finance

Day 36: Time vs. Stuff

~ joypetite ~ 1 Comment

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.

 

Day 31: Monthly Check-in 1

~ joypetite ~ Leave a comment

Sooo…somewhere along the line my days got messed up and I’ve been numbering everything wrong for the past month. Typical, but that’s okay because I just googled how many days it’s been since July 23 and the answer is 31. Back on track! (Hopefully)

I’ve decided to do monthly check-ins to see how I’m progressing in the long term and where I can improve! TO THE EXCEL DOC!

Screen Shot 2017-08-24 at 9.23.39 PM

Okay, it’s a screen shot of the excel doc. Now let’s revisit my goals in Day One.

  1. Become a Novelist – The righthand column with the bunch of “Yeses” are every day in the past month (plus some) that I’ve written. Sometimes it’s only a few minutes, and sometimes it’s much longer, but the important thing is that I work towards what I want every single day. I’m not there yet, but now I can see patterns in my behavior. Weekends seem to be tough for me to write some reason. I know 8/5-8/7 and 8/15-8/20 were the days I was dog sitting. And the end of July was when I got sucked into Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Still, I think I’ve written more consistently since I started this project and that’s a win. Hopefully next month it’ll be a row of green.
  2. Ballet! – I took a few months off of Ballet and I’ve just gone back. I’ve also tried to take up yoga, which I’ve gone to a few times and pop physique (groupon!), which I haven’t managed to go to yet. I’ve made a little progress in that I’ve started going to something once a week, but I really do need to go more and hopefully once I make it part of my routine, I’ll be more green and less red.
  3. Promotion – No movement on this front, but I didn’t think things would happen in a month, so I’m content to wait. I should ask for more opportunities at work to learn new things so I can be a good candidate when the time comes.
  4. Credit Card debt – Still chugging away on this one, but I’ve been set back a bit because I had to buy a few flights. Next month I hope to make a serious dent in it, but it looks like it’s going to take longer than expected. (As many things do.)
  5. In a relationship – Nada on this front too. Although I did try a few new activities and met some new people. Who knows what the future holds there? 🙂

So that’s my monthly check in. I’m doing better overall than I was a month ago, but I still have a long ways to go and need to put some serious work in.

Until tomorrow.

Day One

~ joypetite ~ 1 Comment

07/23/2018

I was driving to work this week and for some reason it dawned upon me that I don’t particularly like my life. Sure, it’s fine, but there’s very few things I do on a day to day basis that I enjoy. Reading, watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, writing in my journal. Those are all fun (solitary) things, which enjoy, but the life I currently lead is vastly different from the life I have in my head. (Maybe not vastly, but some hyperbole is allowed.)

So I’ve decided to change my life. Today is (music swells) the first day of the rest of my life. And a Sunday to boot, so how fortuitous – unless you think the week starts on on Monday.

But, back to changing my life. This day next year, I want my life to be closer to what I want. Closer to who I want to be. So here’s what I want.

  1. Novelist – I’ve been working on a novel for the better part of the past year. It’s a children’s book which I find amusing, but I’m not sure if anyone else will. So this time next year I want agents to have been queried, publishers to reject me and hopefully one who’s accepted me. Maybe I’ll have a pile of rejection letters, but at least it’s out there in the world.
  2. Ballet! I wrote a few posts about ballet and have not really done much. Work and life gets in the way, as it does to all things. This time next year I want to have moved up to the next level at my studio.
  3. I want a promotion. This is a bit tricky because someone has to leave for a position to even be open unless they add more teams and jobs. But too often I get in my own way and curtail my ambitions, so if I position comes open, I’m going to apply.
  4. Get out of credit card debt – Ugh this is the worst. I racked up a bunch when I was unemployed and I’ve been paying it off pretty aggressively, but I think by this time next year I should be out of it or almost out.
  5. In a relationship – This would be nice, but would be like a bonus to my life (the frosting on the cake, as it were) rather than something I really truly want to aim for.

So there we have it. The things I really want out of the next year. Of course, there’s tons of other things I want to do as well: learn French, how to fly a plane, go on a trip, learn to play the piano. But those are other things for other days and other years and right now I’ll just focus on these. Maybe on July 23, 2018 I can put some of those on my list.

Until tomorrow.