’s a little bit like crossing of a to-do list, which gives me the little bit of reward I need to be happy. 🙂

Then it’s on to the next one! Hopefully I’ll be able to pay off more of it if I get an increase and a promotion, but I’m not counting on it. It’ll be so exciting to be free of debt. Yay for financial freedom!

Until tomorrow.

Day 42: Expense Tracking

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Now that I’ve written down all my goals, it’s time to track what I spend money on each month. I like to use excel because I find it helpful to physically input everything I spend rather than pulling information directly from my bank account. Here’s a sample of my Budget Spreadsheet for your viewing pleasure.

Basically I input everything that goes in and out, where the money came from (Checking, Credit or Cash) and place it into a category, so I know how much I’m spending on things. I use the following categories, but of course everyone’s lives are different so you’ll have different spending buckets.

Necessities: The big stuff. Rent, water, power, gas. Stuff that I have to spend money on to get to work, have a place to live and eat.

Entertainment: This is anything I do for fun from art classes to going to see a movie.

Food: Grocery bills are counted under necessities, but Food is any extra food I buy out and about that I don’t absolutely need. I’ll admit this bucket has been taking more and more of my paycheck as I’ve settled into my job from being a contractor for awhile.

Shopping: Anything I buy which falls under the clothing/skincare/gifts basket.

Exercise: I could put this under entertainment since you don’t have to spend money to exercise, but I think it falls between an extraneous cost (yoga is NOT cheap) and a necessity (My health is important to me.)

Travel: Blah. This also eats up a large chunk of my paycheck when I do buy things for travel (hotels, airfare!!! or a rental car). I don’t use it often, but I like to have it separate.

I suppose I could break it out into more categories, but this works for me. It allows me to see if I’ve overspent each month and what most of my money is going to (Food! Eek!). Some months are better than others. I suppose the next step would be to track my spending habits over several months to see what my long term patterns are. I’ll work on that.

Until tomorrow. Budget away!

 

Day 41: A Week in Finance

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It’s the beginning of September! And it’s time to talk about finances! Personal finance, not like the great big world of Finance (capital F). I do think a good place to start for anything is to write down your goals. I prefer pen and paper because I find it really gets into my brain, but whatever works.

Today I was reading the Refinery29 Budgeting Slideshow and I stumbled across their financial goal tracker. I have a less pretty, less organized version of this, but who doesn’t love a good worksheet, right? So here’s what I have:

Near Term Goals (2 months)

  • Increase savings to 1000
  • Have no more debt on Credit Card 1
  • Buy my black dress!

I think I’m well on my way to these. I have a weekly deduction from my checking account to my savings account and I’ve calculated that I’ll have paid off all of Credit Card 1 by the end of October. Yay me!

Maybe then I can buy that black dress I’ve been eyeing forever.

Short-term Goals (Less than 2 years)

  • Pay off Credit Card 2
  • Save enough to go on a European vacation
  • Have a second stream of income

I’ve calculated it out again and after I pay off Credit Card 1 (which has been quite a struggle), it should take another year to pay off Credit Card 2 if everything continues as it has. That means no raises and no huge emergency purchases. (Fingers crossed!) I’d like to go on a nice vacation without worrying about how much money I’m spending and I’d also like to pay for most of it in cash. And I’m also working on having a second stream of income with this blog and potentially my book. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but every little bit helps! Here’s hoping!

Mid-term Goals (2-10 years)

  • Buy a house
  • Own a horse
  • Go on one super fancy vacation
  • Max out my retirement every year

These are getting sort of out there and they seem kind of hard to imagine given my present circumstances, but a girl can dream, can’t she? .

Long-term Goals (10+ Years)

  • Have a million dollars saved?

Honest 10+ years seems so far off I can’t even imagine who I’ll be or what I’ll want by then. Financial independence is a must though, so that’s what I’m aiming for. A million dollars is a lot, but dreams, right?

So there they are. The big picture. Tomorrow I’ll get into the nitty gritty of all the budgeting goodness.

Until tomorrow.

P.S. I’m not 100% sure I’m labeling these days correctly, but oh well.

 

Day 36: Time vs. Stuff

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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Stuff. How much I have and how much I want. I think it’s easy to want lots of things. All those cute outfits my friends are wearing. All those nice shoes. The bike I see on my way to work. The candles at my friend’s apartment. The cute vases with the little succulents. Sure, it’s nice to have less stuff and less attachments, but what if I really want that accent chair, or really want that dress covered in a lemon print. I won’t be able to wear it many places, but it still makes me happy. Is it worth it?

For awhile I’ve been trending towards buying less, but better quality stuff: dresses which are lined, things which have timeless style, shoes which can be resoled. I’m trying to be less consumeristic, but sometimes it’s really hard. (I really want that lemon dress, you know?) It’s hard in the city where I live and the job where I work. It’s hard in America and it’s hard as a woman.

BUT I found a good system for me. I let myself buy one nice thing a month beyond gas and groceries and rent. Definitely an indulgence still in that it’s not helping me towards my goal of financial freedom, but there’s a cap on what I can buy and I find this is a good system for me.

If I want things, they go into my excel chart – one thing per month. If I decide I want something sooner, I move the other thing out of that month. So, for example, in July I wanted to buy a black, silk dress I’ve been eyeing it for awhile. It’s expensive, but also extremely versatile. And then I happened up the 10 Step Korean Skincare routine. So I moved my dress out of July and into September so I could buy a multitude of skincare products instead. Which means 12 things a year to indulge in.

I’ve found something else which will help me spend less. If I want something nice (my black dress isn’t cheap), I divide how many hours it would take me to work to buy it (after tax!). Do I really want to devote twenty of my working hours to this dress. Maybe. But I definitely don’t want to devote 13 working hours to the lemon dress.

It’s a good tool on top of my one thing per month chart and I think it will help me evaluate my purchases more clearly than I already do. I’ll report back.

(And just so you know not all my purchases are so pricey. October is a mug I want – 1 work hour.)

Until tomorrow.